THE ATTACK ON THE UN
Bunche, Ralph J.
The Attack On the UN By Ralph J. Bunche THE WORLD today is deeply in crisis, has been so throughout the postwar period, and may very well continue to be into the indefinite future. In simple...
...They are zealous wreckers but seldom builders...
...And especially is it desirable to include within its ranks exactly those nations whose differences are most acute and menacing to world peace...
...But we should not rush to the conclusion that other peoples are against us merely because they do not jump through a hoop every time we bat an eye...
...It is imperative that we reach and hold them, for they are indispensable to our cause...
...It has had failures too, the most tragic in Korea, where the UN itself has resorted to force in order to resist an action of aggression...
...share of this total, based upon a carefully worked out and agreed formula, is $15,523,000...
...But as I listen to the hue and cry of the critics of the UN these days, I listen in vain for a constructive word and the alternative they may have to offer...
...The United Nations, for example, was not able to prevent the cold war and cannot stop it...
...It is significant that no member nation of the United Nations has ever withdrawn from it, even though its actions on occasion have so displeased some members that they have stalked angrily out of its meetings— only to walk back in again (in one notable Soviet bloc instance, seven months later...
...Clearly, arms for defense are imperative under present world conditions...
...The total budget of the UN for this year is $44,200,000, collected from its 60 member nations throughout the world...
...But I believe that most of us know that, costly, painful, and frustrating as it continues to be, it was right for the UN to oppose aggression in Korea, as it has been right for the United States to support that intervention...
...Indeed, the UN itself has been caught in the crossfire of that propaganda war...
...Toward these ends, its primary concentration is on the resolution of differences among nations by peaceful means...
...Undoubtedly, in the early postwar years, the UN was over-sold to Americans, and we have expected far too much from it, much more than we could reasonably and realistically expect, given postwar conditions...
...In other words, we fortify freedom by extending it...
...In the new Asia and Africa which are developing, the' leaders and peoples alike are today speaking the same social language we do...
...it is not a world government or even an approach to one, and can impose nothing upon us—nor has it ever attempted to do so...
...To such differences it applies its processes of mediation, conciliation, and negotiation...
...Had the United Nations lacked the moral courage to do so, it might well have come to pass by now that American boys, alongside their allies, would be fighting on other battlefields, in far greater numbers, and in a far greater war...
...It is at least understandable if they do not readily become alarmed about threats to freedoms and liberties and an abundant life which they have known mainly by hearsay...
...that civilized men must have a conscience and be responsive to it...
...that it would have been a shameful, fateful, and quite possibly fatal weakness to abandon the courageous Republic of Korea to the aggression from the North...
...We believe that every people must be free of the fear of aggression from any source...
...We are the protagonists of the cause of human freedom...
...Many people are disappointed and disillusioned because it has not done more to relieve us of the terrible anxiety and insecurity about the future...
...The nub of this crisis is the worldwide conflict with aggressive communism, expressed broadly in the "Cold War" between West and East, and more particularly and tragically in the protracted but thus far limited shooting war in Korea between United Nations forces on the one hand, and communist North Korean and Chinese forces on the other...
...But the sharper the conflicts among nations the more indispensable the UN becomes...
...For nothing encourages aggression like success...
...But we may easily ignore the fact that our sort of freedom, just as our standard of living, has never been widely enjoyed in the world...
...Viewed in world terms, this struggle for freedom and morality, and for preserving peace, is more ideological than military in its present phase...
...I think it obvious that these representatives come because their peoples demand that they come, for their peoples cherish hope and can find no nourishment for it elsewhere than in the United Nations...
...If the relations among nations and peoples ever become that good there should be much less need for the UN...
...The United Nations seeks peace and freedom for all people, equality among peoples, security of people everywhere against aggression, and an international order governed by principles of morality and justice...
...I do not for a moment suggest that the UN should be spared criticism...
...Precisely because it is dealing with differences and disputes among nations, it is never likely to approach the cordial atmosphere of a sewing circle...
...We are, therefore, firmly against totalitarianism and aggression...
...II This is the dilemma in which the UN finds itself in Korea...
...There are many other criticisms of the UN, of course...
...We frequently hear that the UN poses a threat to our national sovereignty...
...that we are not merely seeking temporary allies in times of stress to meet the dire threat to our own freedom and way of life...
...The international ideals and objectives of the United Nations are the same as our own...
...This is sheer humbug, for the UN has no executive or legislative authority...
...All of us would be happier if the UN functioned better and were able to afford us greater assurance and security against the threat of war...
...These are peoples who have only recently awakened, and have emerged or are aspiring to emerge from suppression...
...Most of us know this kind of procedure has its ups and downs and uncertainties, and has a tendency to generate heat...
...They dislike it simply because it requires us to have too much to do with "foreigners," and there are just too many "foreigners" in the organization...
...But the appeal cannot be effective if it is largely negative and against something which they cannot fear as intensely as we do since they have so much less to lose...
...They come, year after year, month after month...
...In the UN we go by the axiom chat so long as we can keep disputants talking it out, even if angrily and insultingly, there is a chance to keep them from shooting it out...
...The preponderance of the world's people still know of our way of life largely as a concept only...
...why those who deride the idea of collective security and who condemn the United Nations are not at all realistic about the national interest...
...We can, therefore, best strengthen the cause and the forces of freedom by doing all that we can to increase the numbers of those who enjoy its blessings...
...I am afraid that there isn't much we can do about this...
...There are other international organizations, serving political and defense needs of regional groupings...
...In the United States today, the UN has become a favorite target of criticism, and there can be little doubt that the international peace organization is held by many Americans in less high esteem than formerly...
...IV We do well, I think, to reflect on the fact that the representatives of 60 nations come regularly, at no little expense to their taxpayers, from all over the world, to the frequent meetings of the various organs of the UN...
...These things we are for...
...This is much more emotional than rational...
...In and out of the meetings, the discussions—formal and informal, individual and collective— go on...
...I think, for example, of the orgy of criticism about the tragedy of Korea...
...Indeed, in direct proportion as recruits and friends are won to the causes we espouse, and our position is thus strengthened, the necessity of ever having to rely exclusively upon our own military resources becomes less probable and less decisive...
...Both sides in that struggle are seeking to reach and win the minds and hearts of people everywhere...
...The stakes of this momentous struggle are no less than the peoples of the world...
...I think, for example, of the impoverished and long-suffering hundreds of millions in Asia and Africa, and in other parts of the world as well...
...They share our aspirations for a better life and are determined to have it, as they should and must...
...by extending a strong and helping hand to those who aspire and strive in order that they may build free institutions and traditions as we have built them...
...I have a suspicion that some of our fellow citizens do not base their hostility to the UN on any of these grounds...
...if it merely exhorts them to join us in a struggle which cannot be as clearly and sharply defined for them as it is for us...
...The U.S...
...For the world is full of "foreigners" and in this new international age with its miracles of transport and communication through which all peoples have been brought much closer together, we will have to learn how to live with and understand all of them, unless atomic war should eliminate all of us...
...And in doing so it has had some notable successes in bringing a stop to wars and inducing disputing parties to resort to mediation and negotiation, as in Indonesia, Kashmir, and Palestine...
...There are sound grounds for criticism, for the UN has many faults and weaknesses...
...they have never experienced it...
...The UN serves international, not national, interests...
...We believe that the relations among men must be governed by moral law...
...that there must be a moral order...
...There is little they can hope to take back to their countries to indulge selfish national desires...
...That is why it seems to me that those who embrace isolationism today are so short-sighted and wrong...
...But it is the UN alone which is equipped to seek peaceful resolution of differences among nations...
...Ill Some people, of course, get impatient with talk and debate and disagreement, and advocate a surgical operation on the UN with the Soviet bloc removed...
...They are fundamental in our thinking and our approach to world affairs...
...That is why, it seems to me, that neither guns, indispensable as they are, nor words, however noble, can be enough in this struggle...
...And now, finding ourselves involved in this intervention for the sole purpose of protecting South Korea, could the solemn obligation to humanity to do everything honorably possible to avert the catastrophe of atomic world war, permit the UN deliberately to expand the Korean war into world war...
...Moreover, more than two-thirds of the UN budget is spent in this country, since the headquarters is here, and thus a sum well over $30,000,000, twice the amount we pay in, finds its way to our pockets...
...There would be much to lose and little to gain for any nation to leave the United Nations and try to go it alone...
...Economy-minded critics complain about the "high cost" of the UN...
...Many critics have been goring the UN with the horns of that dilemma, but they have proffered no helpful advice on how the UN might get out of it, so long as the communist forces reject all reasonable proposals for bringing the fighting to a halt...
...That means that the UN costs each American per year almost exactly one dime...
...Nations not in the organization seek to gain admission...
...There are some who damn it with faint praise and others who just damn it...
...We must convince the peoples of Asia, Africa, and the Middle East that our concern for them is sincere and enduring...
...There are no crosses on the battlefields of debate...
...The United Nations has achieved an effective international community, a family of nations in embryo, with international public opinion as an increasingly strong sanction...
...But the UN has always been a restraining influence and has kept open the door of hope, for in the UN both sides in the cold war have been constantly brought together to exchange views even though agreement has been at a minimum...
...But they are but one, not the only means to the peaceful ends sought...
...Within the framework of the UN, consultations and negotiations on most of the vital problems of the international community are constantly underway...
...We delude ourselves if we assume, as some are inclined to do, that it is might alone whiich impresses the Asians and to which they respond...
...This has been greatly overdone...
...the representatives of Western Europe, of the Commonwealth of Nations, of Asia, of Latin America, of the Middle East, arid of the Soviet bloc too, even though their positions and propositions are voted down almost invariably...
...We are subject to international pressure, to be sure, but this is moral, not legal—the pressure of international public opinion, and to that we would be subject even if there were no UN...
...This, indeed, is what the "Cold War" is all about...
...Some of those who cry that the UN is trying to be a world government condemn it in the same breath for its ineffectuality in such crises as Korea and its inability to make other nations toe the line...
...Indeed, the UN welcomes criticism, when it is earnest and honest and not born of prejudice and blind emotion, and especially when it is constructive...
...Why do they come, if the organization is as futile as some of its critics would paint it...
...In simple terms, mankind is confronted with the constant threat of a third World War —the atomic war—with all of the forbidding implications which this must have for the future of humanity, civilization, and the ideals of human rights and freedom we in this country hold even more dear than life itself...
...of government as the servant and not the master of the people...
...of liberty and justice and dignity for the individual...
...Some of the latter are professionals, who earn their living by damning, who regularly make insincere and dishonest attacks against some real or imaginary fault or weakness, not with the purpose of strengthening the UN but because they are fundamentally opposed to it and wish to destroy it by undermining public confidence...
...We believe in respecting the rights of others, whether these be states or individuals...
...Negotiation is still the most sensible and productive approach to disputes, and it does produce results...
...There is negotiation, mediation, arbitration...
...That, to my layman's mind, would appear to be a pretty fair return...
...The United Nations is designed to achieve peace out of differences, not to hold peaceful meetings...
Vol. 17 • June 1953 • No. 6
