United Nations Reform

A few minutes ago, I read one (of very, very, very many) essays advocating United Nations reform. These essays usually focus on the UN Security Council. They tend to call for the inclusion of Brazil, Japan, Germany, India as permanent (albeit non-veto holding) members of the Security Council. Supposedly it is to reflect the changing politico-economic power dynamics of the 21st century.

A sub-set of these commentators call for the addition of two African permanent non-veto members. One part of this sub-set consists of politically correct non-Africans, and non-Africans who see themselves as the official guardians of otherwise defenceless Africans. The other, larger part of this sub-set consists of African intellectuals, commentators and political figures who unanimously endorse the "two permanent non-veto seats for Africa" idea, and disagree only on the identity of the countries to hold the seats. Nigerians assume it should be Nigeria and South Africa; Egyptians assume it means Egypt and South Africa; Senegal, Algeria and Kenya assert it is themselves respectively and South Africa; while South Africans believe it is South Africa and somebody else.

I suspect the "two seats for Africa" argument was designed to usher South Africa and Egypt into the Security Council as permanent, non-veto members. The nations of Western Europe and North America (who more less control pretty much all the so-called "multilateral institutions") have more or less appointed South Africa the "official" representative to Africa. And Egypt would fulfill the politically correct requirement to give every global region a permanent seat, by representing West Asia (a.k.a "the Middle East").

I am not sure what Mexico or Canada or South Korea or any number of other countries think about the "two seats for Africa scenario". It would be politically incorrect of them to openly criticize it, but I bet it would irritate them if politico-economically weaker African nations got permanent council status ahead of them because of a sort of global affirmative action.

Speaking as a Nigerian, I think it is nothing short of ludicrous to suggest that our 140 million people are somehow "represented" by giving a seat of any kind to some other country, be it South Africa, the USA, or Kazakhstan. Come to think of it, giving a seat to Nigeria would not grant an iota of representation for Guinea, Congo or Tanzania. Every human being on the world should have the right to cast a vote for his/her government, and that government (provided it is democratically chosen) is the only valid representative of the people therein.

Besides, I would much rather have the real security accruing from a Federal Republic of Nigeria that is a bona fide and substantive politico-economic global power .... rather than the fake, self-deceiving comforts of a cosmetic device granted only to present a public face of politically correct inclusivity.

But I digress.

Here is the thing that bothers me:

Why does every commentator start with the assumption that the Security Council has to exist? The first step to democratic, sensible, efficient, effective reform of the United Nations is to getting rid of the albatross of the Security Council. It is about as useful to the cause of human progress as the UN Human Rights Council.

No, seriously.

At the end of World War Two and start of the so-called Cold War, the victors of WW2 were the dominant powers on Earth. They created a body (the Security Council) that would give them the right to control the agenda of the new United Nations; basically they could veto anything the rest of the world might agree on, provided it violated whatever they perceived to be their national interests (conversely, to get anything done, you had to make sure they agreed to it).

Officially this was done to ensure "world peace", but in reality the Security Council was a neutral place for serious discussions between the major powers to avoid war .... in Europe, North America and the Soviet Union.

The rest of us were screwed.

The Cold War was not Cold at all, or more correctly, it was Cold only in Europe, North America and the Soviet Union. For the rest of the world, it was quite HOT. It was like there was an unwritten agreement between NATO and the Warsaw Pact to use the rest of the world as their battleground, thus keeping their homelands safe. Powers on both sides invested vast resources to create and/or sustain endless civil wars, to prop up mass-killing tyrants, and to arm and train disparate guerrilla armies in the arts of terror. And the truth is there is no way on Earth the Apartheid regime could have acquired its nuclear weapons without the tacit approval of the big NATO powers; indeed, the technical assistance to create those weapons was provided by a country that does not make a move without seeking US approval first.

The Cold War ended, and the Security Council remained useless. You can't really blame the body; no matter how much rhetoric you pour on it, a fish cannot become an elephant.

When I think about peace and stability in Nigeria, in the neighbouring West African and Central African regions, and across all of Africa, I do not think about the Security Council or its permanent five. Nigeria and Africa need transformation that verges on the revolutionary in DOMESTIC and INTRA-CONTINENTAL politics, economics, society, government and culture. Without this, we have nothing.

Take Sudan for example. By and large, Sudan has been at war with itself since 1955, some 54 years interrupted by a brief pause (a cynic might say the pause was just long enough to give birth to the soldiers who eventually took over the fighting in the 1990s and 2000s). There is something fundamentally and systemically wrong with Sudan, something that was wrong long before Omar Al-Bashir became president of the country, something that affects the whole country, north, east and south, as well as the west (i.e. Darfur). It is this systemic deficiency (whatever it substantively is), and not Al-Bashir as a man, and the "international community's" obssession with him rather misses the point entirely.

If Sudan had a democracy, judiciary, law enforcement worth of the name, and already-existing peace, they would have no use for a so-called "International Criminal Court". More to the point, they would have no use for men like Al-Bashir, his allies and his current-day rivals. And it would be in the hands of Sudanese citizens to decide whether to punish the guilty, or to adopt the "South African model" of allowing the guilty to go free from punishment in exchange for relinquishing power without war.

We are supposed to be seeking a "normal Sudan" not cementing abnormality, and whether the Euro-American commentariat admit it or not, there is something distinctly abnormal about these so-called "global governance" institutions. Anyone who reads this blog would know I am a critic of the Nigerian political system, but I would fervently oppose any "international" body that purports to have the right to depose a Nigerian president, even a terrible one. That right is OURS as Nigerians, and when we lose that right, bad things result. Mind you, if we don't exercise that right when faced with bad government, bad things result too. This is the central issue, our rights, whether we have them and whether we use them, not some debate over whether the doctrine of "humanitarian intervention" permits foreign countries to compel outcomes in our countries. Why do people act like the choice is between a cabal of unelected domestic leaders and a cabal of unelected (by us) foreign leaders? When do we get to decide? Probably when we insist on deciding, and stop being so damn passive and apathetic.

So how do we change Sudan? Difficult question, mainly because only the Sudanese can change Sudanese society. But if Sudan was surrounded on all sides by neighbours that had undergone transformation, it would be difficult for them to sustain their lack of it. They would come under pressure from neighbours concerned at the potential for spillover and refugees .... and from a continent that needs Sudan (a land of great potential wealth) to pull its weight in uplifting the continental economy (I know Nigeria for one could do great trade/business with a resurgent Sudan).

Unfortunately, Sudan is surrounded by Chad, Central African Republic, Libya, Uganda, Ethiopia, DR-Congo, Eritrea and (mostly disappointingly of all, given their influence in Sudan) Egypt. Far from coming under pressure for their abnormality, the Sudanese leadership probably feels quite normal in this neighbourhood. The political leaders of these neighbouring countries are unlikely to see anything fundamentally wrong with the way Sudan has run itself over the last half-century; their countries may be more peaceful than Sudan (only slightly so in some cases) but these leaders (and their predecessors and successors) run their countries in modes that are but branches of the same tree as Sudan.

In fact this is the central problem with African stability. This is where the problem lies, not thousands of kilometres away in the UN's "Security Council"

For example, instead of asking why the "Security Council" did nothing about the Rwandan genocide, we Africans should ask why Africa did nothing about the Rwandan massacre. If we can answer that question, we will be on our way towards preventing tragedies like that from happening in the future. Almost every African country suffers (to varying degrees) the same poisonous ethnic chauvinism and internal xenophobia that brought Rwanda to violence, indeed, most of us have tasted inter-communal violence too. Our armies and police can barely keep the peace in our own borders much less contribute toward stabilizing a neighbour, and our governments are more likely to cause strife between citizens than they are to solve it.

The solutions to these issues are in our hands, not in the hands of the permanent five, or the new permanent ten or permanent fifteen. If anything, the current permanent five (and their allies) have strategic and commercial interests that too frequently lead to decisions and actions that are the opposite of what Africa needs for true long-term stability, peace and growth. Take the hypocrisy of Europe and North America criticizing China's role in Sudan and Robert Mugabe's rule in Zimbabwe, when the USA and Western European powers are bosom buddies with the violent, kleptocratic, de facto monarchic dictatorship in Equatorial Guinea! In this world, everyone ultimately looks out for their own interests, and the day we Africans start looking out for ours (continental peace and stability inclusive) is the day we stop accepting and tolerating a lot of the rubbish that we do.

I am not interested in UN Security Council reform. The functions cited as necessitating the Security Council's existence are functions best handled by organizations like the African Union, ASEAN, the Arab League, the Council of Europe, the OAS, etc. Those are the institutions we need to reform. Adding new permanent members certainly gives the newbies a psychological boost, a prop for national self-esteem, but what really does it do to bring peace to anyone? Will the Kashmir dispute be resolved by adding Brazil, India, Japan and Germany to the Security Council?

I am no Nkrumah (RIP), and I do not particularly support the idea of a single government ruling over all of Africa (more on that later), but I would feel so much more secure if NATO, Russia and China had to take into consideration a stronger, more allied Africa when they made their "strategic interest" decisions. There is no security in in weakness and the vain, naive hope that an expanded council of Big Powers will somehow give us peace.

I am sick of the cult of dependence; stability in our lands is our responsibility as Africans. I am more interested in Nigerian Police Force reform, in Nigerian Armed Forces reform, in Nigerian political reform, in ECOWAS reform, and in African Union reform (new name for starters) than I am in ANYTHING at all related to the UN Security Council. The things I care about have direct impact on the lives of my countrymen, and will have (if reformed) a direct and positive impace on security and stability on my continent.