I’ve had a long life. An illustrious life too. I am almost 100 years old. I am a building. Now I am not to blame for the less-than illustrious things that take place inside me and I am not answerable for things that happen outside either. I am just brick and mortar. Nice to look at. I give respectability for things that happen inside. Well, I don’t ‘give’ as in there’s no volition involved, but simply on account of being within me all kinds of jokers confer upon themselves and their machinations a respectability they can market to the world.
So I’ve seen much.
Indeed I can say I’ve stomached much!
I’ve watched the powerful use veto power to put down the most just
resolutions and defeat moves that are right up there when it comes to upholding
the Charter and the spirit of the gathering of nations.
I’ve seen splendid moments too when the truths that take
courage to tell were told. I still
remember Ernesto Che Guevara’s speech at the plenary session of the United
Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) on March 25, 1964. In fact it might be good to take a small part
of that speech and etch it in an especially constructed open wall at the main
entrance. All those who enter would see the following:
If at this egalitarian
conference, where all nations can express, through their votes the hopes of
their peoples, a solution satisfactory to the majority can be reached, a unique
step will have been taken in the history of the world. However, there are many
forces at work to prevent this from happening. The responsibility for the
decisions to be taken devolves upon the representatives of the underdeveloped
peoples. If all the peoples who live under precarious economic conditions, and
who depend on foreign powers for some vital aspects of their economy and for
their economic and social structure, are capable of resisting the temptations,
offered coldly although in the heat of the moment, and impose a new type of
relationship here, mankind will have taken a step forward.
It would look like this...
On its reverse, you could have the following for those
leaving the building to reflect on:
If, on the other hand,
the groups of underdeveloped countries, lured by the siren song of the vested
interests of the developed powers which exploit their backwardness, contend
futilely among themselves for the crumbs from the tables of the world's mighty,
and break the ranks of numerically superior forces; or if they are not capable
of insisting on clear agreements, free from escape clauses open to capricious
interpretations; of if they rest content with agreements that can simply be
violated at will by the mighty, our efforts will have been to no avail, and the
long deliberations at this conference will result in nothing more than
innocuous files in which the international bureaucracy will zealously guard the
tons of printed paper and kilometers of magnetic tape recording the opinions
expressed by the participants. And the world will remain as it is.
Something like this:
But here,
in these silly days of the UNHRC sessions, I’ve seen terrorists screaming
themselves hoarse asking for justice and I hear a club called
‘Holier-Than-Thou’ passing judgment. This is a place for acquired and feigned
myopia, acquired and feigned hearing ailments, made worse by the tongue-twists
that double-tongues generally produced.
It’s that
season in Geneva. I’ve seen it
before. I’ve seen much. My insides churn. There are times I want my belly to erupt and
cover the jokers inside with the rot that they churn out, pass around, inflate
through passing and tell the world is stuff straight from the Book of
Truth. How I would laugh!
Yes, I’ve seen much.
This is Silly Season in Geneva.
UNHRC: the assertions and applauding of clowns.
I wonder what would happen first – will my death come before
they put up those Che Guevara quotes?
Stupid me…this is Geneva. This is the UN. Mis-named.
Should have been called UM for United Mafia. Creature of the worse
butchers and plunderers the world has ever known.
I am the Palace of Nations.
I am downed by the weight of years, I am lifted by the
entertainment. I am not sure it’s worth
it.
msenevira@gmail.com
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