In its current posture, the UN has no future

In 1999, then president Thabo Mbeki demanded the reform of the United Nations (UN). Key was the reform of its executive arm, the UN Security Council (UNSC).

He felt the UNSC was more reflective of a triumphalist 1945 world and not one that has decolonised and deserved a say in its own affairs.

“In every democratic country the ordinary people should feel that they actually do enjoy the right to determine their own destiny”, he argued.

In 1945, 40% of UNSC permanent members were colonisers. They probably argued their colonies’ interests were represented by their seat on the council.

France could veto a resolution authorising punitive action against Francophone countries and nonaligned ones in its orbit. Britain could make the same argument.

Still, nobody felt the urge to challenge that narrative when colonies abandoned their European masters and took back their power. Some divorces were like amputations, which meant countries moved from being default beneficiaries of a coloniser’s veto to its crosshairs.

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Britain, like France, largely fell out of love with their runaway slaves. To expect the two European powers to act post-colonisation in favour of what they lost was preposterous.

The UN should have started reforming in the 1960s at the earliest and 1994 at the latest, when SA re joined the community of nations. Thus, UN reform was supposed to start a day after Nelson Mandela was inaugurated.

Reform, as envisaged by Mbeki and nonaligned nations would involve every continent or power block being granted either a permanent seat on the UNSC or it changed to a consensus-based model which involves rotational membership for every UN General Assembly member.

Mbeki saw the need for African countries to have a say in their affairs; to decide how to pacify the DRC and unlock its economic potential; how to utilise the Nile River for the benefit of the countries in which it traverses and for domestic beneficiation of Nigerian and Angolan crude.

That is how Mbeki conceived a policy of “silencing the guns”. He was awake to the fact that African civil conflicts enjoyed foreign patronage.

What is the future of the UN? In its current posture it has none. Not when nuclear powers blatantly disregard its resolutions. Today, the UN is in vegetative state. Since 1990 it has been unable to live up to its charter commitments.

“If we are indeed seriously committed to these critical objectives of peace and democracy in the world, then we have no excuse to permit the further postponement of the meaningful restructuring of the United Nations”, Mbeki warned.

Mashego is a Mpumalanga-based independent political analyst and author of How To Sink The Black Ball.