Posted by retrophisch at December 29, 2004 11:05 PM | TrackBackIf all this starts to sound a bit dizzying, a bit amorphous, a bit too complicated after a while even to bother about anymore, that, dear reader, is precisely the problem. The Secretariat has had a year of gagging contractors, threatening the jobs of whistle-blowers, and pounding out letters to the editor explaining that the Secretariat should not be blamed for anything because it is in fact responsible for nothing—though somehow more money, especially from the U.S., is always wanted. A few senior officials are now due to depart. Several thick reports on various fronts are due to be filed, and perhaps here or there a head will roll.
But to suppose that the United Nations will reform itself from within is to miss the eerie unreality of the place. It is not simply changes in some of the staffing that are needed, or U.N. commissioned reports recommending that the U.N. “reform” by way of doing even more of whatever it does already. What’s needed is something that among sovereign states we have come to call regime change—the basic alteration of a system that in its privileges, immunities and practices resembles rather too closely some of the dictatorships that still pack its ranks.