On being inside the belly of the UN beast.
On being inside the belly of the UN beast.
Attending the UNGA week, and attempting to ask the question: is this necessary?
It’s been a while dear reader and friend, mainly because I was in a position where I wasn’t engaging with anything on the intellectual level, at least not to my stimulating level. Maybe I wasn’t looking, or maybe I was going through this life just for the sake of it. The past few years have been very interesting to the extent that I don’t want anything interesting anymore. I just look for mundanity of life, and nothing else. I guess this is the goal these days.
Hey, let me not digress. Let’s jot down these thoughts, see where they lead and get done with it.
I’ve been listening to this quite a bit lately..
If you’re new here, these musings are meant to be reflections that are unfiltered, non-refined, and as much as possible, non-reviewed. The goal is to write authentically, achieve a state of flow with ideas, and not to think too much about ‘audience’, but about ‘ideas’ both in intellectual, and grammatical mistakes senses. :) Welcome!
What is this UNGA Week?
The UNGA (UN General Assembly) week is technically more than a week, but it is a week where “all the magic happens” and all the delegations are in full force in New York City to participate in the UN General Assembly. This week generally is the last week of September every year.
While we have seen that most of the UNGA is performative, and that a lot of is just declarations, press statements, publicity stunts on the states levels, some of the most important stuff take place and balls start to slowly roll during these weeks that sometimes take a year to show effect on the ground.
The UN is a bureaucratic institution on the highest level, and the fact that it was set up like a corporation with its decision making processes does not make it easier for it to move quickly. This is on top of all the restrictions that the UN faces with its legal restrictions and red-tape that it cannot cross across its multiple organizations, entities, and initiatives.
This doesn’t mean that the UN system alone descends into NYC for that week, but anyone and everyone does too! And I mean literally: Presidents, Diplomats, Researchers, Development professionals1, poets, artists, grifters, crooks, war criminals, disaster capitalists, and devils…
Just to give you an idea, I wasn’t even authorized to get into the UN buildings or any of the adjacent events that are hosted by the UN. This is not the main goal for people who come to NYC during the UNGA Week (or weeks).
However, even by being outside the UN events calendar, you have no shortage of events that can fill your schedule with 7 events at every hour, from every name of every organization, and every think tank, and every university, and every corporation, and you name it..
Since this was my 1st time being in NYC during the infamous week, I decided not to fill my schedule, but leave gaps for it for some stuff that might cup (which they did) in which I had to fill for someone at work who wasn’t able to, or to just rest.. Yet, I was rejected from events because of “overcapacity” or even I just couldn’t even move faster between events. The number of events, which some people actually build websites to collate and tally for people to sign up to, exceeded 1000 events in just 10 days.
Topics of these events, talks, symposiums, conferences, “fireside chats”, private dinners, invite-only roundtables, and so on and so forth ranged from anything to everything. Some people talked about linking up impact investment with poverty alleviation. Others argued for higher carbon taxes. In some meeting rooms, health workers from remote villages in parts of the world we never hear of, talk about how they convince their community members not to carry out an abortion because their children can be born without HIV, even though the mothers are positive. In other corners of the city, some people in suits called for “increased private sector participation in public health programs in Africa”. In a famous room with a Picasso painting, a genocidal war criminal was thanking people for not moving an inch to stop him from continuing his regular schedule of killing people en masse. In other rooms, some fancy people talked about how profits made from historical exploitation of natural resources of communities too far away from the pockets its filling are “increasing equitable access” to cheap healthcare that doesn’t do the bare minimum.
In a room I’ve been to, some war general was arguing the case for “data-driven warfare”, where “unmanned vehicles gather large data, and are able to deploy necessary tools”2. I’ve also heard some billionaire talk about how you can “protect yourself from market volatility” by betting on the elections. Since then, I realized:
“Some people live in a world where the reality is completely separate from the world that most of us live in.”
Is It Useful?
I’ve met someone from London in an event, and they told me that they’re meeting people from London during the week they’re in New York. So, imagine. Definitely, there is the corporate value of doing things at an increased pace, getting with people you need to meet and network with, and all the corporate-y stuff that paints the whole world at this point, even when it doesn’t make sense. When did the world make any sense anyways?
There is also the almost-forgotten-but-still-true fact that the UN system as a whole has many advantages in supporting the world we live in, with massive shortcomings, or design flaws. At the end of the day, its main objectives are hampered by the countries that are already choking it now.3 The host and the main benefactor nation of the UN system are explicitly trying to destroy it. Go figure!
That said, the UN system in its never-ending and very bloated, bureaucratic, snail-paced, and absolutely “shambolic at times” mechanisms, still do an important role in making sure we stay on track, or be open to support each others as people, nations, communities, and countries. If not anything, the UN system is the global and historical witness of the world.4
I worked with UN staff for a long time. They do things most people won’t do, or work in places most people will not accept to work in. I know UN staff on a personal level. They do wear their moral compasses on their sleeves, and they work tirelessly to support the communities they serve.
That said, the UN system is suffering because a lot of its funding comes from the “genociders-in-chief”, the US government. Hence, the US is literally the biggest threat facing the UN system5, and it can literally derail it as it wishes, and last year is the glaring example. The UN system faces the constant threat of attempting to protect the suffering people around the world, while also attempting to stay afloat by protecting the relationship with its biggest funder. A conundrum; but Americans didn’t create this power imbalance for no reason.
So, is it useful? Yes.
With all the shortcomings, the UN system is still somewhat useful. Can we see a UN reform where we see the UN escape its Veto horrors, and where countries abide by International Humanitarian Law? I’m not sure. No country wants to give up this massive power.
Is the US willingly undermining everything it built for decades with its support the UN as an organization by doing everything it does to undercut the UN resolutions, calls for ceasefire, pleas for protecting UN staff?
Yes. Absolutely. Only time will tell how will the US regret this unfettered access it gives to the rogue state to commit its atrocities.
But, is the UNGA Week Necessary?
I’ve been thinking about this since I heard that “war-driven warfare” session where I couldn’t even believe what I was hearing, and literally questioning everything. Maybe we don’t need people to tell us that we need more tech in war, because we already have drones with machine guns on them that kill indiscriminately.
People want to feel important. That’s why they ‘think’ they ‘need to be in NYC during the UNGA week’. This applies to everyone, not only people working in the humanitarian/development sectors. It also moves things at a pace that probably wouldn’t be able to be moved without this madness of a week. Deals get signed, commitments announced, pacts codified, etc, etc.
I’m conflicted.
Yet, I know that $50 can provide eyesight treatment for someone in a remote village somewhere, and that’s the price someone spends on drinks in a “networking event” where they try to propel themselves on some insignificant corporate ladder that emphasizes their never-ending rat race. I don’t know. I think my priorities are clear. I guess the world can do with a lot more money-saving, and better utilization of all the money being spent on being in NYC, where we can send it to people who can use it better than on fancy dinners, and massively overprice hotel rooms. Or so I think.
Will I attend if it wasn’t for my job requiring me to? I don’t think so. And I think the vast majority of people working in the humanitarian sector who were there are honest people, who really want to do something a bit more important than listen to ourselves in echo chambers say: “we need more equity and voices of people in the unheard of parts of the world tell us and lead us towards progress, rather than a rich billionaire or a Western bureaucrat who can decide the budget of a ministry of health in some African or Asian country, just because of their interest in something..”6
There are Good People everywhere.
Preparing for a day where I have to spend around 10 hours running between events, pretending to like being dressed up, I looked into the pocket of a jacket I was wearing, and I saw a business card for a friend I didn’t talk to in years, who I met over 3 days in a conference 6 years ago. I sent her a message with a picture of the card, and said: “let me know if you’re in town!” and it feels good to connect with people who actually try to impact the lives of people in a meaningful way. We tried to squeeze a meal/meeting somewhere, ate pizza somewhere I’ll probably never eat at again (pizza was great, it’s just far!), and connected over this madness of a week. It’s nice to know that even in this convoluted mess of corporatization of the humanitarian assistance, you still find people who are really focused on what matters.
I was discussing this idea with someone who was feeling jaded-rightfully so-with the system, and it struck me: if any project I work on dramatically changes the lives of 5 people only, that’s enough win for me. I don’t need to be a superhero.
At the end of the day, I’m always driven by this saying from the prophet Muhammad peace be upon him (ﷺ):
“Whoever helps ease a difficulty in the world, Allah will grant him ease from a difficulty in the world and in the Hereafter.”
In the secular world, do we call it Karma? or brownie points? I like brownies, so I don’t mind having some.
Maybe that’s it. Thank you for getting this far.
📹: Watch this.
📷: The seasons are changing. I’m also noticing that uploading photos to Substack whacks the photos’ quality. Nonetheless, beauty doesn’t need perfection.
🔖:
writes beautifully in this newsletter on the culpability of the US (at large) in its insatiable ability to commit mass crimes. This is a sobering read in how selective American memory is, and how the US did in Vietnam what Israel and the US are doing in Palestine. He tries to reminds us that the US failed miserably in Vietnam, and that failure is staring Israel in the face.
“And remember, always: a sense of humor is about so much more than being funny; it's an entire relation to-and a view of-the world..”
As ironic as this quote from Geoff Dyer’s “The Last Days of Roger Federer” in relation to the stuff above it.. I think it finds its place..
That’s life.. Much love.. Free Palestine.. 🇵🇸
Loose term for people who work in Global Development, which is in its own a loose term for humanitarian and assistance work for countries and communities that are ‘underdeveloped’ according to the capitalist system.
We can talk for ages about how unmanned vehicle is literally a tank that kills people, and large data is AI scanning and surveillance, deploying necessary tools is literally automatic firing. It’s the “American excellence” in using the neutral language of dehumanization.
The first General Assembly was held in London, but the US decided to host the UN permanently in New York. The irony continues: Israel was created by a UN Decree. Who’s trying to dismantle the UN? These two countries.
I say this with great reservation, because as neutral as the UN system is, it’s unforgivable error of creating Israel as a country at the expense of Palestinians is a mistake we still suffer from. But this is equally the UK’s unforgivable move of imperialism. The UN was created by the Empire, but the Empire is at odds with it now.
This is not Bill Gates by the way. His work (or his money) is literally improving the lives of millions. There are way too many billionaires who act absolutely cluelessly.