By Simon Pascal Alain HANDY
The muffled and violent roar of a sea of anger born of centuries-old sedimentation of injustices rumbles through all the countries of the Global South. It is gradually invading all the crevasses of the international community. Yet this powerful desire for equity and a new and fairer world order remains marginalized. It is not yet distinctly audible to the hearing of certain Westerners who turn a deaf ear and stay impervious to it, locked in a silent silence that speaks volume. Not by all, in any case.
This fall, on the sidelines of the first high-level session of the United Nations General Assembly in three years, in New York, Darren Walker, President of the Ford Foundation, made a strong plea for deeper and more global cooperation, more inclusive given the complexities and interconnected crises facing Africa and our world. He thus invited the major international institutions and the powerful States of the world to listen and learn from a new avant-garde of inspiring leaders across the countries of the South.
This is what, for example, the HCCP-GLOBAL Think Tank, newly established on June 16, 2022, in Brussels (Handy Concept for Connecting People), is intended for and is tackling with missionary zeal in a problematic context.
Be that as it may, the primary responsibility for Africa’s lack of representation and consideration in international bodies has its source in Africa itself. The lack of governmental support for ideas, the dislike of organized and structured critical thought by established powers, the lack of intergenerational solidarity, and the selfish and navel-gazing internal competition among intellectuals hinder progress and unity of purpose.
At the level of the United Nations General Assembly, African leaders often make speeches in an empty room where intra-African solidarity is lacking; the states do not take the trouble and the elementary courtesy to attend the addresses of the brother countries.
When the United Nations was established in 1945, none of the current 54 African States was independent. Much of Africa was still struggling against colonialism and suffering from the yoke of brutal oppression, as witnessed in Cameroon, which was the sad scene of a bloodbath and where the colonial masters unleashed a fierce and never-before-seen campaign of bombing, arson (mostly napalm), the burning and looting of entire villages, concentration camps, the pilferage of artwork and personal effects, and vicious and repressive machinations that claimed the lives of an incalculable number of patriots claiming fundamental freedoms.
It is therefore fair to say that, from its very inception when it comes down to the International Trusteeship Regime[1], one cannot help but notice that at the height of the colonial horror in Cameroon between 1945 and 1960, a meticulous examination of the archives even testifies to the tacit complicity between the United Nations Organization and the French colonial authorities in charge of the application of the international system of trusteeship whose the false reports presenting an idyllic tutelage of Cameroon by France were all dubbed without critical examination by the UN.
This historical betrayal never examined and postponed indefinitely, put to the back burner, buried under the carpet of the “chardonnay crowd”, bears the marks of an original sin at cross purposes with the noble ideals of the world organization. This is further a putative and latent explosive dispute which should be evacuated so that it does not accumulate as an explosive reparation charge. Cameroon was after all the ward of the United Nations, a body entrusted with the responsibility to lead it to independence.
Such a world order enacted during Africans’ wanton killing could not have been designed to serve their best interests. This makes it necessary to adapt it to an ever-evolving world order. It is, therefore, utterly inappropriate and naive for Africans to believe that the founders of the United Nations could have shaped the political foundations of the organization by thinking of Africa first.
As the saying goes, you’re probably on the menu when you’re not invited to the dinner table. Now is the time for African leaders who have spoken at the 77th UN General Assembly so far to stop begging for grain from warring nations such as Ukraine and Russia. It is also high time for ordinary Africans to stop dancing insanely on TikTok, to move away from petty bickering and childish arguments and cockfights over football equipment suppliers, and redirect their energy towards realizing the second wave of independence: this time, mental freedom.
The time has come for a permanent African seat at the Security Council table! Moreover, African leaders should demand it out loud, in unison, with a courageous voice fueled by a unity of purpose. This is what the majority of Africans believe and want. In doing so, they should clarify that Africa has waited long enough and will wait no more. The prolonged wait has gone on far too long, and it is time to end it. The African quest for a permanent seat on the Council has been going on for decades. The African Union reached an agreement in Eswatini in 2005, requiring the Council to expand to include two permanent members and five elected African seats. (The bloc now has three elected seats.)
Since then, no concrete steps have been taken by the Council or the General Assembly to achieve the Ezulwini Consensus, as it is called.
Africa should embark on this legitimate quest thinking not of the mafia’s tools and combat preparedness but by combining maximum brutality with the ability to negotiate, cooperate and therefore reach an agreement. For this, all the continent’s resources and creative imagination must be summoned so that everyone is aware of the problem.
In any case, it will be necessary to force and twist the arms of the world’s body. It is the fight for all, from minor members of municipal councils to public elected officials and high-level political leaders. Unless African States demand is met immediately, they should all threaten to resign en masse or withdraw from the world body. For the time is now.
That is what Martin Luther King aptly called the fierce urgency of now! Any other scenario is neither conceivable nor realistic in light of historical and empirical evidence.
The 54-nation continent is battling an unjust multilateral system, say many Africans, as it struggles to recover from the so-called Covid-19 pandemic and deal with the consequences of climate change and conflict. These issues were prominent in the speeches made during the General Assembly by the leaders of African countries from across the continent.
According to several African leaders, the disparate realities created by the imbalance of the multilateral system have significantly increased since the pandemic hit in early 2020. kneeling, the demand for an African seat on the Security Council will have little or no chance of success. We shouldn’t fool ourselves into thinking it’s a matter of diplomatic niceties since their efforts for 70 years have been in vain. First, this is about justice and equity, which will only be obtained after a fistfight of arguments and a merciless war.
Anthology:
– “Allow me to express my country’s strong collective conviction that the relevance, legitimacy, and moral authority of the United Nations will forever remain deficient, undermined by the absence of comprehensive reforms of the United Nations Security Council,” William Ruto, the newly elected president of Kenya, said on September 21, 2022.
– “An undemocratic and unrepresentative Security Council will not credibly resolve threats to democracy.” (Kenya is currently an elected member of the Security Council.)
The unbalanced nature of international systems goes beyond the Security Council, which is everyone’s service punching bag and scapegoat par excellence.
This is why Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari, Bongo Ondimba of Gabon, Felix Tshisekedi of the DRC Congo, and Ruto of Kenya have recently impressed upon the UN the need to use debt relief for the development of African countries. This is an old claim by developing countries against an unfair international system that is unfavorable to Africa. It is through this magnifying mirror that African countries perceive the current deficit of democracy of the United Nations Security Council.
The stakes could not be higher for billions of people, especially tens of millions of Africans. The international order based on the centrality of the United Nations is decaying and disintegrating before our eyes if nothing is done to amend it and breathe new life into it. The necessary reform of the architecture of the current world order – the model of our system of international relations and financing of development, the rebalancing of this model of colonial inspiration and essence, currently linked to development organizations, must give birth to a system in which, finally, there is an Africa that can govern itself, support itself and maintain itself in a self-sufficient way without external interference and the scourge of foreign interventions. The global community can begin this important task immediately.
[1] The international trusteeship regime and the surveillance of the territories placed under this regime under special agreements concluded between them was established, in accordance with Chapter XII of the Charter of the United Nations, in particular Article 77 of the Charter.
By Simon Pascal Alain HANDY,
Analyste Politique Affaires Globales, Diplômé de Science politique d’Études stratégiques-
Senior Executive Fellow, Harvard Kennedy School of Government (SEF, Spring 2011) –
Directeur Exécutif du HCCP-Global Think Tank
Biographie : Co-Auteur de l’ouvrage collectif -L’Autonomie Stratégique de l’Union européenne- Larcier, Bruxelles, 2015 ; https://www.salo.org.za/lautonomie-strategique-de-lunion-europeenne-perspectives-responsabilite-ambitions-et-limites-de-la-defense-europeenne/;
Mr. Simon Pascal Alain Handy est Senior Executive Fellow de la Havard Kennedy School of Government (HKS) (2011).Visiting Scholar York University Department of Politics (Toronto- Canada- 2019-2020). Visiting Fellow, European Union Institute for Security Studies. Il a été responsable 23 ans durant des affaires politiques aux Nations Unies et Point Focal à New York pour le Conseil de Sécurité de l’ONU/OCHA. Co-auteur de « L’Autonomie Stratégique de l’Union Européenne », Larcier, 2016, Bruxelles. Il est diplômé en sciences politiques, relations internationales et études stratégiques (IRIS Paris 1998). Négociateur des Nations Unies au Dialogue Inter-ivoirien qui a donné lieu à « l’Accord Politique de Ouagadougou pour la fin du conflit arme en Côte d’Ivoire. Co-Auteur de l’Annuaire Français des Relations Internationales (AFRI, 2008) ; Il a écrit un mémoire d’études stratégique sous la direction de Jean-Christophe Rufin, auteur à succès (Académie Goncourt) et membre de l’Académie Française. Il a occupé des fonctions dans des organisations internationales éminentes à New York, dans les caraïbes et dans divers bureaux en Europe et en Afrique comme Conseiller Politique Spécial pour Sahle-Work Zewde, actuelle Présidente de l’Ethiopie et d’autres Top Échelon Officiels onusiens en RCA et en RDC. IL est Fondateur du Think Tank Handy Concept Connecting People (HCCP)- The Global Think Tank) Making EU-Africa Relations better : One step at a time.