By Dr. Michael J.K. Bokor

Tuesday, July 8, 2014

Folks, the latest development is that the United Nations has agreed to recognize and respect the rights of its staff members who are gay/homosexual. It is reported that the UN will support them in every way to live their lives as such, even within the premises of the UN Headquarters.
Of course, every human being has the right to determine what is good for him or her and to pursue it in the interest of self-actualization and fulfillment. But that pursuit should be situated within the context of that individual cultural and social origin and preferences. At least, the human being has an origin to defer to. When too much laxity occurs, a free-for-all situation arises to endanger the collective will of humanity. That's what I know. Others know other things.
But the truth is that every society has its own culture by which it is identified wherever it shows up, regardless of what the individual members of that society may prefer or uphold. No man is an island, we are often told.
What this position of the UN means is that the world body has joined individual countries and systems that have all this while granted gays/homosexuals whatever right they deserve (be it for marriage or anything else that the traditional conservative notion of relationships entail in strict compliance with male-female equations).
In effect, the UN has turned itself into a safe home for gays and homosexuals. The signal is clear: Countries opposing gays/homosexuals should be warned!!
The UN recognizes the right of each country to assert its territorial integrity and sovereignty (which translates into determining what is culturally and socially acceptable). No imposition of anything by any country on any other country, it may seem to be.
Records show that Britain's David Cameron and the US' Barack Obama have made attempts to threaten African leaders opposed to gay/homosexual rights, going to the extent of tying aid to such issues. Despite such threats, Uganda, Nigeria, the Gambia, and Ghana (in Africa) have stood their grounds against gays/homosexuals. Other countries have their own peculiar reasons for not supporting gays/homosexuals to operate freely in their territorial integrity.
Now that the UN has given its blessing to gays/homosexuals, a new wind will blow. How will member countries adamantly opposed to gays/homosexuals fare in the ambit of the UN? Can they still resist the urge or arm-twisting tactics to allow gays/homosexuals to operate freely and still remain as members of the UN and rub shoulders with other member states favouring gays/homosexuals whenever such issues come forth at the UN?
Or by recognizing gays/homosexuals in this context, is the UN itself sending a signal to threaten those countries still opposed to gays/homosexuals and becoming irrelevant to those countries as it panders to the whims and caprices of those powerful countries supporting it and manipulating it to do their bidding? Any bias here?
What will be the fate of countries stringently opposed to gays/homosexuals and depending on the UN for support? Is the UN eventually reducing itself to a puppet status and, therefore, losing its global appeal?
Of course, suspicion that the UN is at the beck and call of the US is not new. It has been on lips since the US threatened to take action against UNESCO over issues that made the late Libyan leader (Muammar Gaddafi) advocate that the UN headquarters be relocated from New York to the Hague in the Netherlands. And the US withdrew financial support for UNESCO for some time in a clear show of disgust at such moves. History teaches lessons. Now that the UN has gone this way, it adds more to that stock, especially as far as human rights are concerned.
Human rights come in various forms. What is the UN doing to ensure that all rights are respected without becoming the puppet of stronger powers to undermine the rights of less powerful countries bent on preserving their cultural values? Is the UN aware of the right of each member country to do all in its power to defend and preserve its peculiar cultural values?
Surely, the UN under the South Korean Ban Ki-Moon is giving the wonder. Under no other UN Secretary-General's stewardship has the UN faced so much controversy, hypocrisy, abject laziness, clumsiness, and lousiness in dealing with crises.
The League of Nations that emerged at the end of World War One served narrow purposes and flopped. So is it with this United Nations Organization, which in our contemporary times is teetering and tottering toward irrelevance!!
I have said it several times that by its inadequacies in contemporary times, the UN has proved that it is redundant and should be blamed if anything happens to destabilize the world order and usher the world into another catastrophe.
There are storm centres all over the world, where life and Nature are threatened or destroyed while the UN remains reactive or missing in action. Whether in Africa, Eastern Europe or anywhere else, there is trouble, but the UN isn't in any position to prevent conflicts or resolve them expeditiously to restore normalcy. Where is all the talk of conflict resolution that the UN (before the tenure of Ban Ki-Moon) advocated?
Maybe, the time has come for a new United Nations Organization, this one having proved that it is partisan in favour of MIGHT as right and not neutral in world affairs.
I am Michael J.K. Bokor, and I approve this message.
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