What is really at stake?

There are rules for everything and for everyone in every country. I used to think they were conceived for the common good, but I’m now wondering whether they aren’t really to protect vested interests. All the players knew how far they could go and pushed the boundaries to the limits of the imaginable. Countries joined the UN, 193 of them, and in one way or another acceded to international agreements, purportedly for the common good of we, the people. UN specialised agencies proliferated to address problems ranging from human rights, food, health, education, telecommunications, trade, patents, the list is ongoing. The same countries sit in different meetings pushing their agendas, cancelling out any gains made for the common good in any given area of interest.

Is there a solution?

The permanent members of the UN Security Council are also homes to the largest arms producing companies. These are the guys that call the shots, the companies, in the name of alliances, trade, oh yes, and the common good. It’s an intricate crochet of criss-crossing allegiances, rotting marriages, bedfellows today, enemies tomorrow, all in the name of the best thing for the children, we, the people. But it’s all within the rules. They all break them of course. Rules are made to be broken, aren’t they? But at least there is a common understanding that such rules exist.

Enter a player that doesn’t abide by any rules. A game changer showing up the dropped stitches in the intricate crochets of international, let’s call it, inaction. It was all on the cards: poverty, exploitation of persons and the environment, greed, oh, and the human rights all 193 pledged to uphold. Bent rules and broken promises.

Until countries can come together and work as a united force, not by bombs, boots on the ground, but by pulling those strings many know so well to do, by placing the common good above tribal differences, be they in the Middle East, in Africa, Asia, in those holier than thou countries of the Western world, only then can a solution be found. Is that too much to ask of 193 signatories? Is that too much to ask of just five permanent members of the UN Security Council?

Sure this is simplistic. But, maybe it’s time to whittle things down to the lowest common denominator and ask what is really at stake. 

Who can answer that question?