October 30, 2005

Remarks by Mauricio Artiñano

Good afternoon! I still remember that the first time I ever heard of the United Nations; it was when I was 8 or 9 years old and my mother gave me an illustrated children’s book with the history of the UN and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The book inspired me and as I grew up, I continued to read and learn about the history of the UN; the diseases it has helped to eradicate, the conflicts it has pre-vented, and the societies it has helped pull out of violent conflict…

And yet these romantic notions I had about the UN were shattered when I par-ticipated in my first Model United Nations in high school. I was to represent Uru-guay in our Model UN’s simulation of the Legal Committee of the General Assem-bly, and I prepared myself enthusiastically for the conference by doing research, re-hearsing my speeches and writing position papers. The conference finally arrived and I was shocked by what I found, which was about 150 delegates giving long-winded speeches and ultimately coming up with rather pointless resolutions that were not really what anyone wanted, but what no one would object to. I went into the ex-perience with so much enthusiasm and left feeling confusion and frustration.

I thus went to speak to my high school History teacher, Mrs. Ayub, and she wisely asked me to think of how I could use that frustration as a positive learning ex-perience. As we talked, Mrs. Ayub pointed out the challenges but also the great benefits of negotiation and consensus-building, and she encouraged me to think about what the world would look like without the United Nations. My frustration over the difficulties I had faced in the conference turned into appreciation for the fact that without the United Nations as a recourse for negotiation, those same issues which I spent the weekend arguing about, might not be resolved through dialogue, but through other, less desireable methods, namely violence.

And yet, even after this realization, the frustration is still there, for it is clear today that the UN is still challenged by internal divisions, inefficiency, and many other problems. But it is a frustration born out of a deep respect and conviction for what this organization stands for. Just as the greatest service one can do to one’s country is to point out its faults in the hope of fixing them, the greatest sign of appre-ciation that we can show towards the UN is to study it and criticize it, but with a posi-tive attitude that seeks not to undermine it but to strengthen and improve it.

We must also remember an important point that often seems to be lost by the UN’s detractors, which is that the UN is merely a reflection of the actions and wishes of its members. By providing a table for governments to sit down together and dis-cuss, the UN is performing an invaluable service to the world, and if we want to criti-cize the UN, it would so us well to look both at the characteristics of this table but more so on the attitudes of the governments sitting around it.

And although reform in the United Nations will largely come from the initia-tive of governments; we must bear in mind that lasting and meaningful change in the world must come from individuals. I encourage you all to look at the UN Charter not just as a legal document but also as a set of universal values to live by and universal goals for which to strive for. The Preamble to the Charter eloquently states “We the peoples of the United Nations,” and indeed, although the “international community” is composed of nation-states, the world community is made up of people. Thus, it is up to each of us to think about how we can individually contribute towards those goals of peace and justice through values like compassion and active citizenship, which incidentally, I sincerely believe this University seeks to promote.

I thank you all for coming today to show your support for these values and these goals, and I hope you use today’s celebration to rejoice in the accomplishments of the UN but also to reflect upon what remains to be done to reach the noble goals set forth 60 years ago, and which remain just as important today.

Posted by jessica at October 30, 2005 04:09 PM