The United Nations Turns 80: a Miracle it has Lasted So Long : Shared by Sharif Alam

by Vijay Prashad / IPS

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Summary:
At its 80th anniversary, the UN faces deep structural limitations and political paralysis, highlighted most starkly in its inability to stop what Prashad calls the ongoing genocide in Gaza.

The UN Charter binds nations together, but the organisation has never overcome political fissures or the veto power of its permanent Security Council members, particularly the U.S., which has quashed more than 45 resolutions on Palestine since 1972. While the UN General Assembly passes resolutions, it lacks enforcement power, and underfunding hampers its agencies. The UN has become primarily a humanitarian body because states have retreated from providing essential services, while global spending on arms dwarfs the UN’s budgets.

Prashad calls for bold reforms: moving the UN Secretariat to the Global South to avoid U.S. visa manipulation, increasing Global South contributions (especially from China), strengthening domestic humanitarian spending by states, cutting the arms trade, and empowering regional peace structures like the African Union. Without such changes, the UN risks irrelevance. The article ends with testimony from a Moroccan activist aboard the Gaza Freedom Flotilla, who frames the struggle as a moral battle against global indifference and complicity.

Quotes:

• “The UN can only blow the whistle, an umpire for a game whose rules are routinely broken by the more powerful states.”

• “Since 1972, the United States has vetoed more than forty-five UNSC resolutions about the Israeli occupation of Palestine.”

• “In 2022, the UN’s total expenditure was $67.5 billion, compared with over $2 trillion spent on the arms trade.”

• “It is about time that the UN Secretariat leave New York and go to the Global South, not least to prevent Washington from using visa denials to punish UN officials who criticise US or Israeli power.”

• “Silence is complicity in the crime, and indifference is a betrayal of the very values we claim to uphold.”