On the eve of the sixtieth anniversary
of the United Nations, everybody is
assessing the achievements of the UN.
For some people, the UN is a big failure,
for others if it did not exist it should
be invented. All these value judgments
are worth a smile because they are linked
to the object but forget the essential. It is
just like the chess player who claims that
chess is a lousy game because he lost,
because the rules are bad or because the
board is not pink.
Certain players complain that the UN is
useless, that its Secretariat is not good
without asking whether the players are
capable and have the will to use this
instrument.
In fact the problem is simple. In the
international arena there are two types of
players: those who play chess and those
who wrestle. The first use their grey
cells, the others their muscles. It is certain
that under these circumstances,
where not everybody follows the same
rules, the end results of UN conferences
are often ambiguous or doubtful.
Why not adapt the rules so that everybody
gets something out of it? That is
what the Secretary-General is trying to
do. However it is not always easy to
explain to a wrestler that you do not
change the reality of the world by breaking
the chessboard with your fists.
