Olet sivulla: Home « Ministry « Publications « Monitori « Back issues « Monitori 1/2002 « Councillor of State Harri Holkeri tells MoniTori: "Now more than ever we need the UN"
In an interview for MoniTori Harri Holkeri, ex-Prime Minister and Councillor of State, assesses the changing role of the United Nations, which is a matter that Finland's President Tarja Halonen also discussed in her New Year's address to the nation. While sharing the view that the main problem of the UN is its ineffectiveness, President Halonen expressed the opinion that the UN could help to bring about a true "partnership", for example in disarmament, management of globalisation, and resolving the crisis in the Middle-East, all of which in turn would require steps to reinforce the role of the UN.
Harri Holkeri puts things bluntly: "Individuals are selfish, countries are selfish and nations are selfish."
"The UN is a classic example of how various States are prepared to make decisions for the common good if they think that those decisions are in their own interest, but when there is the slightest conflict with those interests then decisions become supremely difficult to achieve. The bigger the country concerned, the less it considers itself obliged to comply with policies made elsewhere."
Harri Holkeri stresses that the UN remains an intergovernmental organisation:
"The events of 11 September last year reminded us that no country is entirely self-sufficient. Even the world's leading military power, the USA, was unable to ensure its own security. The situation led to a scenario in which the USA had to ask the rest of the world for assistance. It immediately secured the unanimous support of the UN General Assembly and particularly that of the Security Council, which legitimised the military actions to which the USA and its allies might resort."
"The USA also sought support from NATO, which was really somewhat surprising. It was the USA - in other words the most powerful member of the alliance - that sought to invoke article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty for the first time in its history. One might have reasonably expected one of the smaller NATO countries to be the first to turn to the organisation for assistance. Article 5 was revised at the Washington conference of spring 1999, and now for the first time it was the United States itself that sought to implement the provision."
"Some people felt that there was a change in US policy in autumn 2001. Previously this policy had been characterised by a discernible feature or, at least a general observation, that the USA had some kind of selective approach to the UN, only taking whatever it could benefit from. Did this seemingly unilateralist approach become more multilateral last autumn? The question is worth considering - but we should also ask whether the USA merely began to apply multilateral measures as an instrument of its own unilateralism."
Reviewing the situation four months after the dramatic events of 11 September, Harri Holkeri suggests that while the immediate conclusions aired in various parts of the world regarding those events were clear, there has been very little by way of progress in the reform process that would be necessary in order to make the work of the UN more effective:
"So we have had four months to see how things are moving, and at least as far as structural reform at the UN is concerned there has been no progress. Similarly the status of the Security Council, and of the permanent membership and right of veto of the five major UN powers represented on it, is an issue that continually crops up and to which no solution has been found."
The embers of the Second World War were still smoking when the victorious allies decided to set up the UN. Initially there were 50 Member States, or perhaps 51 if we count Poland as a slight late comer. The world has changed quite a lot since those early days.
"Nowadays the vanquished of that great conflagration, Germany and Japan, are economic superpowers, and even the Cold War that followed the final cease-fire has now passed into history. The communist system has collapsed and the USSR has dissolved. For all practical purposes the age of colonialism has also come to an end."
"Instead of the original 51 Member States, we now have 189, with more countries expected to join in the near future."
Harri Holkeri explains that these changes have not been matched by the necessary organisational reforms, which are now long overdue:
"The United Nations Charter, which defines the structures and operating modes of the UN, is largely the same as it was 56 years ago. In particular the policymaking system of the most important section, concerning the Security Council and therefore the work of the UN for peace and security, remains the same. The same five countries that were regarded as superpowers in the aftermath of the Second World War have retained the right either to move forward or to apply the brakes. What this means is that in order to bring about any really important decisions nowadays you need a decision from all five countries represented on the Security Council, i.e. China, France, Russia, the UK and the USA, approving the proposed measures. If you can't get this, and particularly if one or more of the countries starts using its veto or threatening to do so, then no progress is possible. There is a clear need for reform."
Harri Holkeri's term as President of the General Assembly of the UN began at the millennium session. This was the greatest meeting of Heads of State in history, and was led by Presidents Tarja Halonen of Finland and Sam Nujoma of Namibia.
191 States, in other words two more than there were members of the UN, approved the United Nations Millennium Declaration in September 2000. 147 Heads of State or of government attended the session.
Harri Holkeri considers this unanimous declaration to be one of the most important documents ever created, right after the United Nations Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:
"This is a document which should regulate all of the work of the UN. Efforts have already been made to begin reforming the General Assembly, which has taken the view that no new organs will be established, but that the existing members of the "UN family", from the UN itself down through all of its various special agencies and programmes, are obliged to implement the Millennium Declaration and the objectives that it imposes. In the end it will matter most how the Member States behave, because it is ultimately only the Member States that can implement this Declaration. If they fail to do so, then there is no point in expecting their common organisations to achieve anything, either."
Harri Holkeri warns that the Millennium Declaration, like any other major declaration, has its downside:
"If we are realistic, then we must recognise the problem that the leaders of the world may meet to formulate and adopt some high-sounding prose, but when they return home their governments will continue to do business as usual."
"The Finnish government has also worked in this way. We have adopted some fine objectives on its behalf at global forums, but after coming home it has ultimately been the Ministry of Finance in Finland that said no." While stressing that this undermines the credibility of the entire system, Harri Holkeri adds that the issues that are at stake are immense in both size and difficulty.
The Millennium Declaration covers almost all of the world's best known contemporary problems, discussing some of them in general terms and others in greater detail. Harri Holkeri identifies two of these major issues that he considers to be of prime concern: the spread of AIDS and the problem of world poverty.
"HIV/AIDS continues to be an issue that people mumble about and try to sweep under the carpet. AIDS is a matter of the utmost gravity in many parts of the world. It not only kills individuals, but wipes out entire communities. The situation in Africa is catastrophic, and AIDS is also spreading in Asia and Latin America at such a pace that its effects are already becoming increasingly apparent. There is no way that national measures by individual States will suffice to manage this huge global problem. Even in Finland we are not safe from this Black Death of modern times."
"Halving global poverty is another objective to which the leaders of the world have made a commitment. The aim is to halve the number of people living on less than one dollar a day by the year 2015. One tenth of this timetable, meaning one and a half years, has now elapsed and some countries have barely started. There are countries with promising programmes. Lesotho, for example, is one country that I have visited that is doing a great deal of work and some results can be anticipated. The hoped-for development has eluded most of the poorest countries, however, and the situation has even deteriorated. Partially this is the result of regional conflict and other such difficulties. Many of the most fertile regions on the planet are suffering from some of the worst instances of armed conflict. Global food production is not a problem as such, and can be arranged because the world still has adequate resources for this. The problem is that demand and supply are not meeting one another," Harri Holkeri explains, adding that global population growth is another major issue facing the modern world.
The catalogue of world sorrows is a long one, Harri Holkeri observes. Short and longer-term measures have been implemented to tackle these ills, but in the end Holkeri feels that there is no substitute for education.
"Unless the future mothers of the world receive sufficient education, their children will be stunted in development. Educating girls is a matter of the utmost importance in tackling population problems and improving the position of women so that they can make their own decisions about themselves and their lives."
"Ethical solutions associated with health problems are another important issue. Besides AIDS, there are other fatal diseases, such as tuberculosis and malaria, that kill people in appalling numbers. There can be no ethical merit in seeking a situation in which children are allowed to come into the world while we turn our backs on the diseases that lead to their premature deaths."
To illustrate his point, Harri Holkeri refers to one of the best known examples:
"The most alarming situation is in Afghanistan, which has a huge infant mortality rate. In a world where the position of women is a very poor one on the whole, Afghanistan represents the very worst extreme. The Taliban banned the education of women and so only 3 per cent of women and girls receive any schooling."
The issue of whether Arabs and Moslems are being mistreated and becoming the victims of popular generalisations as a result of measures to combat terrorism is a topical one, because it tends to bring those measures into conflict with the defence of human rights. Harri Holkeri calls attention to two basic principles that sometimes result in contradictory positions, as was also noted by the UN Secretary General on recently receiving the Nobel Price for Peace: we have the principle of respect for national sovereignty and the need to ensure that human rights are not infringed. Holkeri draws a disturbing distinction here between theory and actual practice:
"The general rule ought to be that that if a conflict arises between these principles, then it is more important to defend human rights than it is to respect national sovereignty. However, the practical fact of the matter is usually that the international community is willing to stand up for human rights when the case concerns a small country, but when larger independent States are involved, then no intervention is contemplated."
"We have also often seen that no matter how much the media and public opinion focus on the mistreatment of certain groups, the world community has declined to act unless there is a significant strategic interest involved. The UN has only been willing to take effective measures in countries that are strategically important."
"I think that the worst human rights violation of recent decades, and indeed in recent living memory, was the genocide that occurred in Rwanda, where between 800,000 and 900,000 people lost their lives while the world community looked on and did nothing. Rwanda was of no strategic interest. It was not sufficiently important to anyone, and so this tragedy was simply allowed to happen. Part of the reason for this lay in the impotence of the UN, and particularly in the difficulties involved in getting matters decided on the Security Council. The same problems subsequently recurred with the developing situation in the Balkans," Holkeri adds.
There have been a good many matters, however, in which it was possible to achieve results. Harri Holkeri cites the situation in East Timor as one example of this:
"I have been privileged to visit that remote corner of the Earth that is East Timor. It was a place where practically everything had been flattened. The blind and wanton destruction visited upon this region in the 1990s, which only came to an end just over three years ago, destroyed an entire society."
"UN peacekeeping operations have now begun to bring a measure of security and stability to the area and a situation has been created in which social reconstruction has started with the aid of UN peacekeeping forces. Social institutions such as hospital, policing and judicial services have been restored and a political system has been brought about that enables the local population to begin to enjoy a measure of autonomy. We are talking about a territory inhabited by one and a half million people, whose problems will not disappear overnight. East Timor will continue to need the assistance of the international community for a long time to come, but I anticipate that it will shortly become fully independent and that it will join the UN," Harri Holkeri observes.
In Afghanistan the UN may be involved in its largest operation to date, Harri Holkeri says:
"Afghanistan will have to be rebuilt - and I am talking about the entire society. The difficulties in Afghanistan will be dozens of times greater than the East Timor situation of which I just spoke. Afghanistan is a country with several ethnic groups and the UN will have a great deal of work on its hands managing the tensions that exist between them. This will have to go on alongside work to build a peaceful society, to rebuild infrastructure, to establish a functional system of law and order, to install effective political arrangements and so on."
"Afghanistan is an independent state. It is also a member of the United Nations, and has now established an interim administration. Whatever happens, it is clear that Afghanistan is at the beginning of a process in which at least one thing is certain: it will be extremely costly in terms of money and emotional resources. This means that new resources will have to be found. There is simply no way to divert funds to Afghanistan from other emergency relief programmes that are currently underway. These resource issues will involve us in very difficult questions and choices, which will concern the entire international community."
"The UN has other major development programmes besides Afghanistan, and the organisation is already in difficulties over these. When the costs are augmented by the needs arising from the Afghanistan programmes significant issues of Member State solidarity will arise as we seek the necessary funds," Holkeri warns.
"Far away in Finland we monitor the situation as if we were not involved. We have already given an undertaking to send peacekeeping forces to Afghanistan and it is clear that one way or another we shall also wind up funding other activities to build a peaceful society."
From the perspective of the UN there is no cause for complacency over racism and discrimination in the modern world. While these issues have tended to seem less pressing when viewed from Finland, they are now becoming increasingly evident as immigrants have begun finding their way to the country over the last twenty years in unprecedented numbers.
"Finland is a corner of the globe that has been off the beaten track for refugee flows, and therefore quite different from the countries of Central Europe, for example. Knowledge of this small, far-flung country has not spread very far in this respect."
"Certain groups have found their way to Finland in various ways from diverse origins, and the Finns have accepted them and decided to help them start a new life. My impression is that Finland's policy has always been and will continue to be that people who have become victims of oppression and discrimination should be assisted in their own regions and homelands, and that efforts should be made to ensure that the people concerned are able to make a safe return to their countries of origin."
"The racism and discrimination that is suffered by immigrants already living in Finland, and that is publicly manifest as problems in places such as Helsinki central railway station and the residential suburbs of the city are nevertheless marginal phenomena. They are serious matters at the level of the individual and I think that one should not seek to trivialise such racially motivated conflict, even when it arises between small groups, but in a constitutional state it should be possible to resolve such matters quickly."
"People tend to be more tolerant when they know more about things. The attitudes of Finnish people must be rectified by increasing the general standard of knowledge."
"The general climate of opinion in Finland has not resulted in major racist movements. Finland has no major racist popular organisations and no explicitly or, for that matter, even implicitly racist political parties. Racist phenomena, on the other hand, certainly do occur."
"If we base our thinking on a uniform Finnish system of values and accept into our company only those who are immediately ready to abandon their own values and embrace ours, then we will have established the perfect conditions for conflict," Harri Holkeri observes.
"The Finns require immigrants to study the Finnish language and the learn to enjoy the sauna in the Finnish style. And if this does not happen immediately, then the Finns regard the immigrant as an oddball. The immigrant must then either reconsider his very presence in the country or sign up to membership of a subculture that may be of great value in many respects, but that also entails significant problems."
"I think it is a very interesting phenomenon that the Swedish speaking, coastal regions of Finland are far more advanced than the Finnish speaking areas of the interior when it comes to accommodating people from other cultures. There are historical reasons for this. It may also be the case that for the minority Swedish speaking community of Finland this is one way to bring in new blood and to revitalise the culture, which is why the threshold for joining a Swedish speaking community is so much lower than it is in Finnish speaking areas. In the Swedish speaking districts that I have visited one gets a tangible sense that immigrants from abroad are positively welcome, while Finnish speaking newcomers don't seem to matter so much," says Harri Holkeri with a smile.
The January colour supplement of the leading Finnish daily newspaper Helsingin Sanomat sketched a picture of Finland as the country might be in the year 2012.
In this vision Finland had already achieved a veneer of multiculturalism. People from other countries, multicultural customs and habits had become, for good or ill, part of the Finnish way of life. Multiculturalism as a process had already become more than skin deep. The ex-Prime Minister and Councillor of State briefly reflects on this vision of the future before returning to current realities and summing up the entire process in a simple everyday experience:
"The Finnish general mentality into which I was born in the 1930s is very different to that of the present day - and one must remember that there was also a World War during this period. Things are much more open nowadays than they were during my boyhood. While this doesn't mean that I know how to to eat Chinese food with chop sticks, it does mean that I have really learned to enjoy this formerly exotic cuisine."
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