President Sarkozy of France declared on May 31 that an African nation must be represented on the United Nations Security Council.
The original intention of the Security Council was to provide a permanent seat for each of the five major Allied powers in the Second World War — America, Russia, China, Britain, and France — and to grant each of these five nations a veto on any military response by the United Nations. As is true with everything about the United Nations, this configuration made no sense at all. If the intention was to grant international supervisory powers to those nations who contributed most to the defeat of the Axis Powers, then Canada and Australia certainly deserved a permanent seat more than France (which was quickly defeated in the spring of 1940) or the Soviet Union, which was for all practical purposes an ally of the Nazis for the first two years of the war. China, whose soldiers tied down most of the Japanese Army, deserved a permanent seat, but after 1949, China was governed by the murderous despot, Mao Tse Tung, and Free China, Taiwan, was a small island nation. The conscious exclusion of Germany and Japan, as well as the bisection of Germany into Western zones and East Germany (as well as lands annexed by Poland and the Soviet Union) meant that two economies which were large and robust during the 1960s and 1970s were kept off the Security Council.
Permanent membership on the Security Council implies special weight and influence in the world. No nation in Africa remotely meets that threshhold of economic, military or political power. More offensive, however, is the demand that a continent full of thuggish regimes be added to the exclusive club of permanent membership on the Security Council. Genocide against native whites in South Africa ought to exclude that nation from any list. Nigeria and Egypt both tacitly condone mob violence against Christians in those lands. Sudan and Somalia are excellent examples of how to run nightmare regimes. If an African nation is given permanent membership, it is very likely that the new permanent member will be run by radical Moslems, rendering the notional purpose of the Security Council — to prevent war, internal conflicts, and international law — a rude joke. African nations have long been members of the Security Council, just not part of the exclusive permanent member club.
Sarkozy, who as President of France has much more clout than almost every other head of state in the world, could have made a really bold move in the direction of improving commerce, security and peace in the world — he could have chronicled the long list of United Nations failures, or worse, including his predecessor’s criminal involvement in massive internation grand larcency through the United Nations, and suggested that the way to solve the world’s problems is for the peoples of each nation to decide to create free, peaceful, and neutral nations. The world is full of examples of this. Costa Rico, for example, without anyone’s help or advice, created a free, non-miliarisitc, educated democracy. Switzerland, long sneered at by internationlists, stayed out of two world wars and, by minding its own business, created an affluent nation. Singapore, although over-guided by its government in many areas, nonetheless has proven just how safe, properous, and free citizens of a nation can be, if they decide to do so.
Photo of French President Sarkozy: AP Images
