{UAH} AFRICAN LEADERS ARE SAYING THEY WANT PERMANENT UN SECURITY COUNCIL SEATS. BUT WHAT FOR?

Several African leaders reiterated their demand for two permanent African seats at the UN Security Council. This was during their respective speeches at the just concluded UN General Assembly 2021. However only the new Zambian leader substantiated this demand by making a humble but empassioned submission about his country's full support to matters of world peace.

Most people might not understand that world peace is the only purpose of the UN Security Council, and if most African leaders are not even interested in raising issues about world peace as part of their respective countries foreign policy, or in their statements at the UN General Assembly, nor can't express concern for the escalating potential for deadly conflicts in other far flung parts of the world, then why exactly do they want Security Council seats, and what exactly do they want to do with it?

In the just concluded General Assembly, one never heard any of them ever raise a point for example about the increasing threat of war against the people of Russia as evidenced in the relentless military buildup all around their country, ostensibly surrounding the people of Russia with all the deadliest weapons of mass destruction known to man today, aiming them all at the people their cities and their homes, ready to obliterate every living thing in that country, and this worrying escalation and it's harrowing arms race has been going on nonstop in broad daylight for decades just like in the dark days of the Cold War, and to the best of my knowledge, not a single so-called "Modern African leader" has raised any concern about the impact of this European militarism escalation against world peace.

Where is Africa's solution proposal on this matter?

On the conflict in Yemen, millions of innocent people are starving and their children dying of disease and malnutrition just across the Red Sea, a few miles off Africa.

Where is Africa's concern for world peace there?

On the recent escalation towards all out war that the new Australia, US and UK alliance (AUKUS) represents against the people of China, and how many millions of innocent Chinese could get decimated from the face of the earth by a heinous alliance when it starts it's known indiscriminate mass destruction, how undisturbed is African leadership about world peace for the people of China?

Is African leadership playing any productive role in the Iran nuclear negotiations where there seems to be no neutral party at the table?

What about global racism, antisemitism and far right extremism rising in Europe and the US, the very ideologies that brought World War II in the first place?

Also, in the 1970's wasn't Africa once pro-active in helping achieve the UN-backed two state solution in the Israeli Palestinian conflict? What changed?

Let's ask ourselves which African leader is capable of travelling to Afghanistan today to express their concern for peace in the country and the future of girls education for example?

What about peace between North and South Korea, the new Balkan states, Crimea, Myanmar, India-China border tensions, Haiti's political problems, Ukraine, and other common flashpoints we see in international news every day?

And in the event of any of these potential mass death conflicts igniting, what is Africa's peaceful resolution plan, who bares the responsibility for all the subsequent refugees, and who is asking the potential perpetrators and instigators of such wars what there post war plan for entire traumatized populations is? In fact what has todays African leadership ever mentioned to the world or to themselves about the serious tensions in the South China sea and/or in the Pacific?

Where is Africa's leadership concern about all this potential for immense human suffering overseas?

At the UN General Assembly, the sitting Chairman of the African Union is supposed to be expressing an African position on all these international matters on behalf of all the people of Africa. Not just begging for foreign aid. I had this vague impression that at the General Assembly, each African leader was just trying to show Western countries that they are good employees working.

Something has to change as we are clearly not taking our rightful decision-contributing place in world affairs. Someone else has taken ours because our words, our thinking, our concerns and our deeds show to others that we are actually not really there yet ideologically, and therefore not genuinely ready or mature enough politically for any permanent United Nations Security Council seats.

Africa has to grasp the full scope of the responsibility and political effort required at that level of world affairs lest we just waste the opportunity, if not abuse it shamelessly as will likely be the case.

What is Africa's known global view for humanity and where is the actual motivation to achieve it yet we already want a Security Council seat today?

For the record, the African Union of today can barely take any decision or action without EU approval and EU funds. So imagine our state of brainlessness sitting at the UN Security Council waiting for donors on how to vote on any given matter, including voting against our own peoples best interests in exchange for an individual's personal gain.

The continents great Panafricanist leaders of the 60's and 70's already presented a coherent world view for Africa, submitted our global concerns in the OAU Charter, and proactively engaged the world about the world at the UN General Assembly, even meaningfully and strategically joining together with other poor regions like Asia and South America to advance the human cause in the face of bullish neocolonialism that still saw our nations, our peoples and our resources as their property to do whatever they wished with.

All the historic contributions of Africa's independence heroes seem today to have been completely neglected by subsequent political arrogance and/or ignorance that is also now demanding a UN Security Council seat. Yet when you compare the empowering and inspiring vision in the memorable speeches of history's great panafricanists, to some of the boring utterances being made today, clearly the calibre of African leadership, our vision of mankind's future, and our consciousness of duty to humanity as a whole, has dropped significantly.

It is clear to all international observers that the continents leadership has to upgrade our scope of attention beyond aid, travel, and the relentless quest for opportunities to be corrupted.

It is high time Africa's public service started thinking out of a certain box, and understanding that the worlds problems require world solutions. Our yearning for free aid cash at every corner is what reduces Africa to a dumb insignificant and ridiculed player at the international arena, and we therefore have to stop absconding from playing a constructive role by always selling our responsibilities to those who know the greater gains they make from our weaknesses.

I would thus enjoy seeing Africa use all available platforms to meaningfully contribute to world peace as best it can, and as a responsible member of the human family. We however must stop this business of simply desiring positions of power just to pose in them, then achieve little or nothing, and potentially misuse the UN Veto in a possible future fit of our known political vandalism where one day some corrupt African individuals will try to abuse it in some unforeseen way for their own personal political or financial gain in the perennial brainlessness of only looking for where to "eat" from, rather than make an effort to bring meaningful just solutions to the table of nations.

Meanwhile, the leading potential for the biggest conflicts in the world today is mere territorial disputes. And the best way for any outside party to intervene is by simply providing good offices for both parties to talk. It's just diplomacy. What we see instead in the most serious disputes is war-mongering by outsiders, resulting in dangerous ideological interferences, and deliberate ignition of arms races that could result in millions of innocent people killed...just for the disputed land.

The UN Security Council seats have a serious job to do for all the peoples of the world. A momentous task promoting, keeping, building and defending world peace. A global responsibility for freedom, human rights and the sovereignty of the will of the people everywhere around the world. It therefore requires a higher institutionalized culture of internal and international political maturity of any member country. Not just the accolades of any individual leader. Nobody wants corrupt political vandalism underminng the work of the institution. And surely the victims of the worlds conflicts do not need any unconcerned, confused, greedy and indecisive parties snoring politically in any security council seat while people die.

Becoming a member of the United Nations Security Council at the least requires countries having a proven portfolio of meaningful international advocacy on a wide range of issues, deep knowledge in global geopolitics, international law, global institutions, and world history. Outstanding diplomacy skills allowing productive interactions with everybody from everywhere, respectability from and by all, empathy to those enduring injustice, and a country's record of stellar policy intentions and contributions towards humanity everywhere across the globe. Where is evidence of such outlook to the world right now from here in Africa?

There must be a moral purpose to all leadership.

By Mr Hussein Lumumba Amin (picture)

Monday 4th October 2021.

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