On Thursday night, the Oxford Union voted in favour of the motion “This House Has No Confidence in the United Nations.” The final count had 148 members voting for the motion and 90 members voting against.
Craig Mokhiber, the former UN official whose resignation over the UN’s stance on the Israel-Gaza War garnered international attention late last October, and Sir Geoffrey Nice, the lead prosecutor at the trial of Slobodan Milošević and current chair of the China and Uyghur Tribunals, spoke for the motion. Joining Mokhiber and Nice were first-year History student Ben Murphy and first-year Chemistry student James MacKenzie.
Opposing the motion were Angela Kane, former UN High Representative for Disarmament Affairs and UN Undersecretary for Management; The Lord Hannay of Chiswick, a British diplomat who previously held the position of Permanent Representative to the EU and to the UN; and UK Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN James Kariuki. Masters student Shaezmina Khan also opposed the motion.
Ben Murphy opened the case for the proposition by stating that, although the UN was founded with a “clear promise of peace and justice,” it has since become a “utopian fantasy that cannot be achieved.” He argued the very idea of a unified group of nations was illusory since countries have different and often competing interests.
Murphy then asked the audience to consider the UN from the perspective of a Cambodian living under the Khmer Rouge, a group he said was legitimised by the UN. He argued that the UN is not an enforcer of peace but an enabler of strife, as shown by such autocratic regimes it legitimises and by the belligerence of its “big five” members: France, Russia, China, the United Kingdom, and the United States. “The founding countries, those central to its development, the big five, have had their part in more conflict than the rest of the world together.”
Opening the case for the opposition, Shaezmina Khan focused on the semantics of the motion, arguing that “to vote for opposition, you only need to believe you have some confidence in the UN.” She cited past UN contributions – such as UNICEF’s vaccination programmes and the UN’s Non-Proliferation Treaty – and averred that the UN has served the world better than most people realise.
She closed her speech with a quote from John F. Kennedy: “I see little merit in the impatience of those who would abandon this imperfect world instrument because they dislike our imperfect world. For the troubles of a world organisation merely reflect the troubles of the world itself.”
The second speaker for the proposition, Sir Geoffrey Nice, argued that the core purpose of the United Nations was to put an end to war and ensure “disputes between nations should be resolved by peaceful means” – a purpose which he believes has been abandoned.
Central to Nice’s argument was the failure of the United Nations to prevent the crime of genocide. He stated that the Genocide Convention requires participating states in Article I to “act to prevent genocide, wherever whenever it happens, anywhere on the globe.” He paused before asking the audience: “In 70 years, how many times has any government done that?” According to Nice, “excluding the cases of Zambia with Myanmar and South Africa with Israel,” the answer was “none.”
He cited the case of Rwanda, where the British deliberately avoided the term “genocide,” and the case of Bosnia, where he said the United Nations was “conveniently absent,” before stating forcefully: “This sort of thing has to stop.” Responding to the first proposition speaker’s clarification of terms, he told the audience: “Disregard the semantics, we know what the motion really means… Do you have confidence that you, your children, and grandchildren won’t be at war?”
James Kariuki continued the case for the opposition. He acknowledged some of the shortcomings of the UN but asked the audience “when the critics blame the UN for the world’s ills, who exactly do they blame?” He argued it was misguided to believe that the representatives from different member states were capable of solving all the problems around the globe. According to Kariuki, “The complaints about the UN reflect dissatisfaction with the world as it is.”
Kariuki touched on the UN’s role in eradicating polio through mass inoculation, combating climate change through environmental regulation, and promoting human rights through the Universal Declaration of Human Rights – which he described as a “monumental achievement.” Toward the end of his speech, he stated that the 80 years before the establishment of the UN were worse than the 80 years since.
Continuing the case for the proposition, James MacKenzie cited the failure of the UN to respond to humanitarian crises and to fulfil its charter on social development. He argued that the policy of veto in the Security Council “undermines the very principles UN claims to uphold: Equality, justice, and the right to self-determination.” The UN, MacKenzie stated, has devolved into a geo-political chessboard, demonstrated by the lack of response “to the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Yemen and the ethnic cleansing in Myanmar.” He asked the audience how many more cases we would require in order to see “the UN is failing in its fundamental duty.”
Angela Kane, the third opposition speaker, drew on her own experience working at the UN. She touched on the success of the UN in tackling climate change and helping hundreds of millions of people throughout the world receive aid. She cited an opinion poll conducted in 24 countries which revealed that, on average, 63% of people see the United Nations in a positive light. Kane emphasised the importance of international treaties, which allow us to hold states to account, stating: “The UN works for the world, it works for the people.”
Closing the case for the proposition, Craig Mokhiber began by stating: “I think it should be clear by now that the House should have no confidence in the UN.” He clarified that this was not meant as a critique of the idea of the UN, nor was it meant as a critique of the people who have dedicated their lives to the mission of the UN. Rather, it was a critique of bodies like the Security Council which, Mokhiber argued, had abandoned the mission of the UN.
He discussed the UN Charter and told the audience that, 75 years later, we are still waiting for its fulfilment. Mocking a remark made by the opposition that “The UN is not made to deliver us to heaven, but merely to save us from hell,” he encouraged the audience to ask people in Bosnia, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Gaza, and Syria whether the United Nations has protected them from war crimes and crimes against humanity: “Should the abandoned people of the United Nations have confidence in the United Nations?”
Lord Hannay of Chiswick closed the case for the opposition. He began by stating that almost everything had been said already and the debate, and his job would instead be to recapitulate some central reasons for opposing the motion.
According to Hannay, nobody on the opposition side was suggesting that the UN had accomplished all of its objectives. Rather, because of the soundness of the principles enumerated in the UN Charter and the UN Declaration of Human Rights, the opposition was emphasising the importance of working to fulfil the mission of the UN. To those who would abandon the UN, Hannay prophesied: “If we walk away from it, we will rue the day.”
He conceded that some member states were not acting perfectly but argued that the UN was needed to preserve norm-based international order. He concluded by stressing the importance of the UN and was met with a great deal of applause in the chamber.
Oh, do you know them on a first name basis?
Why we do, but shouldn’t, call politicians by their first names.
References to politicians by their first names always occurred in conversations at the pub or debates at an ‘afters’ I was a part of. Yet, when I first began to rethink this habit, I was sat two metres of away from one of its key perpetrators. Hearing Senator Bernie Sanders speak in the hallowed chamber of the Oxford Union in Hilary 2022, his croaky voice bouncing off the equally deteriorating walls, as he reached for his scrunched-up tissue used to stifle a runny nose, made be believe I might really know this man on a first name basis. His passionate oratory moved me, and many others that day; I left with a profound sense that I really ‘got’ him, I knew him, he was Bernie.
Connections between the political class and the electorate is an essential method in compelling voters to tune in to the decisions that manifestly affect their daily lives. Therefore, inviting the populace to ‘know’ their politicians on a first-name basis is an effective strategy in securing this association.
We see these para-social relationships form all the time. A banner strewn across Stamford Bridge reads ‘Chelsea: our religion’, while some members of the ‘Beyhive’ actually do believe that Beyonce is their ‘bestie’. People crave to feel connected to something bigger or more important than them; it is probably one of the only things that football hooligans and avid listeners of ‘Single Ladies’ share!
I left the Union, with a few similarly inspired pals of mine, and ventured to Gloucester Green, to get a slightly-above-average noodle dish, as the awe of the occasion wore off a little. I began to re-evaluate my insistence I knew the Senator, more than ever before, by his first name. I thought about which other famous figures I might also know by their first name: Adele, Drake (although his first name, Aubrey, has been sneakily forgotten, much like the next name on this list), and, of course, Boris.
Suddenly, I was not so keen on the idea that I might call some of these powerful, influential, and charismatic figures by their first name. We call our friends by their first names because we share memories with them, we know their greatest secrets and, because we usually don’t share a football pitch with them, where there might be a slightly greater tendency to call them by their surname and add the ‘-o’ suffix at the end. (As a side note, I’m still waiting on the day someone shouts ‘Robbo’ at me to pass them the ball – the world will be better place once this happens.)
When we call our friends, peers, or acquaintances by their first name, there is a recognition there that we actually ‘know’ that person and therefore might be able to give them more sympathy during a tricky period or support them when they make mistakes.
We behave differently with politicians. Our political system requires us to hold them to account in a way we wouldn’t our friends. In a functioning democracy politicians are challenged, so they truly serve their communities and are held responsible for the decisions they make.
We might do this more easily if we rejected this familiar attachment we have to these figures. As I have tried to re-wire my brain to know ‘Bernie’ as Senator Sanders or ‘Boris’ as Boris Johnson, I am less forgiving.
For Senator Sanders, I found his answer to the issue of climate change at the Oxford Union followed a similar pattern to many of the older generation: a slightly patronising and wilfully unsophisticated claim along the lines of ‘Oh, you young people are smart, you will figure it out’.
For Boris Johnson, his once shiny veneer as a bumbling, affable, ‘doofus’, which albeit has already deteriorated significantly, looks even more like a rusty façade, hiding a calculated, performatively incompetent, political opportunist.
Now, I’m not suggesting we all start calling Drake ‘Aubrey Graham’ from this moment on, but I think it is important to apply a cynicism to the famous folk, particularly with political power, who push the idea that we should all know them by their first name.
For the majority of these first-named politicians, it is an explicit campaign tactic. In the case of ‘Hillary’, or more appropriately Hillary Clinton, using her first name was “actively encouraged” by her campaign.
Similarly, in the self-proclaimed “hilarious election advert” posted by the Conservatives’ YouTube channel in 2019, Mr Johnson is referred to by the interviewer as ‘Boris’ within the first four seconds.
As a result, it is our critical judgement that falls victim, because we supposedly know these powerful political figures in a different way – they become more of a friendly face, and therefore we apply a different, more attainable standard by which we evaluate them.
In fact, as I thought to the times I have fallen for this political ploy, I remembered that I even own a T-shirt from Senator Sanders’ 2016 campaign embossed with ‘Tío [Uncle] Bernie’ on the front, when I know, or at least the last time I checked, the 82-year-old Brooklyn-born politician is definitely not my uncle. (If he is, that’s a lot of Christmases in which I have missed the opportunity to convince him into wearing a Santa costume.)
Ultimately, we must try to resist the temptation, and call politicians by their full names, to help ensure they remain responsible for the immense power they hold and what they choose to do with it.