Sunday, February 26, 2006

INACTION MAN

Kofi Annan's speech to the Doha meeting of the Alliance of Civilizations has been interpreted as a call to replace talk with action. In reality, it's nothing more than a call for a group hug:
"Lofty ideas alone are not enough ... We need to develop sobering, but equally compelling counter-narratives of our own."

"I very much hope that you can come up with specific, concrete suggestions for ways of carrying dialogue forward so that it can really catch the popular imagination; so that we are not just a nice group of people agreeing with each other, but people with a message that can echo around the world."

Let's talk about being nice. Well Kofi, talking about being nice isn't going to get the job done.

2 Comments:

Anonymous The_Real_JeffS said...

Kofi is nothing but hot air, except when it comes to money. Then it's all a$$holes and elbows.

11:35 PM  
Anonymous leftvegdrunk said...

You make a valid point, and this a theme I see pursued all over the rightist blogosphere. But I would suggest that there has been a lot written about the actual politics of the UN that is sometimes overlooked. Kofi is a figurehead, that much is clear. And the UN is only as powerful and effective as its members allow it to be. Laughing at Kofi might be good fun (I am not sure exactly how, but it seems to be popular), but it doesn't help in any way. Why not look seriously and in detail at the problems the UN faces and find the real political and geostrategic causes of those obstacles, rather then resorting to ridicule?

11:59 AM  

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