Back from India

44 years ago, on Janúary 10th, 1946, the first General Assembly of the United Nations Organisation (UNO) wqs convened in London.

There is an interesting article about this on the front page of today's New York Times.

UNO Opened: Attlee asks for world unity by James B. Reston.

The 51 nations met in the afternoon in the blue and gold auditorium of the Central Hall of Westminster for the first meeting of the United Nations General Assembly.

British Prime Minister Attlee said that they would succeed in their new venture only if they brought "the same sense of urgency, the same self-sacrifice and the same willingness to subordinate sectional interests" with which they fought the war.

Sadly, that unity has never been, because of the polarisation of the forces that were part of the subsequent cold war. Sectional interests were at the heart of the cold war. Even since, with only one major power, it is sectional interests which is keeping the world divided.

The only way the UN can be effective is to move it from its present loaction to a neutral location.

Two neutral countries of that time, Sweden and Portugal, refused to take part in the creation of the UNO because they were not invited and because they were not prepared to abandon their neutrality whenever the Security Council was to vote the UNO powers into action against an aggressor.

How right they were to not take part. Almost every action of aggression has been because of the location of the UN in New York.

Let us hope that, in the next decade, saner forces will prevail and the UN will be moved to a truly neutral location.