Making Unity of the Nations Stronger

United Nations Day 2021 / 24 October / Article

Making Unity of the Nations Stronger

Fr Dr M. D. Thomas

Director, Institute of Harmony and Peace Studies, New Delhi

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The 24th day of October is marked as ‘United Nations Day’. This is a memorial of the official creation of the United Nations in 1945. The General Assembly of the United Nations in 1947 declared the day to be celebrated on a regular basis. ‘Making known to the people of the world the aims and achievements of the United Nations and gaining support for its work’ is the objective of the day.  

 

Further, the United Nations Assembly in 1971 declared through a resolution that the day has to be observed internationally by the Member States as a public holiday. Meetings, discussions and exhibitions on the goals and achievements of the organization were scheduled to be a few of the items to mark the day. Celebrations include also cultural performances, world food fair, and the like. 

 

The first event in the series was the day of solidarity and military parades of the allies of World War II in New York, London, etc, even prior to the official launch of the day. The United Nations Postal Administration issued UN Stamps in US Dollars in 1951. International schools throughout the world would celebrate then the diversity of their student bodies, too.      

The United Nations came into being through a historic process. The name ‘United Nations’ was coined by the then President of the United States, Franklin D. Roosevelt. The name was first used in the declaration of the United Nations on 01 January 1942, during the Second World War. It may be recalled that the United Nations is the only organization in the world with legitimacy, convening power and normative impact.

The Charter of the United Nations was ratified on 26 June 1945. It was signed by the five Permanent Members of the Security Council, namely China, France, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom and the United States. It was also signed by the representatives of 51 Member States, including Poland that signed it later.

The current times are known for the urgency for all countries to come together and fulfill the promises of the nations as a united body. The corona pandemic has been a major reminder for the humans of the earth for re-visioning a major preparedness against future pandemics and other global challenges, as well.

  

The 75th anniversary of the United Nations and its Charter was celebrated in the year 2020, a time when the corona pandemic disrupted highly the social and economic fabric of the world. The anniversary was a great occasion to realize that times of struggle are great opportunities for change and makeover for the better. It also affirmed the ‘interrelated character of life’ as a community, nation, global society and creation.

Celebrating the UN Day, the General Assembly Hall of the United Nations hosts a ‘UN Concert’, which even the pandemic times screened as a prerecorded form. In addition, the UN Day in Kosovo is an official non-working day. Philippines have a dramatic presentation of school children appearing in the national costumes of the Member States, along with their flags, after having done a study of their cultural characteristics.

The UN concert is a brilliant concept that elaborates the spirit and idea of the unity of nations. The 75th anniversary in 2020 had the theme ‘re-imagine, re-balance and re-start: recovering together for our shared humanity’. Performances and concerts, along with a series of classical, modern and re-imagined dances, are often on the schedule of the concert programme, too.

 

Art and culture in general and music and dance in particular are powerful mediums that can bring people together and get connected and engaged with each other in the spirit of solidarity. Such a framework serves a fertile ground for re-imagining and re-balancing a united world for the future generations as well as for the present one, in a collaborative way.


The ‘global conversation with people’ initiated by the Secretary General of the United Nations in 2020 is a historic case in point. The dialogues and surveys thus conducted brought together the hopes and fears of the peoples for the future, along with their priorities for international cooperation.

 

Besides, the findings of the above global dialogue have been taken into account by world leaders. ‘The future we want, the United Nations we need: reaffirming our collective commitment to multilateralism’ was the theme of the inter-governmental process. This resulted in several forward-looking political declarations at the 75th anniversary celebrations.

It is noteworthy again that the 75th anniversary of the United Nations was in the middle of the corona pandemic on the global level. On this critical occasion, the Secretary General of the United Nations, Antonio Gutteres, placed a clarion call to the world, “I ask people everywhere to join together. The United Nations not only stands with you…The ‘United Nations’ belongs to you and is you: we the peoples”.

Obviously, the United Nations is geared towards securing cooperation from the nations of the world, in view of solving international problems of economic, social, cultural and humanitarian character. Its priorities include disaster relief, humanitarian aid, international unity and peacekeeping.

The concerns of the United Nations include also promoting respect for human rights and the fundamental freedom of all persons, irrespective of differences in race, sex, language, religion, faith, ideology, culture, food habits, dress patterns, nationality, and the like. The United Nations is oriented to standing for the eternal values of fraternity, cultural interaction, unity in diversity and universal humanity.

‘United Nations Day’ is a standing invitation for all nations to rise above narrow, distorted, divisive and fanatic notions of nationalism. It is also an opportunity to shed hostilities towards other nations and make friendship with all nations, especially the neighbouring ones, rather than challenging them. The day is a timely summons to think larger, inclusive, universal and worldwide in terms of a ‘global citizenship’ and to collaborate with one and all, towards making a world that is really better for the humans to have their being.    

Finally, the ‘United Nations Day 2021’ is a great occasion for us, fellow citizens of the world society, to imbibe the spirit of the United Nations and its Charter and abide by the principles of freedom, singularity, fraternity and unity of one and all, across the nations. In line with the theme of this year, 2021, ‘recovering better for an equitable and sustainable world’, we need to together ‘re-imagine, rebalance and re-start’, in favour of a ‘shared humanity’.

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The author is Director, Institute of Harmony and Peace Studies, New Delhi, and has been committed to interfaith relations, national integration and social harmony, for the past over 40 years. He contributes to the above cause through lectures, articles, video messages, conferences, social interactions, views at TV channels, and the like.

He could be viewed, listened to and contacted at the following portals – websites ‘www.mdthomas.in’ (p), ‘https://mdthomas.academia.edu’, ‘https://drmdthomas.blogspot.com’ and ‘www.ihpsindia.org’ (o); social media ‘https://www.youtube.com/InstituteofHarmonyandPeaceStudies’, ‘https://twitter.com/mdthomas53’, ‘https://www.facebook.com/mdthomas53’; email ‘mdthomas53@gmail.com’ and telephone 9810535378.

 

 

 

Location: New Delhi, Delhi, India

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