World leaders call for end of UN veto power. I call for end of UN

World leaders demanded Security Council reform during their addresses to the UN General Assembly, calling for the addition of more permanent and non-permanent seats on the council and the elimination of the veto.

“The world is bigger than five,” Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in his speech during the General Debate, referencing the five countries with veto power – the US, UK, France, China, and Russia.

Heads of state from across the globe echoed his call for reform. The status quo has made the governing body inefficient, Peru’s President Ollanta Humala Tasso said. He asked for the addition of more permanent and non-permanent members, which, he said, should result in a more democratic process.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe pleaded his case for Japan’s acceptance as a permanent member of the Security Council.

During his speech last year to the General Assembly, French President François Hollande called on the five powers to agree on a set of scenarios in which the veto should not be used, notably when resolutions address mass atrocities.

China and Russia have used their veto to protect the genocidal regime of Bashar Asad in Syria and action within the council on the crisis in Ukraine has been crippled in part because Russia has veto power, and it would veto any action condemning or holding it accountable for her involvement in the crisis.

Everyone agrees that the UN, as it is structured, is flawed. It is unfair and ineffective. The problem is that the suggested remedies are worse than the disease.

The power of veto, exclusive to five countries, is only one of the problems of UN, and it is not the biggest. The bigger problem is representation. When we take into account that over 75% of the countries making up the UN are not democratic, it means that the delegates of these countries are not legitimate representatives of the nations they allegedly represent. They are a bunch of dictators and despots that have taken their fellow citizens as hostage. We don’t recognize the hijackers of airplanes or buildings as legitimate representatives of the people they have taken as hostage. Why should we recognize the hijackers of a country as legitimate representative of the people of that country?

The United Nations is flawed by design. No reform can fix this flaw. As the result it is useless and ineffective. If we only fix the problem of veto and leave the rest as is, it means the dictators and despots who will then have the majority of votes will run the UN.

The UN is unsalvageable. It must be scrapped, as was its predecessor the League of Nations. What the world needs is an alliance of democratic nations.

Democracy does not mean one man one vote. It does not mean tyranny of the majority. Most countries that elect their rulers through electoral processes are not democratic. Countries that do not give women equal rights, that discriminate against religious minorities, that allow child marriage, that prosecute people with “offensive” views that, police morality, are not democratic. India is often called the largest democracy. But you could go to jail in India if you offend the religious sentiment of the people. Of course this protection is not extended to all religions, only to religions with many followers who can then turn violent if their faith is slighted. This is not democracy.

The same can be said about UK, Canada, Australia and many other countries that ban speeches that may offend the petal delicate sensitivity of some religious people.

We can’t have peace without unity.
We can’t have unity without justice.
We can’t have justice without truth and,
We can’t have truth without freedom of speech.

Truth can offend, but it does not kill. Lies kill. As long as we value lies over lives, as long as we sacrifice truth in the altar of political correctness, the world can’t have peace.

What about lies? Shouldn’t we ban lies? No! Not only it is not up to the state to decide what is lie and what is truth, In the pursuit of truth, we must be ready to suffer every ugly lie.