Congress MP Shashi Tharoor stated on Thursday that the UN is still "indispensable" despite its "failures over Gaza and Ukraine," but that the organization must be more responsive.
According to the PTI news agency, Tharoor stated that the global body's next move will be to become more responsive and representative in a world where international cooperation is essential.
"I acknowledge once more that the UN is not perfect and was never meant to be, but it remains indispensable," Tharoor stated in response to criticism of the organization's shortcomings in Gaza and Ukraine.
At the 15th Desmond Tutu International Peace Lecture in Cape Town, South Africa, Tharoor, a former UN assistant secretary general, urged the need to "recommit" to the international organization.The Congress MP was reported by PTI as stating, "As someone who served the UN for thirty years from 1978 to 2007, I witnessed first-hand its evolution from a Cold War battleground to a post-Cold War laboratory of global cooperation."
He added that he has witnessed the UN fail in Rwanda and "rise to the occasion in Timor-Leste and Namibia" while participating in its attempts to protect refugees and promote peace.
But he emphasized that the UN needed to be "moral reimagined."
Tharoor described the UN as a "indispensable symbol," not of "perfection but of possibility," and stated that giving it up would be the same as giving up "the very idea of our common humanity.""It matters to all of us who believe that cooperation is not weakness and that justice is not luxury," Tharoor stated, emphasizing that renewal rather than nostalgia is what is necessary for the UN to survive. The Thiruvananthapuram MP stated, "That renewal begins with the recognition that no nation is truly sovereign unless all are in an interconnected world."
Tharoor stated that the international organization had persisted in its goal to "feed the hungry, shelter the displaced, and give voice to the voiceless" in spite of the battle with politicians and bureaucracy.
While negotiating a precarious ceasefire, the former minister of state (MoS) for external affairs expressed his conviction that the UN continues to be important to refugees, peacekeepers, and diplomats.