Learning Stories
by
Mario deSantis
mariodesantis@hotmail.com
“I am a Canadian, free to speak without fear, free to worship in my own way, free to stand for what I think right, free to oppose what I believe wrong, and free to choose those who shall govern my country.” - -The Rt. Hon. John Diefenbaker, Canadian Bill of Rights, 1960
“The whole judicial system is at issue, it's worth more than one person.”--Serge Kujawa, Saskatchewan Crown Prosecutor, 1991
“The system is not more worth than one person's rights.”--Mario deSantis, 2002
Ensign Stories © Mario deSantis and Ensign
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The Norwegian Nobel Committee has awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for 2001 to the United Nations (U.N.) and to its Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, for "their work for a better organized and more peaceful world." With some 50,000 employees and 189 sovereign member countries it has been a very difficult task for the United Nations to strengthen social cooperation and peace around the world. Our world has got smaller and smaller and our pursuit to happiness cannot be envisioned within national borders and away from our accidentally less fortunate people around the world. While the U.N. cannot be more than what its members allow it to be, this state of affairs cannot continue indefinitely. As we get together socially, it is our natural strive to have the social whole more meaningful than the pure sum of its parts. Therefore, we cannot allow the U.N. to continue its compromising work as its members either implicitly or explicitly very often undermine the U.N.'s vision of a better world. In the light of the recent genocides in Rwanda and Bosnia, of widespread poverty and famines, and now of widespread fear of international terrorism, we must change the role of the U.N. in being a compromising organization. As individuals we cannot pursue individual justice (unless immediately in self-defence), and equally as sovereign countries we cannot pursue international justice without the intelligent cooperation of all the other countries. Rather than having a compromising U.N., we must have an intelligent U.N. to work for the benefit of all the international community. Therefore, we must all applaud the granting of the Nobel Prize for Peace to the United Nations and to its Secretary-General, Kofi Annan as recognition
And to affirm the importance of this award at this critical time around the world, Selection committee secretary Geir Lundestad said the choice was made on Sept. 28 and "of course, the committee was very aware of that event [Sept. 11]." References Annan and UN win Nobel Peace Prize, CBC Canada, October 12, 2001 http://www.cbc.ca/cgi-bin/templates/view.cgi?/news/2001/10/12/un_nobel011012 The Nobel Peace Prize 2001, United Nations http://www.un.org/depts/dhl/nobel/ |
