The World Actually Gave a Rat’s Ass When Dag Hammarskjöld Died

I have a very clear memory of that day.  It was a warm September day in Cheyenne, Wyoming.  I was twelve years old and in sixth grade.  I walked the half-mile home from Eastridge, Elementary for lunch—yes, in those olden times kids still did this, moms were home to make it, and we had a whole hour lunch break.  My mom greeted me at the door.  “Did you hear? Dag Hammarskjöld was killed in a plane craft in Africa!”  It was devastating news.  I may have even cried.

This seems hard to believe now.  Most 12 year olds are barely aware of the existence of the United Nations.  They certainly couldn’t name the Secretary General.  Hell, neither can most adults.  I’m sophisticated, aware news junky and I had to look it up to refresh my memory today.  Turns out it is a South Korean, Ban Ki-moon.   If he dropped dead today it would get two sentences on the evening news and a below the fold short on page 5 of most metropolitan daily papers.

But back in 1961, the United Nations was a huge deal and Hammarskjöld was one of the best known men in the world, and among the most respected.  In those days all major papers and the television networks maintained full time correspondents covering the United Nations and the General Assembly.  The TV correspondents got almost as much air time as those covering Congress and the White House.   The annual speeches of world leaders at the opening sessions of each year’s General Assembly were regularly televised, as were the sometimes acrimonious debates where U.S. and other western powers confronted the Soviet Union and their allies.  Empires were dissolving and the United Nations was a key player in the death throes of colonialism.

Even in Cheyenne, which even then had more than its share of right wing “U.S. Out of the U.N.” zealots, the international body was generally respected and admired.  Schools hosted Model United Nations events where students acted as diplomats from countries they drew out of a hat.  Kids earnestly went door to door in October to Trick or Treat for UNICEF.  There was pride that U.N headquarters was in a modern glass and steel tower in New York City.  Most folks harbored a hope that an international organization of nations might really be able to “put an end to war”—and just maybe save our asses from getting fried in a nuclear war that would end civilization.

Dag Hammarskjöld was born in Jönköping, Sweden in 1905 and was raised in the northern city of Uppsala.  He came from a family who for generations had been high level officials in the Swedish government.  His father, Hjalmar was the country’s Prime Minister from 1914-1917 charged with the tricky business of maintaining neutrality as Europe was consumed by war.

He was educated at the prestigious Katedralskolan (Cathedral School) in Uppsala and attended the University of Uppsala, where he earned his bachelor’s degree and a Masters in Economics.  He moved to Stockholm to pursue his PhD at the university there. 

Hammarskjöld began his public service in 1930 serving as Secretary to a government commission on unemployment while he was still finishing his studies.  He held the post until 1934.  In 1936 he finished his doctorate from the University of Stockholm. His thesis, The Spread of the Business Cycle, dealing with the world wide Great Depression, attracted considerable notice.

He was appointed Secretary to the Sveriges Riksbank (Swedish State Bank) the same year.  By 1941 he President, a post he held until 1948.  He also served in several capacities as an economic advisor to the government, including coordinating planning for post-war development. 

But upon retiring from the Bank, Hammarskjöld shifted his attention to diplomacy.  He was appointed to a key position in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.  He attended a Paris meeting to implement the Marshall Plan for European post-war reconstruction on behalf of Sweden in 1947 and the founding meeting of the Organization for European Economic Co-operation, which administered the Marshall Plan, the next year.  In 1949 he became Secretary of State.  He became Minister Without Portfolio in 1951.  Although he served in Social Democratic Party governments, he never joined any political party was regarded as a technocrat without either ambition or ideology.

Hammarskjöld’s connection to the U.N. also began in ’51 when he was vice-chair of the Swedish delegation to the General Assembly in Paris.  The next year, when U.N. headquarters moved to New York City, he was Chairman of the Delegation.

In 1952 the U.N. was thrown into turmoil when its first Secretary General, Trygve Lie of Norway resigned under pressure.  The Soviet Union had opposed his re-election because of UN intervention in Korea, and then he lost critical support in the U.S. when Senator Joseph McCarthy accused him of hiring “disloyal Americans” for key U.N. positions.

To his own surprise Hammarskjöld, because of his apolitical reputation and experience as an administrator, he was the choice of the Security Council to succeed Lie.  He received the support of 10 of the 11 members.  The choice was confirmed by the General Assembly in April with 57 of 60 member nations in support.

He turned energetically to re-shaping the UN staff to be more responsive to world events.  He created a Secretariat under his own office that eventually grew to 4,000 diplomats and employees.  As a hands-on administrator he dealt with issues big and small.  One detail got his special attention—the creation of the Meditation Room in UN headquarters as a place dedicated to silence where people can withdraw into themselves, regardless of their faith, creed, or religion.  This was typical of the humanist spirituality for which he later became well known.

Hammarskjöld often played a lead role in trying to diffuse international crisis situations. In 1956 he sponsored the creation of the United Nations Emergency Force, which got its first mission coming between combatants in the Suez Canal Crisis. 

In 1960 the Congo Crisis erupted with the exit of Belgium from its former colony.  Civil war erupted when the mineral rich province of Katanga attempted to establish its independence.  He made four trips to the region to try to negotiate a settlement, but refused to use United Nations troops to quell the Katanga rebellion.  Instead he ordered the Emergency Force to enter the Congo as a neutral force to protect civilians and separate combatants.

The Soviet Union, which strongly supported Congo President Patrice Lumumba, charged  Hammarskjöld with being insufficiently anti-colonialist because the Katangans were employing white mercenaries and were suspected of being in the control of Belgian mining interests.  The Soviets demanded his resignation and the replacement of the office of the Secretary General with a three person troika representing the interests of the Communist Block, the West, and the emerging states soon to me known as the Third World. 

In early September fighting erupted between non-combatant U.N. peacekeepers and Katangese troops.  Hammarskjöld accompanied by a large staff flew to Africa to attempt to negotiate a cease fire.  His DC-8 propeller driven airliner exploded over Northern Rhodesia on September 18, killing him and 15 others on board.  Immediate speculation was that a bomb or perhaps a missile may have brought down the plane.  Despite three investigations by Rhodesian authorities and a U.N. special commission, no evidence of sabotage or attack were uncovered and no cause for the explosion that brought down the plane could be established. 

Speculation has continued that it might have been an assassination.  Western interests including Belgium, Britain, and the U.S. were supporting the Katangese independence movement.  They were later implicated in the murder of Congo president Lumumba.  As late as 1998 South Africa’s Bishop Desmond Tutu reported that recently discovered letters implicated British MI15, the CIA, and South African security forces in the crash.

Later in 1961 Hammarskjöld was posthumously awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

In 1963 the journal of personal reflection that he had kept since he was 20 years old which was found in his New York apartment after his death was published as Markings.  It became an international best seller and has been described as one of the greatest spiritual accomplishments of the 20th Century.  My mother ordered the hardcover and I remember reading it with avid interest.  The book mostly contained short passages, epigrams really.  Here is a sample of some:

Our burdens only become too heavy when the only ones we carry are our own.

The more faithfully you listen to the voice within you, the better you will hear what is sounding outside. And only he who listens can speak.

Life only demands from you the strength you possess. Only one feat is possible—not to run away.

You cannot play with the animal in you without becoming wholly animal, play with falsehood without forfeiting your right to truth, play with cruelty without losing your sensitivity of mind. He who wants to keep his garden tidy doesn't reserve a plot for weeds.

On the bookshelf of life, God is a useful work of reference, always at hand, but seldom consulted. 

He is one of those who has had the wilderness for a pillow, and called a star his brother. Alone. But loneliness can be a communion.

We reach out towards the other...in vain—because we have never dared to give ourselves.

A grace to pray for—that our self-interest, which is inescapable, shall never cripple our sense of humor, that fully conscious self-scrutiny which alone can save us.

Only tell others what is of importance to them. Only ask them what you need to know. In both cases, that is, limit the conversation to what the speaker really possesses—Argue  only in order to reach a conclusion. Think aloud only with those to whom this means something. Don’t let small talk fill up the time and the silence except as a medium for bearing unexpressed messages between two people who are attuned to each other. A dietary for those who have learned by experience the truth of the saying, “For every idle word...”, but this is hardly popular in social life.

We press body against body—bringing to naught that human beauty which is only physical in that the surfaces of the body are animated by a spirit inaccessible to physical touch.

Don’t be afraid of yourself, live your individuality to the full—but for the good of others.

Old White Dude With Beard Offers Endorsement in UUA Moderator Race—Film at 10

Tamara Payne-Alex and Jim Key kicked off their campaigns for UUA Moderator at a joint appearance at last year's General Assembly in Phoenix..

I occasionally use this blog as a forum for my opinionated screeds concerning governance issues within the Unitarian Univeralist Association (UUA), certainly one of the dullest of all topics to anyone without a dog in hunt.  I typically lob a grenade or two from the side lines and then scamper back to my cave in the mountains while a modicum of confusion and consternation ensues in a handful of blogs and Facebook postings.

Be warned.  I am at it again.  The catalyst this time was an innocent Facebook post by UUWorld Editor Chris Walton about endorsements on the web sites of the two candidates for the post of Moderator one of whom will be elected at General Assembly in Indianapolis this summer.

For non governance geeks who have gotten this far, the Moderator is generally considered the highest volunteer position in the UUA.  He or she is the Chair of the Board of Trustees—a virtual President of the Board if the executive title were not in use elsewhere—and presides very visibly at General Assembly plenary sessions.  The position is traditionally held by lay person, although there is no bar to a minister seeking or being elected to the post, just as the President of the UUA has always been ordained although that is not required either.  For about 40 years the job has been filled by women and some have come to view it as the seat at the table of power for the gender.

Chris provided links to the endorsement pages of both candidates, Tamara Payne-Alex and Jim Key.  Check both out.  The are enlightening and inspiring as to the quality of human beings seeking the job. Then he asked how those endorsements might affect our personal preferences.

My longtime cyber friend, fellow blogger and queen of social media Suzyn Smith Webb quipped that Key “has the older white dude with beard vote locked up.”  That was enough to set me off and running like an old hound with fire crackers tied to his tail.

As a cure for insomnia for those who missed the original post, here is what I had to say, pretty much unedited except for stopping to breathe and adding paragraphs.

I guess you will have to put me down with the old white guys with beards.  Certainly fit the description.  Not that it matters much.  I am mere layman who has never held a single significant post in our movement outside of my congregation. 

I have been a gad-fly commentator on governance issues and worked on the periphery of two (successful) presidential campaigns.  I have been seen by some as a burr under the saddle and sniper from the sidelines because I have become very critical of the Board in recent years as it became the Great Black Hole of our movement, sucking in, destroying, or disarming every independent or quasi-independent power source out there all in the name of Transparency,  Simon Pure Congregational Polity, and the worship of a particularly rigid form of Policy Governance as if it were handed down from Mt. Sinai.  All of this allegedly in the name of real democracy. 

This includes an ongoing war with UUA President Peter Morales who had the audacity not to submit to being a clerical functionary of the Board, but a popularly elected leader. 

Now that you know where I come from, I respect both candidates. 

Tamara Payne-Alex has been a literal golden child since the first moment she stepped onto the denominational (flog me for the use of that word latter) stage.  Earning her credentials as an anti-racist leader and an attractive, dynamic presence it was clear that she was destined someday for  leadership at the very top level. 

Jim Key, however, was an unknown quantity to me sitting out here in the Mid-West.  It looked like he might be a regional candidate, or, indulging in the paranoid fantasies not unknown among followers of UUA politics, that he might have been nominated as weak opposition to an anointed successor to Gini Courter.  Reading his list of endorsers, heavy on the hirsute and superannuated or not, and what they had to say was a revelation to me.  And there were even some  leading persons of color and some who have not yet drawn their rocking chair money. 

What got me most was the breadth of Key’s hands on leadership at several levels, his touted ability bridge differences and reach working solutions to complex and emotional problems.  Above all this is an election when outsider status to the current Board is critical.

 He sewed it up for me with the reported rejection of the notion that the Moderator should have his/her own program to drive through with relentless single mindedness which is Gini’s legacy, no matter how perfectly charming she was presiding over GAs. 

Jim Key can have my endorsement, but he might not want it.

Celebrating the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Today is International Human Rights Day which commemorates the adoption by the United Nations General Assembly meeting at the Palais de Chaillot in Paris of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on December 10, 1948.  The vote was 48 ayes, 0 nays and 8 abstentions.  The abstentions came from the Soviet Union, the Ukrainian and Belorussian S.S.R.s, Yugoslavia and Poland, as well as South Africa, and Saudi Arabia.

The Declaration was an outgrowth of the bitter lessons of World War II and President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Four Freedoms which had become the foundation and promise of the alliance against the Axis Powers known at the United Nations.  As the war drew to a close, the United Nations was Chartered as new international body to replace the failed League of Nations.  From the beginning codifying international standards for rights was a priority.

Canadian legal scholar John Peters Humphrey, Director of the Division of Human Rights within the United Nations Secretariat, was selected as the principle writer.  He worked closely with a commission chaired by Eleanor Roosevelt, a tireless advocate for a strong declaration.  Members of the commission were selected from a representative cross section of UN members—Australia, Belgium, Byelorussia, Chile, China, Egypt, France, India, Iran, Lebanon, Panama, Philippine, United Kingdom, U.SA, Soviet Union, Uruguay and Yugoslavia.   

Humphrey produced a draft which became the working document with details to be haggled over.  Besides Mrs. Roosevelt,   Jacques Maritain , René Cassin and Stéphane Hessel all of France; and Charles Malik, a Lebanese Christian;  and China’s P. C. Chang played leading roles in working over Humphrey’s texts.

There were numerous struggles in the commission, particularly over objections of Islamic countries over the rights of women, marriage, and the freedom to change one’s religions.  The Soviet Union and its allies and vassal states fought furiously against enshrining individual liberties “at the expense of common necessity.” And conservative Western governments we just as adamantly opposed to including social, economic, and cultural rights.  Mrs. Roosevelt played a key role in patching over differences and coming to a conclusion.

None the less, after months of work within the commission the General Assembly debated almost every point and held more than 1,400 votes on virtually every word and clause in the document before it was ready for a final vote of approval.

In 1966 the UN General Assembly adopted two detailed additional Covenants on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and on Civil and Political Rights, which were ratified by sufficient numbers of member states by 1975 to become international law.  The Universal Declaration of Human rights along with the two covenants are now considered the International Bill of Rights.

The documents, taken together, are important in and of themselves.  But in practice member nations have seldom been willing to challenge the national sovereignty of member states known to be violating the terms of the agreements and perpetrating even the grossest of Human Rights abuses.  

In the midst of a global economic crisis and regional ethnic and religious turmoil, Human Rights are under constant attack.  And the United States, which once proudly proclaimed them, now prefers to cite American exceptionalism for permission to observe them in the breach.  Congress is currently considering measures that could lead to virtual martial law and allow for the indefinite detention of American Citizens and legal immigrants without charge or trial.

May the ghost of Eleanor Roosevelt haunt the dreams anyone who collaborates in this effort.

We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Manifestos--Occupy Wall Street Finds its Voice

The Occupy Wall Street General Assembly in session.

On Friday, the day before New York City Police busted more than 700 marchers on the Brooklyn Bridge apparently just to show that they remembered how, the General Assembly of the Occupy Wall Street protesters issued their Declaration of the Occupation of New York City to explain themselves.

For three weeks the media, when it was not totally ignoring a growing social revolution under their noses, mocked those twice a day Assemblies where the rag tag protestors without visible leaders, command structure and ideology gathered to hash out plans for immediate action, logistic concerns, police relations, and, oh yeah, the purpose of the whole damn thing.  

High profile members of the professional left, used to demonstrations of vast coalitions, huge steering committees, leaders certified by the press as being important, bullet points demands, and pre-printed signage tut-tuted and wrung their hands.

Admittedly, the process as observed through shaky hand held video cam clips posted on YouTube and protest sites, made them look a tad ridiculous.  Denied the use of a public address system or even bull horns by police the participants quickly improvised a system where by comments of speakers were relayed to the whole crowd by repeating short phrases in chorus.  At first it looks like a crowd of zombies blindly parroting anything said to them.  

And because the discussions were open to participation by everyone, not every speaker was succinct or even rational.  Wackos and old lefties with ideological axes to grind got their say.  But so did hundreds, in the end maybe thousands, of ordinary and here-to-fore voiceless citizens.

Formal motions and votes were noticeable by their absence.  As the conversations continued the crowds drifted toward consensus.  It was clear to participants when that consensus was achieved. 

Yet despite everything the Assemblies and their odd processes worked.  Day by Day, week by week the protests in New York grew until they could no longer be ignored.  The young people, tech savvy and knowledgeably in the new ways of social media, found ways to spread the word and build support.  The protest spread to dozens of cities around the country and even attracted international support.

Still, they kept being asked—Where are your demands? What are you doing here? Show us your manifesto so we can shove you into a box and pin a label on you.  So the Assembly went at the work of explaining themselves.

Anyone who has ever tried to draft a document in a committee knows what an irksome, almost impossible task it is.  People argue endlessly not just about the Big Picture but about wording nuance and the placement of semi-colons.  The results usually come out looking like they were constructed by a committee—filled with a mix of buzz words, in group jargon, whereases and wherefores and stilted legalese.  The alternative is to swallow some ringing manifesto composed by a charismatic leader, an act which instantly converts a popular movement to a quickly ossifying ism.

The folks at the Occupy Wall Street Assemblies worked some magic.  I’m not sure just how they did it.  I would have liked to watch the presses in action.  In the end they came out with a clear and concise document that would not paint them into an expected corner.  And they did so with rhetorical grace.

This is what they want to say to the world right now.  Pass it on.

Declaration of the Occupation of New York City

As we gather together in solidarity to express a feeling of mass injustice, we must not lose sight of what brought us together. We write so that all people who feel wronged by the corporate forces of the world can know that we are your allies.

As one people, united, we acknowledge the reality: that the future of the human race requires the cooperation of its members; that our system must protect our rights, and upon corruption of that system, it is up to the individuals to protect their own rights, and those of their neighbors; that a democratic government derives its just power from the people, but corporations do not seek consent to extract wealth from the people and the Earth; and that no true democracy is attainable when the process is determined by economic power. We come to you at a time when corporations, which place profit over people, self-interest over justice, and oppression over equality, run our governments. We have peaceably assembled here, as is our right, to let these facts be known.

They have taken our houses through an illegal foreclosure process, despite not having the original mortgage.

They have taken bailouts from taxpayers with impunity, and continue to give Executives exorbitant bonuses.

They have perpetuated inequality and discrimination in the workplace based on age, the color of one’s skin, sex, gender identity and sexual orientation.

They have poisoned the food supply through negligence, and undermined the farming system through monopolization.

They have profited off of the torture, confinement, and cruel treatment of countless animals, and actively hide these practices.

They have continuously sought to strip employees of the right to negotiate for better pay and safer working conditions.

They have held students hostage with tens of thousands of dollars of debt on education, which is itself a human right.

They have consistently outsourced labor and used that outsourcing as leverage to cut workers’ healthcare and pay.

They have influenced the courts to achieve the same rights as people, with none of the culpability or responsibility.

They have spent millions of dollars on legal teams that look for ways to get them out of contracts in regards to health insurance.

They have sold our privacy as a commodity.

They have used the military and police force to prevent freedom of the press. They have deliberately declined to recall faulty products endangering lives in pursuit of profit.

They determine economic policy, despite the catastrophic failures their policies have produced and continue to produce.

They have donated large sums of money to politicians, who are responsible for regulating them.

They continue to block alternate forms of energy to keep us dependent on oil.

They continue to block generic forms of medicine that could save people’s lives or provide relief in order to protect investments that have already turned a substantial profit.

They have purposely covered up oil spills, accidents, faulty bookkeeping, and inactive ingredients in pursuit of profit.

They purposefully keep people misinformed and fearful through their control of the media.

They have accepted private contracts to murder prisoners even when presented with serious doubts about their guilt.

They have perpetuated colonialism at home and abroad. They have participated in the torture and murder of innocent civilians overseas.

They continue to create weapons of mass destruction in order to receive government contracts. *

To the people of the world,

We, the New York City General Assembly occupying Wall Street in Liberty Square, urge you to assert your power.

Exercise your right to peaceably assemble; occupy public space; create a process to address the problems we face, and generate solutions accessible to everyone.

To all communities that take action and form groups in the spirit of direct democracy, we offer support, documentation, and all of the resources at our disposal.

Join us and make your voices heard!

*These grievances are not all-inclusive.