Week 6: "Common Heritage of Mankind?"
I got stuck on the details of the development of the UN Charter model in chapter 1 section 3. This is what I want to comment on for the purposes of our group looking for “African solutions to African problems.”I’m especially concerned with “how restrictive provisions of the charter have been” or may be to Africa. I guess for this continent, whose very lack of autonomy (in light of mass colonization) has seemingly led to its demise and an inability to function justly, sovereignty is exactly what they should be striving towards. Yet this UN Charter model seems to limit them from positioning themselves to be the power players they must be in order to fight corruption pressing in on them from outside and subsequently resist and fight against corruption from within.
Veto power is accorded to permanent members of the UN Security Council. In 2005, there are 5 permanent members: China, France, Russia, UK and US. Africa, the entire continent, is given one membership seat, presently Algeria in northern Africa. This is a major concern of mine on a global level; that we view Africa in the same light as we view the United States, however, the US is ONE country while Africa is a whole continent made up of many countries. Does that not warrant special status in the UN Security Council? Especially in light of the security issues that arise on the continent? Just something for us to think about.
And as issues of white global privilege enter into our domain as we focus on solutions to the social problem of corruption in Africa, I can’t help but to be suspicious of a UN Charter Model established in 1945 in light of racist tensions that still presently exist and we can imagine existed much more strongly then. Africans, as dramatically illustrated in Hotel Rwanda, didn’t mean anything to UN even in 1994. It is no coincidence that the nations in the African Diaspora of our global world all fall into the category of underdeveloped, yet house so many important trade resources from oil and diamonds in Africa, to fruit and coffee beans in the Caribbean. How is it that predominantly African nations are so underdeveloped, yet so filled with rich necessary resources?
The issue is with the “common heritage of mankind” (p. 64), is how Africans were not really considered a part of our heritage as a Western world, yet the UN charter states, “Systematic inequalities among peoples and states are recognized and new rules – including the concept of the “common heritage of mankind’ – are established to create ways of governing the distribution, appropriation, and exploitation of territory, property and natural resources.” This seems designed especially to keep Africans in the powerless position of giving up their resources and watching others nations prosper at their expense.
And still yet, China is allowed to continue to be the major force in the oil business in regions of the Sudan, and a permanent member of the UN Security Council. It’s as though the UN is saying, we can’t let “their” (African) crimes against “their” (African) kind limit the distribution of resources for the world. I guess my question is, since when have Africans been included as sharing a common heritage with our Euro-dominated world?
posted by Colleen Yvonne Mae @ 4:15 PM
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