[dropcap sid=”dropcap-1432665253″]K[/dropcap]ofi Annan, who served as the seventh secretary-general of the United Nations (1997–2006), spoke at Baruch College last fall. His lecture, titled “New World Disorder: Challenges for the UN in the 21st Century,” outlined some of the symptoms of current international crises, explored the drivers, and made a case for renewed efforts to prevent and resolve conflicts. Recipient of the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize (jointly shared with the UN), Annan is known as a champion of human rights and sustainable development.
The title of Annan’s speech was a direct reference to President George H.W. Bush’s post–Cold War vision of “a new world order… freer from the world of terror, stronger in the pursuit of justice, and more secure in the quest for peace.” Seeing instead “a growing disorder.” Annan asked, “How did we get here in just 25 years?”
His answer identified three main factors: the scale and speed of economic, demographic, and technological changes, which have upended the political status quo; the failure of military solutions in such countries as Afghanistan and Iraq, which has discredited belief in international action; and the failure to “modernize the institutional architecture of world order to reflect the changing balance of power.”
Also of grave concern, according to the former secretary-general, is the rise of the politics of identity, which “undermine both states and the interstate system through populism, sectarianism, and separatism, offering nothing but a bitter fragmented, parochial, and dangerous world.”
Nonetheless, Annan remains hopeful, in part because of the UN, which he characterized as “man’s best organized hope to substitute the conference table for the battlefield.” Also a cause for hope were the hundreds of students in the audience. “You are the leaders of the 21st century, and you have to take responsibility. You have to engage. It’s your world now,” he told them.
—Diane Harrigan