Afro-Asian Countries and the UN - Speech - B. P. Koirala (Asian-African Study Group, 25 Nov, 1960)
In old days the life of the individual was centered on certain essential things like food and clothes, and worship, and once these necessities were provided for, man lived as an individualist and did not bother himself much with what happened to other people, or to other nations. Just as in the case of individuals, so did the nations behave in their relations with each other, with the exception was the Law of Might the strongest nation having everything its own way in its relations with other states.
The complexities of modern life have exchanged all that. Only the other day we read of a case reported in the paper where a house owner in Belgium claimed possession of the air space over his house and wanted flights of aircraft banned therein. Similarly problems unforeseen in an earlier age are cropping up every day between nations, and making the international scene more complex and bewildering, and therefore requiring much patience and study for the solution of the difficult problems that arise.
The most important political event of our time is the rapid ebbing of tide of colonialism which had engulfed the greater part of the world up to the end of the Second World War. Asia awoke first from the slumber of slavery, and stirred mightily to shake off the shackles. Now Africa is also awake, and stands, resurgent, to claim its due rights and privileges which had so far been usurped by others. There are parts of Asia and Africa which are yet under foreign domination, but their liberation is also only a question of time, and voices have already begun to raised demanding the inherent right of all peoples and nations to be free in their own homes.
The United Nations started with only about 30 members, though the Charter was signed at San Francisco by 51 nations, now the membership stands 9 and the number will increase. When we remember that 19 and 26 of these nations are respectively from Asia and Africa, it is quite plain to see that this emergence of the newly freed nations of the worlds has brought about a shift in world politics. Though the powerful countries of the world the U.S.A, Russia, the U.K. and others all or some of them may have the capacity to kill and destroy on a scale which is unimaginable even at the present day. I must confess to a feeling of mine that the centre of gravity of world politics has shifted from the Big Four or Big Five Nations to the Small Many. This fact is yet not clearly realized at least not by the smaller nations themselves for I found that there existed a "Bog power" complex in their attitude to the United Nations and the topics it was discussing, as I found during my attendance at the New York this year. But if these smaller nations knew their own combined strength, and their power to influence the decisions of the United Nations by concerted action, they would be less prone to look up to the great powers in the way they seem to be doing. The wholesome respect which the big powers entertain for the rapidly growing assemblage of the small and uncommitted nations can be clearly seem in the bid they are making by every kind of persuasive or other methods to enlist their active support even only passive sympathy, for their own policies and actions. The force of the consensus of world opinion as reflected in the United Nations was never more clearly visible than at the time of the Suez crisis in 1956 when Britain and France showed themselves willing to fall into line with world opinion, though unhappily the process was not repeated at the time of the Hungarian revolt in 1958, nor does France show herself in the same mood over Algeria today, nor do the two great upholders of the old and discredited system, viz. Portugal and South Africa, show a greater realization of the force of world opinion arrayed against them over Goa, over Angola, over Mozambique, or in the racial doctrine of Apartheid.
But while there is undoubtedly this shift in world politics as the result the new wave of freedom, blowing the wind of change over Asia and Africa, this will usher in a new era of peaceful and prosperous existence for the newly free only if there is a greater awareness of the paramount need of cohesion and intelligent cooperation among them. We have seem how some countries of Asia-Africa seem country, to be superficially united in their antagonism to a particular country, though much of the talk of their delegations at the UN seemed to me to be directed more to audience at home rather than to actual auditors and there was evident a crass cross of internecine jealousies and suspicions leading to vituperation and recriminations among themselves. Such antagonisms stultify any effective and constructive part which the smaller nations can play in the affairs of the world.
That is not all however. There are greater dangers that the young nations are facing today. Their emergence into full nationhood has brought its own problems to the fore. Briefly, they can be summarized as protection from both external and internal threats. If a people who have found new freedom show themselves to be too poorly equipped, or not equipped at all, to bear their new burdens and responsibilities, this has two natural and inevitable consequences; they retard the progress towards liberation of their companions in subjugation, and at the same time the live under a permanent threat of the subversion of their own newly found freedom. The Congo is an extreme example to which, so far there has not happily arisen any companion in like distress in any of the liberated territories of Africa. There was a period when many feared that the component parts of the erstwhile Mali Federation Senegal and the Sudan would follow the Congo into chaos and anarchy. But wiser counsels have prevailed, and there does not seem at present any likelihood of the repetition of the dismal events of the Congo anywhere else in Africa. And even in the Congo it is the erstwhile tutelary power to who must be ascribed the chief responsibility for the evil which took place there seeing that Belgium had done almost nothing before the delegation of authority to prepare her subject people to be able to stand on their own feet.
It seems, therefore that the only remedy for the present sad plight of many of the underdeveloped countries of the world whether free, or soon to be free, is their rapid economic development so that the people may be able to feel their lacks and needs, and be able to fulfill their aspirations. It is one of the good things which have come as a result of the carnage and devastation of two world wars that the more prosperous and developed nations have at last realized the truth that prosperity, like peace, is indivisible, and the existence of backward, poor and underdeveloped nations is a standing menace to the prevalence of peace in the world, no less than to their own prosperity.
President Eisenhower of the US, Premier Khrushchev of Russia, Premier Macmillan of the UK, and almost all the statesmen of the world have repeatedly stressed the need of providing financial and technical assistance to the backward nations so that the peoples of those countries may raise their standards of living and remove the most persistent cause of economic and political unrest. Something is certainly being done in this context among the underdeveloped countries, but very much more must be done. If the present plans for worldwide disarmament on which the attention of world leaders is at present concentrated, could be worked out, enormous funds might be available for the most urgent work of assistance to the backward countries. It is to be devoutly wished that disarmament talks now proceeding in the UN may lead to tangible results.
It is also a matter widely agreed that the best way of affording financial and technical assistance to underdeveloped countries should be through the United Nations rather than through any national agency. This tendency is to a certain extent visible in the Colombo Plan, as in the specifically UN agencies like the UNTAA, and other UN relief and assistance organizations.
At the same time we must recognize that outside help, whether through the UN or by any other agency, however generous, it not by itself sufficient to achieve the goal we have set before ourselves for the advancement and betterment of nations. The peoples of the help-receiving countries must also actively participate in the work, and strive for national betterment. The people must realize that it is they who must work out their own salvation, and make them-selves fit and capable to bear their own burdens and responsibilities so as to enable their country to take its due place in the comity of nations.
There is nowadays so much talk of national planning and reconstruction. Nepal has also launched her own Plan and will step into her Second Five Year Plan towards the middle of next year, and all countries, and especially the underdeveloped countries, have their own development plans for stated periods. But as I have tried to point out above, it is essential, if we desire to keep up national morale and self-respect, that there should be mass participation by the people concerned in all such plans of national development and reconstruction. It means in effect that the people should be associated in the formulation no less than in the implementation, of the national plans, so that they might feel that the work they are engaged in is their own, that means a better life and more opportunities for themselves and their children after them. In a word, I feel that there should be a democratic approach and method in our national planning, And not the least of the many advantages which will accrue there from is the fact that it will be a most useful lesson in democracy and democratic procedure, which will strengthen the democratic structure of society and of government in countries, like Nepal, where democracy is of a new growth, and is yet to take deep root in the national life. It is in this faith that we have tried to approach the problems of development and reconstruction in Nepal. We are trying to give our national plans such shape and content that they may truly become national that is, peoples.
To sum up the three most important factors in the present condition of the world are, firstly, the tremendous advances made in science and technology, whereby time and distance have been almost annihilated, wonderful devices have been invented to make live longer and more happily on the earth, and, at the same time, terrible weapons of mass destruction have been perfected, which constitute a sort of Damocles, sword over all nations, whether big or small. Secondly, there is the fact which will make the second half of the twentieth century one of the most memorable epochs in the annals of mankind; the freeing of millions of human being from subjection and foreign domination, and the emergence of many new nations in the world, and especially in Asia and Africa. And lastly, and as a corollary to the above, the need for a very rapid improvement in the economic condition of these newly frees states. It is only if the top statesmen of the world turn their thoughts to a solution of these problems that I feel that mankind may yet breathe in peace and relief, because the war drums will them case to throb and frighten us.
I would like to state here the principles and policies that have guided, and will continue to guide, Nepal in the conduct of international affairs. The foreign policy of Nepal is inspired by the principles and purposes of the United Nations Charter. We regard the UN not only as a bulwark of our own independence and security, and the protector or our right and freedom, but envisage the world organization as playing a similar role in the affairs of smaller countries like our own. And we feel that the UN can, and does, play an equally effective role in its relations with the big and powerful states in that it can exercise a restraining influences to curb notions of national requirements, or prestige, which might impair amicable relations among states, and thus work for world harmony. For as it seems to me, the UN has two most important functions; one is to prevent war. In this the UN has many and splendid successes to its credit in the last fifteen years of its existence. The second and even more crucial function is the establishment and maintenance of universal peace. Here the divergent and mutually obstructive forces that play in the UN have not so far allowed the UN fully to take up its role, and the world body has had to muddle along with structural and procedural difficulties which are, yet, a safety valve to absorb the shock of worse possibilities. There can be no denying of the fact that in this dynamic and growing age, change and development are signs of life, and so there must be changes made in the UN as circumstances demand. But to me it seems as if the existence of nations in the modern world would be impossible without the United Nations, just as the existence of individual citizens of a country in impossible without an ordered government.
Nepal is a country in terms of economic and military resources and strength, but she is fully conscious of her responsibilities and also of the role she and her sister countries can play in the deliberations of the United Nations. We in Nepal believe in the independent exercise of our judgment in considering international issues on merit.
One of the cardinal points of our foreign policy our deep seated distrust of political blocs and of regionalism. If we believe in a policy of non-alignment with any of the power blocs, it is because we do not desire to commit ourselves beforehand to support one side or the other in any adventure it may choose to embark upon. We desire to retain our independence of judgment in the assessment of international issues as they arise. In our opinion this is the only way in which we can really be objective and detached in the examination of the issues which may confront the world community from time to time. At the same time we have never hesitated to speak clearly and unequivocally on what has appeared to us to be right. I would suggest, therefore, that our refusal to align ourselves with either of the blocs does not arise out of a desire to shirk our responsibilities, or to sit on the fence. To me it seems that there is not only nothing passive or immoral about this attitude of ours, but that this is the only proper procedure for us and for similarly placed small countries to follow. If we have sometimes hesitated to take a clear stand, it has only been when the issues were themselves clouded over and not quite clear, and we can imagine, or remember, occasions when the points at issue are so complicated that it is difficult to say whether they are entirely black or white.
We believe also that we are perhaps less hindered in the exercise of our judgment because we have no disputes with any one and we try to be friendly with all. We have no axes or pulls, and no leanings of any sort, and have far fewer commitments than the big and more powerful states. I am implying by this that our position of small innocuousness itself invests our judgment with any kind of superiority over that of others, but only that our firmly help resolve to be impartial and constructive in our thinking and judgment may entitle us to a hearing from the world assembly before decisions are taken on the grave and far reaching issues which confront the world today, problems such as that of the intensifying could war and of world disarmament.
The world is indeed in a dire stress today, and needs clear thinking and painstaking study of its problems. Asia and Africa the two ancient and mighty continents are on the march and the peoples there require the help and advice of all earnest minded men and women in the great tasks which face them.
Citation: B. P. Koirala, "Afro-Asian Countries And The UN", in Sushil Koirala (ed.), Democracy Indispensable for Development 71-78, (Varanasi: Sandaju Publications, 1982)
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