I am the Secretary-General.
This time the collapse is financial.
Not moral —
those have been rolling since the flag was stitched.
We are owed money.
A record sum.
We like records.
Most meetings per outcome.
Most languages per problem solved.
Most observers per massacre.
In 1994
eight hundred thousand people were killed in Rwanda.
We were present.
Presence is important.
We watched carefully.
We took notes.
Then we left.
Leaving is called restraint
when you have name badges.
In 1995
we declared Srebrenica safe.
The word safe survived.
Eight thousand people did not.
We reviewed our processes.
The processes survived.
Our peacekeepers went to Haiti
to help.
Ten thousand people died of cholera.
From the help.
We apologised.
Apologies do not require logistics.
We are neutral.
That is why the strong and the weak
get one vote each.
The United States pays a fifth
and speaks once.
Tuvalu speaks once.
Population eleven thousand.
Equality is very tidy on paper.
China pays.
China votes.
China sits on the Human Rights Council.
So do Eritrea and Sudan.
We put “human rights” in the title
to keep them nearby.
We condemn things.
Strongly.
Sometimes strongly-er.
The things continue.
But now they are condemned.
This is progress you cannot see.
We investigated Oil-for-Food.
Found billions missing.
Named thousands.
Prosecuted none.
Published a report
long enough to stop a door.
We have rules.
The rules say unused money
must be returned
to states that did not pay.
This is sustainability
as understood by people
who quote Kafka
instead of fixing things.
Our peacekeepers have guidelines.
The guidelines say
do not abuse the people
you are meant to protect.
The abuse continues.
But now it is against the guidelines.
This is accountability.
We may run out of cash by July.
This will affect operations.
Operations such as
watching
and expressing concern.
Please send money.
We promise to give some of it back
to those who didn’t send any.
That is the system.
We designed it.
Changing it would require a resolution.
The resolution would be optional.
Optional means ignorable.
I am not good at arithmetic.
Or prevention.
Or stopping things.
I run the United Nations.
Dedicated to Kenule Beeson Saro-Wiwa — Ken —
who spoke when silence was safer,
who wrote when truth was unwelcome,
and who stood for the land, the people, and the dignity of voice against power that mistook brutality for order.
May remembrance outlive repression, and may words continue where courage once paid the ultimate price.
Verbal Alchemy 