Saudi Arabia wins UN Security Council seat for first time

[kalu_miah]

What can I say, I am stunned and overjoyed with happiness at this courageous gesture by our Saudi brothers

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/19/world/middleeast/saudi-arabia-rejects-security-council-seat.html

Turning to Syria, it said, “Allowing the ruling regime in Syria to kill and burn its people by the chemical weapons, while the world stands idly, without applying deterrent sanctions against the Damascus regime, is also irrefutable evidence and proof of the inability of the Security Council to carry out its duties and responsibilities.”

“Accordingly, the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, based on its historical responsibilities toward its people, Arab and Islamic nations as well as toward the peoples aspiring for peace and stability all over the world, announces its apology for not accepting membership of the Security Council until the council is reformed and enabled, effectively and practically, to carry out its duties and responsibilities in maintaining international peace and security,” the statement said.

MashaAllah and Alhamdulillah.

What UN shows that we humans, the best among the animals in this planet (Ashraful Makhlukat), still true to our animal nature, follow the law of the jungles or Might makes Right.
The Law of the Jungle - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"NOW this is the law of the jungle, as old and as true as the sky,
And the wolf that shall keep it may prosper, but the wolf that shall break it must die.

As the creeper that girdles the tree trunk, the law runneth forward and back;
For the strength of the pack is the wolf, and the strength of the wolf is the pack.

Wash daily from nose tip to tail tip; drink deeply, but never too deep;
And remember the night is for hunting and forget not the day is for sleep.

The jackal may follow the tiger, but, cub, when thy whiskers are grown,
Remember the wolf is a hunter—go forth and get food of thy own.

Keep peace with the lords of the jungle, the tiger, the panther, the bear;
And trouble not Hathi (elephant) the Silent, and mock not the boar in his lair.

When pack meets with pack in the jungle, and neither will go from the trail,
Lie down till the leaders have spoken; it may be fair words shall prevail.

When ye fight with a wolf of the pack ye must fight him alone and afar,
Lest others take part in the quarrel and the pack is diminished by war."
—Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936)

Might makes right - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In terms of morality, those who are the strongest will rule others and have the power to determine right and wrong. By this definition, the phrase manifests itself in a normative sense. This meaning is often used to define a proscriptive moral code for society to follow, as well as while discussing social Darwinism and Weberian themes of the authority of the state (e.g. 'Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft').

....

Realist scholars of international politics think of it as a game in a kind of "state of nature" in which might makes right.[5]

Thucydides in the Modern World

As a result of his study of the Peloponnesian War, Thucydides drew a fundamental distinction between the mode of politics within a certain state and the pattern of political interaction among several states. This distinction that is still the subject of intense debate in foreign policy circles. Within a state, citizens enter a community based on a form of social contract, which provides the protection of laws at the expense of some individual freedom. As a result of the legal equality with which the social contract provides the citizens, the weak are able to withstand the strong and ethical considerations are respected. In the international realm, however, there is no social contract among citizens of different states, and, consequenlty, there are no laws to defend legality and morality of state interactions. Thus, in interstate relations, it is the strong who decide how the weak should be treated, as moral or ethical judgments are virtually nonexistent. This distinction between the ethics of domestic and international relations are implicit in the "Melian dialogue." Here, Thucydides had Demosthenes, the Athenian orator, specifically contrast the affairs of a city-state, where laws (nomoi) and customs exist to treat weak and powerful equally, with international disputes (en tois Hellenikois dikaiois), where the strong coerce the weak.

Demosthenes is not the only one, however, to identify the place of justice and ethics in domestic relations and their absence in interstate relations. In his Politics, Aristotle accused individuals for having double standards. While they might restrain from behaving in an unacceptable way with regard to their fellow citizens, in the case of outsiders it is a different case entirely. He wrote, "most people seem to think sheer domination is what is appropriate in the political sphere; and they are not ashamed to practice in regard to outsiders what they recognize is neither just nor expedient in their dealings with each other as individuals. For their own affairs, among themselves, they demand an authority based on justice: but in regard to outsiders justice is no concern of theirs."

Moreover, later writers have endorsed Thucydides' argument that "might makes right." Later realists, such as Machiavelli and Hobbes, agree with Thucydides that "might makes right" is an intoxicating precept for states to indulge in. Also, like Thucydides, these later realists suggest that, although Ethics has its own proper sphere within the community of a certain state, the attempt to regulate interstate relations according to similar precepts contains the risk of justifying cases of intervention in a sovereign state. To paraphrase the contemporary theorist Hans Morghenthau, the mixture or morality and foreign policy is a very dangerous one. Indeed, in the early days of the Cold War, Morgenthau disapproved of the U.S. policy to view any region or political development, no matter how far-flung or inconsequential, as a linchpin of the contested balance of power.

Throughout the Cold War period, as a result of America's zero-sum competition with the Soviet Union for the worldwide balance of power, the US justified intervention in regions such as Latin America, the Middle East, Africa, Asia, and the Mediterranean, with the objective of denying communist influence. The critical importance of interventions for American interests overrode any sense of "immorality" that American support for anti-communist and often brutally undemocratic regimes may have caused. In short, concern for the customs and privileges of civil society in the United States was often not extended to cultures and countries whose political allegiance risked to upset the Cold War bipolar balance. One need only refer to American (mis)adventures in Iran, Greece, Egypt, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Nicaragua, to name a few.

Thucydides may have been the father of a cruel realist view of international reations, but this does not mean that Thucydides himself endorsed the immorality of the international realm. Rather, if one accepts the distinction between internal and external affairs in The Peloponnesian War, it becomes clear that, when Thucydides deals with the relations of individuals within the state, he is indeed ready to make moral judgements. In his reproduction of Pericles' funeral oration, the historian does not hesitate to comment on the tragedy of the plague that befalls Athens. Furthermore, in the debate prior to the Sicillian expedition, Thucydides did not hesitate to compliment Nicias for his sense of morality, by saying that "[Nicias] had ordered his whole life by high moral standards." Of Nicias's cruel and unjust opponent Alcibiades, he wrote, "his way of life made him objectionable to everyone as a person, and thus [the Athenian people] entrusted their affairs to other hands." Finally, of the oligarchic coup that swept Athens after the exiled Alcibiades collaborated with the Persians and Spartans to dissolve democracy, Thucydides stated that democracy had been, in his experience, the best government Athens had had; its composition, of the few as well as the many, had been truly representative.

There have been, however, some misleading misinterpretations of Thucydides. For instance, Thomas Hobbes, great admirer of Thucydides, grieviously misinterpreted the historian when it suited his political interests to do so. He wrote, in fact, that the ancient historian "least of all liked democracy" and "best approved of regal government." Moreover, some classical scholars are uneasy with the conclusions that have been drawn by contemporary international relations theorists from the fifth century B.C. and the Peloponnesian War in the stark hues of the Cold War. "We have been presented lately with an up-dated version of the Thucydidean thesis that the war was the inevitable outcome of the division of the Greek world into two power blocs. In its new guise, the Thucydidean view is fortified with the weapons of modern social science. The condition that troubled the Greek world and brought on the war is discovered to the 'bipolarity.' Typically, such words are borrowed from the physical sciences to lend an air of novelty, clarity, and authority to a shopworn, vague, or erroneous idea."

Actually, while the use of Thucydidean scholarship in international relations theory is useful and accepted in the political science community, the lack of ease with which classical scholars consider such a relationship justifies the examination of realist Balance of Power precepts as derived from Thucydides. The significance of such an examination is found in the parallels that have been made between the Peloponnesian War and the Cold War, and the practical consequences of such scholarship on American diplomacy in the Cold War era with regard to the relationship between the superpower balance and regional politics in regions of contested influence.

Finally, the end of the Cold War requires a re-examination of Thucydidean scholarship and the theories of interstate behaviour which are derived from his work. Furthermore, if there is to be a new world order, the United States must recognize that the dynamics of interstate relations are constantly fluctuating. While there may be certain constants in the behaviour of states and individuals, the possibilities for interaction, cooperation, and conflict are always constant, and often present themselves in new and previously unknown forms. In this case, the study of history is only a guide, not a prescription. If the work of Thucydides is considered in these terms, it will truly be considered a possession for all time, just as the author had intended.

Alexander Kemos was a graduate student in International Relations at Harvard University.

So bottom line, we Muslims of the world, specially Sunni Muslims, need to gain strength in our individual states (development), unity and solidarity among our many different states and thus increase our collective power, only then the world will not use us as a door mat. Till then status quo will continue. By choosing to refuse the UN Security Council the Saudi govt. has shown to the world that they understand full well how the system is failing us Sunni Muslims, hopefully they will now take other strategic steps so this situation can be reversed, in the long term.

 

[airomerix]

Now thats news!

 

[Arya Desa]

At least they are men of their principal principles.

 

[gambit]

Or you might add Did the UN approved a war against Egypt - the Suez Canal crisis - or 1967 or the invasion of Lebanon?

The UN also was reluctant to move against North Korea, not until the US chose to go to war.

Then this further proved what I said earlier...That the rant against the UN regarding Syria is pointless. If the UN can be ignored by some for whatever their purposes, others can ignore the UN and its opinions and act in Syria.

 

[Yzd Khalifa]

Then this further proved what I said earlier...That the rant against the UN regarding Syria is pointless. If the UN can be ignored by some for whatever their purposes, others can ignore the UN and its opinions and act in Syria.

Yes, that's what I'm suggesting..

 

[Hashshāshīn]

Lmao. Congrats to Saudis, but I just find this hilarious. KSA promoting "international peace and security".

 

[Bhai Zakir]

Congratulations to the friend Saudi Arabia