• by Haider Rizvi (united nations)
• Wednesday, September 23, 2009
• Inter Press Service

Is the United States willing to give up its role as the world's most powerful cop? The message delivered by U.S. President Barack Obama to the U.N. General Assembly suggests that it's quite likely.

'Democracy cannot be imposed on any nation from the outside,' Obama told world leaders at the 192-member Assembly's 64th session, which commenced here at the world body's headquarters in New York Tuesday.

'Each society must search for its path, and no path is perfect. Each country will pursue a path rooted in the culture of its people, and in the past,' he said, amid loud applause from the audience comprising more than 100 heads of state and government.

Addressing the General Assembly, Obama made it clear that he would tread a different path regarding his country's role in world affairs and that his administration was ready to embrace multilateralism in order to address crucial issues facing the world.

'The time has come for the world to move in a new direction. We must move in a new era of engagement based on mutual interests and mutual respect, and our work must begin now,' he said, acknowledging the fact that in the past the U.S. has 'acted unilaterally'.

That anti-U.S. sentiment has also served as 'an excuse for our collective inaction', he added.

'This body has often become a forum for playing politics and exploiting grievances rather than solving problems,' Obama said. 'After all, it is easy to walk up to this podium and to point fingers and stoke divisions.'

In his speech, Obama, who is a former professor of U.S. constitutional law, criticised the world body's General Assembly for devoting more time during the annual debate to 'bickering' rather than being pro-active to solve crucial issues at hand.

'Nothing is easier than blaming others for our troubles,' he said. 'Anyone can do that... In an era when our destiny is shared, power is no longer a zero-sum game. No one nation can or should try to dominate other nation.'

In Obama's view, the traditional division between nations of the south and north makes no sense in 'an interconnected world, nor do alignments of nations rooted in the cleavages of a long gone cold war.' . Though pleased with the fact that the new U.S. leader's willingness to act differently, many leaders from the developing countries who spoke before the General Assembly offered different views on crucial issues facing the world and called for specific actions.

In his address to the General Assembly, for example, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula Da Silva reiterated calls for U.N. reforms and changes in the structural functioning of the world's leading financial institutions, such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF),

Obama was also silent about the issue of U.N. reforms while Lula and many other leaders faulted the countries who spoke before the General Assembly and made their case in including the lingering financial crisis, the dangers of nuclear proliferation, the threat of climate change, and regional conflicts.

© Inter Press Service (2009) — All Rights Reserved. Original source: Inter Press Service

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