Three Songs

[This blog is the first in a 3-part series]

Part 1. A Swansong

At the end of an illustrious career comes the fireworks.  A swan’s mythically mute life, punctuated by a burst of song before expiring – a swansong.  For artists, it is a last great performance. For architects, a final, dazzling skyscraper. For political leaders, a tendency towards big stuff, name-chiseling monuments like a new highway or an airport or a pristine swath of land set aside as a national park.  Or maybe they aim for an entry in the history books of tomorrow with a constitutional amendment or a sweeping reform of education. The key ingredient of a swansong is grandeur.  On that basis, Ban Ki Moon’s World Humanitarian Summit report qualifies as a swansong.

There is ample criticism of his report (see here, or keep an eye on this space). ODI/HPG’s Christina Bennett rightly highlights some of the reasons we should read it with an open mind before fretting over its inadequacies.  At the very least, it issues a clarion plea for those in power to respect international law, and it does so in UNcharacteristically blunt fashion.  That’s another key ingredient of a swansong. Bluntness. A statement that can be recognized as such.

The third key ingredient of a swansong, and perhaps the most critical, is that it be enduring.  A new stadium fits: grand, bold, lasts for decades.  Enacting a set of gun control laws would qualify (hint to President Obama).  A visionary report, though, stutters. And that is where, even aside from its content, I have concerns for Ban Ki Moon’s swansong.

No matter how grand or blunt, a swansong must be a fait accompli; it must be built, delivered, finito. A vision functions as the epitome of an anti-swansong, because visions mark a beginning, and because visions tend to expire with the visionary. The WHS is designed not as an endpoint, but as a launch. By the time the ink dries on the conclusions reached Summit, Moon will have become a lame duck, and by the end of the year the UN will have a new top swan.

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