Today (13), it was reported that the United States, as well as Israel, had decided to leave UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) after 6 years of non-payment of contributions. Russian Sputnik columnist Dmitry Kosyrev tries to "understand the logic" of this step.
Since yesterday afternoon, many official figures have expressed their sorrow over the US decision. As for unofficial statements, there were even stronger words - so the head of the Federation Council's International Affairs Committee, Konstantin Kosachev, said that the US is behaving as if it were a "pariah country" ".
"But let's just imagine that we support Trump and the US wholeheartedly and we want it to work out for them, and let's try to detect the logic behind that decision, or the signal they're trying to send us," writes the journalist.
Can you do without them?
First, the journalist clarifies what UNESCO is: an organization that protects cultural monuments, finances their maintenance, creates humanitarian cooperation programs between countries, and so on.
"His reputation is impeccable. Of all the legitimate children of the UN, this is perhaps the best and the most efficient," says Kosyrev.
However, the journalist stresses that UNESCO, ie the UN member states, "often offend Israel", a friend and US ally.
"Anyway, talking about the resolutions that the Temple Mount in Jerusalem serves as a sanctuary for Muslims alone is a confrontational stance. Mount, in some sense, is also significant for Jews and Christians," he said.
Incidentally, Kosyrev points out, the American exit from UNESCO was formally motivated by the fact that Israel "was offended" within that institution.
"Well, contrary positions are evident, there are two truths and one conflict, and it exists far beyond UNESCO, in fact, it has a global dimension and is very significant for the United States, because it deals with its relations with the enormous Muslim world, "he continues.
During this conflict, in 2011 the United States undertook a démarche, that is, they stopped paying contributions to UNESCO. This, in the opinion of the journalist, was a "strong move." If you leave UNESCO until it corrects itself, "if you reform", it is a "weak play".
"It is weak because the organization spent 6 years without the US contributions, so now the US exit will not create any financial or technical difficulties. Output is a one-time weapon that, once fired once, no longer The world will finally become accustomed to the fact that the United States is not in UNESCO and that no one has suffered from it, that is, if it can happen without the US, "he summed up.
Not even with the whole door can you hit
The journalist continues that in history there seem to be analogies. For example, the departure from Russia of the APCE (Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe). But then the situation was a bit different, for these two bodies have nothing to do with each other, this being a simple discussion club.
The UN founding concept is totally different, says the columnist. It consists in that in the UN all are not only equal, but are part of it soon "at birth". In it one is not accepted according to the principle "serves or does not serve", because a State is member simply because it exists.
"It is true that there are problems with unrecognized countries or two candidates for the same sovereignty (such as China and Taiwan), but they are resolvable," Kosyrev said.
Knocking on the door in this organization is worse for those who do, says the columnist. This has already happened to the USSR in 1950, when the country left all UN institutions because of numerous contradictions regarding the Korean peninsula, China and its participation in the UN and many other issues. The United States was then able to intervene in Korean affairs under UN auspices.
"This lesson has been learned," says the columnist, and stresses that since then Russia has never tried to abandon its structures as well as all other countries in the world.
They warn us, but we are not afraid
"If the administration of Donald Trump is actually sending a signal through the current démarche with UNESCO, then it is about 'such a UN does not fit for the US.' All of it, not just one of the structures of the organization, if this is so, we can leave the UN, we are like this.This, in general, is very typical of the United States of the old failed superpower era - to say that if 'the United States does not benefit from the UN', and not only the UN, then it is of no use ", explains the columnist.
But the time when the world could be obeyed through such acts has passed, Kosyrev believes. In the old days, yes, before the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 there was a unipolar world in which the UN was a "shop" of the Americans that was supposed to make a profit.
But now it is too late, because in the event of a UN collapse, there will be "two worlds - the West and the non-West." However, there are already a lot of alternative organizations to communicate within you. However, they would still need to communicate between them, too, on a "neutral platform where all, at least formally, are equal."
In Kosyrev's view, the UN is precisely this platform.
"But for all this, what remains for the United States and for all the other discontents with which there is no world in the world and there will never be unanimity is to be angry in a corner in the shade. ... I promised to detect a logic and the rational signal that the US tried to send us with its departure from UNESCO. There is no logic, just delirium, "he emphasized.
