Magesterially Presiding

Now an elder statesman, not so long ago the ultimate diplomat-statesman as Secretary General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan has many lessons yet to honour humanity with from the depths of his acquired wisdom. His experiences at the United Nations, presiding over the collective of countries large and small, the democracies and the kingdoms, the dictatorships and the autocracies, the tribal authorities and the theocracies; he balanced them all on a tightrope of authoritative inaction.

Plenty of rhetoric, though, putting them all in their place. Almost all; much simpler to do with the advanced societies, those that put human rights on a pedestal and suffered the anguish of guilt over past indiscretions in an age when imperialism ruled the seas and the natural resources of countries too incapable of recognizing their hidden wealth, too impoverished to develop opportunities even if they did, too backwards to maintain a firm stewardship.

Those are the countries who now, at the Durban conferences, insist that the West owes them an enormous debt of recompense; for enslavement, for mining their countries of their wealth of resources, for forestalling development, for diminishing their self-regard and prospects for future enablement. Despite the colonialists have long relinquished their hold, despite the opportunities and the funding since obtained, handed over to corrupt governments.

In a courtly bow to the experience and intelligence residing within Mr. Annan, an invitation was extended from British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, representing a former colonialist power of the first order, to address the Adam Smith College, delivering its annual lecture at Kircaldy college. The courtly Mr. Annan did not disappoint, appearing before the gathering to scold and cajole, to impress upon the wealthy countries of the world their obligations of noblesse oblige to the impoverished ones.

Handily reproached over our niggardliness in providing third-world countries with ever-larger shares of the largesse representing the wealth of the world, amassed in the coffers of too-few countries which could make hand-outs available more generously, gloom descends. This is, after all, a period of international financial uncertainty, where the certainties of the marketplace and the stock markets have collapsed, with their renaissance somewhere in the dim future of hope.

Kofi Annan, who, dedicating himself to changing the structure, not the purpose of the United Nations, and in the process installing justness, fair-mindedness, and anti-corruption verities - having accomplished none of these, still lectures. Incapable of solving any of the world's outstanding issues, from Serbia to Sudan, to the Palestinian Territories, in all of which areas vicious terror reigned, he still recommends processes by which the world can be a better place.

Although his son benefited from the corruption endemic in the economic isolation of Baghdad post Desert Storm, through the oil-for-food program, no stench of ill-gotten gains blemished his record of bumbling inefficiency. When it was revealed that United Nations troops engaged in rape and plunder, this reflected not on his stewardship of the honoured institution of the United Nations, but the frailties of humankind. When Durban descended into the odious chaos of Israel-bashing, he was blameless.

"Mortgage defaults in Florida ... are linked to health services in Tanzania and Togo", he flagellated the gathering of earnest and hushed listeners. Stimulus packages enacted in a desperate move to bring countries' finances out of their dudgeon of depression, should have been matched by others meant to haul African countries out of their perennial want. "I wonder what Adam Smith would make of all this? he mused. "Maybe he would see the crisis as the consequence of failure to put economics at the service of the common good."

Oh. And then maybe not. Since commerce and particularly ruthless capitalism rarely considers the common good, focusing as it does on the bottom line. No doubt about it, the common good should be the bottom line. Ideally. Idealists are rarely industrialists nor financiers, although they do adhere to the quaint notion that wealth should be shared...generally by others, not themselves particularly.

Adam Smith himself might have put it differently, actually did do just that: "Little else is required to carry a state to the highest degree of affluence from the lowest barbarism but peace, easy taxes, and a tolerable administration of justice; all the rest being brought about by the natural course of things". Maybe, maybe not. Worth a try. Human nature being what it is, if people don't have to strive, make an effort to help themselves, just keep being given hand-outs, where's the incentive?

Especially galling to those doing the handing-out is the enrichment of NGOs, and far more so, the endless pocket-lining of corrupt governments. The tedious reality of barbaric tribalism still holding sway in Africa and the Middle East, where barbaric human-rights abuses are simply the way it is. Where peace is tenuous and often absent, and justice is on permanent vacation. That appears to be the 'natural course' of things in those areas of the world.

And has Mr. Annan, private citizen, returned to his country of birth, to aid and assist it into the 21st Century? Actually, his foundation dedicated to "global leadership, mediation and conflict resolution, advocacy and partnerships" is located in Geneva. And he, missing in action, though never reluctant to impart his learned versions of solutions to social maladies.