United Nations

My calendar tells me that today is United Nations Day, and I am immediately transported to my elementary school years, when patriotism and optimism informed us of all that was good in the world.  Although I would be hard-pressed to recall who has been Secretary-General of the United Nations throughout my adult years, the name Dag Hammarskjold will always be on the tip of my tongue.  This Swedish diplomat, economist, and author was the second Secretary-General of the United Nations during the post-WWII years when we all believed in a better world.  For a child growing up in a small New Jersey town of 99% white population, his very name was other-worldly, exotic, and compelling.  Just being able to pronounce it made a second-grader feel really, really smart.  Let me just say that I can still pronounce his name.

My small school community was big on field trips.  There was always a class trip, a Safety Patrol trip, a Girl Scout trip, and other sundry trips.  Being 50 miles from New York City, the cost of sending a school bus into the Lincoln Tunnel was not prohibitive.  So I recall a few trips to the United Nations, although I don't remember much of what we did once we got there.  Maybe we just drove by?  I have a clear image of the flags in front of the building.

And then there was UNICEF.  The United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund was designed to provide long-term humanitarian and developmental assistance to children and mothers in developing countries.  A good thing, right?  I don't know if it's still being practiced, but when I was a kid, there was an incentive to Trick or Treat for UNICEF, which meant that instead of begging for candy, you would beg for money, which you would then turn over to the United Nations.  I'm sorry.  Trick or Treating was my only opportunity to hoard candy in my house, as my mother would never buy anything except those benign after-dinner jelly mints.  I needed my secret stash of candy to get me through until Christmas.  (And then it was a long stretch until the jelly beans of Easter.)  I could never imagine giving up that opportunity of collecting candy in order to help starving children.  Good try, UNICEF, but no thank you.

There's a stretch of Rt. 23 that I occasionally drive, and I always take note of a hand-made sign that says something like Get U.S. Out of the United Nations!  I do not understand this mentality, and I don't think I want to.  But apparently, there were some post-WWII children who were absent the day they told us of Dag Hammarskjold's death in a plane crash while on a peace mission in the Congo in 1961.  They are apparently unaware of his unimpeachable integrity and single-minded devotion to duty, which made him a hero in my eyes.

It's a different world today, but I am still in love with the mission of the United Nations.  Just give peace a chance.