Alyan Kurdi is Not Alive Because the United Nations is Dead

"Alyan Kurdi did not die. He was killed. He was not alone. Humanity died a thousand deaths alongside, on that beach in Bordum in Turkey. The accused include superpowers backing tin-pot dictators, Arabs who have done too little, regimes that nurtured and funded fundamentalism, and those which have engineered the idea of non-state actors and fund them. The tragedy-eloquently articulated by Nilufer Demir's photograph of Alyan-exposes the leadership of the world order as amoral spectators. The imperative for moral action is challenged by expediency for seemingly moral inaction.

Nobody quite knows who is fighting whom for whom in Syria. What is known is that precious little has been done to stop the fighting. Since 2011, over 11 million Syrians-roughly half the population of Australia-have fled the country. The Kurdi family, of which three are dead, was one of them. The failure of the United Nations is stark. If it is not dead, it is definitely paralysed.

The Preamble of the United Nations, 'We the Peoples of the United Nations', states the determination 'to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war', 'to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights'. On the floors of the UN Plaza, though piety yields to politics, conviction on issues is defined by convenience.

The power, and ergo the rot, is located in the Security Council. For four years, the members have ensured that the council is paralysed by process. It doesn't seem to matter that children and women are being killed every hour-more than 250,000 people have been killed in Syria and more than half the population displaced.

The Security Council Reports on the country represent institutional impotence-use of chemical weapons on civilians has only been 'condemned' and a resolution to refer allegations of war crimes to the International Criminal Court is vetoed...

The scale and complexity of the challenge are unprecedented. There will be refugees from war, from violence, from persecution, from climate change and from poverty. The emerging spectre needs a modern institution. The League of Nations was wound up less than two decades after it was set up-post its failure to prevent World War II. Going by the track record of flops, the United Nations (established in 1945) has survived way past its expiry date..."