Today is the International Day Of Hope. There is too much bad news in the world. The 24/7 news cycle only helps to increase this impression. The idea of this day is to promote the simple idea that there is a way out of the problems we have.
Nothing binding in this. Governments around the world are invited to promote peace, tolerance and respect at a national and international level. They should encourage forgiveness and compassion between individuals. All of this is voluntary and is not expected to cost any money. Sounds reasonable.
In a sense, this is the perfect sort of thing for the United Nations. Countries are constantly at loggerheads with each other over direct specific contentions, or merely generalised differences of opinion over certain matters. Every so often, somebody – in this case, the UN Ambassador of Kiribati – comes up with an idea that is not controversial. Something that everybody can agree about, especially if they are not expected to actually do anything. Then they can all pat themselves on the back and feel they have actually done something to bring us all closer together. Just for a day.
So it was that UN resolution A/79/L.54 was passed with a huge majority, 161 countries voting in favour.
One single, solitary country decided to vote against a day of hope and all that it entails. I won’t name the country, to spare them any further embarrassment.
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