Translated by Alessandra Fumagalli
The Charter of the United States, signed on 26 June 1945, is a crucial document for the international history. It represents the first step towards the global recovery from the II World War disasters, the UN was founded to prevent future conflicts, promote international cooperation and guarantee the peace. Since the beginning, the new born organization had to face important challenges, being the essential point of reference for the global diplomacy and the creation of institutions, aiming at economic and social reconstruction.
The UN Resolution 181, signed by the General Assembly in 1947, created the State of Israel; the UN Resolution 83 signed by the Security Council in 1950 supported the military intervention in the Korea War. The United Nations Organizations has always tried to ply a central role in the mediation of international conflicts. These events marked the UN history, underlining its aim to promote peace and global security, in a world full of divisions.
However, despite the progresses in the democratization of lots of Western countries, the UN wasn’t able to solve the protracted conflict at all. These conflicts are causing big human losses and irreversible disasters, as it has been shown by the events in the Gaza’s Strip. UN Resolution 2735, signed in 2024 to ask a ceasefire in the Gaza’s Strip, haven’t produced the expected results, as it has been seen by the thousands of deaths, among which lots of children.
Simultaneously, the North Korea and South Korea tensions is growing; Pyongyang made some streets near the border with explode, and Seul launched some warning bombs. These events highlight that, despite the UN’s engagement, the geopolitical difficulties are a sad contemporaneous reality, revealing the international institution’s limits of facing complex dynamics in the modern world.
Multilateralism crisis and the current polarization
With the increasing tensions in the East Europe and Middle East and the North and South’s differences, a renovation of the multilateral institutions to face these challenges becomes more urgent. This failure undermines the inabiliti of lots of international bodies to face the current crisis.
This year, the UN General Assembly focused on such conflicts like Ukraine war and Middle East issues, and it mirrors a divided world. The 79th session of the United Nations General Assembly, the main global leaders, like Vladimir Putin e Xi Jinping, weren’t there; the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and the Israeli First Minister Benjamin Netanyahu discussed their positions about the ongoing conflicts. Netanyahu, in particular, had to reduce its presence, due to the escalation of Lebanon’s conflicts.
Global fragmentation goes beyond the UN, because it involves also social medias, which have become a virtual battlefield among factions pro or against Israel and Palestine. The ability to influence and move the population through the social medias has become extremely important in the current conflicts. The use of strategical visive and narrative contents enables both part to give their points of view and obtain approvals. In this new informative panorama, soft power is more efficient than military force. However, the inability of international institutions to intervene efficiently increases the skepticism towards the multilateralism and its abilities to mediate.
The soft power, which is the ability to influence peacefully, plays a fundamental role: Hamas and Houthi, for example, have adopted creative media strategies to spread their messages. For example, viral videos on TikTok contribute to give an image of resilience and strength. Rashid al Haddad, Yemenite influencer, had success due to the share of contents, which show a more human version of the fights, attracting international public’s attentions.
On the other hand, Israel started a campaign on the social media, trying to sensitize public opinion about its point of view through images and videos. However, pro-Palestine contents are increasing and outdoing Israel’s ones. Hashtags like #FreePalestine have lots of posts, while #StandWithIsrael have only a small amount of supporters. These differences highlight an increasing polarization, where social media reflect public opinions, fostering supporters’ factions.
Through a renovation of international institutions
UN adopted the Pact of Future, which aims at reforming the international institutions to make them more representative and efficient. The Pact wants to renew the Council of Security, improving its efficiency and representativity, in particular wants to correct the minorities of Africa, Asia, Pacific-Asia and Latin America. This is a fundamental step, but the Pact is not bonding, therefore it raises doubts about the actual ability of implementation of the proposed measures.
In a such divided world, the international institutions must face the challenge to renovate themselves, in order to act efficiently to the conflicts and global crisis. Opinion’s polarization, due to the social media, and the political fragmentation at an international level weaken the action. The Pact of Future is an important attempt to invert this tendency, but, in order to be efficient, a concrete engagement of the government and the faith in multilateralism is necessary.
Mondo Internazionale APS - Riproduzione Riservata ® 2024
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L'Autore
Pietro Russo
Tag
UnitedNations soft power SocialMedia Multilateralism Israel-Palestine conflict Pact for Future UN Reform