An Open Letter to António Manuel de Oliveira Guterres

In Brief

This letter was meant to be an email, but for whatever reason, our email to Stéphane Dujarric, the Secretary General’s spokesperson, was bounced by the UN system.

uSpiked’s Editor, Mark Thomas, has hence decided to discard close communication to ensure the letter reaches the Secretary General. Our world is burning. If the institutions established by previous generations to safeguard us are failing to do the work, then they should close shop and drop the illusion.

It's all on you Mr SG, the demise is happening on your watch.

Dear Mr Secretary-General,

This letter was meant to arrive quietly (the diplomatic equivalent of a polite knock). Instead, it appears to have encountered that most modern of bureaucratic inventions: technological silence. Our emails, we are informed, could not reach your office. Whether this reflects cybersecurity vigilance or institutional allergy to criticism remains unclear.

Either way, the conversation must now occur publicly; the last refuge of those unable to penetrate official channels designed, it seems, to prevent inconvenience.

Let us not dwell on the past. Our previous correspondence with your office dates back to 2014, when you served as High Commissioner for Refugees. One hopes institutional memory is not vindictive. The United Nations, after all, was founded to resolve conflicts, not archive them indefinitely.

What concerns us is not 2014’s misunderstandings, but today’s unmistakable reality: the United Nations appears to be slowly surrendering its authority; politely, procedurally, and entirely under supervision.

You, Mr Secretary-General, are uniquely qualified to recognise this phenomenon. As a lifelong diplomat, you know institutions rarely collapse dramatically. They fade. They continue speaking long after the world stops listening.

The League of Nations provides an instructive precedent. It possessed committees, declarations, and impeccable intentions. What it lacked was consequence. History remembers not its aspirations but its irrelevance.

George Santayana warned that those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. The modern world, however, has refined this error: we remember history perfectly, and repeat it anyway.

From the vantage point of the Global South, the repetition is unmistakable.

The last world war began as a European crisis but quickly became a global sacrifice. Colonial subjects were drafted into this conflict framed as universal struggles while remaining excluded from universal decision-making. Families lost generations defending principles they had little role in defining. My own uncle Jacob was drafted to serve in the King’s Army. I personally would not be happy to see my offsprings being drafted to fight in another distant wars.

My uncle Jacob and his fellow countrymen learnt from that war, was that our colonial masters could also easily be killed. This knowledge hasten and empowered our liberation from colonial clutches. And most colonies started gaining independence.

The founding of the United Nations promised a different future. Article 1 of its Charter suggested collective security would replace selective power.

Today, that promise reads less like law and more like literature.

We are frequently told the UN requires reform. Indeed, reform has been discussed with such persistence that it now qualifies as a permanent activity rather than an achievable objective. Yet under your leadership, reform has taken on an unexpected form: the quiet normalisation of unequal urgency.

To paraphrase Orwell; whose relevance grows uncomfortable, all member states are equal, but some are evidently more equal than others.

Observe the pattern.

When crises occur in the Global South, the United Nations eventually arrives, bearing humanitarian aid and carefully balanced language. Sympathy is abundant; accountability is scarce. Relief becomes the substitute for prevention.

When mighty nations contribute to global instability, however, the organisation discovers a remarkable appreciation for nuance. Statements grow cautious. Words become negotiable. Silence acquires diplomatic sophistication.

Climate change offers a masterclass in this restraint. Environmental harm proceeds openly, commitments evaporate politely, and even acknowledging the problem becomes politically controversial. The institution tasked with safeguarding humanity responds as though consensus were more sacred than survival.

Neutrality, it seems, has evolved into selective hesitation.

Consider Gaza, where journalists were killed while the Secretariat navigated wording delicate enough to avoid political discomfort. Moral clarity was treated not as an obligation but as a reputational risk.

Then came the extraordinary events of 2026: executions in international waters, the seizure of Venezuelan oil tankers, and the kidnapping of a sitting president; acts widely described by legal scholars as violations of international law. The global referee, however, appeared reluctant to blow the whistle.

Perhaps enforcement is now optional.

And so we arrive at the present conflict involving Iran; a crisis escalating visibly while the United Nations responds with procedural modesty. One searches for decisive institutional leadership and instead finds administrative composure.

The attack on Shajareh Tayyebeh Primary School, where 175 people; mostly children, were killed, should have triggered moral outrage commensurate with tragedy. Yet the institutional response has remained so restrained that one might conclude outrage now requires geopolitical approval.

Even the UN’s own agencies like UNRWA struggle to receive robust defence when politically inconvenient. An organisation unable to defend itself inspires limited confidence in its ability to defend the world.

UN's reaction with four weeks of both wars... Member states are meant to be equal, but some members are more equal than others

The contrast with earlier crises is instructive.

During the first four weeks of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the United Nations mobilised rapidly: emergency sessions, repeated council meetings, General Assembly activation, sustained voting cycles; institutional energy at maximum capacity.

Today’s conflict, by comparison, remains classified as Level 1: Managed Tension.

Managed tension is an elegant phrase. It suggests calm oversight, rational control, and strategic patience.

It does not describe the lived reality of rising fuel costs, threatened food systems, and economic instability spreading across the Global South. For millions, “managed tension” feels indistinguishable from unmanaged consequence.

One might ask whether geography influences urgency. The UN headquarters sits comfortably in New York, close enough to power to hear whispers before they become crises. Perhaps distance dulls alarm.

Relocating the headquarters, however, would solve little. Authority is not geographical; it is moral. And moral authority erodes when principles are applied selectively.

Institutions do not lose relevance because they are criticised. They lose relevance when they become predictable; when the world knows in advance which violations will provoke action and which will produce statements.

The League of Nations continued functioning administratively long after it ceased functioning politically. Meetings were held. Documents were issued. Hope was carefully formatted.

History later called it a failure.

Mr Secretary-General, the United Nations now faces a simple but uncomfortable question:

Is it still shaping events, or merely recording them?

The world does not require perfection from its institutions. It requires courage equal to their mandate.

Until then, the United Nations risks becoming what it was created to prevent: a witness to disorder rather than its remedy.

Respectfully,
Concerned observers from the Global South