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From the Editor

Mouths Platitudes

by Judi McLeod

September 16, 2004

In bobble head style, the words that best describe UN Secretary General Kofi annan could be "Mouths Platitudes". NewsMax.com or WorldNetDaily.com could make a fortune with the annan bobble head by including it on their cybershops.

annan mouths endless platitudes but takes little action. The machete deaths of Rwanda went down under his watch, and then there are the UN boss’s empty words on Sudan’s Darfur region.

So when the UN sends out another one of its countless communiqués reporting that "annan urges respect, and not narrow `tolerance’ for different faiths and cultures, who but the terminally naïve could ever believe him?

"If people of different faiths and cultures are to rebuild trust and confidence again after tensions caused by conflicts and acts of terrorism, then they must actively learn about and respect the beliefs and traditions of each other–and not just grudgingly accept them," annan said Tuesday.

There were no apparent signs of frustration from congregates when annan told the annual inter-faith service of commitment to the UN’s work, held at St. Bartholomew’s Church in New York, attended by representatives of more than 20 faiths all about intolerance.

Guess the clergy save their fire and brimstone passion for the Sunday pulpit.

"Tolerance cannot just be a grudging forbearance of other people’s differences," annan said. "Tolerance is not just a synonym for `putting up with’ other people’s perceived peculiarities."

The Secretary-General stressed that suspicion and prejudice between cultures can only be overcome when there is "an active effort to learn more about each other, to understand the wellsprings of those differences, and to discover what is best in each other’s beliefs and traditions."

Saying things, of course is not the same as living them.

at a separate service at New York’s Holy Family Church the same evening, annan offered his prayers for peace and the UN to be as effective an instrument as it can be in the year ahead.

The Secretary-General listed the continuing turmoil in Iraq at the top of the list, the humanitarian and security crisis in Sudan’s Darfur region, acts of terrorism, the scourge of HIV/aIDS, armed conflict, human rights violations, disease and extreme poverty as some of the biggest challenges facing the world today.

Just two weeks after the tragedy, annan mentioned nothing specific about the children of Beslan, and three days later, nothing specific about the deaths claimed by 9/11.

Paying lip service to the "biggest challenges facing the world today" falls within the talk-is-cheap theory.

Lip service, no matter how eloquently put, can never solve mounting global intolerance for religious groups, or racism.

annan could take lessons from Bashy Quraishy, chairman of the European Network against Racism, who says, "There have been a lot of beautiful words, but we want to know what the politicians are going to do."

Meanwhile, there’s never been a better time for a Kofi annan bobble head, emblazoned with the words, "Mouths Platitudes".

Canada Free Press founding editor Most recent by Judi McLeod is an award-winning journalist with 30 years experience in the print media. Her work has appeared on Newsmax.com, Drudge Report, Foxnews.com, Glenn Beck. Judi can be reached at: judi@canadafreepress.com


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