Silence of the Lambs:The Mute Heroes Arefi1
Bayview Secondary
The Silence of the Lambs : The Mute Heroes
The Silence and Ineffectiveness of the United Nations Against Human Rights Violations
Asal Arefi
CLN4U-02
S.Heim
Friday, June 1, 2018
Silence of the Lambs:The Mute Heroes Arefi2
On January 1, 2018, the United Nations celebrated their 76th anniversary of international failure.
In a reflection of the state of the world, the security council, which is responsible for the maintenance of
international peace is busier than ever. Years ago, the council met for short hours once or twice a week —
these days the meetings take all day and run through nights and weekends. Overworked diplomats discuss
the never-ending agenda of crises, from the Myanmar genocides to the Tiananmen protests; the long list
of meetings demonstrates the council’s energy and attempts in addressing the varied factors behind
modern conflicts(The Guardian, 2016) — yet it does not take a politician or diplomat to see that
insecurity and fear in the United Nations is spreading like wildfire. Ultimately, the United Nations is the
world’s primary institution to deal with international conflicts, wars and global atrocities, and quite
frankly it is not working. Conflicts are getting more complicated with the existence organizations such as
the Islamic State and discriminatory genocides, and the failure of the United Nations has been proven
through a constant inability to protect the human rights of victimized states. The United Nations has
evidently portrayed a strong sense of weakness as they remain silent through international catastrophes
such as the corruption of governments, civil wars and the exploitation of impoverished countries. The
council was primarily designed to prevent and arbitrate state-to-state conflicts, and it is the failure to adapt
to an entirely different world in which all issues begin in local areas and expand into global wars where
the UN commences their utter unsuccess. If the international community does not take notice of the chaos
of the United Nations, the UN will collapse into nonexistence, much as the League of Nations fell in its
day.
Countries are turning on their own citizens, and the United Nations is a voiceless mediator against
the catastrophic events taking place. In the case of Myanmar, previously known as Burma, the United
Nations official in charge of investigating the Myanmar crackdown against the Rohingya Muslims states
that she is “increasingly convinced it amounts to a genocide” (Bard, 2018). More than 680,000 Rohingya
Muslims have fled from the Buddhist majority Myanmar to the neighbouring country Bangladesh since
Silence of the Lambs:The Mute Heroes Arefi3
the August of 2017, bringing with them tales of horror and stories of mass murder and destruction;
however Myanmar denies all charges and states its military has only targeted suspected terrorists that
killed twelve security officials in late August (Bard, 2018). By January of 2018, ...
