explanation, 'your Rhoda assures me that she's going into this with her eyes open.'
Tom knew how much stock Rhoda put in Cohen's opinions but he didn't much care for being talked about when he wasn't around to defend himself, and he wasn't at all sure he liked the scrutiny Cohen had apparently placed on their plans. Nonetheless, he decided to hold his tongue. He would soon be glad he did.
'Speaking of going into things with your eyes open,' Cohen said, 'Tom, I have a wedding gift for you. Actually, it's not from me. I was told to give you this when I first found you under the rubble. The exact timing was left up to me, and, I guess this seems like as good a time as any.' Cohen came close to Tom, reached out his hand, and placed it over Tom's eyes. 'Not through any power of my own,' Cohen said, before Tom could even figure out what was going on, 'but in the name, and through the power of Messiah Yeshua: open your eyes and see.'
Two weeks later – New York
British Ambassador Jon Hansen was widely applauded as he approached the speaker's dais at the United Nations General Assembly. His speech would be translated simultaneously into Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian and Spanish, which together with English are the six official languages of the United Nations. Twice before Hansen had spoken on the subject of reorganizing the U.N. Security Council, but this time there was no doubt that the plea would be made in earnest.
Over the preceding three weeks Decker had spent countless hours working on this speech: writing drafts, condensing, expanding, adding, deleting, polishing, and working with linguists to ensure that the words spoken in English would have the proper impact when translated into the other official languages. What Hansen was about to propose would involve a major restructuring of the United Nations; his words would have to be both clearly understood and thoroughly compelling.
The message of Hansen's address was not unexpected. The press was out in force to cover the address and the seconding speeches. There was still no guarantee of getting the two-thirds vote necessary to carry the motion; too many nations would not make a commitment before the actual vote.
What made it possible now that Hansen's motion might actually pass, when before it had not been taken seriously, were the recent events in Russia. The nuclear holocaust had reduced the Russian Federation to a mere specter. Even the name was threatened as survivors in one federated region after another emerged from the rubble and declared themselves independent republics – much as had happened when the Russian Federation's predecessor, the U.S.S.R., fell apart decades before. Those were the lucky ones; in some parts of Russia there were not enough survivors to even worry about things political.
The world had been a much different place on October 24, 1945, when the United Nations officially came into being. The Second World War had just ended, and the victors – the United States, Great Britain, France, the Soviet Union, and China – made up the major powers of the world and so had established themselves as the 'Big Five,' giving themselves permanent member status and veto power in the United Nations Security Council. Since that time Britain had divested herself of her colonies and though influential, remained great only in name. She would trade her power on the Security Council for temporary control of the Secretariat under Hansen and the opportunity to direct the U.N.'s reorganization. 'It is better to trade away now what might well be taken tomorrow,' Hansen had told the British Parliament. Britain knew that the evolution of the U.N. was unstoppable. Guiding that evolution was a responsibility for which Britain felt itself uniquely qualified.
France, never truly an economic world power after World War II and ever the libertine, had turned to neo- isolationism and so had voluntarily surrendered her position as a world leader. She would not, however, so willingly surrender her power. Even as Hansen spoke, France lobbied other members to vote against the measure. China was an anomaly. Despite being one of the poorest countries, it remained a world power, if only because of its military strength and its enormous population. Because of its size, China alone of the five original Security Council members would be guaranteed a seat on the reorganized Council. Nonetheless, China would oppose the measure because its power would be diluted by half in the proposed ten member council. Her great size would make little difference in the General Assembly. Concessions made two years earlier had removed veto power of the Big Five over amending the U.N. Charter. China, like the tiniest of countries, would have only one vote. The Russian Federation, though it would protest loudly, certainly no longer had legitimate claim to permanent status on the Security Council or to veto power over its actions.
Only the United States could truly claim a right to permanent status based on its position as a world power. Yet in a very real sense, this proposal might be seen as a logical next step toward the 'New World Order' first proposed by former U.S. President George Bush, and it appeared to have the support of, if not a majority, then at least a large and vocal minority of American citizens as well as a majority of those in Congress. The U.S. would not stand in the way of reorganization if that is what the members of the United Nations wanted.
Hansen's proposal would eliminate the permanent positions of the 'Big Five' and instead structure a newly defined Security Council around representatives of each often major regions of the world. The details would have to be worked out by all member nations, but it was expected that these regions would include North America; South America; Europe and Iceland; Eastern Africa; Western Africa; the Middle East; the Indian subcontinent; Northern Asia; China; and the nations of Asia's Pacific basin from Japan and Korea, down to New Guinea, along with Australia, and New Zealand. Each region would have one voting member and one alternate member on the Security Council.
As he stood before the great assembly of nations, about to give the most important speech of his life, Hansen was running on adrenalin. He had spent night and day for the past several weeks lobbying for approval. Now was the moment for show business, but immediately afterward the lobbying and arm twisting would continue anew. Hansen came to the speaker's lectern and began.
'My fellow Delegates and citizens of the world: I come to you today as the Ambassador of an empire now divested of all her colonies. I say that not with regret; but with pride. Pride that over time we have grown to recognize the rights of sovereign peoples to set their own course in the history of the earth. Pride that my beloved Britain, though she will bear a great cost at its passage, has placed justice ahead of power and has authorized the introduction and the support of this motion.
'For more than sixty years since the foundation of this august body, five countries, Great Britain among them, have held sway over the other nations of the world. Today the history of nations has come to a new path.
'A new path – not a destination; for there is no stopping.
'A new path – not to a crossroads; for in truth there is no other way that just and reasonable men and women may choose.
'A new path – not a detour; for the path we were on has taken us as far as it will go.
'A new path – not a dead-end; for there can be no going back.
'It is the most tragic of situations that has brought us so abruptly to this point in history, and yet, were it not so we would have reached it still. From the first days of the United Nations, it has always been the visionaries' dream that one day all nations would stand as equals in this body. We have come too far toward that dream to refuse now to continue the advance toward its fulfillment.
The time has come for all peoples of the world to put off the shackles of the past. The day of the empire is gone, and just as certainly the day of subservience to those bom of power must also come to an end. Justice is not found in the rule of those who consider themselves our betters, but from the common will of peers. The greatness of nations comes not from the superiority of their armaments, but from their willingness to allow and aid the greatness of others.'
Decker listened closely, anticipating the pauses and hoping for the applause he expected each line would draw. Although at the U.N. the timing of applause can sometimes be embarrassingly delayed by the translation to another language, Decker was not disappointed. Clearly the motion would do well.
In the end, the vote turned, as history so often does, on an ironic twist of fate. Sixty years before, the Soviet Union had insisted that two of her states, the Byelorussian S.S.R. and the Ukrainian S.S.R., be granted admission to the General Assembly with the full rights of sovereign nations. At the time it had been a way for the U.S.S.R. to gain two extra votes in the General Assembly. Today the independent Ukraine cast the deciding vote to expropriate Russia's seat on the Security Council. The motion passed.
One week later
