Kofi Annan — A Tribute

His full name is Kofi Atta Annan. Many of us have not reflect­ed on or digest­ed the role that he has played in inter­na­tion­al rela­tions, diplo­ma­cy, and world affairs since he took over lead­er­ship at the Unit­ed Nations almost nine years ago.

We looked away out of a lack of inter­est in real lead­er­ship from peo­ple of African descent, we’ve been watch­ing more hip-hop than learn­ing about the Africa we ought to know bet­ter. We have also been pushed off by talk­ing about the scan­dal at the UN.

But the Kofi Annan at the UN is the man that the world looks to for strength in today’s top­sy-turvy world. In lay­man’s terms, he is the top dog of the world, often hold­ing a frag­ile bal­ance of diplo­ma­cy to make sure the world is not blown apart by the irra­tional folks from far and near.

The “chief admin­is­tra­tor” at the UN is from Ghana, an African nation known for its gold, ancient king­doms, and Ashan­ti and Fante tribes. Ghana is the coun­try of Kwame Nkrumah, the man who cham­pi­oned Africa’s fight against colo­nial rule and helped it become the first African nation to gain inde­pen­dence from Britain in 1957.

Today, Ghana is also a mul­ti-par­ty democracy.

It’s a big deal for who­ev­er holds the role of UN chief at any time. The UN has had only sev­en Sec­re­tary Gen­er­als since its found­ing. Annan’s tenure as chief ends in Decem­ber 2006. The selec­tion process for a new Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al is often com­pared to the selec­tion of a new pope because of their similarities.

While he still has 6 months to go, the bick­er­ing has already start­ed. For­mer U.S. Pres­i­dent Bill Clin­ton is being tout­ed as a con­tender because of his diplo­mat­ic, nego­ti­a­tion skills, and con­nec­tions around the world.

If it’s the big issues of glob­al warm­ing, nuclear pro­lif­er­a­tion, ter­ror­ism, pover­ty, human rights, to the basic things of elec­tric­i­ty, san­i­ta­tion, and drink­able water, no orga­ni­za­tion does more than the UN. It is the most impor­tant orga­ni­za­tion in the world today. Every UN chief is expect­ed to play the cru­cial role of “world mod­er­a­tor” and “chief admin­is­tra­tor” at the same time. It is even so because we live in the age of the so-called axis of evil, shoe bombs, and com­put­er virus­es and there is no job as tough as to be the man the world holds account­able if things break loose.

Annan holds the tight rope the world is now walk­ing. “I am a cheer­leader, I am a pro­mot­er, I am a sales­man, I am a debt col­lec­tor, I am a father con­fes­sor,” Annan said in describ­ing his role.

Let’s look at some history.

The League of Nations was the orga­ni­za­tion that pre­ced­ed the U.N. The impe­tus to cre­ate the League came through U.S. pres­i­dent Woodrow Wil­son, even though the U.S. nev­er became a mem­ber offi­cial­ly. At the time lead­ers such as Adolf Hitler and Mus­soli­ni defied it on mat­ters of bor­der secu­ri­ty and arms con­trol. They made a mock­ery of the institution.

In the end–the League failed and the world was plunged into the most hor­rif­ic cat­a­stro­phe of all times –WWII. His­to­ri­ans have giv­en many rea­sons for why the League col­lapsed. One of them is a lack of leadership.

Lack­ing lead­er­ship meant that, as an orga­ni­za­tion, the League lacked the vision that was need­ed to effect change which elud­ed the dic­ta­tors and tyrants at the time.

The U.N. which Annan now leads came into being on Octo­ber 24th, 1945 after a meet­ing of 50 nations held in San Fran­cis­co, Cal­i­for­nia. That was imme­di­ate­ly fol­low­ing WWII.

Today, it oper­ates through var­i­ous organs that include the UNDP, UNICEF, the IAEA, WHO, UNHCR, and oth­ers. Since 1945, the U.N. has been through many crises. Some, like the Kore­an and Viet­nam wars, explod­ed. Oth­ers, such as Kash­mir, and the Israeli-Pales­tin­ian con­flicts, have lin­gered, and remain tense or fragile.

Yes­ter­day-it was Asian earth­quakes and Tsumani. Today, it is the bird flu and the HIV/AIDS pan­dem­ic that he has to deal it. Tomor­row, no one knows. If the Iraq war put the UN to a real test, then the cur­rent con­tentions with Iran have cre­at­ed a mon­u­men­tal chal­lenge for it.

Annan is part of the UN’s brain thrust and togeth­er with 191 mem­ber nations, helps it with crit­i­cal think­ing and analy­sis about what to do and not do in mat­ters of war and peace.

The UN is not a coun­try it itself. Like the defunct League of Nations, it does not have an army. The UN is an enti­ty of choice with every mem­ber vol­un­tar­i­ly becom­ing part of it out of shared inter­ests. It is bound­ed by set norms, guide­lines, and agree­ments. But we live in times when it can­not afford to be seen as a failure.

The US is the largest con­trib­u­tor to the UN-basi­cal­ly con­tribut­ing about a third of its bud­get. These con­tri­bu­tions are dol­lars from every US tax­pay­er. The US likes to hold the UN account­able, accord­ing to mem­bers of the US con­gress. The UN head­quar­ters is locat­ed in New York. The Gen­er­al Assem­bly, the year­ly meet­ing of all 191 mem­bers of the body meets every Decem­ber at its New York Head­quar­ters. Besides the 5 per­ma­nent mem­bers of the Secu­ri­ty Coun­cil; the US, Chi­na, Rus­sia, Great Britain, France, and Ger­many, there is a rotat­ing mem­ber­ship of the council.

Here- every mem­ber nation is giv­en a shared respon­si­bil­i­ty and oppor­tu­ni­ty to par­tic­i­pate and make an impact on the very small­est to the tough­est of deci­sions. The UN has its own radio and TV unit and oth­er media to cre­ate and dis­sem­i­nate information.

The man from Ghana is the face of the UN, to ene­mies and foes alike. He is also the face of Africa to the world. We have seen his pic­ture for many years in the major mag­a­zines that cel­e­brate black cul­ture and his­to­ry. He was born and raised in a con­ti­nent many of his admir­ers still dream to vis­it. He is often calm under pres­sure, like in the oil-for-food deba­cle involv­ing his son Kojo. He is also very thought­ful such as dur­ing his May 2006 News­mak­er inter­view with Jim Lehrer on PBS.

Dur­ing the inter­view, Annan was method­i­cal in his answers about where he wants to lead the UN in this day and age.

He demon­strat­ed what diplo­mats are made of–patience. He said his vision was to see diplo­ma­cy take its course on many of the press­ing inter­na­tion­al mat­ters of the moment in response to ques­tions about Iran and rela­tions between the UN and the US.

At the top of his agen­da, he said, are reforms, meant to reflect the chang­ing dynam­ics of the world today. Oth­er ques­tions includ­ed the sit­u­a­tion in Chad and Sudan. It was talk­ing about what the Africa Union(AU) was going to do with the Sudan cri­sis.  Annan laud­ed the role that the AU was play­ing to bring peace in Dar­fur. He men­tioned the involve­ment of for­mer OAU chair Sal­im Ahmed Sal­im, Nige­ri­a’s pres­i­dent Obasan­jo and cur­rent AU chair Denise Sas­sou Ngues­so in bring­ing the war­ring fac­tions in Sudan to the peace table. Days after­ward, a peace deal was announced in Sudan.

He is an inspi­ra­tion to many young peo­ple around the world. He gave the May 2006 com­mence­ment address at George Wash­ing­ton Uni­ver­si­ty in D.C. He received thun­der­ous applause after his speech about the role of the UN in the world. One of the under­grad stu­dents in Inter­na­tion­al Relations–speaking on behalf of her fel­low graduates–said they want­ed to walk in the foot­steps of Annan.

He is a career UN offi­cer who got his start at the UN in 1962. He has been Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al since Jan­u­ary 1997.

After the com­ple­tion of his first term in Jan­u­ary 2002, mem­ber nations of the UN were impressed with his per­for­mance and decid­ed to keep him for a sec­ond term. He is the only UN chief ever to have come from with­in the ranks of the UN. Annan basi­cal­ly worked his way to be UN chief, after oth­er posi­tions such as an Admin­is­tra­tor, Bud­get Offi­cer, and Under-Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al. As part of his job, Annan has to run around and meet with oth­er lead­ers-many of whom may not like the idea of peace with their neigh­bors. He con­tin­ues to work around the clock as UN chief to get every­one to the com­mu­nion table.

He is a grey-haired black man, born and raised in Ghana. He attend­ed col­lege in Ghana, Switzer­land, and the US. The only oth­er African to have been Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al was Boutros Boutros-Ghali from Egypt.

At 68-he the father of three. Cur­rent­ly, he is mar­ried to Nane Maria Annan, a Swedish lawyer, and artist. He was pre­vi­ous­ly mar­ried to a Niger­ian, Titi Alakija.

Back in Ghana where he was born a man of his stature ‑in a posi­tion to be UN chief-gets a red feath­er in his hat. It is a sign that he not only holds an esteemed lead­er­ship role in the community–but that the wis­dom of the ances­tors guides his dai­ly delib­er­a­tions and decisions.

Annan was born to Hen­ry Regi­nald and Vic­to­ria Annan in the Kofan­dros sec­tion of Kumasi in Ghana. In the Akan tra­di­tion-his name sig­ni­fies the day of the week he was born and his posi­tion in the fam­i­ly. He was born on a Fri­day and is the fourth child in the fam­i­ly. He is also a twin(Atta in Fante) and that is seen as spe­cial in Ghana. His fam­i­ly is part of an elite cir­cle; his grand­fa­thers were chiefs and his father worked as an export man­ag­er for the Lever Broth­ers Cocoa com­pa­ny and lat­er became Gov­er­nor of the Ashan­ti province of Ghana.

In Ghana, there is the Kofi Annan Inter­na­tion­al Peace Keep­ing Train­ing Cen­ter is named after him. Annan him­self helped com­mis­sion the cen­ter in 1998 after it was approved by the Ghana Min­istry of Defence.

His accom­plish­ment is unique for some­one with his back­ground. It’s not only work­ing dili­gent­ly with­in the world body, it is help­ing the UN define itself and its role in the 21st cen­tu­ry. In 2001, Annan, togeth­er with the entire UN– won the Nobel Prize for Peace. It was an acknowl­edg­ment of the UN’s role “for a bet­ter orga­nized and more peace­ful world.”

He’s been under a lot of fire and lots of heat too- about the inad­e­qua­cies of the UN and its inabil­i­ty to func­tion. We all thought he would be pres­sured to quit pre­ma­ture­ly in 2005. Annan is hang­ing in there and seems deter­mined to serve out his full term.