Kofi Annan (1938–2018)

This book is part biography, and part the story of the UN over the last few decades. As a biography, it confirms what most of us already knew: viz that Kofi Annan is a thoroughly decent chap who guided the UN through extremely difficult times when, under a lesser leader, it might have degenerated into an irrelevant dinosaur of an organisation. As a history of the UN, it shows the interesting way in which America has taken Europe's role as the bossy boots of the World.

Look back on the history of the World through the period from the sixteenth to the mid twentieth century and you will find Europe educating the poor savages of Africa, America, Australia and Asia at the barrel end of a gun. There was a genuine belief that domination by mainly Britain, France or Russia, with a little help from Spain, Portugal and Germany, would civilise the ignorant savages of other continents. Too late, we have realised the error of our ways and now, we do not have the power to stand up to the United States who, having once been in the strange place of part exerting and part suffering this patronising oppression, now dish it out with gay abandon.

Nobody can really believe that the Western Alliance had authority to invade Iraq, or that the many thousands of deaths have achieved any increase in World security. Guantanamo Bay and the overt use of torture by America but with implicit British agreement was, and still is, an absolute disgrace: and I say that as a supporter of Tony Blair! Kofi does not take sides, he tries to build bridges, even whilst being steam-rollered by those who see no one's view but their own. I was not there when these decisions were made so, I can only read the account of George Bush, Tony Blair and Kofi Annan and give credence to the most believable version. To my mind, this is it. For that alone, this book is well worth reading - and there is so much more.… (mere)