Dag Hammerskjoeld

By Thomas Pilscheur

. If at long last, the recognition of human dignity means to give others freedom from fear (of aggression), then that recognition cannot be simply a question of passive acceptance. It is the question of positive action that must be taken in order to kill fear.. It is when we all play safe, that we create a world of the utmost insecurity. It is when we all play safe, that fatality will lead us to our doom. It is in the dark shade of courage only, that the spell can be broken.(1) These words, pronounced by the second UN Secretary General, Dag Hammerskjoeld, during a speech at the occasion of the 180th Anniversary of the Virginia Declaration of Human Rights some 55 years ago, do ring just too appropriate a clarion call to assertive action in defense of peace and human rights after terror and the war on terror alike have seemingly ruined the prospects for progress in world affairs during the first decade of the millennium - after so much hope had been generated with the end of the Cold War not much more than just ten years earlier. Hammerskjoeld, who seems to have fallen victim to an assassination plot when his plane crashed at the height of the Kongo-crisis on September 18th 1961 (2), was an infatiguable warrior for peace, who excelled at factual analysis of complex political situations as at diplomatic skills alike. In his spirit of complete devotion to the cause of international justice, equal economic opportunity for all and freedom from suppression as embodied in the Charter of the United Nations and the UN Declaration of Human Rights, he set a shining example for what the term International Civil Servant could mean. In this he has set a new standard and at the same time continued his familys tradition devoted to principled service to the Swedish kings with his father becoming prime minister during the first World War without having joint any political party ever in his life. Hjalmar Hammerskjoeld, not only in his capacity as the highest ranking politician of his country but as legal professional as well already formulated the vision for an international common law at the beginning of the last century, a concept for whose acceptance his son later would fight for as the Secretary General of the UN. Dag was a resilient, hard working realist with deep rooted idealism in his heart, which gave him strength and faith to believe in the possibility to achieve reconciliation among the seemingly most haplessly torn apart factions and to set out to work for it accordingly. And that with amazing results as shown for example in the diffusion of the Suez-crisis during his first term in office when his personal efforts reconciled the stubbornly egotistic positions of Ben Gurion and Nasser, thus thwarting the hope of post-colonial France and England to occupy the Suez canal by military invasion and to thus bring it under their own control. Under his stewardship the overall organization of the UN, its influence and clout was profoundly changed. It grew from its teethless predecessor, the League of Nations with just eleven members, to a true world body with tens of new member states joining each year during his tenure and that after his predecessor, the former Norwegian foreign minister and first Secretary General, Trygve Lie, had almost doomed the UNs future by giving in to the political pressures exerted by the Western member states, especially under the onslaught of McCarthyism. Dag Hammerskjoeld established the United Nations firmly as an

international institution with its own extraterritorial rights and whose officers ultimately should be liable to the Charter and Security Council resolutions only and not to be influenced by the purely national interests of any member state. It was in Africa, Kongo, that he lost his life 50 years ago, on September 18th 1961. But not before, during a 20-month long struggle, he and his organization had worked and fought to keep the polarized forces of Western separatist mercenaries and Russian backed tribal factions apart, so as to give the newly emerged country a fair chance for development and save it from being split into a resource rich Katanga on the one hand and into whatever else on the other. Apart from numerous speeches and articles in defense as well as elaboration of a United Nations as the true guardian of world peace he has left a unique diary, Markings (Vaegmarken), which shows him as a man with a calling, a calling for the uncompromised, highly principled fight for the better in us - and therefore in future society. 1) Wilder Foote, Dag Hammarskjoeld Servant of Peace, 1963, p.107 2) Karl Amade and Michael Froehlich, Dag Hammarskjoel His Death, Legacy and Vision, Basel 2011