In Help of Strangers in need.

Hello and Welcome. Today’s song is “Light in the Black”, a song about the United Nations Peacekeeping Force.

The United Nations, as controversial as it can be, is an international organization involved across the globe with providing humanitarian, economic and social aid as well as protecting human rights.

Today’s story is not about the humanitarian side of the UN but its military branch, the UN Peacekeepers. The UN was founded in the end of the Second World War as an international effort towards cooperation and ever-lasting peace. The concept of ever-lasting peace and international cooperation has existed for centuries, with the great powers of old dreaming of an age when conflict would be solved in court and not on the battlefield.

For all of It’s idealism and truly commendable goals, the reality of strife would often prove the UN’s ideals imperfect and throw its purpose into the realms of doubt. Conflicts such as the Arab-Israeli Wars would often show that without the warring parties agreeing to the extremely limited UN mandate there is precious little the UN can do. UN forces and advisers regularly invited and quickly expelled.

On top of the aforementioned situations other factors such as Great Powers mandates and agendas overlapping, lack of materials and general distrust would be a regular challenge for the UN Peacekeepers.

The Peacekeepers set out towards foreign lands to help strangers in need, but on an extremely restrictive mandate as to guarantee their impartiality. While inherently good in nature this leads to situations such as in the Yugoslav Wars during the 90s. The lightly armed peacekeepers trying to put themselves between the warring parties only to be forced to leave or worse, look on as massacres take place infront of their eyes.

For all of its flaws the UN’s ideals and goals are worth aiming for even if some could call them infeasible. The UN and its Peacekeepers have had ups and downs, victories and losses. Even to this day there are many people ready to put on the blue beret and their life on the line for people they have never met. There are always those ready to help strangers in need. The question is if their legacy is written in stone or in sand.