By Matthew Russell Lee
www.innercitypress.com/un1invictus031710.html
UNITED NATIONS, March 17 -- The film "Invictus" was screened at the UN Tuesday night, with a panel discussion afterwards featuring senior UN advisor Nicholas Haysom, formerly Nelson Mandela's chief legal advisor. Haysom said South Africa was lucky to have Mandela, who gambled his presidency on forging a "shared national identify [unlike in] Sudan, Sri Lanka and Iraq."
Inner City Press asked Haysom whether these three conflict ridden societies lacked only a leader like Mandela, or what else could be done. Haysom's response because with South Africa, where he said there was a recognition that people "could not live in the old way," that the social compact had to be renegotiated.
Because he's now with the UN, because without hope the UN dies, Haysom then referred not only to the Iranian national soccer team -- integrating the "three elements of the country," he said -- but even to Sri Lankan cricket.
But cricket did not stop the Rajapaksa government from bombing Tamil civilians in make shift hospitals and tents in the blood bath on the beach, or to holding them in UN funded internment camps. And Haysom's answer did not even purport to address Sudan. Could sport forestall the upcoming breakaway of South Sudan?
The film screening was, as is typical for the UN, badly organized. Many more people showed up than could be accomodated in Conference Room 3 of the North Lawn Temporary Building. People were told to line up for admission to Room 1, after film screens had been installed. Meanwhile, others were still being admitted to the main room: Deputy Spokesperson Marie Okabe, a UNFPA officials, others. How did Security know who to admit?
As tweeted in real time by Inner City Press, if the UN wanted coverage of Ban Ki-moon's opening speech, why exclude the press and not broadcast the speech into the overflow room? We have a new hash tag -- #OnlyAtTheUN. Watch that tag, and this site.
Footnotes: after the Q & A session, where Inner City Press prefaced the question to Haysom by saying he is not available enough on the record, UN official Bob Orr told the Press, "You couldn't resist, saying he is not available enough." Inner City Press clarified, "No available enough on the record."
Orr asked, gesturing at the room, "What this on the record?"
"Yes," Inner City Press said. "And this is too."
And see, www.innercitypress.com/un1invictus031710.html
