Musings of a Political Nature

Friday, October 13, 2006

Admin of Power

The UN has a new Secretary-General: Ban Ki-moon. Former Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade in South Korea, Ban has been known to be fastidious and focused on adminstrative tasks. In reality this makes Ban the perfect man for the job. They don't call them Secretary-General for nothing, the position itself is an administrative one in its most basic form, the role's description somthing akin to Cheif Adminstrative Officer.

In personality Mr. Ban is extremely different from former UN S-G's. Kofi Annan is name recognized by most literate people, assuming they are both literate and not under the assumption that the United States is the only country left on earth. It is unlikely that the world's new cheif diplomat will be a someone well known throughout the "normal" world. In fact I will venture to guess that most people will refer to him as "that UN guy."

He begins his new position duirng an interesting time, what with his country feeing more and more concerned about their crazy neighbors to the north. I could make some very interesting "neighborhood" analogies here, but I'll save you the torture. The UN's new diplomat, boring or not, might be put in a very interesting position if his home turf is suddenly under nuclear attack. I can't say for sure, but I do wonder how many other Secretaries-General have been at the head of the UN during threatening times for their native people. Either way the new UN era should be interesting... well, or not, considering the Economist would have me believe that Ban is somewhat uninteresting individual.