The United Nations information system and the world citizen.

• Author: Arias, Inocencio F.
• Position: Breaking the Barriers: Are We That Difficult to Understand?

Breaking the Barriers

Are we that difficult to understand?

Two newly arrived Ambassadors to the United Nations, each with considerable experience of the media in their own countries, discuss the information projection capacity, and needs, of the Organization. "Much of what the United Nations does is very much a hidden story for most national media", observes Ambassador Hans Dahlgren of Sweden, while Ambassador Inocencio F. Arias of Spain feels that "the perception of the United Nations held by relevant social groups of the host country provokes a direct impact on the main work of the Organization".

Has the anguish of Lady Diana's death done more against landmines in a week than what was accomplished in numerous and important meetings and during the many years of the United Nations work? Many people think so, as unfair as it may seem.

The international organizations in general and the United Nations in particular not only face indifference and the individual's boredom sometimes, but frequently their message arrives unclear, incomplete and altered.

The way we think about information has changed during the past 10 years (perhaps I should say months, even weeks). The world of information is changing so fast that we can apply here what was told to Alice in Wonderland: "It takes all the running you can do to keep the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!"

Faster or slower, first of all, the United Nations should have a general strategy to go somewhere regarding information. From my personal point of view, Modern National States and International Organizations, as the United Nations, share the challenge of making the information circulate so that the democratic principle compelling the public powers to promote the conditions for freedom and the individual's equality become real and truly effective. That is a good goal to pursue.

At the same time, we have to take into account that the action of the United Nations does not address to an "abstract man, to a"citizen of the world", but to a concrete man and the daily problems he faces each day in his country.

On the other hand, the immediate addressees of the informative actions of public institutions, National States and International Organizations are no longer only the individuals considered independently, but the organizations in which these are integrated - companies, labour unions, consumers' associations, professional schools, managerial...