NOTES FROM THE DESK

Author: JOYCE MAN

There are traditionally two faces of the United Nations: gut-wrenching failure that exposes mankind's inability to collaborate, and lofty goals of unified action. To the first we attach the Rwandan genocide, the Oil-For-Food scandal and Darfur refugee camps. To the latter, we attribute the Declaration of Human Rights, the World Health Organization and - who knows? -even Angelina Jolie as Goodwill Ambassador, tombraider style.

This month, Middlebury had the chance to see another side of the United Nations: the Millennium Development Goals. What'll bother us is this: how can a group of countries that were barely able to muster troops for Rwanda expect to rally 191 countries together to do anything, much less resolve poverty? As April ends and we have the chance to put eight and eight together, so to speak, our tendency may be to get bogged down in this debate.

But, to take Midd8 organizers Divya Khosla '06 and Courtney Matson '06 on their aim, the point of April's 30 Days of Global Awareness is not whether Annan and Bono are in over their heads. The goal is action, and the idea is not to argue over whether the MDGs will fail, but whether we will take the steps to make it succeed.

So will Midd take on the 8? At last Friday's talk, "Can you make a difference?" the answer seemed frustratingly No. Judging from Khosla's initial motivation of generating action, this should have been the hinge upon which all other talks revolved, and the answer should have been a resounding Yes. Yet, one panelist stayed on such a theoretical level that only someone with his decades of policy experience could comprehend.

The better thing to do is ignore this and take the rest of Midd8 for its reasonable success. It has brought our campus together, if briefly, for goals that are dividing members of the United Nations.The fruits of the organizers' labor await to be seen. Perhaps the best thing about Midd8 is this. Just like the United Nations, its success depends on the sum of its parts. If no action comes of this month of awareness, the fault will be ours. The onus is on everyone.