Some 64 years after the UN Charter was signed, there are an awful lot of people who still put their trust in the United Nations. The problem is the UN is staffed by a lot of awful people.
Michael Soussan entertained all the usual idealistic notions about service in the United Nations when he became a staffer in the UN Headquarters in 1997. His experiences are chronicled in Backstabbing for Beginners: My Crash Course in International Diplomacy (Perseus Books Group, New York, 2008). Young Soussan soon becomes our Virgil, guiding the reader through a descent into the innermost circles of a Byzantine, Kafkaesque hell.
Soussan was immediately involved in the UN Oil for Food program in Iraq; and rapidly found himself up to his armpits in spies, oil tycoons, paid activists, agents of Iraq’s despotic ruler, and some all too corruptible bureaucrats. His tuition in advanced cynicism, administrative sabotage and ornate rivalry soon became all too comprehensive. When not in Iraq, he was back in New York and learning the complex convolutions of office politics as can only be possible at the United Nations.
It is hard to retain personal integrity and self-respect in such an environment, and Soussan felt compelled to leave after a few years – whereupon he became one of the main whistle blowers on the rampant corruption of the Oil for Food Program. However, he does not write the UN off completely. When pearls are tossed before swine, one should not be surprised to occasionally find something precious in a morass of pig manure. The book is a fascinating one, and well worth reading – just make sure you give a copy to any friends or family who entertain the idea that the UN is still worth something.
