IN a week's time, world leaders will gather in New York to speak at the United Nations General Assembly, now in its 79th year.
Like previous UNGA sessions, this one will be more of the same: all talk and no action.
For sure, a few nations will take to the lectern to call on the UN to stop the genocide in Gaza.
More will call for the end of the war in Ukraine. In either case, nothing will be done because the UNGA has turned into a speaker's corner where world leaders come and go talking about this and that.
Look at the plight of the Palestinians, an issue older than the League of Nations, the predecessor of the UN. Sept 24 will mark the 79th year of UN inaction.
What can 15 minutes of speeches, or, even a 270-minute speech, like that Fidel Castro delivered in 1960, do if the UN Security Council, the law-making body of the UN, chooses not to act? Nothing. This is why, for the longest time, nations, especially in Asia, Africa and Latin America, have been calling for the UNSC to be reformed.
Malaysian prime ministers, speaking as they often do for small nations, had done the same for years. Expect the call to reengineer the UNSC to be the longest, in terms of minutes spent speaking by national leaders.
Here is why. The UNSC doesn't represent the world as it is. There are 193 nations in the world, yet five — the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China — had seen it fit to give themselves permanent membership while the rest take turns to be one of the 10 non-permanent members.
What is worse, the five wield veto powers which they use to block even resolutions adopted by the majority.
We have witnessed this several times in the case of ceasefire attempts in Gaza. Israel's Western allies' iron-clad support for the apartheid Zionist regime, especially that of the US, keeps trumping the global call to put an end to the genocide in Gaza.
Permanent membership may not be a big worry. Veto power is. The former can be rectified by adding a few more, but vetoes must go, says consensus among a majority of UN members.
But there is a problem. Any proposal to reengineer the UNSC must be approved by its members. If it is not to the liking of any of the veto-wielders, expect it to be vetoed out.
Even as harmless a proposal to expand UNSC's permanent membership. The P5 must know this: this isn't a world to be ruled by one or a few. That time has long passed.
To continue to live in the "might is right" antiquated world is to invite great danger to the world.
Seventy-eight years of waiting for a rules-based world is too long. We know that the new world order won't happen on Sept 22 or 23, when the UNGA is set to chart the future of the UN. Nor will it happen on Sept 24.
But reform of the UNSC must happen very soon if the UN is to accomplish what the world body's charter envisaged. Otherwise, it will be more years of untold sorrow for mankind.