Football Envy at the UN by Kofi Annan Critical Summary - Essay Example

The article “Football envy at the UN” published in the Guardian in 2006 was written by Kofi Annan, a secretary general of the United Nations (UN). In this piece the representative of the UN writes about his envy towards the World Cup. Such an attitude to the great sports even is caused by Annan’s assumption that in some aspect the World Cup does even more than the UN in terms of uniting global societies and helping countries in need, at least morally. It is a very well-written and inspiring text that calls humans, countries and governments to be, just like football teams, competitive between themselves and proud of their achievements.

I believe the major aim of the author was to inspire world leaders, countries and societies for being more friendly, for cooperating and working together on fighting such problems as carbon emissions and HIV infections. Kofi Annan wishes people and countries were working more actively on improving child survival rates, enrolment in secondary education and raising Human Development Index. Furthermore, he promotes sharing of knowledge that happens when people travel to other countries. Annan expresses his belief in that human migration is positive for everyone: migrants improve their lives, their native countries receive new knowledge and experience that the migrants bring back home, and foreign societies where the migrants live benefit from receiving new cultural and intellectual experiences provided by the newcomers.

In general, the World Cup is described as an event that reaches all of the goals it sets, so Annan wishes the UN, as well as world governments, also worked in such a way in terms of making the world more united. Annan recommends global societies to look up to the World Cup and cooperate, compete, and work on the common for the countries problems with the same intensity and passion. Though, of course, such a suggestion makes much sense, the expectations of the secretary general might be somewhat unrealistic.

The World Cup unites players and fans of the sport, they all have similar goals. The world countries, however, each follow own interests. It is especially true considering the fact that each has own problems. While such global issues as carbon emissions or HIV infections may concern a particular country, another might be more worried about maintaining peace, recovering after a catastrophe or fighting natural disasters. Therefore, though Annan’s article might have some effect on the world leaders, it can’t, in my opinion, change their priorities.

At the same time, it is a very positive thing that the text is written in plain language, so that any person can understand the meaning of each phrase. Annan also makes parallels between the World Cup and international affairs. This helps readers to get a better understanding of the writer’s points: the author tries to transfer the way people and countries react to the World Cup onto the way they deal with global problems. Though this might not be a simple task, Kofi Annan, I believed, has done a good job motivating societies for uniting and cooperating.