In The Nile Valley, Two Heroes of Unity: One, Since 3100 B.C., Is Celebrated; The Other, Since 1954 A.D., Is Ignored.

History can be kind to some great leaders, yet unkind to other similarly great leaders.

In Egypt, there was Pharaoh Narmer (Mina) who united the two geographical parts of Egypt: the Delta, in the north, and the Valley in the south. Around 3100 B.C., Narmer, not only established the First Egyptian Dynasty. He also brought Egypt, both Upper (meaning South), and Lower (meaning North) under one crown -His!!

The Narmer tablets, depicting that historic and enduring unity, are well known to Egyptians, especially those who, like myself, taught the History of Egypt in Cairo.

Our late Egyptology professor, Dr. Ahmed Badawi, drilled in our heads the name Narmer, at the University of Heliopolis. He even exhorted us to stop by the historic hotel called Mina House, located till today at the foot of the Giza Pyramids.

What Narmer accomplished for Egypt in regard to that geographic unity, the British, during their heinous occupation (1882 - 1954) could not undo. Trying to create North Egypt and South Egypt (Divide and Rule), they utterly failed. Unity, one could assuredly say, is in Egypt's DNA.

From Narmer, a celebrated unity hero for the past 6000 years, to another Egyptian hero, Muhammad Naguib, first President of Egypt (1953 - 1954) who, until now is totally ignored. His dream of unity, though not attained, would have brought the Nile Valley, from the Mediterranean to Uganda into one proud entity, with the great Nile as its spinal cord.

Naguib's failure in accomplishing that breath-taking mission was not for lack of trying. It, as could be seen from his memoirs, was due to the Nasser coup of 1952, with its participants turning against one another. It boiled down to Naguib, whose mother was Sudanese, and Nasser, whose family hailed from Upper Egypt. Near South versus Deep South. A historic catastrophe which changed the entire history of the modern Middle East.

The Naguib vs. Nasser split had to do with different outlooks, personal, political and geostrategic. Naguib, the fatherly face of the Nasser Coup, was in favor of democracy in Egypt and of Egyptian/Sudanese unity. But Nasser, the young photogenic face of the army rebellion against the monarchy of King Farouk, guiding Egypt east (Nach Ost -as they say in German) for leadership of the Arab World.

The result: expulsion and imprisonment of General Naguib; the declaration by the Sudan of its independence in 1956; thrusting of Egypt in non-winnable Middle Eastern wars; the destruction of Egyptian democratic institutions until the revolutions of 2011 and 2013; and the unintended consequences of the growth of Islamism in Egypt, especially under President Sadat.

Returning now to the question which should haunt, if not all Egyptians, at least those who care about the full projection of Egyptian history and politics. Thus I turn to the memories of Muhammad Naguib, published in Arabic under the title of "I was President of Egypt" (Konto Raiisan Li Misr).

For fairness, I have no means of verification of what Naguib argues in those memoirs. Except for two circumstantial pieces of evidence: The outcome of the Nasser/Naguib conflict; plus my personal knowledge of President Naguib when he was alive.

I was his son's teacher in the early 1950s at the Model School of Al-Naqrashi Pasha at Qubba Gardens, Cairo. His character was stellar; spoke modestly  and sincerely; and was attentive to the quality of education in post-war Egypt. He was also loved by his troops forming the Frontiers Battalions (Selah Al-Hodood).

These were reasons why the Free Officers, led by Nasser in that historic coup against monarchical Egypt in 1952, chose him to front that rebellion.

Without summarizing those 420 pages, published in various editions from 1984 to 2003, my focus in this blog posting is the junctures of that rift whose consequences are still present. Even within the scope of that limited material, I shall focus on the manifestations of that rift as they impacted the destruction of the Naguib dream of unity between Egypt and the Sudan.

As an army officer and a patriot who participated in the Egyptian uprising of 1919 against British occupation, Naguib, throughout his life, called himself "Son of the Nile." 

His maternal grandfather, Muhammad Othman Bek, was a senior Army officer stationed in Khartoum., the Sudan. The Mehdi rebels in the Sudan in the late 1880s spared his life in recognition of Othman's commitment to Nile Valley amity.

Naguib's entire family lived in the "Anglo-Egyptian Sudan," named as such by the diktat of the British occupiers of Egypt. A major stratagem of Great Britain in the Nile Valley was of dual nature. To separate Egypt from the Sudan, and to separate the Sudanese north from the Sudanese south.

That divide and rule approach was premised on ethnic and religious lines: North of Malakal was "Arab and Muslim;" south of that point was "Negroid, and either Christian or animist." 

Following on his father's footsteps, Naguib graduated from the Cairo Military Academy in 1918. As with his father, his early service was in the Sudan. That is where some members of his family still live, and where his father was buried. Fondly, Naguib recalls his childhood in the Sudan, his camaraderie with the Sudanese, and his mother being Sudanese.

A total immersion which provided Naguib with a purely Nilotic outlook which did not recognize the line of demarcation between Egypt and the Sudan.

Such outlook was deepened by Naguib's early education in the Sudan. From Wad Madani, south of Khartoum, to Wadi Halfa, south of the Egyptian border. His icons were Sudanese officers and educators looking for British departure and for unity with Egypt.

So were Naguib's experiences in the Upper Nile region (south Sudan) as he had to travel with his family to wherever his father was transferred throughout the huge expanse called the Sudan.

At that time, the Sudan was geographically the largest African country, endowed with unlimited resources: water, land, diversified agriculture, huge animal resources, and a population full of pride and passion for being Sudanese.

Orphaned at the age of 13, following his father's death at the age of 43 in Khartoum, Naguib, though impoverished, was admitted into Khartoum's Gordon College. That was an exception, as the British occupation prevented Egyptians in the Sudan from applying for admission. But Naguib's father, though an Egyptian, was a senior officer in the service of "the Government of the Sudan."

His studenthood at Gordon was marred by his loyalty to Egypt. The sovereign in Cairo was "The King of Egypt and the Sudan." Not the British, a foreign occupier who saw to it that even the railroad from Cairo to Aswan would not be connected to the railroad in the Sudan -a few miles from that connection.

While being a student at Gordon College, Naguib's loyalty to that natural and historic unity caused him trouble. He refused to take down a text dictated by a British professor. In part, the text said that "Egypt was ruled by the British." 

Standing in protest, Naguib was defiant: "Sir!! Britain is only an occupier of Egypt. Egypt is internally self-ruled, but is a part of the Ottoman Empire." His punishment was 10 lashes administered to his back. "I submitted to that degrading punishment, without even opening my mouth out of personal pride."

Naguib was in fact an Egyptian Sudanese, not fitting in the mold of Nasser whose gaze was not South, but East. His fronting the Nasser coup and becoming Egypt's first president proved to be a painful ordeal.

• He felt that the Free Officers caused more harm to the cause of democracy and party politics than those opposed to the coup;
• He posited that "We dismissed King Farouk but replaced him with 13 other kings;
• He bemoaned his inability to stand up to "the increasing Nasser dictatorship;"
• Out of disgust with the direction of the Nasser's coup, Naguib submitted his resignation to the "Revolutionary Command Council," made up of members of the Free Officers who submitted to Nasser's authoritarianism.
• Before submitting that resignation on February 22, 1954, he confronted the entire Command Council accusing them of influence peddling, financial corruption, and other deviations, such as the establishment of "an Egypt as a State ruled by central intelligence."
• His options were: either to exercise his authority as president, or to resign and let Nasser have his way. One of Naguib's central complaints was that he was forced to sign off on decisions by the high military command which were issued and then brought to him afterwards for a pro forma endorsement.
• As to the Sudan, Naguib who felt the inner pulse of the Sudanese more than any other member on the Revolutionary Command Council, saw that the complaints voiced by the Sudanese were on the upswing. Especially after the plebiscite on unity with Egypt, where the vote was seven for unity, and one for independence.
• Naguib was convinced that Nasser felt that "the Sudan was a burden on Egypt, and should be jettisoned." One of Nasser's side kicks was Salah Salem who advocated that "the Sudan was definitely lost;" a shock for Naguib!!
• Naguib's bottom line was that the Revolutionary Command Council sacrificed the unity of the Nile Valley, and acted accordingly, causing protests in Khartoum where the crowds chanted "Sudan is for the Sudanese."

Imprisoned till his death, Naguib bemoaned that his name was expunged from schoolbooks in Egypt; that he was beaten and insulted by officers who were encouraged to disregard his prior status as a patriot, and his having been the first president of Egypt.

In his memoirs, he expresses his deep pain for the rising Nasser dictatorship, the loss of the unity of the Nile Valley, and the conversion by Nasser of Al-Azhar to a mere department for religious affairs.

Naguib's championed the unity of the Nile Valley. To him, it was a means of bolstering the backbone of the Arab homeland through the creation of a strong State at the Arab geographic midpoint. He is more than deserving rehabilitation, though posthumously. That would be a means of rectification of that gap in the history of modern Egypt.

If Narmer is celebrated as the unifier of Egypt after 6000 years of his rule, so should Naguib who, in the early 1950s, saw in Egypt a fulcrum for a larger unity.

When I was sent as legal counsel to Darfour, the Sudan, in 2006 by the UN Security Council, I experienced sudden pain for what had been lost by the destruction of that unity. It was as if Naguib, from his grave, was whispering: "See what has become of this beautiful land once that unity vanished."

With the Fall of 2012, Legitimacy of the Muslim Brotherhood Had Collapsed!!

In the New Egypt, the legitimacy of the Muslim Brotherhood had fallen within only six months of their assumption of the presidency. Morsi came to power in June 2012 through popular elections. The Muslim Brotherhood, for whom I had in error voted. Soon the Brotherhoodization of post-Mubarak Egypt began in earnest.

But out of illegitimate over-reach, their legitimacy through the ballot box, even if verifiable, was gone with the wind. Within only 6 months!! Their collapse had nothing to do with El-Sisi. It had to do with structural and ideological defects which brought their reign, in June 2013, to ultimate ruin.

Here is how!!

• Having joined the January 2011 Revolution late, a lateness due to their fear of an ultimate Mubarak triumph, the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) made a premature announcement. "The MB will not field any candidate for the Office of President."
• But later "the Guidance Bureau" (Maktab Al-Irshad), their politburo, changed course. Their Deputy Supreme Guide, moneybags Khairat Al-Shatter was to compete for that highest office against General Shafik.
• A quirk, or a quibble, or a twist in Egyptian electoral law, affecting the qualification of a presidential candidate, disqualified Al-Shatter. Constitutionally, the candidate for that post must be "an Egyptian born to Egyptian parents, none of whom nor the candidate have the nationality of another State." El-Shatter's mother had held an American citizenship, hence the disqualification of her son.
• The near equivalence of this Egyptian constitutional provision is to be found in the American Constitution. Its Article II, Section 1, paragraph 5 begins as follows:

"No person except a natural born citizen, or a citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President." A provision which prompted crazy Donald J. Trump, the Republican Party presidential candidate to try to delegitimize the Obama presidency. By the nefarious efforts of "the Birther Movement" which claimed that Obama was born outside the U.S.

• So the MB in Egypt, searching for a replacement for the disqualified El-Shatter, found in Mohamed Morsi the person who would lead the New Egypt through the elections of June 2012. And Morsi won.

End of the story of legitimacy of the headship of the New Egypt? No!! In fact that beginning was woefully defective. President Morsi was elected while the new Constitution was still being drafted. The cart was thus placed before the horse. With Al-Itihadiyah Palace (equivalent to the American White House) now occupied by a leader of the MB, the Brotherhood's appetite for garnering more power through accretion became insatiable. Inordinately greedy!!

Fancying Egypt, at that point, an Islamic Emirate in the making (Supreme Guide Mahdi Akef said "To Hell with Egypt (Toz Fi Masr)," the constituent assembly began to frame an Islamic Constitution. What began as a group, on whose membership were all shades of post-Mubarak political thinking, soon turned into an Ikhwan rubber stamp of the Bureau of Guidance. The MB, with Morsi ensconced at Al-Itihadiya Palace, saw to it that liberals, Copts, women, and any secular thinking individuals were impediments to their long march to the Islamic Emirate of Egypt.

And with the non-MB elements abandoning the efforts of keeping Egypt a secular habitat, the Islamic Constitution was readied for a plebiscite a few days before that vote in December 2012. No national debate; no transparency; no voicing of any opposition to that illegal take-over by the Brotherhood under the guise of Islamism. The battle cry of "Islam Is the Solution" became the entire ideology of a movement. A movement which felt emboldened by one important fact: The Armed Forces, as seen as of January 25, 2011, shall not intervene.

In spite of the MB confidence in the ultimate success of their coup (from the ballot box to an Islamic dictatorship), Morsi declared himself in November 2012 that he was immune from any accountability before the law. His move, reminiscent of Hitler becoming Germany's Fuhrer, as an epitaph of the Weimar Republic, was not contested by even the moderate elements of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Not even the judiciary, a venerable institution with a glorious tradition based on a sophisticated fusion between Islamic law (Sharia) and the Napoleonic code. That institution was smitten into submission by the instrumentality of hordes encouraged to, among other things, besiege the Supreme Constitutional Court.

That Court had committed an act unforgiven by the resurrected Islamists: the nullification of the legitimacy of one third of the Egyptian parliament, convened as a vehicle for the recalibration of Egypt to fit in the Brotherhood mold.

By the time the Islamic constitution, which had no provision for the eventuality of recall of the President, was rushed for approval, other moves have been put in place by the Muslim Brotherhood:

• The de facto lease of eastern Sinai to Hamas which, through tunnels as well as porous borders, had begun to shift its armed confrontation with Israel to Egypt;
• The borrowing of the Iranian pattern of the Revolutionary Guard to create an Egyptian military institution as a parallel to the regular army;
• The increasing hostility towards the Copts and the Shiis, which expressed itself in attacks and hooliganism;
• The changing pattern of Egypt's foreign relations in the Middle East through enhanced amity towards Ordogan's Turkey, and Pakistan which was being increasingly Talibanised (apostasy laws; harsh treatment of women; and anti-minorities practises);
• Threat of military intervention in Ethiopia for its plan to build Al-Nahdha Dam on the Blue Nile;
• The downgrading of Al-Azhar as the historic citadel of Islamic learning framed into the ideology of tolerance, inclusiveness, and outreach to other faiths and creeds;
• Declaring Egypt's historic monuments as un-Islamic idols which cannot be tolerated by an Islamic State; and
• The systematic weeding out of Egyptian diplomats and consular officials for being "insufficiently Islamic;"
• Tourism was discouraged;
• The arts, the film industry; the vibrant music, the theater were looked upon as suspect cultural deviations.

Against this background, whereby Egypt of 7000 years was being turned on its head, 35 million Egyptians rose as a human wave of protest. The motto of the June 30, 2013 revolution was: "Go!!" (IRHAL).

But the Brotherhood had a different perspective: legitimacy (Shariyah) was being challenged, and its claimed majority among Egypt's nearly 100 million was the nuclear option to be used against the crowds in Tahrir and all over Egypt.

By this calculation, the Brotherhood wrote its own phasing out certificate:

• Morsi refused the entreaties of El-Sisi, the Defense Minister, to accord Egypt a new start: A new plebiscite on the presidency; rejoining the broad national secular forces to avert the horrible spector of civil war; and the avoidance of military intervention to keep the peace, especially that the Police forces have been maligned by the Morsi regime;
• A Road-Map aiming at having all sectors and ideologies in Egypt come together, had to be put in place even with the Brotherhood opting to stay outside the broad national consensus;
• The launching of a transitional government, headed by the jurist Adly Mansour, President of the Egyptian Supreme Constitutional Court. This was met by the launching by the Brotherhood of the occupation of two main public squares in the heart of Cairo: Rabaa and Al-Nahdha. Those locations were declared by the Brotherhood "mini-emirates;"
• For 6 weeks (from July 3 to August 14, 2013), the appeals by the new transitional authorities for the sit-in participants to peacefully disband went unheeded. 
• In both Rabba and Al-Nahdha, crimes were committed, weapons were stored and at times used, foreign intervention was invited, and the banner of "Shariiyah (legitimacy)," though false, was unfurled.

Finally the new authorities had to move on these two locations, where exits of safe passage were repeatedly declared. Those defensive security measures were manipulated by the Brotherhood in its deceptive cry of victimhood.

The battle lines have thus changed as of August 14, 2013. Terrorism in Sinai, Cairo, and the western desert began in earnest. Yet the secular Constitution was enacted in 2014 followed by presidential elections which produced a winner: El-Sisi.

Facts are facts, hard to ignore, and impossible to contest. The Secular Constitution of 2014 provides in its Article 5 that: "The political system is based upon political and parties membership diversity, the peaceful transfer of power, separation of powers with checks and balances, the authority as based upon accountability, and respect of human rights and freedoms as provided in the Constitution."

None of these provisions has equivalents in the Islamic Constitution. The only provision stressed by the Muslim Brotherhood was: An emblem of two swords framing the Quran. With the words "Get Ready" at its base. Get ready for what? For so-called Islamic rule which limits the freedom of expression and the practice of faith to only Brotherhood adherents?


Egyptian laws and regulations whereby the Brotherhood was banned and declared a terror organization were enacted. But only after that organization had decided to take matters in its own hands. Regardless of the popular will, manifested massively from June 30 to July 4, 2013. Prior to those fatal dates, the Muslim Brotherhood stubbornly refused to join the process of Egypt's rebirth after 60 years of military rule.

Nothing can ring more hollow than the claim that "legitimacy" resided only in an Islamist dictatorial rule. A rule raising false facades, impugning the legitimacy of the New Egypt which had brought peace to the Egyptian street, and a new sense of urgency to make up for lost time.

It is not by the constant repetition by media that the present Egyptian government is the outcome of a putsch. It is the result of the vanquishing of a putsch by the Brotherhood in whose terrorist revanchist face one could only see an ISIS affiliate.

The Muslim Brotherhood has no claim to legitimacy in Egypt as of the Fall of 2012. That is when it first put Morsi, its symbols, its ethos above the law. Such collapse is nearly impossible to repair. For it goes to the real core, beyond the facade of the mere use of faith for sordid ends of power.

Viewing the U.N. And Its Charter From the Perspective of Realism

Not by lamentations, but by congratulations, should a former UN staffer like me, greet the appointment of the new Secretary-General. I have served under four of his predecessors: Dag Hammarskjold, U Thant, Kurt Waldheim, and Javier Perez de Cuellar.

Antonio Guterres, now the 8th Secretary-General, deserves to succeed. He, a former Prime Minister of Portugal, and a former UN High Commissioner for Refugees, has the right tools for UN leadership. However I am not questioning the worthiness of the new captain of the UN ship. I am not sure whether the ship itself is still sea-worthy.

Born in 1945, the UN is governed by a charter born out of the smoldering ruins of the Second World War. Its elements were taking form as early as 1942, following the entry of the US in that war. A war whose human casualties are estimated at 40 millions. Its founding members numbered, in San Francisco, 51 States. That number has now grown to 193.

Over the past 71 years, the world has changed several times over. Issues of war, peace, and development are no longer the same. Even pen and paper, except for old hands like mine, are no more. The State is now competing with the non-State actor for hegemony. Even globalization has lost its luster. Digitization has become the medium, and landing on the moon might soon be eclipsed by landing and living on Mars.

Yet the Charter remained the same. Not because of its resilience and relevance to the vastly changing circumstances. But because it is nearly impossible to revise. Article 109 provides for that remote possibility. That possibility cannot become a reality due to two impossibilities: unanimity amongst the Big Five Powers in the Security Council (U.S./U.K./France/Russia/China); and the super-majority of two-thirds approval by the entire membership.

So the U.N. is blanketed by too much ice to make it a sea-worthy ship for its new captain, Antonio Guterres. And there is hardly anything that he could do about it. That is although the UN Secretary-General is, under the Charter, two in one: Chief Administrative Officer (Article 98), and, at his discretion, a political entity (Article 99).

Here are selective lamentations in regard to the shackles built into the Charter:

• To begin with, let us overlook the anomaly of calling the organization, "the United Nations." Nations? The membership is made up of States, not nations, immersed in the daily struggle for upholding their sovereignty. 
• In fact, once in a while, we get the entertaining spectacle of two delegations, each claiming representation of the State. The Dominican Republic, China, Mali, and Tshad are examples.
• The right of States to self-defense is relegated to Article 51;
• That basic sovereign right is expressed at the end of Chapter VII, the main tool of the Big Five hegemony expressed as sanctions against other States.
• The preamble of the Charter in regard to the fundamental right of every individual to dignity, and to gender equality is vague and exhortatory. It took 3 years for the General Assembly to amplify those rights in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948).
• The rights of civilians for protection from war-faring combatants found their way to expression in 1949. In the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights (1966). Genocide, that mass murder for any reason, was a later invention of the early 1950s.
• Article 2, paragraph 7 forbids the intervention by States in the internal affairs of other States. Great!! But that basic principle of sovereignty is made subsidiary to Chapter VII in sanctions where the Big Five (the permanent members of the Security Council) hold sway.
• It is in the General Assembly (GA) where that equality of sovereignty is expressed. The GA is considered the Parliament of Man/Woman. Yet nearly all its resolutions are non-enforceable. They are a wish list of "please, would you be so kind as to...!!"
• The only exception to the above is the budget. But the arrears have for far too long overwhelmed payment of assessments on time. One country once paid $40 to avoid voting deprivation. Just to remain a hair-breadth under the arrears accumulated over 2 years.
• As to the Security Council, which has "the primary" (not the exclusive) responsibility for the maintenance of peace and security, well..? We have the veto power in the hands of 5 States from among 15 States, 10 of which are non-permanent members. The latter category satisfies the scenery of geographic representation by regions (by caucuses), but with hardly any impact on the decisions of war and peace. Only the resolutions of that body are enforceable.
• With decolonization virtually accomplished, one of the 6 main organs of the UN, namely the Trusteeship Council, has no job. Its ornate hall at UN Headquarters serves as a meeting space. Attempts to rename that Council "The Human Rights Council" have failed.

The above is beginning to look like the Martin Luther list of grievances pinned to the door of that church in Gutenberg, Germany, in the 16th Century. So we shall stop here to turn our lamentations towards the misperceived concepts and the cancerous impediments to the growth of that universal organization:

• Where is the UN today in the global problems of terrorism, safe havens for internally-displaced persons, and genocidal wars waged by leaders internally? Not to mention the horrors of Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Libya and of death by drowning of immigrants young and old.
• "Internal affairs" are to be designated and protected from outside interference by the State itself. The UN is shut out, unless through resort to the recently developed laws of human rights and of humanitarian intervention.
• That UN absence is now filled by States, or by regional defense arrangements. Bringing these issues to the UN Security Council is akin to the fig leaf of legitimating what sovereign powers have already decided to do outside of the UN.
• The term "peace-keeping" does not exist in the UN Charter. It was a Hammarskjold invention which was embarked upon in regard to the first Suez War of 1956. OK. We shall take whatever we get to help our troubled world through our only universal organization -the UN. 
• But the national contingents volunteered by States at their own volition, need two main strategic elements: freedom of movement (which can only be granted by the States on whose soil the peace-keepers are stationed). And prior training in joint exercises to at least learn the communication code of that array of multi-national forces.
• That pre-training does not exist. Except in two or three of the Scandinavian States. For how can the UN membership agree on planning for peace-keeping, say, in the Philippines? The Philippines would be the first to angrily object saying: "Who is the UN to anticipate a crisis in our country? This is nothing but fomenting a crisis. In any case, we shall not sign a status of forces agreement (SOFA)." And the matter dies.
• In that regard the UN, being an inter-State system, has no role to play in civil wars. It was not designed for that purpose.
• From where did the UN Security Council get its legal authority to ban individual citizens of sovereign States from travel out of their localities? That Council is not a court of law; the banned persons are not put on advance notice; when I represented a travel banned victim, I discovered that the UN investigators used as evidence irrelevant indicators; and the expert reports on the need to end that system of "you are guilty until you prove yourself innocent" went nowhere.

Add to the above selected list that up to now there are terms which lack precise definition through international inter-State consensus. Terms like "democracy," and "aggression."

So Secretary-General Guterres, we wish you well. You shall have your hands full. But you still have at your disposal tools which have proven their functional effectiveness.

Primary among these are the 30 specialized agencies and programs within "the UN Family of Organizations." Including, of course, your old office, "The UN High Commissioner For Refugees."

There are also the more than 2000 non-governmental organizations around the world. Representing what is referred to in the Charter by "We the People." Above all, you are perceived worldwide as endowed by an unarticulated moral authority of the rare type -its neutrality.

Let us not forget the central role of one of the 6 principal organs of the UN itself. Namely, the UN Secretariat. Under Article 98, you are the decider over that main organ which is in session 24/7. You, or your representative, hire and fire. Through this vast bureaucracy, the entire equivalents within the Family of the UN Organizations are also influenced.

In 1960, Hammarskjold has planted the flag of "the independence of the international civil service." His clarion call, which rattled the Soviets and troubled the British, was broadcast through his Oxford University speech of that year. Written for him by my late friend, the legal mind of the UN at the time, Professor Oscar Schachter.

On the other hand, your powers under Article 99 are discretionary. That article separates your capacity of executive from that of being empowered to raise issues of war and peace. Issues you can submit to either the Security Council or the General Assembly for their consideration.

Thus it is an illusive power on which decisions are not within your hands. Nonetheless it is a recognizable moral authority which may have consequences. In this regard, even symbolism can be a factor for good.

You also have on your side the Charter interpretation in ways never expected before. In the absence of revision, broad interpretation has accelerated decolonization. It also gave birth to imaginative ways to leapfrog over the veto power. An example on this is "the presidential statement" on behalf of the Security Council.

As an engineer and a mathematician, you, Secretary-General Guterres may, in spite of the assessment above, be able to navigate this unwieldy UN ship through these troubled waters towards harbors of safety. Your Portuguese ancestors, in the 17th & 18th Centuries, proved themselves as experienced mariners!!

In Trumpism I Can't See The Face of The United States

The more outrageous Trump becomes, the bigger and louder his rallies become. Like a train hurtling over a weak bridge toward a wreck, with the passengers elated by the inevitable catastrophe. These are largely white men, mostly with no more education than what they got in high school. Dismissive of the rules and values of a constitutional system of 240 years on which they have turned their backs as "politics as usual."

Donald has tapped into this lode of rage against globalization, immigration, foreign alliances, freedom of trade, foreign sovereign immunities, and international organizations. The internal governance system, he claims, is rigged. So are the media, the political parties, the judiciary, the Obama presidency. And even the microphones through which he extols the dark face of the United States. As for the military, Trump says that he, as president, shall select his own generals. The prospect of a private Trump militia.

A thug who proclaims the greatness of Putin as compared to "the worst President in the history of the U.S. - Barack Obama." A con who is suspected of having paid no taxes for nearly two decades (because "I am smart").

A war horse who threatens to wage war on Iran, usurp the right of the Arabs to their oil, spread nuclear weapons world-wide, bomb the families of suspected ISIS terrorists, and condone Russia's territorial grab in the Ukraine and its cyber intervention in the U.S. elections.

What he says today, he denies the following day. His anti-minorities and Islamophobic utterances are depicted by his surrogates (Governor Christie of New Jersey and former New York City Mayor, Rudy Giuliani) as "misunderstood." Why? "He is not a politician!!" So why is he in the game in national politics? "Because he is an agent of change who shall make America Great Again!!" How crazier could this get?

Here follows a horrific panorama of that dark side of America, as could be seen in Trumpism on and off the stage of presidential debates:

• Amid national uncertainty and fear arose Trump. So did Hitler in Germany of the early 1930s. You don't have to take my word for it. Read the book by the latest biographer of Hitler. The historian Volker Ulrich in his amazingly detailed book entitled "Hitler: Ascent, 1889-1939." Ulrich focused on Hitler as a politician who rose to power through demagoguery, showmanship and nativist appeals to the masses. In all of this, Trump is a replica.
• Donald is all about Donald. Not about America. The earth spins on an axis called Trump. One can see that love of self in Trump's performance, a losing one, in his first debate with Hillary Clinton. To hell with politics and the issues, he had insinuated. Described by Frank Bruni of the New York Times of September 28, in these words: "He just pumped air into his hair and more air into his head and sauntered into action as if the sheer, inimitable wonder of his presense would be enough." Thus the Donald interrupted Hillary 51 times in the space of 90 minutes.
• A Republican woman of 51 confessed her dislike for Hillary. But she noted that Trump's answers during that first debate lacked details of substance. "I don't think he has the experience...His behavior is unpresidential, unkind, un-everything." 
• Others who remain sympathetic to Trump attacked his questioning whether Obama was born in America. "The Birther movement." A woman texted her husband that Trump had lost her when he dodged responsibility for stoking the birther movement.
• When it comes to being Commander in Chief, Trump, believing that he could outsmart the whole world, espouses the concept of "strategic ambiguity." Meaning that he never wants to show America's hand to its adversaries. But during his debate with Hillary, that tough looking guy appeared utterly confused. For when asked about "the first strike option," he deflected the moderator's question. "I think that once the nuclear alternative happens, it's over." Yet Trump is not reluctant to build nuclear weapons and have others acquire them.
• Trump keeps on repeating that he was against the war on Iraq. A blatant lie!! Trump is on record as supporting that losing war which has cost trillions of dollars and much blood-letting. Donald has supported that disastrous war in September 2002. That is when Congress was still debating whether to authorize military action. 
• And when Obama failed to get Iraqi approval to keep sizable American forces after 2011, Trump has continued to castigate the President and Hillary for that failure. From there, he stupidly jumps to insanely charging both of being founders of ISIS.
• His racism is like neon signs in Times Square. From the ban on Muslims from coming to the U.S., to his description of Mexicans as rapists and drug dealers, to his denigrating not only Afro-Americans, but also the historic symbol of Afro-American achievement, namely electing Obama not once but twice. 
• While the polls show that Trump is winning virtually no support from Afro-Americans, he full-throatedly propagandizes a proven lie. "You see what's happening with my poll numbers with Afro-Americans. They're going, like, high!!"
• More of the dark side of America is Trump's big lie about the economic and social status of the Afro-Americans who make up 15% of America's demographics. "Our African-American communities are absolutely in the worst shape that they've ever been in before -ever, ever, ever." 
• No quantifiable measurement supports that characterization of black America. But the record shows that Trump and his father had in the 1970's and the 1980's forbidden renting apartments to people of color in Trump buildings in New York City.
• In the State of Pennsylvania, a woman in West Chester voiced an opinion prevalent among women in America whose support for Trump is pivotal for winning the presidency. She said: "I truly want to like him. I keep looking for something in him. But I can't have my children grow up and look at him as someone to respect." She faulted him for refusing to release his taxes, for his shallowness, and his unwillingness to learn from experts. He claims that he knows it all.
• The Trump Foundation has been ordered by the New York State Attorney to "cease and desist" from raising money in the State; the Trump University has been found to be a big fraud; and the money claimed to have been raised by Trump for American veterans seems to have been a pie in the sky.
• Is it any wonder that the Wall Street Journal has recently reported that not one chief executive among the "Fortune 100" has donated money to Trump's campaign? Many companies won't do business with him either. This robs Donald of his claim that his alleged success in business, in spite of three bankruptcies, qualifies him to lead America into a new gilded age.
• Commented the New York Times of September 27 on Trump's performance in the first presidential debate watched by nearly 100 million Americans: "It's absurd that the fate of the race, and the future of the nation, might carom this way or that based on a 90-minute television ritual so dominated by fear and falsehood." 
• This evaluation came after that paper's editorial lamented: "There was a fundamental emptiness to the ritual (the debate), because of the awful truth that one participant (Trump) had nothing truthful to offer." 
• His anti-feminism has become the talk of America on the eve of the second Clinton vs. Trump debate. A tape has been discovered demonstrating his infidelity to Melania, his present wife (and third spouse). The tape heard over and over again on public media as of October 6 had Trump describe his sexual advances towards a married woman. Including "You can do anything to women when you are famous." Causing a Republican Senator to describe that presidential candidate "a malignant clown."

The tragedy of a possible Trump presidency lies in denying the healing power of compromise. In any system of governance, the settlement of disputes by mutual concession is a powerful elixir. It is the very opposite of the adversarial system of producing winners and losers. Half of the loaf is better than none. Trumpism is so polarizing that it looks as the very face of paralysis.

When you add the compromise deficiency element in Trumpism, to the damage already inflicted on the trust in the system of governance, you will find an America which is hardly recognizable as a robust democracy. For the U.S. Constitution itself has been the product of compromises. Thus enshrined as a resilient document of 240 years!!

In this age of rage, the most outrageous prospect is to imagine that megalomaniac, Donald J. Trump standing on January 20, 2017, taking the oath of the office as the 45th President of the U.S.

"I Donald J. Trump, do so solemnly swear... that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will do to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

May we never hear the air waves carry these words stipulated by the U.S. Constitution.

An oath is a formal calling upon God to witness to the truth of what one says or to witness that one sincerely intends to do what one says.

For how can Trump, if elected, take that oath? Throughout his entire life of 70 years, he has not kept any promise, or stayed the course of what he promised to do.

His own cult of personality makes him think that when he builds a tower, he is building a bridge. Reason why I can't see in Trumpism the face of the United States which proclaims "In God we Trust." Fortunately for America, and the world, Trump is not a God.