We Are the United Nations

There's an expression, 'it's hard to see the forest for the trees,' which to me suggests it can be a struggle to maintain a view of the Big Picture while also concentrating on details. We live in a world where doing both simultaneously can be critical to success, as an individual, a family, or as a nation. 

Today is United Nations Day marking the anniversary in 1945 of the ratification of UN Charter by the majority of its signatories. With its ratification, the United Nations officially came into being. It's also my brother's birthday but we've both agreed to not suggest cause and effect, so I won't. You probably didn't see any cards to celebrate the UN's Birthday (or my brother's for that matter) when you went shopping over the weekend so you could be wondering what’s my point.

My point is that seventy-three years ago, a weary world exhausted from a global conflict that had consumed most of the previous decade gambled that working harder to understand one another might be preferable to taking up arms against each other on the regular and recurring basis we had been for centuries past. For the most part, so far, so good.    

But across our country from the steps of the Supreme Court to the busiest streets and loneliest highways, we are, as a nation, right now less kind to one another (to say nothing about how we treat those beyond our borders), less tolerant of those whose opinions differ from our own and less understanding of those who don’t look like us, speak our language or pray differently than we do than we have been for many, many years. 

The scariest part is so many of us are proud of this. Perhaps we’ve lost sight of the many different trees that are the forest we consider to be our country and we've forgotten that "E pluribus unum," or "out of many, one," our motto from the time thirteen British colonies declared independence has not been replaced with “Hoc est meum; non tangere,” or “This is mine; don’t touch it.”

We are a notion that became a nation and an example the world now strives to emulate and imitate. We have a statue in a New York harbor known the world over that we could easily duplicate and situate all across this land because we are, each of us, the example of acceptance, collaboration, innovation, and tolerance that sets us apart from every other nation.    

Here in Norwich, we’re good, and always working to get better, about celebrating all of the different people, customs, and nations who make us the Rose City as well as a Global City.

We just had a weekend with both an Oktoberfest at Ponemah Mills and a Polish Fest in Franklin Square and our municipal calendar is dotted year-round with ceremonies, commemorations, and celebrations that should us help remember and realize that people of every stripe united by shared values and purpose are needed to build a great and united nation. And that forming an even more perfect union is both very hard and rewarding work but we're worth it.

-bill kenny