The United Nations pretty much has two main purposes: unite the world, and keep countries and their people safe. Two goals that may require a lot of work but in the same respect are very much attainable. According to the official website of the United Nations, the first major goal is coming along quite well. As of right now there are currently 193 countries enrolled in the United Nations. That means that there are 193 countries that are standing up and saying ‘we’re for creating peace’. However, words can only go so far. Without putting those words into practice peace and world unity are only words for the imagination.

Thankfully the head masters of the United Nations are working to make those words live up to their full potentials. In doing so the United Nations has created a structure in order to keep the power balanced within the United Nations organization by establishing the secretariat. The secretariat ensures the balance of powers within the United Nations, after all how can the United Nations expect the rest of the world to get its business together when they can’t themselves. I however, think that this system of the secretariat is flawed because one country and its members seem to have a much bigger influence on the projects carried out by the United Nations than many other countries do, and I think we all know what country that is. Yes, you guessed it, it’s the United States.

You might be wondering why a country that knows so much about unity would be preventing such a thing from happening across the globe, and you would be right on in asking that. However, I believe that the United States doesn’t know what it’s doing. They don’t understand that being a big brother to the world isn’t helping anyone; it’s just putting another obstacle onto the highway of peace. I’m not going to sit here and slam my own country, although it may seem that way, but I’m not going to sit here and be naïve either to the fact that there are at least five other countries in the world that hate the United States with a passion. Other countries are mad that their business is no longer their business and it shows because national security is slowly climbing its way back up to the leading spot on more and more nation’s priority list.

National security has always been an important issue with countries, but it slowly went away after the Cold War and is increasingly picking back up, and someone needs to stop the madness. Hint, hint, wink, wink, nudge, nudge, United Nations step in. Cut off the United States power. The United States no longer claims the right to starting the United Nations.

That thought is outmoded and is now replaced with we are one united nation, not parts, but a whole. In order for the United Nations to completely be effective they have to realize that thinking as a whole member state is crucial to success. Each individual member state has to take a back seat and think about the whole and how it can positively affect the world.

If they each think about how each decision is going to affect the country they represent then we are all in for a long haul. Unity is a crucial part in the United Nations, hence its name, and without unity the world and its social structure could eventually collapse. It sounds a little harsh and bizarre to say that, but in our day and age anything can happen and it will happen. More and more people are expressing their thoughts and getting them out there to mass populations of people which means more and more ideas are being shared; ideas that could eventually affect how we as people go about our everyday lives.

The United Nations is a big influence in how we go about our peace keeping practices. It may not seem like it, but the more and more you look at the crime that is going on around us locally the more it begins to mirror the same situations that happen on the international level.

People are beginning to live off of the ‘monkey see, monkey do’ principal and it’s starting to have a big effect on our everyday lives. The way the United Nations is handling the situations with Syria and South Sudan can be directly proportional to the way big businesses handle situations with buy-outs and the way students respect their teachers at school.

So, the United Nations best get its power in balance and its unity in check before they begin to have a bigger toll on the world than anyone could have expected.

This opinion column was submitted by Hannah Knopp. Hannah is a junior at Versailles High School. Viewpoints expressed in these opinion pieces are the work of the author. The Daily Advocate does not endorse these viewpoints or the independent activities of the author.