The bottom line, as the youngsters gathered in Melbourne fully understood, is that the UN provides fabulous value for what the world spends on it, and that if it ever ceased to exist, we would have to reinvent it. The downsides are real, but we need to remember the immortal words of Dag Hammarskjold, the UN’s second secretary-general: “The UN was created not to bring us to heaven, but to save us from hell.”
聚首于墨尔本的年轻人都十分明白，根本出发点在于世界花在联合国上的钱产生了极高的价值，如果联合国寿终正寝，我们还得重新创造一个。联合国的衰落是实实在在的，但我们必须铭记联合国第二任秘书长哈马舍尔德的不朽名言：“联合国不是用来把我们带上天堂的，它是用来把我们带离地狱的。”