An unreasonable request

During his meetings with President General Pervez Musharraf and Foreign Minister Khurshid Mehmood Kasuri, the visiting German Foreign Minister, Joschka Fischer, asked for Islamabad's support for his country's bid to become a permanent member of the UN Security Council (UNSC).
He did not stop at that and many eyebrows were raised in this country when he went on to request Islamabad not to oppose India's candidature for UNSC membership, presenting the irrelevant argument that this would help build up the ongoing Pak-India peace process.
Pakistan has a principled position on the issue. As his hosts informed Fischer, the country is opposed to any expansion of the elite club that the UNSC happens to be within the world body. It was created by the victors of World War II; and no wonder originally all of them - the US, Britain, France, and Russia - were its permanent members. It took a long time and hard campaigning for the world's biggest country, China, to claim its place as a member of the UNSC.
Those who designed the structure of the world body not only allotted themselves permanent seats in the UNSC; they also arrogated to themselves the power to veto the majority opinion with a single vote.
Moreover, the UN General Assembly, where the majority of the nations - 191 at this time-sit, has no authority to get its decisions implemented. Just last week in an overwhelming majority vote, 150 to 6, the General Assembly demanded that Israel obey the ruling of the International Court of Justice on the separation wall that it is constructing on the West Bank, yet, this will of the majority of the world's nations is non-binding, and hence of little practical value.
What the UN needs is not further expansion of the elite club of UNSC's permanent members, but reform in accordance with the democratic principle that respects the majority opinion.
Only five powerful nations, or seven as Germany wants, must not have the right to override the will of 184 or so other nations. Just as in a democratic dispensation all people - at least in theory - are to be treated as equals, a select group of countries cannot be allowed to lord it over as more equal than the others in an international organisation concerned with world peace and progress.
Even going by the present standards, India does not qualify to become a permanent member of the UNSC. For over fifty years it has refused to honour UN resolutions that urged it to resolve the Kashmir dispute in accordance with the wishes of the Kashmiri people through a referendum.
There is no moral justification for anyone to support India's ambition to become a permanent member of the organisation for whose decisions it has shown no respect. Of course, Fischer is aware that the core issue of conflict between Pakistan and India is the Kashmir problem, which this country wants to be resolved according to the UN resolutions.
It is rather audacious on his part, therefore, to ask the main sufferer of India's non-compliance with the UNSC resolutions to come forward and help it become a veto-wielding member of the same organisation.
Realistically speaking, it is not possible at this point in time to bring about democratic reform in the UN. Those who enjoy the special status are the most powerful nations who would do anything to retain their privileged position. They are amenable only to let in some more privileged nations such as Germany, Japan, India and possibly Brazil, but are in no way prepared to permit meaningful authority to the majority of the General Assembly.
The least smaller nations like Pakistan can do is to oppose further expansion of the UNSC.