I spent the last few hours watching the speeches of world leaders at the UN General Assembly, and I need to write this down while the anger is still fresh, because right now it is only emotion speaking through me. Donald Trump was one of the first to take the podium, though not the very first, and I could not stop myself from writing down a note the moment he finished: this man is completely out of control. His speech was long and, to me, incoherent, and so much of what he said amounted, de facto and de jure, to a violation of international law. He stood there and threatened, bluntly, to annihilate an entire country and, in his words and rhetoric, to destroy a whole civilisation — to make it disappear from the face of the Earth. And the room, the great hall of the General Assembly, absorbed it in the way it seems to absorb everything: with diplomatic calm. There were certainly people in that room who were unhappy with what they heard, but there was no mechanism, no gesture, no moment of protest against such language being used from the podium of the United Nations. Only the Cuban delegation walked out when he turned to Cuba and spoke about his plans for the country. Everyone else remained there, listening politely or silently, while the only real applause and support came from his own corner, where the First Lady sat surrounded by a group of senior US officials. Then he left. He simply walked away from the podium and out of the room, because he apparently had no interest in hearing what anyone else had to say. A crowd of people followed him, and the hall fell into such disorder that the President of the General Assembly could hardly restore enough calm for the session to continue properly. When the main sensation of the day was gone, I continued carefully following the other speakers, the other heads of state. And, actually, the scenario was more or less the same. Of course, they did not threaten to destroy anybody on Earth. But they were, practically, addressing their home audiences. They would usually get applause and support from their own corners, while the other people present were either busy talking to each other, whispering or looking at their mobile phones. Everything looked like such a farce. Here we were, on the major world stage, and the people on it were not even listening to each other. Of course, this is such a waste of time — time in which children are being killed in Gaza, in Sudan, in Ukraine, everywhere. And still they stick to this, for me, already disgusting form of diplomatic nicety: they greet each other correctly, receive applause, and then continue doing what they usually do. The world looks to be in such a damn situation that it is hard to find the right words to describe what is happening. The UN General Assembly is supposed to be the most democratic institution, the body that represents all states on Earth. But today it was just one more episode showing how useless, how impotent and how hypocritical it can be. I cannot understand how people can listen to madmen, to irresponsible people and criminals, speaking about life and death, about annihilating entire civilisations, countries or peoples. And then they start crying over other people who are dear to their hearts, while at the same time glorifying and justifying the military, economic and political power of their own country. I hope you can find some sense in what I am saying, because right now it is only emotion speaking through me. One observation stayed with me. I don’t have very much respect for the King of Jordan, but he started his speech in a rather interesting way. He mentioned that ordinary people’s attention span is getting shorter and shorter, that people are less and less able to focus on any kind of content — video, audio, or something written. And it seems that this observation was very much proved today in the UN General Assembly. People really didn’t seem to mind not listening to each other. Everything was empty form, with no substance. And it was really shameful to watch. Then, at one moment, I realised that perhaps I am the one who is not normal here. My own capacity to concentrate, to follow and to listen to these speeches lasted for a few hours today, not minutes. I was carefully listening to the world leaders, hoping that I would find something wise, something prudent, something constructive. And actually, all I saw was a theatre full of actors playing the game of world leaders, while de facto talking to their own national audiences or trying to make an impression on their allies. It seems that only a few of us are still really listening to all this nonsense, all this madness, all these horrible things that are being said. And that, perhaps, says something about the world in which we live. Probably the majority of people spent these hours today doing something better. And I was the idiot sitting there listening to these morons and madmen — the very people who are, in one way or another, responsible for the state of affairs in which we all live as humanity.
©
2026 Biljana Vankovska |
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