Veto Power of UN Security Council and the Effects of World War II

Please respond to each of the following posts, #1 & #2 (at least 100 words for each response). Each response should be substantive and add something to the discussion, rather than simply restating or agreeing or disagreeing with something the original writer has written.

Response #1: Nationalism 

The foundation for the United Nations was established by the Allied Powers during World War 2 in hopes of fostering peaceful global cooperation between nations. As the United Nations began to function, one of the most important topics the organization addressed was human rights around the world. While it was clear that the United Nations sought basic human rights for all ‘people’ in a territory or nation, it was not well-defined which people group or groups were given sovereignty over their land. India, for example was a mixture of Muslims and Hindus. This caused increasing turmoil in the areas of the world where prior Imperial rule was withdrawing. In India, there was “…violence, a rising toll of murders, and a flood of millions of refugees trying to find safe haven among people of a similar religion” (Smith, p 368). The United Nations had assumed that the countries gaining independence were made up of all the same ethnicities of people neatly packaged together. In fact, those countries were mixtures of peoples from many ethnicities, religions, and cultures, who had migrated or immigrated to the same area. The poor planning and short-sightedness of the United Nations initially caused more divisions and fighting than peace and cooperation. Once it was decided which group or groups of people had rights to the homeland and whose land it really was, better boundaries and compromises could be reached. Perhaps everyone living in each land at that time should have been included in the agreement, and the scope of people included should have been made clear. This could have led to a more peaceful process and given “all people… an inalienable right to complete freedom, the exercise of sovereignty, and the integrity of their national territory” (United Nations Declaration on Granting Independence) and led to the inclusion of more people.

Response #2: Effects of the war

World War II is the costliest war that the world has ever seen and as a result, some of the world's major empires took a serious hit. The fight against the Nazis left both France and the British Empire in a position to no longer maintain their colonies.  Colonized citizens of Britain and France were forced into labor for the war effort, resulting in "the most enduring hatred towards the imperialists and became a rallying cry for independence."(Smith P.368)  The fight against the Axis powers and their practices and the way that colonial forces were treated post-war was eye-opening for colonies all over the globe. "Although African conscripts had constituted some 20 percent of Free French forces and had fully participated on the front lines of the war, they were pushed to the rear and made invisible when it came to parading through liberated cities."(Smith P.367) The fight against the Nazis and their policies of violence, racism, and genocide likely made many Europeans and non-Europeans see the cruelty in the treatment of colonized nations. World War II was the final nail in the coffin for a lot of colonized nations due to the brutality of both forced labor and fighting in the war itself for empires that show little care toward the rights of colonized citizens