TRANSLATING THE U.N.
by sonya hammond
No one should be too surprised that when the UN calls for a halt of hostilities in some country in the midst of political or tribal upheaval, the results are approximately what could have been achieved by sending Dan Quayle over to mediate.
Let's face it, what speaks most clearly for the UN is its track record. It declares cease-fires that everyone ignores, launches formal protests to recalcitrant nations that rarely respond, and with apathy tolerates delegates whose most positive action is to march indignantly out of the General Assembly.
In searching for an explanation for this lack of headway in UN endeavors, one must consider the designated idiom in which the UN may be dictating its terms.
As any of the UN representatives or advisers posted around the world would verify, their annual, quarterly, and often hourly reports must by an unwritten UN decree be submitted in "UNese" which, as any rational person knows, is not an official language. If UNese is used for issuing cease-fires, it's no wonder everybody keeps right on shooting. It's entirely possible that neither side understands that the UN asked them to desist.
For those who have escaped reading UN reports, UNese may best be described as a complex, esoteric variation of English, liberally laced with obtuse British spelling, and overdosed with words that would send William F. Buckley racing for his Unabridged Webster's.
The basic elements of this vernacular include such mutations as the hidden verb, a heretofore rarely used part of speech. In the reader's desperate search for this sentence element, he must stagger down a path liberally strewn with 'archaic adjectives' and 'nebulous nouns', surrounded by as little punctuation as possible.
The effect, usually enhanced by the eccentricities of vocabulary so beloved by the British, is one which would leave most Americans wondering if this is in any way related to the language they actually speak. God only knows how it translates into Russian or Swahili, but UNese may well account for the UN's failure to gain cooperation with nations in general.
A memorable example, presented here unedited, of a UNese communiqué can be found in the first paragraph of a staff circular widely distributed some years ago to UN advisors stationed in East Africa:
" ... As defined by Staff Rule 103.16 the pensionable remuneration of staff in the Professional and higher categories is, on the occasion of the introduction of new base salary scales, the gross base salary. The rule provides further that for each complete 5 per cent by which the weighted average of the post adjustment classifications of the Headquarters and regional offices of the member organizations of the United Nations Joint Staff Pension Fund varies from the weighted average as of the date of application of the current salary scales, i.e., 1 July 1971, the pensionable remuneration shall be adjusted by a corresponding 5 per-cent ... "
It is understandable that the recipients of this announcement spent considerable time consulting with their colleagues in the hope of finding one who understood what the hell the UN Office of Financial Services was attempting to convey.
An unofficial poll showed that 35% thought they were getting a pension raise, 42% thought they had received a salary cut, and 16% when last seen were still looking up the Staff Rule reference number. The remaining 7% were veterans who had thrown away the circular immediately after reading its title.
For those with an IQ over 167 who somehow manage to wade through the obstacle course of UNese construction, its determined proponents have added a fail-safe to ensure that the reader does not reach any sort of conclusion. A plethora of reference code numbers, most of which are changed before anyone has time to look them up, litter every page of UN communiqués, making memorizing the Library of Congress catalog system seem a viable alternative activity.
An integral part of UNese is the acronym, a series of initials designed to keep readers from guessing with whom they are dealing or whom to blame should all else fail.
It is a point of honor among old hands in the innumerable spheres of UN activity to pepper their reports with as many references to UNOTC, UNCTAD, ILO, UNDP and TARS as possible, following the guideline that acronyms promote mandatory ambiguity. Any miscreant daring to translate them is subject to immediate dismissal.
The reward awaiting those who manage to hang in there beyond the minimum 7-pound body of a UN document is a confrontation with at least three 'annexed' non-explanatory charts. These are not designed as visual aids. They are the result of endless research by UN experts hired specifically to produce a large quota of charts per week or find employment elsewhere.
Even when thoroughly entangled and bewildered, no one dares throw out even the most esoteric of reports or charts on the off chance that they might contain an actual solution to something. Unfortunately it is doubtful whether most recipients of UN documents ever catch up with their own paperwork long enough to translate several thousand reports, written by UNese experts, in the hope of finding a reasonable conclusion.
It is, therefore, understandable that representatives of small countries, forced to use what they thought was English as a second language, might despair upon receipt of a 12-pound tome entitled something like "UNDP/ADM/Post/URT", accompanied by the admonition that it is a "revised circular superseding DP/POST/TAN/Rev. 3 of 18 February, 1971, the Annual Review of 13 April, 1970, and Corrigendum 1 of 18 May."
Even if these mystified delegates didn't have to look up the meaning of corrigendum , after spending half the morning clearing their files of superseded material and plowing through 86 pages of the latest hot stuff [revised], they would hardly be in the mood to attend a lengthy Security Council debate translated into UNese from the original Bahasa.
It's almost enough to make us all just a bit more sympathetic with the UN's failures to achieve.
© sonya hammond 1997