Kofi Annans tidl. taleskriver, poliitiske rådgiver m.v., Edward Mortimer, mener der er fordele for alle parter i større åbenhed om valgprocessen – i dag kræves der reelt accept fra de to-tre største magter, før en kandidat er gangbar overhovedet.
NEW YORK, 26 November 2014 (UN News Service): Edward Mortimer is an ardent believer in the need to change the way in which the Secretary-General of the United Nations is selected, and he is hopeful that this can happen.
“I think there has got to be a more transparent and more inclusive process,” said Mr. Mortimer, who served as Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s speechwriter, policy advisor and Director of Communications from 1998 to 2006.
“I think there is something for everybody to do here to change this process and ensure that we really look for the best person – whatever their gender, whatever their nationality – who will do the best job for the world”.
“This is a unique job and it is an enormous responsibility. And the world needs to find the best person to do that job.”
Looking back at his time in the UN
Recently, Mr. Mortimer helped to compile a selection of Mr. Annan’s speeches entitled, “We the Peoples.” The two worked together during some of the most tumultuous years for the UN, as it grappled with challenges such as the Iraq invasion and the oil-for-food crisis.
As the UN prepares to celebrate its 70th anniversary, the former journalist and academic sat down with the UN News Centre to reflect on his years with the Organization and the need for change as well as share his thoughts on the art of speechwriting.
Following are excerpts from the interview.
UN News Centre: You covered the UN from the outside as a prominent journalist and writer. How did you settle into the role of being an international civil servant?
Edward Mortimer: I don’t think I have any particular strategy for it. I applied for the job out of curiosity, really. I guess that is a feature of journalists that they are curious.
And I wanted to see what the world looked like from this particular vantage point. I was obviously very pleased to be offered the job, but I sort of felt well, they should take me as they find me.
You know [Annan] brought in a number of people from outside into the Secretariat, including at a much higher level than me… And he always said to them, ‘don’t lose that quality of being an outsider’.
Because the biggest danger in a way for people working in the Secretariat is that they become part of a bubble and they do not connect sufficiently with what, for better or worse, is often called ‘the real world’.
So I tried to be myself and obviously there are some constraints involved with being an international civil servant. But I think I wore them fairly lightly, and on the whole, I said what I thought, particularly in internal meetings. And I think that, generally speaking, that was appreciated as being useful.
UN News Centre: How does one become a good speechwriter for the head of the UN?
Edward Mortimer: Well, again, I am not sure I had a particular formula for that. Although, I would say that if you are writing speeches for anybody, you need to have an ear. You need to have some sense of how they naturally express themselves.
And it is no good writing something which doesn’t sound right coming from them.
And, I think perhaps especially for me, with a sort of partially academic background, and having written sort of relatively high-brow pieces in the Financial Times, I had to simplify my style and pare it down somewhat – long sentences with subordinate clauses don’t work well in speeches.
It is partly that, the nature of the spoken word, and partly the personality of the person delivering the speech.
Kofi Annan is an extremely intelligent man. I would not say he is exactly an intellectual. I think one of his virtues, in a way, is that he likes to express things in a reasonably simple way. So it was important to write short sentences and not too many long words.
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