UN General Assembly
1971

93. Obviously we cannot in a few years expect to change the habits and views of centuries and traditionally we have considered expediency from the unilateral and short-range view of each State. The type of society created by science and technology has changed the systems of traditional interests and we have come to an interrelation of all of them. However, we still measure and judge our relations on the basis of the old models, thus international activity, and in particular that of international organizations, is sadly unbalanced when confronted by the realities of the present-day world. With its undeniable weaknesses, the United Nations is an irreplaceable instrument allowing the international community to rationalize its relations, to enable new principles of distributive justice to gain ground, and to base peace and security on concrete foundations, not simply on the inert maintenance of the status quo ante. It would be deplorable for us to surrender to those who still survive from the period when the rights of States coincided with their strength. Traditionally, men have always sought a better city than that in which they live, and the passage of time has proved that that sought-after city is not one of dreams, but the one that becomes reality in the course of time. Therefore, we must not yield to the past or to the vices of the present, we must look to the world-city, built on the control of power, the true understanding that peace