UN General Assembly
1974

210. This twenty-ninth session is taking place at a time when Africa is at a cross-roads in the process of decolonization but also, we would venture to hope, of its liberation from racism and all those practices which are so humiliating to human dignity. At the same time we are witnessing a particularly rude awakening to a fundamental requirement of our time: the advent of a new economic order. Thus, the United Nations which at times, it is true, has had very good grounds for discouragement, so remote did the possibility seem of realizing the noble ideas which are its raison d'etre, can today, relying on the results already achieved, contemplate the future with more optimism. It can now derive from the results achieved sufficient strength and courage to continue its arduous task, which, let us hope, will less and less resemble the rock of Sisyphus, and also derive from those results sufficient raison d'etre so that it can deliberately, with unshakable faith and unmixed enthusiasm, continue to work in the service of mankind for the building of a just and more fraternal world.