NEW YORK -- Stunned silence greeted President Barack Obama as he entered the General Assembly of the United Nations and approached the podium cradling in his arms the emaciated and lifeless body of a small child.

He did not speak when he reached the podium.  Instead he stood grim-faced, glaring at the shocked ambassadors.  He fixed his penetrating stare particularly on the representatives of warring nations.

Raising the child's limp body above the podium, he spoke slowly and distinctly. "Behold the consequence of selfishness and greed.  Behold the result of religious fanaticism and narrow nationalism.

"I came here today to speak of challenges to global peace and prosperity, but the child I hold in my arms, one of more than 175,000 dying from war and hunger each week, speaks more forcefully than anything I can say.

"In this child, behold the insanity gripping member nations of this organization who pay lip service to peace and human development, but spend trillions upon trillions of dollars each year to make more destructive bombs and more deadly bullets.

"In this child, behold our collective guilt.  Hear the questions asked by this child, by this child's parents, and by thousands of others who die each day of hunger and its consequences:  'Why?  Why does anyone die of hunger when technology has given us the power to end hunger everywhere on the planet today?'

"In this child, hear the plea from millions of other children around the world:  'No more war;  no more hunger.'

"Nothing new is needed to heed their plea except the vision and resolve in our individual nations and in our joint policies to change perverted priorities that contribute to hunger and spawn wars over food and water in many parts of the world.  Consider the savagery of wars over food and water that will erupt if we cling to those perverted priorities as the world population grows from six billion today to nine billion by 2050.

"Today's global insanity threatens to engulf all of us in global suicide.  In this child, we behold the question, 'Why?  Why persist in choosing death over life?'

"Technology available to us today in multistory crop production and other developments can provide food and drinking water far in excess of conventional production methods without pesticide and chemical pollution, without crop failure from drought and other weather problems, and without burning fossil fuels that create devastating climate changes around the world.  Nothing new is needed except the vision and resolve to choose life over death, to choose bread and butter over bombs and bullets."

Pausing, he bent forward and gently kissed the child's forehead.  Lifting the child above the podium, he repeated the plea, "No more war.  No more hunger."

No sound was heard as he turned and carried the child from the Assembly Hall, followed by ambassadors with heads bowed. -- John Gile

• Teachers: click here for your students' writing challenge.

• Stopping an even greater disaster than the Haiti earthquake . . .

• Back to top