2023-09-19 15:22:10
Volodymyr Zelensky will speak on Tuesday, September 19, before the United Nations General Assembly. The Ukrainian president will take the podium at the UN for the first time on Tuesday. In 2022, he was exceptionally authorized to intervene via a video message.
This speech by the president of a country at war could be included in the list of speeches which have marked the history of the international institution whose headquarters are in New York.
►1960: Nikita Khrushchev’s shoe and the flights of Fidel Castro
On October 12, 1960, in the midst of the Cold War, Nikita Khrushchev, leader of the all-powerful USSR, came to meet the other world leaders gathered in New York. The communist leader shows his discontent by pounding the desk with his fists.
Some say, then, that they saw him hit the table with his shoe. The incident has become a UN legend. But no images prove that it happened, and the very existence of this angry gesture remains contested.
On the other hand, there is no doubt about the record length of the speech given on September 26 of the same year by Fidel Castro. To defend the Cuban revolution, the new master of Cuba takes the podium for four and a half hours!
►1965: Pope Paul VI makes the voice of the Vatican heard
Paul VI was the first pope to speak at the UN General Assembly. It comes in 1965, a year after the Vatican joined the world organization as “observer member”. “Never again war, never again war! It is peace, peace, which must guide the destiny of peoples and of all humanity! “, he chants.
Popes’ speeches at the United Nations for 75 years
This speech was delivered on October 4, 1965 as part of the twentieth anniversary of the creation of the institution, on the occasion of an apostolic trip to New York. Subsequently, all the other popes were asked to speak before the United Nations (with the exception of John Paul I): John Paul II in 1979, Benedict XVI in 2008 and Francis in 2020. In the midst of an epidemic of Covid, this latest intervention took the form of a video message.
►1974: Yasser Arafat and the olive branch
Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat was first invited to address the United Nations General Assembly on November 13, 1974. Embodiment of the struggle for the creation of a Palestinian state and president of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), the leader wearing a keffiyeh brings the Palestinian issue to the forefront of the international scene.
In his speech, Yasser Arafat mixes promises of peace and threats of war: “I came carrying an olive branch and a revolutionary rifle, don’t let the branch fall from my hand. » On November 22, 1974, the UN General Assembly voted to recognize the Palestinians’ right to self-determination, national independence and sovereignty. The PLO is granted permanent observer status at the United Nations.
►2019: Greta Thunberg scolds the greats of this world
“How dare you look the other way and come here pretending you’re doing enough? » On September 23, 2019, environmental activist Greta Thunberg, then 16 years old, challenged world leaders and denounced their inaction by being invited to speak at the opening of a UN climate summit, organized in New York by the organization’s secretary general, Antonio Guterres.
Without being delivered in front of a General Assembly, the speech of the young Swede is a landmark. “ You stole my dreams and my childhood with your empty words”, she says. And to add, as a threat: “ If you decide to let us down, I tell you: we will never forgive you. We won’t let you get away with this. »
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