The United Nations is as much an oxymoron as the United States. Its charter, on paper, all that is good with the world, to bring countries together, to stop such a thing as another World War.
Post World War II, there was a Cold War, a term which belied the fact that some very hot outbreaks continued to take a deadly toll.
The political thriller HAMMARSKJÖLD – FIGHT FOR PEACE, a centrepiece of this year’s Saxo Scandanavian Film Festival, follows the true story of Swedish diplomat and economist Dag Hammarskjöld, who served as Secretary-General of the United Nations in the late 50s early 60s.
A key figure during this pivotal time in 2oth Century politics and nation building, Hammarskjöld was at the forefront of the decolonisation movement, the man who John F. Kennedy once called ‘the greatest statesman of our century’.
A champion of decolonisation and an implacable idealist who believed the UN should be protector and platform for small countries, he over-ruled the reservations of the UN’s legal adviser to order military action to end the rebellion in the Congo.
The eastern province of Katanga, home to most of the country’s vast deposits of ore, source of much of the country’s income, had declared independence the previous year.
Rebel leader Moïse Tshombe had covert military and technical backing from the Belgian government, the former colonial power, and support from western mining firms with interests in the area. Hammarskjöld believed the UN had a duty to intervene because Katanga’s secession posed an existential threat to Congo.
But UN troops had been outmanoeuvred and a group were now under siege. In a bid to end the standoff and the conflict, Hammarskjöld was flying to a secret meeting with Tshombe when the plane crashes.
Although officially deemed an accident at the time, the film puts forward that the crash was an assassination rather than an accident.
Mikael Persbrandt is superb as Hammarskjöld in a biopic that has depth and insight into the duplicity of modern global diplomacy and how dollars trump democracy.
Hammarskjöld was posthumously awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. It is said that the price of peace is eternal vigilance. For Hammarskjöld, the price was his life, a life celebrated in this fine film.
The 2024 Saxo Scandinavian Film Festival is on now to 14 August
Sydney:24 July – 14 August, Palace Norton St, Palace Moore Park, Palace Central and Chauvel Cinema
https://scandinavianfilmfestival.com/films/sca24-hammarskjold-fight-for-peace
