The ongoing race to become the next UN Secretary General is one of the legitimately more interesting things to happen around the United Nations in many years. There are so far nine declared candidates -- and each of them have profoundly interesting careers and life stories.
After all, it takes a certain kind of person to want to become the leader of the United Nations!
So who are these people? Where do they come from? What makes them tick? What sorts of experiences, events and influences shaped their worldview from an early age? Who were their heroes? Their favorite books? How did events in their childhood and adolescence affect how they see the world?
These are all questions I seek to answer in my Global Dispatches podcast UN Secretary General Candidate Conversations series. I've had in depth conversations with several candidates who open up to me about the profound experiences in their life and career that would inform how they carry out the job of Secretary General.
I've had these conversations with three candidates so far, with more to come. Each individual provided fascinating insights into their personalities and the historical experiences that shaped them as individuals. They tell stories from their careers, with digressions about important global events along the way.
Have a listen!
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Danilo Turk is the former president of Slovenia.
Turk was born in 1952, just seven years after the Nazi occupation of Slovenia. In the conversation he shares how his mother's experience of being sent to a forced labor camp at the age of 14 affected his own childhood. Turk's childhood included an intense focus on eduction. By the time he was 14, Turk was devouring the greek classics, like Thucydides. By 18 he was in law school, discovering concepts of human rights.
Vesna Pusic is the former foreign minister of Croatia
Vesna Pusic is the former foreign minister of Croatia. She's a sociologist by training. Politician and diplomat by practice. I caught up with her one day after she participated in hours of questioning by UN member states in what was essentially a very public job interview for the position of Secretary General. Pusic grew up in Zagreb in a household of intellectuals in the aftermath of World War Two, which was particularly brutal in Croatia where Nazi collaborators carried out acts of genocide and persecution. She became ensconced in academia and later turned to politics. In her twenties, she started the first feminist NGO in Yugoslavia, and she discusses that experience.
Srgjan Kerim is a Macedonian diplomat
Srgjan Kerim is a diplomat with the soul of an artist, who wants to become the next UN Secretary General. Karim is the former foreign minister of Macedonia, was an official in the Federal government of the former Yugoslavia and also served as president of the UN General Assembly back in 2007-8. He's a self-described "citizen of the world." He was born in Macedonia, but spent much of his formative years in Germany and has lived at various times all over the world. We discussed his unique upbringing, some of his academic work in development economics, and his experience during the dissolution of the former Yugoslavia. And, not least, he discusses how to create gorgeous photographs using a blackberry device.