Anti-Racism Fizzle

Sep 25, 2011 Editorial

Ten years ago, in 2001, the first World Conference against Racism was held in Durban, South Africa. To say that it created a stir would be an understatement. Following the conference’s equation of Zionism with racism, Israel and its ally, the US, protested vehemently and withdrew.
A subsequent review by the UN (also known as Durban II) authorised the commemoration of the tenth anniversary as Durban III with a UN plenary session under the theme, “Victims of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance: recognition, justice and development.” The US, Israel and 12 of its (mostly western) allies immediately announced that they would boycott the event. And they did.
Even though the one-day event was eventually held, it was a damp fizzle as the rest of the world toed the line so as to avoid further antagonising the US and its allies. Pierre Sane, who led a delegation from UNESCO to Durban I after participating in its preparation as Secretary General of Amnesty International explains what the brouhaha was all about:
“…it was due to the fact that for the first time the western countries were put on the defensive. While in the other human rights conferences they saw themselves as holding the moral high ground and pushing the global human rights agenda in a progressive direction, in Durban they were called to account for the past atrocities they had visited on the peoples of the global South. The genocides of indigenous populations in the Americas, the transatlantic slave trade, the wars of colonial occupation and expropriations were all exposed as having been fuelled by racist ideology and in turn having structured the unequal world we inhabit presently.
The persistence of racism today was deemed in Durban to be the legacy of centuries of European expansion and brutality. Europe and North America were thus called upon to apologize and pay reparations to the descendants of their past victims, which they objected to.
The other major contentious issue was linked to the proceedings and outcome of the civil society forum and to the rejection of its declaration by the High Commissioner for Human Rights due to the use of ‘inappropriate language’. The non-governmental organisations (NGO) forum was primarily derailed by the Israeli-Palestinian conflict where the debates led to accusations of ‘anti Semitism’ and to the withdrawal of some international and Jewish NGOs.
This, coupled with the withdrawal of the USA and Israel, was magnified by the western press which hastened to extend the qualification of ‘failure’ to the entire Durban process without even awaiting the outcome of the governmental conference.
“Durban was the third world conference against racism. It followed on two previous gatherings focused on the struggle against apartheid. Durban, in South Africa, was thus meant to be a celebration of the dismantling of institutional racism but at the same time a recognition of the rise in most regions of the world of diverse forms of social and urban apartheid based on structural discrimination that is racial in character; whether explicitly or implicitly while no longer having to draw on racial representation. Racism, in other words, reinvents its justification and mode of expression as it is defeated by science, education and reason.”
Sane concluded ruefully, “The review conference of 2009 has produced a weak outcome document and it is likely that the September outcome document this year will not fare any better.” He knew of what he spoke.
Recalling that the Durban Conference and its follow-up two years ago had caused “immense controversy”, UN Secretary Gen. Ban ki Moon set the tone when warned at the opening of Durban III, that anyone who used the Conference as a platform to subvert that effort with inflammatory rhetoric, baseless assertions and hateful speech should be condemned.
The final communiqué was a study in platitudes.
In the meantime, a coalition of 25 non-governmental organizations (NGOs) critical of the conference, led by UN Watch, has organized a parallel human rights summit with the stated aim of drawing attention to flaws in the UN system and promoting reform. And the beat goes on.

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