Posted on 09/10/2001 8:02:11 AM PDT by DTA
After the Race Conference: Relief, and Doubt Over Whether It Will Matter
By RACHEL L. SWARNS
URBAN, South Africa, Sept. 9 — The diplomats scattered like the wind today, flying out of this port city with a 27-page action plan to combat discrimination and a staggering sense of relief that the United Nations conference on racism accomplished anything at all.
But victims of racism and intolerance around the world might be forgiven for wondering whether those printed stacks of promises will make much difference to ordinary people.
This conference grabbed headlines with its divisive debate over Israel's treatment of Palestinians and the bitter wrangling over a European apology for slavery.
The meeting also produced a plan on Saturday that calls on governments to ensure that Gypsies get equal access to education, that minorities are guaranteed religious freedom, that people with AIDS have access to services and that police agencies do not engage in racial or ethnic profiling, among other things.
The plan, adopted by 163 nations, is not legally binding. The United Nations will appoint a panel of five experts to help countries carry out the plan and to review progress to encourage officials to keep their commitments.
Human rights activists say that if governments follow through on even some of the suggestions, like embarking on publicity campaigns to promote racial tolerance or teaching children about Africa's contributions to world history, it will help improve understanding across racial and ethnic lines.
"If governments would really put in place what they agreed to here, the world would be a much better place," said Reed Brody, the director of advocacy for Human Rights Watch.
Whether governments will actually make good on these commitments is far from certain. During the conference, many countries used their political muscle to ensure that they would not have to deal with prickly issues of race or discrimination.
India successfully lobbied fellow nations to prevent any mention of caste discrimination. Before walking out of the conference over criticism of Israel, the United States objected to any discussion of reparations for the descendants of African slaves. Others refused to consider gays as victims of discrimination.
While many presidents and foreign ministers delivered eloquent speeches condemning racism and intolerance, few were willing to publicly address discrimination within their own borders.
"These are very difficult issues and every government feels vulnerable and every government has things to hide and be ashamed of so there's a collective discomfort," said Michael Posner, the executive director of the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights in New York.
Some Western officials have already dismissed the conference as useless and counterproductive. The Canadian foreign minister, John Manley, questioned why the meeting was necessary at all since officials seemed to be doing little more than exchanging platitudes or attacking Israel, whose delegates also abandoned the meeting.
<P><P>"It hasn't been a good experience for the world community," Mr. Manley said last week. "It has not been a good experience for the United Nations and I hope we don't have to see this happen again."</P></P>
Condoleezza Rice, President Bush's national security adviser, today criticized the conference for being too focused on the past and said that a debate about reparations was best avoided.
"I think reparations — given the fact that there is plenty of blame to go around for slavery, plenty of blame to go around among African and Arab states, and plenty of blame to go around among Western states — we are better to look forward and not point fingers backward," she said on the NBC News program "Meet the Press."
Though some have criticized the Bush administration's decision to walk out of the conference as a pretext to avoid the reparations issue, she defended the move. "This conference spent far too much time in trying to condemn Israel and single it out," she said. "I think the United States made the right decision to leave."
But diplomats from Europe and Latin America disagreed.
Brazil's secretary of state for human rights, Gilberto Sabóia, said the international community has an obligation to grapple with past injustices.
"Slavery has been a tragedy for millions of people for centuries and continues to have consequences," said Mr. Sabóia, who helped negotiate the final document on the issue.
"It doesn't mean we have to remain locked in the past," he added. "But we need to understand that past to address the present and to address the future."
With or without American participation, for the thousands of Africans, Gypsies, Kurds and others who gathered here last week, the conference provided an unprecedented opportunity to raise their concerns before the world.
Jyothi Raj, a Dalit, or member of the group in India once known as the untouchables, said she was disappointed that caste was not on the agenda. "We are not getting justice as we should," said Mrs. Raj, who said she is not allowed to enter temples in her village because she is considered unclean.
Still, Mrs. Raj said the conference was a big success for the Dalits. "Everywhere people are talking about Dalits," Mrs. Raj marveled. "We are feeling connected. We are not alone. We are battling together."
Blacks from the Americas and across the continent said they felt similarly when they shared experiences. Many were disappointed when European diplomats refused to apologize explicitly for the slavery, but they cheered the expression of profound remorse and the acknowledgment that the slave trade "should have always been" a crime against humanity.
Now, many blacks are mobilizing to seek reparations, to start scholarship funds or to create monuments to enslaved ancestors.
"We have never had the opportunity to gather together from every country," said Alioune Tine, a human rights activist from Senegal, who led a caucus of Africans and blacks in the Americas. "Now there is enthusiasm and commitment to remind states to meet their international obligations. That is the next step."
Mary Robinson, the United Nations commissioner for human rights, said no one should underestimate the importance of bringing so many people together or the difficulty governments faced in reaching an agreement to fight racism.
When negotiations over slavery and the Middle East threatened to break down last week, she said she feared the whole meeting would collapse. "We were hanging by a thread," Mrs. Robinson said in an interview today.
Mrs. Robinson, who is the secretary- general of the conference, has been sharply criticized for not resolving the sensitive issues around the Middle East and slavery before delegates arrived here. She acknowledged today that the conference would have been less tumultuous if such issues had been settled earlier.
But the important thing, she said, was that delegates managed to cobble together an agreement to fight racial discrimination in the end.
"We got a result and I think it will be very positive for human dignity," Mrs. Robinson said. "I'm not under any illusions. It won't make a difference just because we had a conference. It will be a long, long haul. But in the end, I think it was a truly remarkable achievement. Let history judge."
Just wait till ICC is established. Then biased decisions of 'the oppressed world majority" WILL become legaly binding. The timebomb is ticking...but no Legal SWAT around to defuse it. Liberty is hanging on a thread. ICTY buried magna Carta, ICC will bury American Constitution ! Read ICC statute and make informed opinion. Have seltzer ready.
Please help me here. What contributions has Africa made to world history? Let's see penicillin? No. Polio Vaccine? No. Physics? Chemistry? No. Medicine? No. Engineering? No. Great sub sahara civilizations? No. Get the picture?
it is interesting how everyone want to grab juicy piece and no one cares about dry bone.
The only people who has right to call Ancient Egyptian civilisation their own in Africa are Egyptian Kopts and Nubians. And their number is dwindling for reason conveniently NOT MENTIONED on race conference.
The point is not who invented what.Maybe the time for African contibution is not ripe yet. There are also white nations who contributed zilch to human progress so far( Albanians for example). Progress of humankind belongs to all human beings.
The point is that what happened in the past can not be measured with the multi-culti yardstick of today. Because this yardstick is flawed from the start. It is RACIST( whites vs. non-white) and should be ABOLISHED in the name of humanity, which is whole and undivisive by skin color.
Ottoman invasion degraded Balkans (Serbia had renaissance 70 years prior to Italy) and much of Asia Minor. Who will pay for that? For serfdom, blood tax, cultural degradation? Who will pay for degradation of India under Muslim rulers?
Who will pay for female genital mutilation, slavery, serfdom and other things going on in Africa today that has nothing to do with "chickenskins" ?
Leave Ancient Egyptians alone and let's concentrate on issues of present day misery.
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