Durban II, another opportunity to fight racism missed

Benjamin Pogrund is a veteran of the South African apartheid struggle.

 

Durban II, another opportunity missed

Benjamin Pogrund

The Guardian

 

The racism conference had a chance to make a better world, but Israel became the target once more and it collapsed into debacle

Durban II ends today. The five-day conference in Geneva adopted a declaration running to 143 paragraphs. If weighty words count, then the world has taken a giant step forward in the fight against "racism, discrimination, xenophobia and other forms of intolerance".

 

Unfortunately, of course, life is more complex than that, especially when the countries that endorsed the sonorous phrases include some of the worst violators of human rights, with murder of opponents, suppression of women and homosexuals, slavery and savage punishments.

 

But while recognising that it's an imperfect world, shouldn't everyone – including especially those who boycotted or walked out of the conference – now rally round and endorse the declaration? The conference did little to achieve its real purpose – to review the extent to which countries have put anti-racism National Action Plans in place (only about 10 have done so). But doesn't its declaration deserve respect as an international statement of hope and aspiration for how we should behave towards each other?

 

Again unfortunately, the flaws are too great, both in the process and the document. The problem starts with the organisers, the United Nations, and its offshoot, the Human Rights Council. How did they manage to allow Iran's president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to be the star speaker? Everyone knew he would be spitting venom; the only unknown was how much and how virulent. Yet he landed up as the keynote speaker on the opening day – leading to the extraordinary walking out of representatives of 23 states and organisations.

 

He seemed oblivious to the insult. But the Norwegian delegate got to the nub of it: freedom of speech, yes, but Ahmadinejad's speech "ran counter to the spirit and dignity of the conference … it promoted a spirit of intolerance".

 

If Ahmadinejad was the only head of state who wanted to attend, couldn't he have been (diplomatically) uninvited? Instead, UN officialdom provided him with a platform to be a one-man wrecking crew.

 

The Human Rights Council is itself a curious body, with strong representation by human rights abusers. They have a fixation about Israel and devote a high proportion of their meetings to the country. That could be justifiable if Israel was the only or the worst human rights offender, but it pales alongside places like Darfur, Zimbabwe, China, Sri Lanka and Iraq, which do not get anything like the same attention.

 

Perhaps part of the UN problem is in the lack of understanding of the issues at stake shown by Navi Pillay, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and secretary general of the conference. This is what she said in pleading against boycott moves: "I am fully aware that the reputation of the 2001 World Conference was tainted by the antisemitic behaviour of some NGOs on the sidelines."

 

That's a remarkable playing down of the 2001 conference held in Durban, South Africa. It is widely recalled as a "hatefest" that severely set back the anti-racism cause. NGOs frenziedly condemned Israel and the west to such an extreme extent that the government conference that followed refused to endorse their resolutions, the first and only time this has happened in UN history. Aziz Pahad, then deputy foreign minister of South Africa, Pillay's home country, later publicly apologised for the "disgraceful events" and said that his government regretted that antisemitic elements had "hijacked" the conference.

 

Should countries that boycotted this week's meeting – such as the US, Canada, Germany and Israel – have attended? Should the countries that walked out on Monday – such as France, Australia and Poland – have stayed to listen to Ahmadinejad and engaged him in debate?

 

That is what some say. Well, dialogue is crucial. It is ultimately the only way to effect peace between warring people. But there is also the saying attributed to the late Sir Isaiah Berlin: "Whatever the attributes of a brick wall, one thing about it is that you cannot talk to it."

 

Would it have been possible to sit down to a polite conversation with Adolf Hitler and persuade him that he was wrong to believe that Jews, Gypsies and Russians were sub-humans deserving only of mass death? Would there have been any point in trying to engage Ahmadinejad in debate, and in a large conference setting at that, to tell him his views are lunatic and evil?

 

The week has not been entirely bad. ICARE (the Netherlands-based Internet Centre Anti-Racism Europe) notes that it has been "absolutely incomparable" with Durban 2001: only 314 accredited NGOs with 1,073 delegates, nothing like Durban. "It is mostly a well-behaved affair with only a few incidents. Stickers and some flyers were confiscated by the UN police … A small number of side events were cancelled because of content … and/or abusive language. A few NGO delegates and one journalist had their accreditation revoked."

 

Going beyond this, however, what has emerged from this week is depressing and worrying: during the Ahmadinejad diatribe, many in the conference hall, from Africa, Asia and Latin America, applauded and cheered his attack on Israel as a "racist state" and on the west.

 

Who wants to be involved with people who behave like this? Who wants to be associated with their nice-sounding words against racism and intolerance?

 

On Comment is free this week, while many denounced Ahmadinejad, some commenters supported him, showing no embarrassment at lining up with a man whose government denies elementary rights. Amnesty International reports large-scale arrests, incommunicado detention and torture of dissidents and minorities and persecution of religious minorities. Iran executes children under the age of 18. Adultery can be punished by death.

 

They also parrot Ahmadinejad's "Israel is racist, Zionism is racism" cry. Israel is certainly subject to attack for its oppression of Palestinians and its occupation. But the "racist" charge is as inaccurate and unthinking as the "apartheid" label. Israel has a Jewish majority and they have decided that they want a state for Jews. That is their right and it is nothing exceptional. Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Egypt and a host of other countries declare themselves, even in their constitutions, to be Muslim or Arab states. Does anyone accuse them of racism? When Ahmadinejad pours out his Holocaust denial and his call to wipe out the Zionist, Jewish, state, why do these Cif bloggers not condemn him as the racist that he is? Where is their morality and what are their values?

 

The pity of it is that the Durban Review Conference had a chance for success. Hopes were high 11 months ago when the first preparatory committee meeting was held in Geneva to start deciding on the conference's date and place.

 

The dark shadow of Durban 2001 hung heavily: no one wanted a repeat of that awful event. It was clear that no governments wanted to stir up trouble. Everyone wanted to work to draw the world together to fight racism and discrimination. UN officials made plain that there was no money and no administrative structure to mount an NGO conference. NGOs would have only limited opportunity to submit their views. No one even wanted the phrase "Durban II". It was called the Durban Review Conference.

 

But as the months passed, Israel again became the target. Islamic countries, responding to the Danish cartoons row and other criticisms of their religion, demanded a block on free expression of views about religion. A week before the start, the conference was heading for disaster. It was Durban II. Through negotiations and trade-offs, the attacks on Israel and the restrictions on freedom of speech were deleted and the conference was saved. But still remaining was and is an endorsement of the Durban 2001 declaration which contains two paragraphs singling out Israel – the only country named.

 

Canada was the most prescient about what was to come. As early as January last year, it announced that it would not attend the Durban Review Conference. Israel continued to hope for better things, and only in November did it say it would not take part. One by one, other countries decided to stay out. The US sent observers who had a good look and then said the conference was beyond repair.

 

These countries put the Geneva meeting into perspective. The nations that quit before and during the week are those that lead the world in democratic government and respect for human rights. Each one can be faulted in one way or another. But no one does better than them. Their citizens are the freest in the world. Their distaste for the Geneva conference tells the tragic story of another opportunity missed to gain a better world.