World Conference against Racism
Encyclopedia
The World Conference against Racism (WCAR) are international events organised by the UNESCO
to struggle against racism
ideologies and behaviours. Four conferences have been held so far, in 1978, 1983, 2001 and 2009. Founded after World War II
and The Holocaust
as a dependent body of the United Nations
, the UNESCO started as soon as its creation to promote scientific studies concerning ethnic group
s and their diffusion in the public opinion
to dispel pseudo-scientific rationalizations
of racism. One of its first published work was The Race Question
in 1950, signed by various internationally renowned scholars.
, Switzerland
. A major focus on the conference was South Africa
's apartheid policies of racial segregation and discrimination.
, Switzerland
, South Africa
, under UN auspices, from 31 August until 8 September 2001. Former Irish
president Mary Robinson
, then the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, presided as Secretary-General.
Entitled "World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance," the conference was discussing unfair treatment of one group against another. Significant time was focused specifically on Israeli treatment of Palestinians, treating violations of human rights and genocide in other parts of the world secondarily.
The 2001 meeting was marked by clashes over the Middle East and the legacy of slavery, and coincided with attacks on Israel and anti-Israel demonstrations at a parallel conference of non-governmental organizations. Canada, followed by the U.S. and Israel walked out midway through the 2001 conference over a draft resolution that, in their opinion, singled out Israel for criticism and likened Zionism
to racism. The European Union also refused to accept demands by Arab states to criticize Israel for "racist practices." http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5h-NABlEjaGSsDBh_qdpdNmX7V6VwD96M0PV00
Also in the conference, African countries - led by Nigeria and Zimbabwe - and African-American NGO's wanted individual apologies from each of the countries responsible for slavery, recognition of it as a crime against humanity and reparations called as such. The Europeans pulled together behind the UK and the best the Africans could get was a call for support for the New African Initiative, debt relief, funds to combat AIDS, the recovery of stolen government funds transferred to the West by former dictators and their cohorts, and an end to the trafficking in people. But the word 'reparations' did not survive.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/unracism/story/0,,548954,00.html
, Switzerland
. Canada, Israel, the United States of America, New Zealand, Germany, Italy, Sweden, the Netherlands, Poland and, after some initial skepticism, Australia
announced they would not participate in the conference.
Mark Mardell of the BBC news reported: On the Monday the Conference was to begin, Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini (who was until last year the European commissioner for security and justice) had told the Italian newspaper Il Giornale that Europe's failure to agree on a common approach was "a very serious mistake, because it shows our inability, despite all the words uttered in this connection, to come up with at least a lowest common denominator on a basic problem: namely the struggle against discrimination, on behalf of which we in Brussels so often speak out".
Frattini continued, "I should imagine that a compromise was preferred at any price. And this, despite the fact that in the documents prepared for the rendezvous in Geneva, apart from a few minor improvements, a basic approach has been maintained equating Israel with a racist country rather than a democracy. There are still unacceptable phrases which, if there had been a smidgen of consistency with what was said at the EU ministers' meeting, should have convinced people to forgo attending the conference - as we have decided to do, and as the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and The Netherlands have decided to do." (Mark Mardell, BBC News)
New Zealand's Foreign Minister, Murray McCully said he was not satisfied that the wording of the review would prevent the conference from "descending into the same kind of rancorous and unproductive debate that took place in 2001," and he reported that he was concerned that it could be used by Muslim countries to criticize Israel and to limit free speech when it comes to criticizing their religion. (reported by the Associated Press on April 20)
On the opening day of the conference, France said that Europeans would walk out if Ahmadinejad made any antisemitic remarks. "We will have to be very clear. We will not tolerate any slips," French Foreign Minister, Bernard Kouchner told France Info. "If he utters racist or antisemitic accusations, we will leave the room immediately."
Germany had decided to stay away from the meeting amid western concerns that the event may take on anti-Semitic overtones, a senior official confirmed in Berlin Thursday.
In his opening address Secretary General of UN, Ban Ki-Moon said, "some nations who by rights should be helping us to forge a path to a better future are not here. Outside these halls, interest groups of many political and ideological stripes shout against one another in acrimony."
Later in the day, about 40 delegates walked out during Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's speech after he described Israel as a "racist government" and attacked the creation of the state of Israel. France, which had warned of a walkout, described it as "hate speech", the BBC reported.
The walkout was a public relations disaster for the United Nations, which had hoped the conference would be a shining example of what the UN is supposed to do best – uniting to combat injustice in the world, said the BBC's Imogen Foulkes in Geneva. Her colleague Jeremy Paxman
described the walkout as a "stunt", arguing that people should have the right to criticise Zionism
.
President Ahmadinejad, the only major leader to attend the conference, said Jewish migrants from Europe and the United States had been sent to the Middle East after World War II "in order to establish a racist government in the occupied Palestine". He continued, through an interpreter: "And in fact, in compensation for the dire consequences of racism in Europe, they helped bring to power the most cruel and repressive racist regime in Palestine." French Ambassador Jean-Baptiste Mattei said: "As soon as he started to address the question of the Jewish people and Israel, we had no reason to stay in the room."
British ambassador Peter Gooderham
, also among those who left, said Mr Ahmadinejad's comments were "offensive and inflammatory". "Such outrageous anti-Semitic remarks should have no place in a UN anti-racism forum", he announced to gathered reporters. (BBC News)
A webcast
of Ahmadinejad's speech was made available by the United Nations, and the Foreign Policy Journal, an online news publisher, rushed out a transcript.
UNESCO
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations...
to struggle against racism
Anti-racism
Anti-racism includes beliefs, actions, movements, and policies adopted or developed to oppose racism. In general, anti-racism is intended to promote an egalitarian society in which people do not face discrimination on the basis of their race, however defined...
ideologies and behaviours. Four conferences have been held so far, in 1978, 1983, 2001 and 2009. Founded after World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
and The Holocaust
The Holocaust
The Holocaust , also known as the Shoah , was the genocide of approximately six million European Jews and millions of others during World War II, a programme of systematic state-sponsored murder by Nazi...
as a dependent body of the United Nations
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
, the UNESCO started as soon as its creation to promote scientific studies concerning ethnic group
Ethnic group
An ethnic group is a group of people whose members identify with each other, through a common heritage, often consisting of a common language, a common culture and/or an ideology that stresses common ancestry or endogamy...
s and their diffusion in the public opinion
Public opinion
Public opinion is the aggregate of individual attitudes or beliefs held by the adult population. Public opinion can also be defined as the complex collection of opinions of many different people and the sum of all their views....
to dispel pseudo-scientific rationalizations
Scientific racism
Scientific racism is the use of scientific techniques and hypotheses to sanction the belief in racial superiority or racism.This is not the same as using scientific findings and the scientific method to investigate differences among the humans and argue that there are races...
of racism. One of its first published work was The Race Question
The Race Question
The Race Question is the first of four UNESCO statements about issues of race. It was issued on 18 July 1950 following World War II and Nazi racism. The statement was an attempt to clarify what was scientifically known about race and a moral condemnation of racism...
in 1950, signed by various internationally renowned scholars.
1978 conference
The 1978 World Conference against Racism was held in GenevaGeneva
Geneva In the national languages of Switzerland the city is known as Genf , Ginevra and Genevra is the second-most-populous city in Switzerland and is the most populous city of Romandie, the French-speaking part of Switzerland...
, Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
. A major focus on the conference was South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
's apartheid policies of racial segregation and discrimination.
1983 conference
The 1983 World Conference against Racism was also held in GenevaGeneva
Geneva In the national languages of Switzerland the city is known as Genf , Ginevra and Genevra is the second-most-populous city in Switzerland and is the most populous city of Romandie, the French-speaking part of Switzerland...
, Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
2001 conference
The 2001 conference was held in DurbanDurban
Durban is the largest city in the South African province of KwaZulu-Natal and the third largest city in South Africa. It forms part of the eThekwini metropolitan municipality. Durban is famous for being the busiest port in South Africa. It is also seen as one of the major centres of tourism...
, South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
, under UN auspices, from 31 August until 8 September 2001. Former Irish
Republic of Ireland
Ireland , described as the Republic of Ireland , is a sovereign state in Europe occupying approximately five-sixths of the island of the same name. Its capital is Dublin. Ireland, which had a population of 4.58 million in 2011, is a constitutional republic governed as a parliamentary democracy,...
president Mary Robinson
Mary Robinson
Mary Therese Winifred Robinson served as the seventh, and first female, President of Ireland from 1990 to 1997, and the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, from 1997 to 2002. She first rose to prominence as an academic, barrister, campaigner and member of the Irish Senate...
, then the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, presided as Secretary-General.
Entitled "World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance," the conference was discussing unfair treatment of one group against another. Significant time was focused specifically on Israeli treatment of Palestinians, treating violations of human rights and genocide in other parts of the world secondarily.
The 2001 meeting was marked by clashes over the Middle East and the legacy of slavery, and coincided with attacks on Israel and anti-Israel demonstrations at a parallel conference of non-governmental organizations. Canada, followed by the U.S. and Israel walked out midway through the 2001 conference over a draft resolution that, in their opinion, singled out Israel for criticism and likened Zionism
Zionism
Zionism is a Jewish political movement that, in its broadest sense, has supported the self-determination of the Jewish people in a sovereign Jewish national homeland. Since the establishment of the State of Israel, the Zionist movement continues primarily to advocate on behalf of the Jewish state...
to racism. The European Union also refused to accept demands by Arab states to criticize Israel for "racist practices." http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5h-NABlEjaGSsDBh_qdpdNmX7V6VwD96M0PV00
Also in the conference, African countries - led by Nigeria and Zimbabwe - and African-American NGO's wanted individual apologies from each of the countries responsible for slavery, recognition of it as a crime against humanity and reparations called as such. The Europeans pulled together behind the UK and the best the Africans could get was a call for support for the New African Initiative, debt relief, funds to combat AIDS, the recovery of stolen government funds transferred to the West by former dictators and their cohorts, and an end to the trafficking in people. But the word 'reparations' did not survive.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/unracism/story/0,,548954,00.html
2009 conference
The 2009 World Conference Against Racism was held in GenevaGeneva
Geneva In the national languages of Switzerland the city is known as Genf , Ginevra and Genevra is the second-most-populous city in Switzerland and is the most populous city of Romandie, the French-speaking part of Switzerland...
, Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
. Canada, Israel, the United States of America, New Zealand, Germany, Italy, Sweden, the Netherlands, Poland and, after some initial skepticism, Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
announced they would not participate in the conference.
Mark Mardell of the BBC news reported: On the Monday the Conference was to begin, Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini (who was until last year the European commissioner for security and justice) had told the Italian newspaper Il Giornale that Europe's failure to agree on a common approach was "a very serious mistake, because it shows our inability, despite all the words uttered in this connection, to come up with at least a lowest common denominator on a basic problem: namely the struggle against discrimination, on behalf of which we in Brussels so often speak out".
Frattini continued, "I should imagine that a compromise was preferred at any price. And this, despite the fact that in the documents prepared for the rendezvous in Geneva, apart from a few minor improvements, a basic approach has been maintained equating Israel with a racist country rather than a democracy. There are still unacceptable phrases which, if there had been a smidgen of consistency with what was said at the EU ministers' meeting, should have convinced people to forgo attending the conference - as we have decided to do, and as the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and The Netherlands have decided to do." (Mark Mardell, BBC News)
New Zealand's Foreign Minister, Murray McCully said he was not satisfied that the wording of the review would prevent the conference from "descending into the same kind of rancorous and unproductive debate that took place in 2001," and he reported that he was concerned that it could be used by Muslim countries to criticize Israel and to limit free speech when it comes to criticizing their religion. (reported by the Associated Press on April 20)
On the opening day of the conference, France said that Europeans would walk out if Ahmadinejad made any antisemitic remarks. "We will have to be very clear. We will not tolerate any slips," French Foreign Minister, Bernard Kouchner told France Info. "If he utters racist or antisemitic accusations, we will leave the room immediately."
Germany had decided to stay away from the meeting amid western concerns that the event may take on anti-Semitic overtones, a senior official confirmed in Berlin Thursday.
In his opening address Secretary General of UN, Ban Ki-Moon said, "some nations who by rights should be helping us to forge a path to a better future are not here. Outside these halls, interest groups of many political and ideological stripes shout against one another in acrimony."
Later in the day, about 40 delegates walked out during Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's speech after he described Israel as a "racist government" and attacked the creation of the state of Israel. France, which had warned of a walkout, described it as "hate speech", the BBC reported.
The walkout was a public relations disaster for the United Nations, which had hoped the conference would be a shining example of what the UN is supposed to do best – uniting to combat injustice in the world, said the BBC's Imogen Foulkes in Geneva. Her colleague Jeremy Paxman
Jeremy Paxman
Jeremy Dickson Paxman is a British journalist, author and television presenter. He has worked for the BBC since 1977. He is noted for a forthright and abrasive interviewing style, particularly when interrogating politicians...
described the walkout as a "stunt", arguing that people should have the right to criticise Zionism
Zionism
Zionism is a Jewish political movement that, in its broadest sense, has supported the self-determination of the Jewish people in a sovereign Jewish national homeland. Since the establishment of the State of Israel, the Zionist movement continues primarily to advocate on behalf of the Jewish state...
.
President Ahmadinejad, the only major leader to attend the conference, said Jewish migrants from Europe and the United States had been sent to the Middle East after World War II "in order to establish a racist government in the occupied Palestine". He continued, through an interpreter: "And in fact, in compensation for the dire consequences of racism in Europe, they helped bring to power the most cruel and repressive racist regime in Palestine." French Ambassador Jean-Baptiste Mattei said: "As soon as he started to address the question of the Jewish people and Israel, we had no reason to stay in the room."
British ambassador Peter Gooderham
Peter Gooderham
Peter Gooderham is a British ambassador.Gooderham completed a BA in Politics and Economics at Newcastle University in 1975. After a short spell as a management trainee, Gooderham spent the period 1976 to 1978 completing a PhD in Modern History at Bristol University...
, also among those who left, said Mr Ahmadinejad's comments were "offensive and inflammatory". "Such outrageous anti-Semitic remarks should have no place in a UN anti-racism forum", he announced to gathered reporters. (BBC News)
A webcast
Webcast
A webcast is a media presentation distributed over the Internet using streaming media technology to distribute a single content source to many simultaneous listeners/viewers. A webcast may either be distributed live or on demand...
of Ahmadinejad's speech was made available by the United Nations, and the Foreign Policy Journal, an online news publisher, rushed out a transcript.
External links
- UN website
- Summary of Durban Declaration Radio France Internationale