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As
happens so often at international
meetings, the focus of media attention
being paid to the upcoming United
Nations conference on racism and
other forms of discrimination (scheduled
to begin August 31 in Durban, South
Africa) is on which nations will
or will not attend. The US government,
voicing concern about sections of
the conference's draft document dealing
with Zionism as racism and with calls
for reparations for victims of colonialism
and slavery, has threatened to boycott
the meeting--as the two previous
UN conferences on racism were boycotted
by earlier US administrations.
It
can be argued that the absence of the US from
the conference would cast a deep shadow over
it. The US, after all, is the world's only
superpower, military or economic; it also has
a long history of racial problems even though
it has sometimes been a leader in the global
struggle for freedom of religion. But whether
the US is in attendance or not, the conference
faces an impossible, uphill battle because
of the very way that racism (and other forms
of discrimination) are construed in the context
of a UN conference.
To begin with, racism is not really a controversial
subject: Nobody ever defends it or argues that
there should be more of it. And yet its victims
can be found, along with the victims of ethnic,
religious, social, sexual and other forms of
discrimination, within the boundaries of every
UN member state. Frequently these forms of
discrimination are codified and enshrined,
as apartheid once was in South Africa, in the
laws and official policies of governments.
More often, though, they exist only in more
subtle forms, based on people's attitudes and
prejudices. In every case, though, the victims
of such discrimination are among the poorest
and most disadvantaged people within any society.
Think
about this: Wherever railroad tracks run
through
a town there is a perceived "right
side" and "wrong side" of those
tracks. And if there are no railroad tracks
to serve as a dividing line between the "in-group" and "out-group," that
function can be served just as well by a highway,
a river or a political boundary. Seen this
way, discrimination is nothing more than the
reverse side of group loyalty, the perfectly
understandable desire of people to be among "their
own kind."
But
the problem of discrimination is more insidious
than
that. Among its most widespread
forms is that based on language. Wherever one
travels, the poorest people one meets speak
a "non-standard" dialect or even
a language completely different from that spoken
by the dominant group. These people are effectively
barred from full participation in the local
economy. They are unable to take advantage
of the local schools or other educational opportunities.
And they are stigmatized as "outsiders" every
time they open their mouths. But most of them
adamantly refuse to do anything to remedy the
situation. They argue that preserving their
own language, the root of their distinctive
culture, is central to their survival as a
people. Indeed, they may see any attempt to
teach them another language as a violation
of their human rights.
And
then there is the even more insidious kind
of discrimination
based on orientation
toward modernism. There is much talk, at least
in certain circles, about the importance of "bridging
the digital divide" (between people who
have or don't have access to computers and
the Internet). But there are many millions
of people in the world--again, including some
of the poorest--who are, for all practical
purposes, still living in the Stone Age. Because
they rely for their livelihood on pre-industrial
technologies such as hunting/gathering or subsistence
farming, it is impossible for them to become
integrated, economically or otherwise, into
the larger society around them. On the other
hand, such integration, whatever its possible
benefits, may be the last thing they want.
They may prefer their isolation since it helps
them resist modern-day innovations that they
also see as threatening their cultural "purity," their
identity and survival as a group. Are these
people victims of discrimination? They most
certainly are--and they pay a terrible price
as a result. But will a UN conference be able
to help them? Not very likely. Not, at least,
without infringing on their own preferences
and, very possibly, their human rights as well.
I
recall the last UN conference on human rights,
held
in Vienna in 1993. The area set aside
for displays by nongovernmental organizations
(NGOs) was filled with bloody-looking posters
decrying the atrocities committed by various
human-rights violators. Every group, it seemed,
had some sort of "bloody shirt" to
wave as a memento of a human wrong it had suffered
at the hands of one UN member state or another.
There is always, it seems, a copious supply
of such wrongs--and certainly no shortage of
victims of discrimination. But please don't
count on any UN conference to provide them
with a remedy.
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