DURBAN--"Even if we understood
each other at the genetic level, it would tell
us nothing about how to live or how to treat
each other."
George Annas made this
statement Monday at the UNESCO discussion on "The New Aspects of
Racism in the Era of Globalization and the Gene Revolution," at
the World Conference against Racism. Annas, a professor
and chair of the Health Law Department at Boston University,
was part of a panel that included author Nadine Gordimer,
Axel Kahn, a French geneticist, Achille Mbembe of the
Institute for Social and Economic Research at the University
of Witwatersrand in Johnannesburg and Elikia M'Bokolo,
a historian and director at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes
en Sciences Sociales in France. The panel was moderated
by Jerome Binde, Director of the Division of Anticipation
and Prospective Studies for UNESCO.
It has long been
proven that racism has no scientific basis--that,
as Kahn, research director at INSERM
and the head of the Cochin Insitiute of Molecular
Genetics stated, 'the color of skin does not reflect
a genetic divergence." In 1950, UNESCO made
an offiical statement to this effect. But as Kahn
said, for their expectation "that racism has
no possible justification and was bound to disappear,
I am afraid we jumped the gun."
In 1997, UNESCO issued a Universal Declaration
on race and racial prejudice in response to developments
in science and technology. It underlined that scientific
and biological research should fully respect human
diginity and be oriented at the prohibition of
all forms of discrimination based on genetic characteristics.
Since the human genome was mapped earlier this
year, there has been an international rush to create
new laws; about cloning, genetic research, stem-cell
research to protect us from ourselves, since history
has show that our scientific reach and prowess
can surpass our humanistic evolution.
The discussion on the panel vacillated between
two main concerns about the interplay of science
and racism in the era of globalization. One, that
the advances in medicine and health care would
not reach the poor and more specifically, the darker-skinned
poor. And two, that recent genetic advances might
be used to breed a race of people that are either
gentically superior or genetic specimens.
Gordimer, a South
African and longtime activist for racial equality
in her country, said that while
the ideal we have before us is "one world-a
just world under a new name-gobalization," she
was concerned that the scientific advancements
of gobalization would be limited to an elite few,
that "While vast economic difference continues
to prevail, between the haves and the have-nots,
its going to be the haves, mainly western and white-skinned
and not the have-nots, maily dark skinned who will
afford to counter the physical affliction and live
longer and better."
Annas cited the
example of the Human Genome Diversity project,
which, he said, had tried to collect the
DNA of 700 tribes that were in danger of dying
out yet showed no concern for the survival of the
tribes, other then as genetic specimens. He questioned
whether one day we will reproduce children as we
reproduce animals, and concluded by saying, "Science
has become too powerful."
The two blacks
on the panel, both academics, spoke last and
addressed the psychological and sociological
aspect of globalization. M'Bokolo said that the
scientific debunking of race as a genetic structure
had led to culture replacing race as a perceivably
immutable characteristic saying. "A refugee,
or an asylum seeker is perceived as someone who
is entrapped in particular culture." "This
concept of culture has invaded the discourse," M'Bokolo
added.
Mbembe discussed
the fact that as information and goods traverse
the globe with relative welcome
and ease, the borders have not opened so easily
for people. "One of the central paradoxes
is the growing openness or permeability of borders
and at the same time their crystallization which
has given rise to a new form of racism," he
said, calling it "a radicalization of the
distinction between humans and services."
Mbembe both asked
and answered, "How can
we explain the phenomenon that racism continues
to endure if racism does not exist? The force or
strength of racism is in the fact that the racist
impulse links the rational and irrational."
All of the panelists
acknowledged that the genetic disproof of race
had made little difference in
the lives of those other than scientists. UNESCO
has moved on to a new goal--ensuring that the same
genetic science that disproved the existence of
race to little avail might not be used to create
a super-race of rulers or a sub race. As Binde
said in opening the discussion, "When you
try to address the problems of the present it is
already too late. We should try to anticipate the
problems of the future."
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