The
United Nations General Assembly, made up of 193 member states, will meet
on September 22, 2011 at the UN headquarters in New
York City to mark the tenth anniversary of the adoption of the Durban
Declaration and Programme of Action (DDPA).
Containing a series of principles and proposals for fighting racism, the
62-page DDPA [PDF] was passed at the 2001 World Conference Against
Racism in Durban, South
Africa/Azania.
Despite
opposition from the imperialist countries led by the US,
the 2001 WCAR became a flashpoint for focusing international attention
on two issues: reparations for slavery and the liberation of
Palestine. It involved a convergence of several events: the official
meeting of member states that adopted the DDPA; the NGO Forum that approved
a substantially stronger document (the WCAR
NGO Forum Declaration); a two-day general strike led by
COSATU against the privatization of social services in South Africa/Azania;
and daily protest marches outside the conference venue regarding land
reform, Palestine, and reparations. The government meeting was marked
by a walkout of the US, Canadian, and Israeli delegations.
A
2009 review conference took place in Geneva,
Switzerland following
the 2001 WCAR and reaffirmed the DDPA. The US,
Canada, Israel, and seven other rich
countries boycotted this meeting as well.
Now,
ten years after the Durban conference,
delegates representing the member states of the UN will discuss the DDPA
again – this time in Midtown Manhattan. The Obama administration, along
with the governments of Australia, Canada, the Czech Republic, Israel,
Italy, and the Netherlands, have already announced plans to boycott the
gathering. Combined with this boycott, the lackeys and mouthpieces of
the US ruling class are already working to derail the conference with
false charges of anti-Semitism and jingoistic references to the 9/11 attacks
(see for example the 6/3 New York Daily News editorial “President
Obama must organize an international boycott of obscene, anti-Semitic
Durban III confab” which contains blatant falsehoods about the content
of the DDPA).
Why is the Us Empire So Afraid?
The
Obama administration’s decision to boycott the September 2011 conference
in NYC was announced in a June letter
from Joseph E. Macmanus, acting U.S. assistant secretary of
state for legislative affairs, addressed to some members of Congress.
The letter claimed that the US
was boycotting, because the Durban
and follow-up conferences have “included ugly displays of intolerance
and anti-Semitism.”
Two
years ago, the Obama administration released a more detailed press statement
regarding its decision to boycott the 2009 review conference in Geneva. Titled, “U.S. Posture Toward the Durban Review Conference and Participation in the
UN Human Rights Council,” the statement opposed the reaffirmation of the
DDPA and outlined the conditions for a document that would be tolerable
to the US:
It
must not single out any one country or conflict, nor embrace the troubling
concept of “defamation of religion.” The U.S.
also believes an acceptable document should not go further than the DDPA
on the issue of reparations for slavery.
The
Obama administration’s reasons for boycotting the September 2011 conference
in NYC and the 2009 review conference in Geneva are
pretenses for shutting down criticism of Israel. Out of 341 paragraphs, the DDPA contains
four paragraphs on Palestine,
hardly any “singling out” of the Zionist entity. To protect its attack
dog in the Middle East, the US
is once again resorting to the usual tactic of equating criticisms of
Israeli settler-colonialism with anti-Semitism.
The
Obama administration’s non-participation is neither surprising nor exceptional.
It exposes the fact that this administration continues to carry out the
strategic interests of the US
ruling class in maintaining white supremacist national oppression inside
the Empire and in dominating the people of the world.
The
Bush administration deliberately sent a low-level delegation to the 2001
WCAR, which did not include secretary of state Colin Powell, and then
recalled it in the middle of the conference. During the Carter and Reagan
administrations respectively, the US
boycotted the 1978 and 1983 World Conferences to Combat Racism and Racial
Discrimination in Geneva, where UN member states condemned
apartheid in South Africa/Azania as a crime against humanity and denou
nced Israel’s
collaborative relationship with the apartheid regime.
Why
is the US Empire so afraid of participating in UN-sponsored conferences
on racism and racial discrimination? While the one-country-one-vote forum
of the UN General Assembly is certainly more difficult to control than
the UN Security Council or an exclusive gathering of the imperialist countries,
most of the countries in the General Assembly are neocolonial states,
run by local elites that play varying roles in administering imperialist
relations. Thus, why does the US have such a record of non-participation?
First,
there exist real contradictions in foreign policy between the US ruling class and certain dependent countries,
even while the latter do not break fundamentally with the imperialist
system and are not reliable allies of the peoples’ movements. Second,
each of these UN-sponsored gatherings is a forum for shaping the views
of people around the world, where peoples’ movements have the opportunity
to influence international public opinion through militant street mobilizations
outside conference venues.
Both
of these factors contribute to the possibility of embarrassment and isolation
at any UN function for the US
ruling class, which sits at the head of a country with racism in its DNA.
To paraphrase Mao, here is one arena where it is not the people who fear
US imperialism, but it is US imperialism that fears
the people of the world.
A Hard Look at the Text of the DDPA
The
DDPA is not legally binding or enforceable under international law. It
derives its authority from moral recognition and the commitment of UN
member states to implement its provisions. As such, the struggle over
the DDPA’s language is primarily an ideological
struggle over how to understand history and our present conditions. Viewed
in this way, it is a compromised text. The DDPA contains a few provisions
that could be advances in the fight against racism if seized by the peoples’
movements, but embodies a capitulation to the imperialist countries in
some other important ways.
The
most important advance made in the text is the acknowledgement in Paragraph
13 that “slavery and the slave trade are a crime against humanity and
should always have been so, especially the transatlantic slave trade.”
The term “crime against humanity” carries weight under international law
and the recognition of slavery as such may have given a boost to reparations
litigation. Yet, at the same time, the DDPA does not contain
any language advocating reparations for slavery. It only expresses profound
“regret” for slavery and states in Paragraph 100 that “some States have
taken the initiative to apologize and have paid reparation, where appropriate,
for grave and massive violations committed.” Beyond that, there are only
general provisions discussing the right of all victims of racism, racial
discrimination, xenophobia, and related intolerance to seek “just and
adequate reparation.” Furthermore, the DDPA fails to similarly characterize
colonialism as a “crime against humanity.” There is much further to push.
The
four paragraphs discussing Palestine
in the DDPA are even more timid. Paragraph 65, discussing the right of
refugees to return voluntarily to their homes and properties, provides
no indication that it is addressing Palestinian refugees in particular.
This should be contrasted with the
declaration and programme of action adopted
at the 1978 World Conference to Combat Racism and Racial Discrimination
which referred explicitly to the Nakba (Arabic
for “catastrophe” – the name given to the 1948 mass expulsion): “the cruel
tragedy which befell the Palestinian people 30 years ago and which the[y]
continue to endure today – manifested in their being prevented from exercising
their right to self-determination on the soil of their homeland, in the
dispersal of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, the prevention of
their return to their homes, and the establishment therein of settlers
from abroad.”
The
leading provision Paragraph 63 simultaneously recognizes the Palestinian
right to self-determination and to the establishment of an independent
state alongside “the right to security for all States in the region, including
Israel.” The previous declarations
and programmes of action adopted at the 1978
and 1983 World Conferences to Combat Racism did not condition the Palestinian
right to self-determination on Israel’s security. In that
respect, the DDPA is a step backward. Further, note that the text discusses
the right of States to “security,” not people or populations, in
effect codifying the existing states in the region. This is a predictable
gesture in a document adopted by the UN member states, yet ironic in light
of the North African and Arab democratic revolts. Finally, of course,
UN General Assembly Resolution 3379, which correctly identified Zionism
as a form of racism and remained in place from 1975 to 1991, continues
to set the bar in the struggle within the UN over the proper characterization
of Israeli settler-colonialism and its ideology.
Build the Peoples’ Movements, Isolate the US Imperialists
As
September 22 approaches, working and oppressed people in the US Empire
can draw lessons from past historic campaigns to bring the crimes of the
US ruling classes before the UN. In 1951, Paul
Robeson and William L. Patterson presented a petition to UN officials
titled, “We Charge Genocide” condemning the oppression of Black people
in the US,
reflected in the widespread practice of lynching. Malcolm X would again
raise the call during the 1960s for Black people to use the UN as a forum
to expose their oppression in the US.
In 1970, the Young Lords and the Puerto Rican Student Union organized
a march of 10,000 people to the UN demanding independence for Puerto
Rico, the release of political prisoners, and an end to police violence.
In 1979, the National Black Human Rights Coalition organized a 5,000-strong
march to the UN, with the slogans “Black People Charge Genocide” and “Human
Rights is the Right to Self-Determination.” There should be a renewed
focus today on the UN as an important site of struggle for working and
oppressed people in the US.
COSATU’s two-day general strike against neoliberal
policies on the eve of the 2001 WCAR in Durban provides a powerful example of how peoples’ movements can utilize
such international gatherings to their advantage. The September 22 meeting
is taking place not only in the country that is the home base of the Empire,
but in the city that is the heart of US finance capital. It is
crucial for all working and oppressed people to mobilize for the Durban
+ 10 Coalition activities from September 18 through 22,
especially any protest marches that are planned.
The
movement for reparations in the US
can broaden and deepen its forces by highlighting the survivals of slavery
in the foundations of US
society today and the failure of Reconstruction to fully uproot them.
Mass incarceration. Racist policing.
Schools that operate like jails. Disproportionate
unemployment. Enduring Black poverty throughout
the country and in the Black Belt south.
In
the weeks leading up to the conference and during the days of scheduled
activity, we must make clear that reparations for slavery, as well
as one hundred years of semi-slave sharecropping and national oppression
that continues to this day, is a just demand that exposes the true character
of the US Empire. It is a demand that is central to the liberation
of the Black nation and the right of Black people to self-determination
everywhere. It is a demand for the global redistribution of wealth stolen
by the Empire. Without it, socialism is impossible.
BlackCommentator.com Guest Commentator, Jehan Abad, is a member
of the Oppressed Nationalities Commission of Freedom Road Socialist Organization / Organización Socialista del Camino para la Libertad. Click
here
to contact Jehan Abad.
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