FOR- Fellowship Magazine - The Durban UN Conference Against Racism

Let me break it down this way: like the proverbial blind men feeling around an enormous animal to determine what it is, more than 12,000 people from 153 countries journeyed to Durban, South Africa for the World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia, and Related Intolerances ( whew!) to feel around the edges of our collective pain and oppression, to create linkages of solidarity with suffering humanity, and ultimately, to hammer out both a common understanding of racism and a common platform for dismantling it, and related oppressions, on a world scale.

Naturally, an elephant of this size was many things to many people.

For the hundreds of African descendants from the Americas, the WCAR was a magnificent Pan-African gathering in the land of Nelson Mandela–and a prime platform for advancing the struggle for reparations for the legacy of slavery and racial discrimination in the Americas.

For entire peoples lost in the global information shuffle on race (the Dalits of India, Roma (Gypsy) of Eastern Europe, Ainu of Japan, and even the nomadic Travelers of Ireland) the WCAR provided an unprecedented global platform for their centuries-old struggles for human rights and cultural autonomy.

For the leviathan (and impossibly complex) United Nations apparatus, the WCAR was a hugely ambitious and flawed spectacle with great highs and disturbing lows.

For US corporate media consumers, the WCAR was a disorganized, chaotic festival of anti-American and anti-Jewish rhetoric.

For the international anti-imperialist Left, it was the magnificence of a two-hour (that is, short) speech by Fidel Castro, who dropped on us his intense and intimate knowledge of Cuba’s support for the new South Africa.

Sadly, for the international Jewish community and delegates from Israel, the WCAR was a reminder of some painful (and outrageous) anti-Jewish caricatures and rhetoric that equated racism with Zionism, as well as the emotional and continuous schism between the world Jewish community and the people of Palestine.

And for the (white-controlled) Durban hotel and restaurant industry, the WCAR was an influx of tens of millions of dollars during a time of grave national recession.

I dare say that for all of us, though, the Durban conference was the experience of a lifetime.

It’s important to remember that the WCAR was actually three separate, and somewhat non-convergent, gatherings wrapped up into one. First, there was the Youth Summit, which was somewhat marginalized and under-funded by the UN to begin with. Second, there was the Non-Governmental Organization Forum, made up of world NGOs divided into thirty-nine regional and issue caucuses. Third, there was a meeting of most of the governments of the world ( who actually have the power to challenge–or uphold–the status quo of racial oppression). All of this took place in the context of years of preparatory meetings in Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Americas, where all of these broad but highly nuanced issues were debated, bounced around, and eventually put in the form of draft resolutions ( in English, Spanish, and French) that formed the basis for the final discussions in Durban. Both the global NGO community and the world governments would then, at least in theory, have been on the same page in the process of drafting four final resolutions: a Declaration and a Plan of Action for the NGO Forum, and the same two documents for the WCAR government meeting.

Of course, it didn’t happen that way at all, and for a number of reasons.

One clear controversy surfaced in the struggle over the question of Israel/Palestine. The Palestinians, and a number of Arab NGOs, came to Durban with a large, loud, and well-organized contingent, clearly aiming to press the issue of the military occupation as a central part of the world discourse on race. Israelis and members of the Jewish Caucus (with the exception of a small group of anti-Zionist Hasidim) were there to defend the Jewish state. Bitter shouting matches erupted in many plenary discussions, even in those not focused on the Middle East; the Palestinians made banners, and the Jewish activists distributed T-shirts with the message, "Fight Racism, Not Jews." In an atmosphere that had little of the oxygen of nonviolence and mutuality, Palestinians and Jews were unable to connect at all; the Jewish Caucus was, in fact, the only one of thirty-nine caucuses that did not approve the final NGO resolution.

More intrigue was evident in the interplay of governments and government-sponsored NGOs (derisively referred to as "GONGOs"), and some of their civil society antagonists.

Take the issue of slavery in Mauritania, for example. Mauritanian grassroots activists, who had campaigned for a recognition of the existence of slavery in present-day Mauritania, were pitted against slick representatives of the Mauritanian government and their "official" NGOs (they were the ones who wore business attire), who tried to push the position that "slave" states could not be mentioned, by name, in the final resolution. Nasty verbal exchanges escalated into near-fights ( in this case, one between women). In the final analysis, the "name-the culprit" position won–and, I’m told, several Mauritanian government ministers were fired as a result.

Sudanese government officials and NGOs were involved in the same dance. Indian government folks tried to cool the passions of representatives of more that 160 million Dalit ( outcaste) people. Chinese officials were not too happy about Tibetan NGO human rights narratives.

Then, there was the European Union, which declared that, since there is only one "human" race, ALL references to race or racism in the final documents should be bracketed or removed altogether, which is sort of like saying that a discourse on tennis should not be allowed to contain the words "serve," "volley," "ball," or "net." The irony ( and utter absurdity) of this position was, thankfully, turned back.

The biggest disappointment/challenge/insult came, of course, when– to the surprise of virtually no one.–the official US government delegation to the WCAR walked out on Tuesday, September 4. The US had become an active WCAR antagonist since early on in the Prepcom process, threatening to pull out if the Zionism-as-racism issue even came up, and objecting, in Secretary of State Powell’s official statement, to the "hateful" conference language on Israel/Palestine.

I must say that the American government was not particularly well received by the US NGO community, due in no small measure to the junior diplomatic stature of the official delegation and the strident, anti-WCAR comments made in Durban by Rep. Tom Lantos, a Holocaust survivor who briefly headed the US delegation. But most of the NGOs in Durban suspected that the real reason for the withdrawal was the reluctance of the government to confront the issue of systemic racism within the US itself, and the African-American case for reparations.

And of course there were other snafus that detracted from Durban: too many workshops and plenary sessions and caucuses and media presentations booked at the same time; not enough translators for French and Spanish-speaking delegates; a massive but disconcerting security apparatus that kept delegates in and poor South Africans out; and a pre-registration process that virtually guaranteed that the only hotels and bed-and-breakfasts that profited from the WCAR were, in fact, white-owned.

But despite all this, Durban was a victory, albeit an imperfect one, for the forces of justice: the NGO Conference did produce, in the final analysis, a seventy-six-page resolution and plan of action for combating world racism and oppression. And while imperfect, the document can serve as a transitional road map for collaboration on an unprecedented global scale, for specifying both injustices and remedies, and for the vital linkage of activism across issue and geographical boundaries.

The South Africa that hosted the WCAR is a beautiful and complex nation immersed in profound struggle. The "Whites Only" signs in English and Afrikaans have been torn down, but Africans are still in the kitchens and live in Durban shanties a kilometer away from mansions on Florida Avenue. The African National Congress is in power, but aside from a few Ebony magazine-style affluent blacks, the masses of poor people in South Africa suffer terribly from the forces of structural inequality, homelessness, massive unemployment, and social disintegration. And everywhere there is the evidence of a growing, organized mass of homeless and unemployed people who cry for amandla ( power).

But the WCAR took place not only because the world cries out for racial justice, but also because there is hope, and goodness, and love in the South Africa that, under great pressure and at great sacrifice, hosted us to think about these things. I’ll always remember the unfailing hospitality and kindness that I received from the leaders of the Umtapo Center in Durban (and especially Brother Streenie Moodley, a comrade of the martyred Steve Biko) and the wonderful, powerful women of KwaZulu who nurtured us with their song and food and demonstrated that, as always, women are the centerpiece of every struggle for transformation. The Durban beach and African jazz were cool, too.

The World Conference Against Racism and the South African nation are both big, metaphorical elephants: the object of multiple perceptions, touched by many hands, and challenged by many difficulties along the way. But like elephants, they are both strong and resilient. And no doubt, like elephants, they will both be alive for a very, very long time. q

Ibrahim Ramey, who coordinates the FOR Disarmament and Racial and Economic Justice programs, is also a Board member of the New York-based Temple of Understanding. He served as the head of the TOU’s delegation to the WCAR.