There are many international conferences scheduled for 2009. Some, like the Climate Change conference in Copenhagen, are crucial. Others, like NATO’s 60th anniversary summit, important. Then there are some plain dull ones. I’m thinking of the International Congress on Medical Librarianship. But none of the international meetings scheduled for 2009 is as invidious as the so-called Durban II conference.
Modelled on the 2001 Durban “anti-racism” conference, which famously turned into an anti-Israeli, anti-American spectacle, Durban II promises to continue where the last event left off. The overriding theme of the Durban II draft communiqué is “that the United States, western Europe, Israel and the other liberal democracies – their principles, institutions, policies, respective histories and national identities – are singularly racist and discriminatory against Islam”, argues UN Watch, an NGO.
In reaction to the Danish cartoons of Muhammad, the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) has asked that Durban II sanction “defamation” of religions, and particularly the Islamic faith, under the term “Islamophobia.” With Libya as the chair of the preparatory process, Cuba as rapporteur, and Iran as a member of its executive, the fact that this view has gained traction is perhaps not surprising.
This has forced the Danish foreign minister to warn that unless the proposal to equate criticism of religion with racism is removed, Denmark will not attend the conference. Canada and Israel have said they will follow suit while the U.S. has long argued against holding the conference in the first place.
Durban I, or as it is properly known, the 2001 United Nations World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance, started as support-worthy effort to focus the international community on fighting racism. Its final communiqué focused on concerns of African descendents, Aboriginal people, the Dalit, Roma, migrants, refugees, asylum seekers, and many more. It condemned slavery and human trafficking, and demanded action on the underlying causes of racism: poverty, war, and global inequality. Among these many issues, it also condemned discrimination against Palestinian people living under Israeli occupation. But the meeting was quickly derailed and Durban II risks going down the same route.
No doubt there is a need for dialogue between civilisations. The election of Barack Obama as the next U.S president offers a chance to explain, once again, that the West is not anti-Muslim, that the U.S and Europe do not have a proselytizing mission. Not in Iraq. Not anywhere. And as Colin Powell said so persuasively during the U.S election campaign, America must not become a country –- or again be portrayed as a country –- where it is seen as somehow wrong to be Muslim.
But Durban II is not the way to advance inter-civilian dialogue or combat racism. When asked earlier in the year, then-Europe Minister Jim Murphy said Britain would pull out of the conference if it descends into another round of attacks on Israel and thinly veiled anti-Semitism. However, with a new Europe Minister in place and conference preparations well underway, it would be good to know where the government stands and how it intends to work with the Czech government – which takes over the EU presidency – to arrive at a unified European stance.
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