News » October 29, 2001

Out of South Africa

Activists swap notes after U.N. racism conference

By Salim Muwakkil

On September 11, a little past 8 a.m., William Wong flew out of New York headed for his Bay Area hometown. Author of Yellow Journalist: Dispatches from Asian America, Wong was on the last leg of a long journey from Durban, South Africa, where he had attended the U.N. World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance (WCAR). About 90 minutes into his flight, the plane was ordered to land in Indianapolis, where he learned of the hijackings that killed thousands of people in the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Wong was stunned and sickened. “In sorting through my feelings and thoughts,” he wrote in an Internet dispatch published at www.igc.org, where activists swapped notes after the conference, “I detected a connection between the U.N. conference and the tragic September 11 events that may not at first seem obvious.”

The connection he found was between the grievances of Osama bin Laden, the accused mastermind of the attacks, and the gripes of many WCAR delegates, non-governmental organizations and activists. “Perhaps I have been too sheltered in recent years, too American-centric and not fully aware of broiling negative feelings toward the United States,” Wong wrote.

For many who witnessed global disgust with arrogant U.S. unilateralism at the WCAR, the events of September 11 were like a ghoulish exclamation point. “It’s a tragedy that some people still feel they can solve the problems of the world through violence,” says Conrad Worrill, who attended the WCAR on behalf of the National Black United Front. “But remember what Dr. King said about the United States being the world’s most violent country? Remember what Malcolm said about chickens coming home to roost?”

But Worrill prefers to focus on another Malcolm X quote: “The American black man needed to recognize that he had a strong, airtight case to take the United States before the United Nations on a formal accusation of Âdenial of human rights,’ ” Malcolm wrote in his 1965 autobiography. For Worrill and many of the black nationalist forces he represented there, the WCAR was a success if only for furthering Malcolm’s vision of internationalizing the African-American struggle.

He also found victory in the conference’s final declaration, which described the transatlantic slave trade as a “crime against humanity,” stated that racism has economic roots and said demands for reparations to victims of the slave trade and colonialism were valid and worthy of further examination. Worrill says various members of the “Durban 400” (the WCAR’s American attendees) and others plan to push the reparations issue in a demonstration scheduled for October 14 in Washington.

There also were sounds of discord. The conference was “elitist and undemocratic,” says JoNina Abron, a delegate from the Southwest Michigan Coalition Against Racism and Police Brutality. “Those who accused the Palestinians and their supporters of Âhijacking’ the conference have got it all wrong,” she wrote on the www.igc.org site. “From the beginning to the very end, the conference was hijacked by the United Nations bureaucrats themselves.” Abron complained that NGOs labored to craft a declaration and recommended an action plan that was summarily rejected by Mary Robinson, U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights and head of the WCAR. Robinson objected to the use of “hateful” language accusing Israel of being an “apartheid” state and engaging in “genocide” against Palestinians. Abron wrote that the “watered-down document that was adopted did not reflect the views of the majority of NGO delegates.”

David Horne disagrees. “The WCAR cannot be adjudged a failure at any level,” says Horne, a writer who teaches at California State University-Northridge. Horne lists several benefits gained from participation in the conference. Among them are global participation with several thousand others; giving voice to the harm being done to women, caste groups and victims of xenophobia; and the development of broad networks for activists and attendees.

Author Makani Themba also came away with a sense of triumph. “For me, the most important thing is that we now have a global network of like-minded folk who can strategize and respond.”

• Help In These Times publish more articles like this. Donate today!
• Subscribe today and save 46% off the newsstand price!

• subscribe to print magazine

• stay in touch with our email newsletter

  Subscribe to our regular weekly e-mail newsletter. It's packed with updates on recent and upcoming stories, events, campaigns and things every progressive should be informed about.

   

• email this article to a friend

  Your Name Your Email Recipient Email

  Personal message Thought you might be interested in this article from In These Times.

   

  Please help us prevent spam by verifying the word you see in the image above

  Send to multiple recipients. Just separate each email address with a comma.

• Reader Comments

  There are no comments on this article yet. Start the discussion below.

• register a new account »Posting Security

  To participate in our forums, please register for a free account.

  Username Password

    Remember me
  

  Retreive lost password »

Also featured The Long War
Every Breath You Take
Where Have All the Liberals Gone?

Full contents
Previous issues
Subscribe and save!

Also by Salim Muwakkil

• The ‘Post-Racial’ President
  Barack Obama navigates a world where color still matters. Posted on August 24, 2009
• Government-Assisted Terrorists
  On May 20, federal and New York City authorities arrested four men on… morePosted on June 16, 2009
• The Irony of Obama’s Boycott
  America's first black president refused to attend a U.N. conference on racism.Posted on April 30, 2009
• African-Americans Back Burris
  The African-American community's unified efforts to retain Roland Burris as the lone black… morePosted on March 26, 2009
• Will Holder Hold Cops Accountable?
  Eric Holder, the first African-American attorney general, takes over a Department of Justice… morePosted on February 26, 2009