Durban Review Conference Continued

April 21, 2009 by Jacqui · Comments

Speaking of the power of the network, I neglected to mention that I’m here thanks to the largesse of Ejim Dike and the Urban Justice Center. One barrier to engagement in UN processes is that organiazations have to be in consultative status with the Economic and Social Council (aka ECOSOC). This is the official way that nonprofits/non-governmental organizations(NGOs)/civil society link with the United Nations in order to participate in these meetings/deliberations. This is a fairly involved process that can prove prohibitive to many of our organizations, but it is worth it and once you get started it doesn’t seem too bad. However if an organization, like UJC has ECOSOC status they may add individuals onto their delegation so that folks can access these conferences. Anyway, long story short, THANK YOU to Ejim and UJC for paving the path for Women of Color United to be represented here! (In the upcoming materials I promised, I’ll share more with you all on tips to be involved in UN processes, with and without ECOSOC status.)

I don’t think I need to go into what all happened with President Ahmadinejad’s speech since it’s all over the news. In short, he was supposed to speak for 7 minutes, ended up speaking for over an hour (interrupting a head of state is not done at these meetings) and it was pretty much exclusively focused on his exposition of Zionism, what he described as Israel’s genocidal racism against Palestine, etc. Folks knew it was going to be controversial, but it was more dramatic than anyone expected.

Though many felt quite vindicated by Ahmadinejad’s filibustering and applause was abundant, even some of his supporters thought it was a bit over the top in terms of taking a lot of time and space for one set of, albeit critical, current, and grave issues.

Otherwise, Britain and other European nations walked out en masse during his speech. Protesters yelled names and other comments at him such as “shame” and “racist”. People wore clown wigs and one of them threw a clown nose at Ahmadinejad at the beginning of his speech. The scene approached pandemonium.

Not just in reference to the speech, but more broadly speaking, one Palestinian gentleman with whom we spoke said he felt used in some respect by the level of focus because he felt the Palestinian struggle was being used to express anger and foment controversy by those who had other axes to grind and felt that it was unfair that other issues were being sidelined meanwhile.

Yesterday evening a number of us who represented US organizations met together to discuss strategy. I’ll share here some of the public elements of our strategy. Our jointly decided upon talking points include issues we plan to uplift and emphasize as we lobby various delegations for inclusion of language that was in the original/2001 Programme of Action from the Durban Conference, but are not explicitly raised in the Durban Review Conference Outcome Document, which instead references upholding all that is in the 2001 document. Examples are:

Reasssertion that the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade is a Crime Against Humanity
Explicit language on addressing the situation in Darfur
Reform of policies and practices related to internally displaced persons(IDPs) (reference to Katrina)**
Addressing the issue of foreign intervention and military occupation
Acknowledgement that women face multiple discrimination and are therefore at least doubly disadvantaged on many issues
Raising the issue of reparations

I should note that regarding Katrina, I plan to lobby for a broader framing that is inclusive of policies and practices around IDPs, but also incorporates climate justice, as well as disaster preparedness, response, relief, recovery, and reconstruction.

During the NGO briefing, Sister Jaribu Hill of the Mississippi Workers Center did a phenomenal job of speaking up in support and solidarity with the Dalit Community of Nepal after the concerns of an earlier Nepali speaker had not be adequately addressed by the panel. The response from the panel to the concern raised was that there wasn’t need for more specificity in the outcome document as it relates to the Dalit community. Jaribu stated that if there wasn’t a need for specificity around various issues we could just use the Universal Human Rights Declaration instead of having the Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination or any of the other treaty bodies. She then said “we could just do as we do in the United States and while everyone turns a blind eye, we sing ‘We Shall Overcome,’ and call it a day.” Go Jaribu! You tell ‘em sis!

A gentleman with a lovely Jamaican accent from the Global Afrikan Congress spoke about the nations that have elected not to come to this conference. He stated that to call their action “boycotting” gives their actions an air of respectability. He said that these nations need to be held accountable for their failure to attend and went on to state that “they aren’t here because they aren’t doing anything to address racism.” He said it was analogous to “when you don’t do your work and you don’t show up for school. You get a “zero” or an “F” to denote failure and that’s what these nations deserve.” He also spoke of the prison industrial complex in the United States and opined that “if a black country was holding a bunch of white people in prison we’d be dropping bombs on them to liberate those folks!”

Today in a session on women facing multiple discrimination, amidst all that was said, I thought it was important to note that one person stated that as a person of “minority sexual identity” he felt like his issues/population was marginalized/ignored at this conference.

Well, that’s all for now. More soon……I hear some protests outside and I think I’m going to grab my camera and head out and try to get you all some footage and, depending on what they’re talking about, may join the revolt!!!