Last week, the Durban Review Conference, also known as the World Conference Against Racism or Durban II, was convened in Geneva. The conference was the sequel to the 2001 meeting held in Durban, South Africa, which originally aimed to eliminate racism and xenophobia. Eight years ago, the proceedings rapidly descended into a “hate fest” as Muslim-majority states hijacked the stage as an opportunity to berate Israel and the West. While Durban II was not the same sort of vitriolic, one-sided attack that many had expected, it was nonetheless far from constructive. As such, Durban II simply served as a blunt reminder of the United Nations’s hypocrisy, ineffectiveness, and entirely unrealistic goals.

One of the conference’s first speakers (and the only head of state to attend the conference) was Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Ahmadinejad has in the past called Israel a “rotting corpse” and advocated wiping the country off the map. Unsurprisingly, his speech at Durban II accused Israel of being “the most cruel and racist regime” in the world. But perhaps the most offensive aspect of the entire spectacle was that Ahmadinejad’s speech came on the eve of Holocaust Remembrance Day, when the millions of Jews who were murdered by the Nazis and their allies are remembered in Israel and around the world.

As if Ahmadinejad’s speech were not enough, members of the Iranian delegation accosted Nobel laureate and Holocaust survivor Elie Weisel, who was also scheduled to speak at the conference, calling him a “Nazi” and a “Zio-Nazi.” While several nations walked out of the conference in protest of Ahmadinejad’s antics, the fact that the conference’s leadership did not stop him from acting out and even gave Ahmadinejad the floor in the first place is disgraceful and damaging to the conference’s purported goal of combating racism.

Admittedly, the Iranian delegation’s extreme actions were an aberration in what was a generally respectful diplomatic meeting. But, even so, the conference’s final declaration was simply insulting in its treatment of genocide. The 143-point “Outcome Document” states that the conference “reaffirms its support for the mandate of the Special Adviser of the Secretary-General on the Prevention of Genocide, who acts, inter alia, as an early warning mechanism to prevent potential situations that could result in genocide.”

This declaration comes as the UN continues to offer no substantial relief to the people of Darfur, where more than 200,000 have already died in inter-ethnic violence. It took two years for the UN to even officially recognize the massive violence in Western Sudan, and, even then, it has not termed the massacre of innocents “genocide.” The Outcome Document devotes just one line to an expression of remembrance for the Holocaust, but it dedicates two entire paragraphs to an exhortation for “all international sporting bodies to promote…a world of sports free from racism.” Durban II’s resolutions would be comical if they were not so offensive to the survivors of genocides and to those who are currently threatened.

Further, Durban II did not offer any substantive solutions to the ills of racism. The Outcome Document recognized that combating racism is “of crucial importance…for the promotion of cohesion, but argued that, in order to achieve this “crucial” end, it was necessary to “increase appropriate preventive measures to eliminate all forms of racial discrimination.” So, essentially, in order to eliminate racism, it is important to eliminate racism. The document did suggest that national governments, non-governmental organizations, and the media could all be involved in the process, but actual mechanisms for achieving the end of racism were nowhere to be found.

In the end, the much-heralded conference made only two concrete recommendations, and both were objectionable. The first recommendation was that all countries ought to afford a right to freedom of opinion and expression to all citizens in order to combat racism. But, without even a hint of irony, the conference also resolved that states should “prohibit all organizations based on ideas or theories of superiority of one race or group of persons of one colour or ethnic origin, or which attempt to justify or promote national, racial, and religious hatred and discrimination in any form.” According to the framers of the Durban II resolution, the right to freedom of thought and expression is vital—except when such thought promotes a negative sense of national or religious pride, in which case it should be made illegal.

The other concrete recommendation of the Durban II conference was that states take legal action to combat “xenophobic attitudes towards and negative stereotyping of non-citizens.” Further passages in the document excoriate states that discriminate against immigrants, whether legal or not. This anti-nationalistic, pro-globalization sentiment is fraught with problems, particularly as the UN cannot possibly enforce or even evaluate whether states accept large amounts of immigrants and whether their immigration policies are liberal. There were further resolutions promoting democracy and multiculturalism and resolutions against assimilation and nationalism. The conference’s resolutions were generally naïve and impractical, even when they were clearly articulated.

Therefore, while Durban II may not have been a “hate fest,” it was still deeply flawed. The conference was heated, insulting, and did not engender positive strides toward ending racism. Further, the resolutions adopted were, on the whole, both infeasible and unrealistic. Repressive regimes in Saudi Arabia and China (among other participants in the conference) have little incentive to actually implement the resolutions, and the UN has no way to actually enforce them. The lack of concrete standards and suggestions further undermines the purpose of the conference, and it can therefore be considered a failure.


Shai D. Bronshtein ’09, a Crimson editorial writer, is a social studies concentrator in Lowell House.