| Speech
meant for delivery by the President of South Africa, Thabo Mbeki, at the Closing Session
of the WCAR, 7 September 2001 President of the World Conference,
Secretary General of the Conference,
Distinguished delegates,
Leaders of non-governmental organisations,
Ladies and gentlemen:
We are at the end of an historic World
Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance.
As we prepare to return to our respective
homes, I would like to thank you most sincerely for coming to Durban to participate in the
important work that has been done at the governmental and non-governmental meetings that
have taken place over the last fortnight.
I would also like to apologise for any
inconvenience suffered by any of the delegates, as a result of any failings on our part as
South Africans.
As we prepare to return to our respective
homes, naturally, we must ask ourselves the question - did we achieve what we came to
Durban to achieve!
Long before we concluded our work, the
skeptics said the Conference had failed. Some of those who did not come stayed away
because they do not care about the pain caused to very many by the social evils we have
been discussing.
Clearly, others behaved as they did,
because they thought there were other matters more important than the effort to unite the
peoples of the world to wage a determined struggle against racism, racial discrimination,
xenophobia and related intolerance.
Those of us who care deeply
about these critically important matters of human rights for all and human dignity for
all, came, stayed and grappled with these issues with the great seriousness they demand.
This we did in the same way that we stayed
the whole course of the struggle to defeat the apartheid crime against humanity.
We arrived at the positions we have taken
without equivocation. At the same time, we refused to make the statement that is difficult
to understand that the human rights of some are superior to the human rights of others.
We resisted the pressure to subscribe to
the inhuman proposition that human dignity can be apportioned around the globe in
disproportionate shares.
At the end of our stay in Durban, we can
say very firmly that what we sought to achieve, we have achieved.
We met here not merely as governments but
as the peoples of the world. As these peoples, we have made a clarion call that has been
heard in all corners of the globe.
The call we have made from this World
Conference to the peoples of the world is that because racism, racial discrimination,
xenophobia and related intolerance continue to blight human society, they must be fought
with the greatest determination and perseverance.
Few in the world can say that they have not
heard us. Few on our common universe can now say they did not act, simply because they did
not know.
Because of the courage that all of us have
demonstrated to confront the scourge of racism, it should no longer be that this issue,
like the similarly important challenge of sexism, is relegated to the margins of social
and public policy.
The clear message from the World Conference
against Racism is that the struggle against racism is a struggle for human rights, dignity
and the eradication of poverty.
What the global community will also have
heard coming out of Durban is that the peoples of the world are indeed united in their
resolve to act together against racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related
intolerance and not merely to condemn these evils.
From today, they will see that united
resolve expressed in the Declaration and the Programme of Action that we have adopted and
which we are all committed to implement.
The fact that we have adopted a Declaration
and a Programme of Action underscores the truth that if we have the political will to
succeed, we can find consensus on all issues. It also underlines the fact the
international conferences are not platforms dogmatically to impose one's own positions.
They enable us to have frank and open
discussions in order to arrive at agreed solutions. We can be proud that we all worked
honestly to arrive at a consensus. None of us achieved everything we wanted, but we have
started an historical process which provides us with a solid foundation to continue the
struggle to build a better world for all.
We trust that those who walked out
prematurely will accept the Programme of Action and join the international crusade against
racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance.
We can say this without hesitation that yet
another achievement of the World Conference is that it has answered the question for all
of us about that we should do to combat racism and to move forward towards its eradication
everywhere in the world.
Few on our common universe, now and in
future, can say they did not act, merely because they did not know what to do.
Since racism, racial discrimination,
xenophobia and related intolerance constitute a global challenge to the effort to
construct a humane world, they demand that those of us who are committed to confront this
challenge, should combine into a formidable united movement for the dignity of all human
beings everywhere.
The holding of the World Conference has
given us the possibility to reinforce the process towards the building of this global
anti-racist movement by enabling us to sit together to seek a common understanding of the
challenge we face and to make a commitment to one another that we will act together.
We must also salute the Secretary General
of the Conference for the important initiative the United Nations took to ensure that
governments, non-governmental organisations and the youth all focus on the common struggle
against racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance.
As governments we may disagree with some of
the conclusions arrived at by the nongovernmental organisations. However, this should not
detract from the important reality that these organisations constitute an important
component part of the global anti-racist movement of which we have spoken.
It should also not weaken our resolve as
governments to work together with the youth and the non-governmental sector to mount a
united and sustained offensive to push back the frontiers of racism.
This must also mean that as governments we
have to hold ourselves accountable to the peoples of the world by ensuring that we report
regularly on what we are doing to implement the Programme of Action we have adopted, and
by responding to legitimate public criticism if we fail to act.
I trust that all of us will also agree that
the commitment we have made to act is also an undertaking that we will act in solidarity
with one another across the globe.
We must recall and draw inspiration from
the powerful international movement we built together, so that we could act in unity
against apartheid racism in South Africa.
Together we must make the statement in
action that we represent a new internationalism based on the recognition that an injury to
one is an injury to all.
Thus will we give strength and hope to
victims of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance who might be
too weak if they act on their own but strong, if we all respond to the purposes of this
World Conference, of uniting the peoples of the world against racism.
We ourselves who have been
privileged to be present at this Conference as delegates cannot say we did not hear the
voices of those whose voices are never heard, because they are the forgotten, the
marginalised and the despised.
None of us will leave Durban without having
learnt something new. None of us can truthfully say that we depart from this city without
having been exposed to the suffering of communities to whose plight we had not been
sensitised before.
Even if we had achieved nothing else, we
would have achieved much simply by enabling those who have never had the possibility to
break the barriers of silence in the past, to tell the world their moving stories of
oppression and exploitation, at the hands of other human beings who do to others what they
would not allow to be done to themselves.
It must surely be one of the
responsibilities of the United Nations and all of us, to ensure that the billions who did
not hear the testimonies we heard, are given the possibility to acquaint themselves with
the gross injustices that still constitute an inherent part of a human society that prides
itself on its achievements with regard to such centrally important issues as democracy,
human rights and the rule of law.
Madame President, Distinguished delegates:
Our contemporary world is characterised by
at least four distinguishing features.
One of these is the end of the Cold War and
therefore the assumption by some of a position of exclusive dominance in the global
exercise of power.
The second, arising from
the first, is the reality of a global political and economic agenda set by this collective
dominant power, resulting in the implementation of measures determined by this power as
representing the essence of what is good.
The third of these features is the process
of globalisation, which both informs and is informed by this global agenda, thus giving
the agenda the character of a natural process against which there can be no alternative.
The fourth feature of our times that we
would like to mention is the further disempowerment of those who are already disempowered,
which subjects them to imperatives they cannot influence and over which they have no
control.
We met in Durban to discuss what we can do
collectively to change the life conditions of those who are affected by racism, racial
discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance.
Put in other words, we met in Durban to
agree to the extent that we could, about what we should do to change the life conditions
of those who are, today, the most disempowered, and the worst victims of the process of
further disempowerment. More than anybody else, these masses cry out for democracy and
therefore for their voice to be heard, listened to seriously, and responded to.
They are unwavering militants of the
struggle for human rights and the rule of law and therefore the right to lead humane
lives, as equals with other human beings. They entertain great hopes about the future
because they have taken at their word those who foretell that the process of globalisation
portends the globalisation of prosperity for all.
They are pleased that they have the
possibility to be treated as human beings and not mere changeable and disposable ciphers
in a gigantic ideological game played by those who exercise power so that they can hold on
to power and maintain particular balances of power.
But they also know from their daily
experience that the future they have been promised has yet to be. They know that they
remain, still, unequal to others.
The lives they lead and their alienation
from institutions of power compel some to doubt the efficacy of democratic means to
improve their lives.
They are aware that they have no access to
the world to which they are told they should belong as their human right.
They know that as much as hunger and misery
was their lot yesterday and today, so will they be their bedfellows tomorrow.
Because they know all these things, these
masses sent their representatives to Durban so that their concerns and their aspirations
should become part of the global agenda that will determine what our common world will
look like in the 21St century.
The decisions we have taken constitute what
should be on that agenda. Their importance dictates that we take the task seriously to
translate them into reality.
It demands that we overcome the opposition
of those who benefit from the silence and invisibility of those who suffer from racism,
racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance.
These will continue to argue that those who
suffer from racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance are wrong to
represent their cause, that they are mistaken to broadcast the pain they feel.
As they attempted to do here in Durban,
they will ask us to talk about things other than what we want to talk about. Because they
see us as the denizens of the periphery of human society, they will work to decide for us
what our agenda should be.
In Durban, we said no to all that.
As we did what we had to do at the World
Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance we
chose to listen to the voice of the outstanding Chilean poet, Pablo Neruda, when he said:
"You are going to ask: and where are
the lilacs?
and the poppy-petalled metaphysics?
and the rain repeatedly spattering
in words and drilling them full
of apertures and birds?...
" And you will ask: why doesn't his
poetry
speak of dreams and leaves
and the great volcanoes of his native land?
" Come and see the blood in the
streets.
Come and see
the blood in the streets.
Come and see the blood
In the streets!"
It should not be that those who heard a
message of hope emanate from Durban should, one day, have occasion to repeat after Pablo
Neruda:
"and from every dead child a rifle
with eyes,
and from every crime bullets are born
which will one day find
the bull's eyes of your hearts."
I wish you each a safe journey home and
success in the common struggle to rid the world of the demon of racism.
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