Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: gao seng who wrote (179171)	9/10/2001 8:27:25 PM
From: goldworldnet	Respond to of 769670

Walker's World: racism, slavery and absurdity Monday, 10 September 2001 12:30 (ET) Walker's World: racism, slavery and absurdity By MARTIN WALKER, UPI Chief International Correspondent WASHINGTON, Sept. 10 (UPI) -- Back in January, during Colin Powell's briefings at the State Department before taking over as the first secretary of state to be descended from slaves, Powell was excited by the prospect of attending the United Nations conference on racism. Veteran diplomats from State's Africa desks recall being moved by Powell's eagerness over the staging of a major international conference in Africa. It was part of the promise he saw in the emergence into prominence on the global stage of himself, Condoleezza Rice as President Bush "s national security adviser, and Ghana's Kofi Annan as secretary-general of the United Nations. Never before had people of African ancestry been so well-placed to steer the world's fortunes. Never before had the old specter of racism looked so outdated. Never before had the color of their skins been so utterly irrelevant to the way that men and women of talent had ascended to jobs of awesome responsibility. Never before had Africa's children seized such opportunities to make such a difference. And how hollow those fleeting moments of promise seem now, after nine days in the South African city of Durban that shamed the name of diplomacy. The U.N. conference on racism and slavery -- and any other issue that gave blowhards an opportunity to posture -- became a sad and tawdry affair. It finally wound up, two days after it should have closed, because the translators had left, there being no more money in the budget to pay them. And because the translation staff had gone, the South Africans chairing the conference were able to declare the bland and anodyne phrases of the final compromise draft to have been passed and adopted. The Canadians objected. The Arabs squawked yet another protest. No matter. The South Africans, who had hoped to share with the world something of their experience in the country that finally, and peacefully, put an end to apartheid, simply wanted to bury the whole wretched enterprise. Yet there are moments of shame that we should remember from Durban. It should not be forgotten that the Egyptian delegation said they would never endorse any conclusion that did not assert that Israel was "racist." We should keep fresh in our minds the insistence of the Iranian delegation (from the government of the supposedly "moderate" President Mohammad Khatami) that anti-Semitism should no longer be seen as racist because it was "a historical phenomenon with no relevance to the present day." Remember also some moments of honor from the usual suspects who normally tend to bleat hackneyed cliches about racism and Israel, much as the sheep in George Orwell's "Animal Farm" would chorus, "Four legs good, two legs bad" (until they were re-educated to chant, "Four legs good, two legs better"). The Europeans, who so often relish any chance to display their own progressive views while at the same time putting down the United States, stood and fought, and said they would also walk out if the final declaration pilloried Israel as a racist state. The British noted, as a matter of historic fact, that whatever responsibility they shared for the slave trade of the 17th and 18th centuries, they were the first country to outlaw slavery and it was the British Royal Navy that finally put an end to it. The Dutch sturdily reminded the conference that for all their posturing over Israel, the Arabs had dominated the East African slave trade for over a millennium, and there were still instances of slavery to be found in their lands to this day. With some exceptions, the liberal European press suddenly remembered that there were moral lines to be drawn and truths to be respected. "The Arabs, who have no right to give lessons to anyone on issues of human rights, have combined absurdity with hypocrisy at Durban," commented the French leftist daily Le Monde, in an editorial which attracted a swarm of hostile letters to the editor. It might also remind the Bush administration, impatient of so much sniping from Paris in recent months, that the French can usually be relied on when matters get serious. Although in the end Powell was right not to attend, and right to withdraw the U.S. delegation, something useful happened at Durban. The world split, between those civilized lands that have a regard for the decencies of diplomatic behavior, and believe that important international declarations should be founded on truth, and those who will do and say just about anything to score some hollow point. It was sad to watch intelligent and decent Palestinian diplomats, whose cause of self-determination for their people is nobler than the way it was presented at Durban, squirm as they went along with the rhetoric-crazed zealots of some Arab delegations. It was even sadder to watch the spirits of Kofi Annan and Nelson Mandela sink as they saw how their conference was being exploited. But it was useful to learn that the Europeans and Americans and most of the other democracies lined up with Israel. And it was heartening to learn that African countries like Uganda and Ghana refused to go along with the Arab nonsense. For that lesson alone, it might have been worth Powell's time to attend. vny.com * * *