The Dream Just Keeps on Dying: The Durban Review Conference

“Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.” - Lester B. Pearson (as are all quotations in this article)

What a flap at the United Nations conference on racism.  The only Head of State in attendance was President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran. The United States, Germany, Australia, New Zealand, Poland, the Netherlands and Israel were absent.

So was Canada.  Again.

I am not proud of this.  The United Nations, in concept anyway, is something very near and dear to the hearts of many Canadians particularly because of the efforts of Lester B. "Mike" Pearson, the 1957 Nobel Laureate for Peace.  Pearson was the former Secretary of State for External Affairs of Canada and former President of the 7th Session of the United Nations General Assembly. He became Canada’s 14^th Prime Minister in 1963. We got our flag under his watch, the red Maple Leaf that was recognized around the world as a symbol of peace.  This has changed and our current neo-conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper has seen to that on several levels. Durban II is just the latest.   

As a citizen of a member nation of the UN, I deserve representation by a delegate from my country at any and every UN conference. Unfortunately the UN, aside from its humanitarian branches, has turned into a three-ring circus.  Even the humanitarian efforts fall flat on their face because of the waffling and god-knows-what goes on at the executive level - as we saw in Rwanda.  Three ring circus or not, if you’ve got a pony in the show, you turn up. 

There is a lot of talk here as a result of aspects of Ahmadinejad's speech  of “see, it’s a good thing we didn’t go” and “How shocking! How offensive!”; Are so many of my countrymen really  living under rocks? Of course everyone had at least an inkling of the type of thing Ahmadinejad would say, and what makes some of his remarks particularly offensive is that the conference opened on April 20^th, which is the birthdate of Adolf Hitler.  

I am sure the UN meant a broader well-intentioned message in the timing of the conference but for heaven’s sakes, what are they “new?”  Of course the President of Iran would take full advantage to run his mouth, and he did.  He probably did so precisely because key member nations were not in attendance so he took the opportunity to poke them with a stick to convey his displeasure.  Never mind that key nations weren’t there, the world heard him.

“True there has been more talk of peace since 1945 than, I should think, at any other time in history. At least we hear more and read more about it because man's words, for good or ill, can now so easily reach the millions.”

Some people have asked could nobody find the kill switch for this man’s microphone?  9 nations have to walk out and the rest give Ahmadinejad a standing ovation just to reaffirm to the rest of the world just how out of control things are at the United Nations? Maybe some people aren't interested in hearing what the "other" has to say. That doesn't make it any less valid. Iran is important to world peace, tremendously so. North Korea isn't a member of the UN and Iran hasn't recently test fired any rockets over the Sea of Japan or anywhere else. At least Ahmadinejad is talking and not sitting near a panel fingering a big red button that says "Launch." He might if he had one; he doesn't (yet) but at least the man is still talking.  The blustery square dance of Cold War politics with the Middle Eastern equation continues while Pyongyang is silent. Iran is volatile, without question, and bullhorns broadcasting rhetoric on all sides in the Middle East are blaring but at least Iran did go. 

Ahmadinejad squandered his opportunity in the eyes of many in the world and did a grievous injustice to the Iranian people and the limping peace process of the Middle East. He abused the purpose of the conference and that, to me, is unforgiveable.

Regardless of the clown-car that the UN executive has become, I do not feel that it’s constructive to blow-off the concerns of the body of member nations in attendance, the majority being attendees from the Second and Third Worlds, because of the views of one national leader in particular.  Armenia was there and that is one nation and people that are all too well-aware of genocide; a genocide that Turkey denies ever happened and strong-arms the West into not acknowledging either (Turkey recently recalled its ambassador to Canada over the ‘G-word’ and a recent commemoration ceremony in Ottawa for the Armenian Holocaust of 1915).

Dare I say that the Western Nations are exactly who needs to haul the UN by the ear back onto the rails by engaging in full and committed participation.  Being AWOL won’t achieve this. Dare I say too, that the Western Nations are perhaps counting on the collapse of the UN in order to usher in some new organization.  Say, a blatantly economically-driven one with China as a very key player. Good grief:

“It would be especially tragic if the people who most cherish ideals of peace, who are most anxious for political cooperation on a wider than national scale, made the mistake of underestimating the pace of economic change in our modern world.”

In order for the United Nations mission of International Law, Peace and Security, Human Rights, and Economic and Social Development to work, every member nation has to participate. It's "The" United Nations, not "Some" United Nations.

I would have been the loudest to cheer had a Canadian delegate flown all the way to Geneva just to stand up in the chamber and tell Ahmadinejad: “With all due respect, Sir, you are full of shit,”  because that’s how democratic institutions are supposed to work.

But I guess I live in fairyland.

Maybe Pearson, bless his heart, did too. At least I’m in good company.

“Of all our dreams today there is none more important - or so hard to realise - than that of peace in the world. May we never lose our faith in it or our resolve to do everything that can be done to convert it one day into reality.” 

“The choice, however, is as clear now for nations as it was once for the individual: peace or extinction.”