Durban, South Africa — The 'Zionism equals racism argument and its repercussions may have dominated, and some say hijacked, the first few days of the United Nations World Conference against Racism (WCAR) in South Africa, leading to the US and Israeli walk-out.
But those who want the focus on another contentious and divisive issue, one that has been languishing in the back seat while the Zionism argument raged in the front, are staying on in Durban.
They are here to discuss slavery and hope that those nations responsible for it will agree to make amends for the transatlantic slave trade that sucked in the lives of millions of black people. These Africans were shipped in shackles from Africa to the New World to fuel prosperity and enrich slave owners and empires.
Many of their descendants, on both sides of the Atlantic, are demanding an apology and restitution - of some kind.
The delegates at the racism conference, who are fighting to raise the profile of this historical act of discrimination and racism, are now having more success attracting media attention and the slavery and reparations issues have moved up the conference agenda.
The immediate problem for the Durban delegates, and lobbyists, is how to get this past abomination acknowledged and recognized as a 'crime against humanity. Most African countries, and certainly the African-Americans in Durban, say the countries responsible for the trade that perpetrated the evil, assisted by their African partners, must say sorry.
The collusion of African slavers, and the enslavement of Africans by Arabs, has received little attention or discussion so far in Durban, in stark contrast with talk about reparations or another form of compensation.
Leading the charge are the Africans and the African Americans. However, they are divided among themselves about what sort of reparations should be sought, and in what form. Campaigners say modest expressions of 'regret for slavery do not go far enough. They want a formal admission of guilt by the former slave-trading nations. But those being asked to apologize are not keen.
The leading former European slavers, including Britain, the Netherlands and Portugal who benefited from this wholesale violation of human rights, have balked at the suggestion that they should acknowledge slavery as a crime against humanity.
They are also reluctant to say sorry or discuss compensation for their countries role in the atrocities. Why? Because of the legal implications such an apology could trigger.
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Neither the Europeans, nor the Americans, want to open the floodgates to claims for reparations
African leaders are offering them a way out. Instead of the direct financial compensation African American campaigners are demanding as reparations for slavery, the Africans have proposed another option. It is what the Senegalese president, Abdoulaye Wade, is calling a 'Marshall Plan for Africa. Wade says this 'reconstruction aid would resemble the comprehensive recovery programme set up after World War 2, to ensure the political stability, security and rehabilitation of Western Europe.
Presidents Wade, Thabo Mbeki of South Africa, Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria and Algerias Abdelaziz Bouteflika are the authors of a new plan - the New African Initiative - which hopes to do just that. Wade and others are proposing that Western support for this 21st century African incarnation of the Marshall Plan would be a fitting way to mitigate the scourge of slavery and its devastating and lingering effect on the continent.
These are just some of the issues up for discussion at the anti-racism conference in Durban. Before its scheduled end on Friday 7 September, delegates will have to thrash out the wording of the final declaration that should enshrine the decisions of the participating nations on racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance.
Africans are concerned that semantics, self-interest and caution may take precedence over commitment to ensure that slavery is recognized formally for what they say it was, an abominable crime against their continent.
