Africa: Preserving Inequality - Obama and the Durban Review Conference

27 March 2009
opinion

iThe US terms of engagement for participation in the Durban Review Conference (DRC), a follow-up to the 2001 World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia, and Related Intolerances (WCAR), constitute 'a major setback to the international movement to eliminate racism, xenophobia, colonialism, and imperialism' says activist Kali Akuno. He argues that the Obama administration's revisions to clauses on issues including reparations for the trans-Atlantic slave trade and the genocide of indigenous people in the western hemisphere will simply preserve the status quo ante of race, power and exploitation on a global scale.

Attorney General Eric Holder was right, that when it comes to talking about racism the United States is a 'nation of cowards'. In bullying the Durban Review Conference (DRC) to accept its suffocating terms of engagement, President Obama, like the forty-three Presidents before him, is following the time-honoured US tradition of denying and downplaying the brutal reality of racism. As we go to press, it is unclear whether the DRC organizers will successfully resist Obama's pressure.

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