BY BEN CASHDAN
& DENNIS BRUTUS
DURBAN — Whereas Bill Clinton entertained us with his exploits, throwing apologies around liberally afterwards, George Bush junior seems to prefer pre-climactic withdrawal.
We are referring of course to the US government's premature departure from the United Nations' World Conference Against Racism (WCAR). This was the highest-profile pullout ever staged by such a low-profile delegation. One wonders whether US officials were sent here with the express purpose of being withdrawn.
What Bush overlooked is that the damage has already been done, and the US cannot dodge its responsibility by its absence. The damage we are referring to is the impact of centuries of conquest, subjugation and economic exploitation on the descendants of slaves, colonised and indigenous peoples. Granted Bill Clinton's apologies pale into insignificance by comparison.
In reality, the former colonial and slave-trading powers needed this conference more than the so-called victims. This was a unique opportunity for Western governments to look on politely while representatives of the poor and marginalised aired their grievances, and for those governments to make a symbolic gesture. This was Infinitely preferable to being confronted by hard-core demonstrators as was the case on the streets of Seattle and Genoa.
Reply to 'anti-globalistas'
The European Union recognised this. The Belgian foreign minister stayed an extra night in Durban, holding up an important EU summit in Brussels, in order to try to come up with a final conference declaration. "One of the main reasons we need this conference to be a success", he admitted at his press conference, "is to provide a reply to the 'anti-globalistas'."
The message the EU wanted to give to the anti-globalisation movement is that Western powers are aware of their historical responsibility for creating poverty and inequality and are on top of the situation. Fancy footwork by the EU ensured just this outcome. The conference declaration denounced slavery and colonialism and recommended remedies based on a "developmental partnership" and the "promotion of foreign direct investment and market access".
Hey presto! Western elites were absolved of the guilt they might feel for having built their economies on systematic racial exploitation, and, as if by magic, minor modifications to their present economic policies are offered as remedies. No need for wild calls for answers such as reparations, never mind a fundamental rethink of contemporary capitalism. And as a bonus, South African President Thabo Mbeki and leaders of other African elites consented to the outcome. Not a bad result for Europe. Seems like Bush missed the boat.
Even greater legitimacy was accorded the UN conference by the presence of thousands of non-government delegates at the parallel NGO Forum. Not only did African presidents endorse the conference outcome but those boisterous civil-society-types, who have developed a predilection for trying to sabotage international gatherings of world leaders, had their own meeting just a block away.
Not surprisingly, the NGO declaration contains much more radical language than the official UN document. It condemns the contemporary racist exploitation by states of groups such as the Palestinians, the dalits (or "untouchables") in India, and present-day slaves in Mauritania and elsewhere. And it calls for direct financial reparations to be paid to the victims of racism. It also points to present forms of globalisation as an ongoing source of racial inequality.
What impact will the NGO document have on the UN or its member governments? Perhaps the best indication of this is given by the response of UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson to the NGO document. Her first private reaction was apparently to reject it outright. Later at a press conference she said that whilst it contained some good ideas, she could not recommend it to the main conference. In particular, she felt that its reference to Zionism as racism was unhelpful.
Could it be that the whole multi-million dollar event, including the NGO Forum, was a charade, designed to give the impression that the more enlightened elements of global civil society have bought into the empty promises of globalisation? That certainly was the prevailing view in the third gathering, the unofficial "pavement conference" attended by 20,000 landless and penniless people from around Durban and elsewhere in South Africa.
Durban poor
Unable to afford the US$100 entrance fee to the NGO Forum, Durban's poor held their own assembly and march. This was the largest political protest in South Africa since the demise of apartheid, outside of a labor-union general strike. A few US conference delegates strayed wide-eyed into the gatherings.
They may not have understood the slogans being chanted by the masses in Zulu: "Ulawula ngobubanxa Mbeki, e-South Africa" ("Hey Mbeki you're messing up South Africa"), "Wena wawutshelwua ubani ukuthi amanzi ayakhokhelwa" ("Who told you you could sell us water?"). But they couldn't have missed the placards: "Landlessness equals racism", "You promised us land: You gave us jail", "The landless of South Africa support the landless of Palestine".
Since the demise of apartheid, just 1% of the land has been redistributed to the black majority. White farmers still own 85% of the land. Homeless families who recently put up shacks on unused land in Johannesburg to fend off the winter cold were promptly and mercilessly evicted by the African National Congress-ruled municipality.
Residents of Durban's still-segregated black townships also condemned the ANC's cost recovery policies that have led to thousands of people having their water and electricity cut off and 100,000 people contracting cholera in the past year. Thousands of workers marched to protest the job losses associated with South Africa's homegrown (but World Bank co-authored) structural adjustment program. South African unemployment is estimated to be around 40%, and according to the UN Development Program, South Africa recently overtook Brazil to become the most unequal society on the planet.
Across South Africa, as elsewhere in the world, a new social movement is forming to resist the new economic apartheid which comes in the form of structural adjustment, corporate excess and debt-dependency. This is a global apartheid system felt almost as strongly in the ghettos of Western cities as in the sweatshops of the Third World. The "Durban Social Forum" was founded on the streets outside the WCAR to challenge this system.
The WCAR never provided a real opportunity for change. We are pleased that the US government revealed its real interests by going home. At least Bush, unlike his predecessor, has a more honest approach.
[Ben Cashdan is a Johnnesburg-based film maker and author. His films deal with South African, African and globalisation issues. For more information check . Dennis Brutus is a veteran of the anti-apartheid struggle, a renowned poet, and now professor of Africana studies at the University of Pittsburgh.]