UNESCO TO PARTICIPATE IN DURBAN CONFERENCE AGAINST RACISM AND XENOPHOBIA
Durban (South Africa), August 28 {Media Advisory No.2001-88}- UNESCO will be taking part in the World Conference on Racism and Xenophobia (Durban, South Africa, August 31 to September 7) during which it will organize three roundtable talks drawing attention to new types of discrimination - including those connected to advances in genetics - the consequences of the slave trade, and the role of the media in fighting racism. UNESCO is also organizing an exhibition in Durban featuring material about its long-standing struggle against racism and discrimination.
· On September 3 (10 a.m. to noon, International Conference Centre, Room 3), UNESCO will organize a panel discussion on The New Aspects of Racism in the Era of Globalization and the Gene Revolution. The debate, to be moderated by Jérôme Bindé, Director of UNESCO's Division of Anticipation and Prospective Studies, will look at new forms of racism and discrimination fuelled by globalization and growing economic inequalities. It will focus particularly on new forms of cultural racism and on the threat of a new form of eugenics and discrimination stemming from the progress in genetics.
The speakers on the panel are: Nadine Gordimer (South Africa), l991 Nobel Prize for Literature; George J. Annas, Professor of Health Law at the Boston School of Public Health (USA); Axel Kahn (France), Geneticist, Director-General of the Paris-based Cochin Institute for Molecular Genetics; Achille Mbembe (Cameroon), Professor at the Institute of Social and Economic Research at the University of Witwatersrand (South Africa); Elikia M'Bokolo (Democratic Republic of Congo), Historian and Director of Research at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (France).
· On September 4 (4 p.m. to 6 p.m., Room 7), a panel debate on The Slave Route: Slavery and Racism will examine the causes and consequences of the African slave trade along with its ideological and legal foundations. It will also examine the links between racism and slavery.
The panel will feature the following participants: the poet Wally Serote, Chairperson of the South African Parliament's Committee on Arts, Culture and Language, Science and Technology, member of the Scientific Committee of UNESCO's Slave Route Project; Rex Nettleford, Vice-Chancellor of the University of the West Indies (Jamaica), member of the Scientific Committee of the Slave Route Project; José Toribio (Guadeloupe), author of a report on slavery as a crime against humanity which was submitted to the United Nations last year; Joseph Ki-Zerbo (Burkina Faso), historian and contributor to the General History of Africa, published by UNESCO.
· On the same day, UNESCO Assistant Director-General for Social and Human Sciences, Pierre Sané, will take part in a panel on "The Child's Right to Education" (10.00 to 13.00 at the Dome Exhibition Centre), organized by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.
Participants at the panel will include Mary Robinson, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and Secretary-General of the World Conference, alongside high-ranking representatives from UNICEF, members of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child and the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.
· The roundtable on Racism and the Role of the Media, organized jointly with the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, will take place on September 5 (1.30 p.m. to 4 p.m., Room 3) and will have as its moderator Riz Khan, free-lance journalist and former host of "Q&A with Riz Khan" on CNN International. The panel has been set up to hold a focussed discussion on the impact and role of the media as regards the complex issue of racism, racial discrimination and xenophobia.
The participants will be: Mary Robinson; civil rights advocate Jesse Jackson (USA); Aidan White (Ireland), General Secretary of the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), and member of the International Council for Human Rights Policy Advisory Group relating to its media and human rights project; Kwame Karikari (Ghana), Director of, and teacher at, the School of Communication Studies at the University of Ghana, founder and Executive Director of the Media Foundation for West Africa; Abid Hussain (India), United Nations Special Rapporteur on the protection and promotion of the right to freedom of opinion and expression; Maria Victoria Polanco (Colombia), President of the World Association of Community Radio; and Mohammad-Mahmoud Mohamedou (Mauritania), Research Director at the International Council on Human Rights Policy, Geneva, which recently completed a draft report on the Media and Human Rights.
UNESCO will work in co-operation with the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights to implement the decisions and recommendations of the Conference, thus following on work it has been conducting since its earliest days to combat racism and discrimination. Education will play a key role in UNESCO's work, and the Organization will continue advocating education that fosters mutual respect and the recognition of universal values such as human rights, democracy, tolerance and non-violence, solidarity and intercultural understanding.
Already in 1951, UNESCO's Statement on the Nature of Race and Race Differences demonstrated the absence of scientific foundation to theories of racial superiority, underscoring the fact that race is not a biological phenomenon but a social construct. Other milestones in UNESCO's work in this field include: the 1960 Convention against Discrimination in Education; the 1964 Statement on the Biological Aspects of Race and the 1967 Statement on Race and Racial Prejudice which contributed towards elucidating the genesis of racist theories and racial prejudice. In 1978, during UNESCO's General Conference, the Organization's Member States adopted the Declaration on Race and Racial Prejudice, a standard-setting instrument. The Declaration recognizes people's right to diverse lifestyles and the right to be different, while stating that these rights must never serve as a pretext for racial discrimination.
UNESCO's delegation to the World Conference will be headed by its Assistant Director-General for Social and Human Sciences, Pierre Sané, former Secretary General of the non-governmental organization, Amnesty International.
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For more information contact: UNESCO Press Service (+33 1) 45 68 17 44
UNESCO's Pretoria Office Director: Luis Honwana (+27) (12) 320 14 64/65
During the World Conference, in Durban: Roni Amelan 082 858 8832
