Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-10-02-Speech-2-240"
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"en.20011002.9.2-240"2
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"Mr President, seldom has a UN Conference been so well-intended and so badly understood as Durban. In my view, this is partly due to poor preparation. Diplomats and officials should have made more of an effort to reach consensus before the Conference. That would have saved the world community a great deal of money, time and embarrassing moments. Particularly unfortunate was the fact that a number of delegations ran off, for however well-founded their reasons may have been, those who run away are always in the wrong. Against this background, it was all the more surprising that, despite the obstinacy of Louis Michel, for that is how we have all come to know him in Belgium, and now also in the rest of the world, a sound final declaration was obtained after all.
This final declaration contains a number of important provisions which, if applied, could drastically change the lives of hundreds of thousands, even millions of people. Governments are encouraged to allow minorities to speak their own language, acknowledge their own culture and profess their own religion, to stand up to police services who display racist behaviour and are also encouraged to adjust their legal systems so that they do not discriminate against certain groups. Roma and gypsy children must be given the same education as other children. In the field of migration policy, race discrimination must be banished. I also welcome the sound and balanced provisions on the Middle East, which emphasise the right to an independent State for the Palestinians as well as Israel’s safety. And finally, two centuries after the events, Europe has apologised for the slave trade. After all, we should not forget that at least ten million Africans were transported to America in what is known as forced migration on the largest-scale in the history of mankind. Millions more lost their lives during the slave hunt or one of the infamous cargo ships.
The statements Commissioner Bolkestein made in a Dutch newspaper last weekend are therefore completely misplaced. ‘I am not satisfied with the excuses of the UN Conference in Durban.’ He said: ‘I myself have never had a slave, so why should I apologise?’ That kind of statement bears witness to a Western arrogance which overlooks the fact that American prosperity is partly built on the labour of slaves, and European prosperity is partly built on the raw materials from former colonies.
Can this serve as an excuse for governments in developing countries to shirk their responsibility and shift all the blame to the past? No, certainly not. But rather than giving other people lessons in civilisation, we should have the intellectual integrity to describe this chapter in our history as it was: A crime against humanity."@en1
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