Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-10-02-Speech-2-247"
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"en.20011002.9.2-247"2
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"(
Mr President, racism is one matter on which there exists a great cultural unanimity: that it is wrong. Nobody wants to be accused of racism; it is one of those strong and highly-charged words which can easily be used not only to struggle against injustice but also to attack and to brand people.
The shadow declaration which preceded the NGO Conference on Racism, in which Israel was accused of racism – without any simultaneous condemnation of anti-semitism – created a distorted starting point for the UN conference. We Members of the European Parliament, too, have seen with our own eyes how anti-semitism appears in the form of naked racism in Palestinian textbooks. The tone of debate was unfair to Israel when account is taken of its past and the obvious desire of hostile States to deny Israel's very right to exist. I certainly do not deny the problems of the Palestinians; these need to be rectified. But no solution will be generated by obfuscating facts in one way or the other.
It is tragicomic that, while condemning discrimination, one is guilty of that very thing oneself. This unfairness unfortunately harmed the credibility of the NGOs and damaged the prestige of the Conference on Racism. As a friend of the civic society and of NGOs I particularly regret this: by its lack of consideration, this body has weakened its own credibility and future operating prospects. I very much appreciate the way in which the most respected human rights organisations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch immediately dissociated themselves from the text of the NGO conference. Similarly, I wish to thank the representative of the presiding State, Belgium, whose intervention on behalf of the EU justifiably stressed that the conflict in the Middle East is a political one and should not be treated in a conference on racism at all.
What, then, should have been discussed? What did all this political talk crowd out? According to Amnesty International, many critical matters such as the treatment of refugees, human trafficking, persecution based on the caste system, and the rights of gypsies threatened to remain unnoticed. And, unfortunately, this is what happened. The Indian untouchables, for example, made strong efforts to bring up their own plight in the NGO forum on racism. Discrimination against untouchables is, according to them, a hidden form of apartheid."@en1
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