Copenhagen University’s Middle East and Islamic Network (CUMINET) has an interesting post on the Durban II Conference on racism and how the Middle East and the West were attending (or not attending) completely different conferences. The writer, Sune Haugbolle, cites several different issues as causing the breakdown: ‘racism, islamophobia, freedom of speech and colonialism’. He argues that colonialism and post-colonial responses to it are the lenses which most accurately explain the differences.

I suspect that this post-colonial response is indeed a major factor. I have to side with the critics, however, who point out that colonialism has been dead for at least 50 years. Attempts to see ‘neo-colonialism’ lurking behind every bush or policy is incredibly narcissistic and shows a poverty of thought. Unfortunately, the Middle East as a whole is stuck in the middle of the 20th C. (if not earlier) and I don’t see any signs that that’s about to change.

Arab reactions to Durban II: the ghost of colonialism
Sune Haugbolle

The images of EU representatives walking out during Ahmedinejad’s speech in Genève yesterday, amidst the cheers of Arab and other representatives, are haunting. They speak of a chasm in cross-cultural understanding, and that sense will probably remain as a big ugly stain on our collective global consciousness from this event even if the diplomats manage to avoid further walk-outs and a final document is agreed upon. It is a chasm worth dwelling on for a bit. How can the world’s leaders, in 2009, disagree fundamentally on such a universally deplorable phenomenon as racism?

We can begin to grasp this chasm by looking at the Arab press’ reactions to Durban II. The views on racism presented here differ dramatically both from the Western press and from the universalising UN discourse that forms the basis of the conference. As columnist Mahmoud Mubarak wrote in al-Hayat on 20 April, “the seven years that have passed since Durban I have been some of the most racist in recent history.” From an Arab perspective, the US is to blame for much of this: the war on terror, Iraq, Afghanistan, Abu Ghraib, Quran-pissing in Guantanamo, have all been products of a resurgent neo-colonialist US under President Bush. Add to that the Muhammad cartoons, Israel’s incriminate wars on Lebanese and Palestinian civilians, the continued occupation of Palestinian territories, and the racist ideology that underpins it. One then wonders, according to Mubarak, why none of these issues will be on the agenda at Durban.

He answers the question himself. The reason is that the Western countries have other priorities, and perhaps other views of what racism means. Mubarak wryly ends his piece by noting that the Dutch call for a sentence on protecting “sexual freedoms” (ie. homosexuality) in the final document of Durban II “reflects the difference in thinking between the Islamic countries and Western countries on the priorities of this conference!”
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