The NDP’s Flip-Flop on Durban II
Posted on: June 6, 2008

The New Democratic Party has backed down from its support of Canada’s decision to boycott the Durban II conference. According to an op-ed in today’s National Post by CIC chair Moshe Ronen, and Canadian Jewish Congress co-presidents Rabbi Reuven Bulka and Sylvain Abitbol : “The NDP now believes the 2009 conference will not repeat the vicious anti-Semitism that characterized the first Durban conference in 2001 because UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and other notables have given their assurances that this time will be different.”

The Post‘s John Ivison also takes on this issue. In “NDP’s new stance on Durban 2 smells like politics,”  Ivision writes that the about face appears to be a ploy to attract Muslim voters: “..there’s no doubt the party’s new position will do its standing no harm with the Islamic community. ‘I’m encouraged they finally saw the light,’ said Mohamed Boudjenane, executive director of the Canadian Arab Federation and a former NDP candidate.”

Our friend and political pundit Warren Kinsella is also blogging about the NDP and Durban II. His post includes a transcipt of a letter from NDP MP Paul Dewar, asking Interim Foreign Affairs Minister David Emerson and Multicultural Minister Jason Kenney  to  request the government reconsider its position on the conference. Check out Warren’s blog here.

The NDP’s flip-flop on Durban II

National Post
Fri 06 Jun 2008
Page: A14
Section: Editorial
Byline: Rabbi Reuven Bulka, Sylvain Abitbol And Moshe Ronen
 

 Recently, NDP foreign affairs critic Paul Dewar wrote to Interim Minister of Foreign Affairs, David Emerson, requesting that the government reassess its decision to withdraw from the 2009 World Conference Against Racism (WCAR), popularly known as Durban II. The NDP originally supported the government’s decision to boycott the conference. Its flip-flop is deeply disappointing. The NDP now believes the 2009 conference will not repeat the vicious anti-Semitism that characterized the first Durban conference in 2001 because UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and other notables have given their assurances that this time will be different.Such assurances mean little, and for that reason we and many others around the world continue to support the current position of the Canadian government: To reject the travesty of Durban II; to scorn the cynical manipulation of a system that places human rights violators in the position of being arbiters of human rights; and to refute the simplistic view which holds that it is better to work within a corrupt system than to create a vibrant alternative.

 

In 2001, the first WCAR conference, held in Durban, South Africa, presented itself as an opportunity for the global community to address discrimination and racism. Sadly, the conference dissolved into a festival of hatred. Representatives of Jewish NGOs were confronted with charges that Israel was the equivalent of Nazi Germany and that Zionism and racism were one and the same. Swastikas were in full view, pictures of Adolf Hitler and copies of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion were openly sold.
The oppressive anti-Semitism of the 2001 conference delivered a clear message: It was more important for some conference attendees to attack the chimera– their image of the Jew — than to deal with the real problems of racism in the world.

Today, nothing has changed. Libya, Iran and Pakistan — countries with deplorable human rights records — are among the vice-chairs of the preparatory committee (PrepCom) charged with laying the groundwork for Durban II. The NDP is now making common cause with these countries, which have subjected Jewish NGOs to an application process designed to stymie their participation, while the applications of other groups opposed to Israel are fast-tracked. The NDP is now supporting the PrepCom that scheduled important planning meetings on the Jewish holidays of Yom Kippur and Passover to ensure that Jewish organizations would be unable to attend. Indeed, the NDP has now cast its lot with a PrepCom that scheduled the date of the conference itself to coincide with the Jewish commemoration of the murder of six million Jews, Holocaust Remembrance Day. None of this augurs well. 

But it is not only members of the Jewish community who should be concerned. Alarm bells should be going off in the international human rights community following recently released documents that suggest the conference will restrict freedom of the press by imposing a code of conduct as a condition of participation. Is the NDP now prepared to support the stifling of the press as well?

In the face of all this, the NDP calls for renewed participation in a process that has already collapsed under the weight of its own prejudices. While we share the NDP’s impulse to do good, we reject the notion that Durban II is worthy of that impulse.

Canada has an important role to play in the world. In matters relating to human rights, we have much to teach and much to learn. But that important learning cannot take place at a table stained with the venom of hatred.

Canada should take the lead in establishing an alternative to Durban II, a conference where human rights can be discussed and not disdained, where the global list of human rights violations can be challenged and not increased.

As we discard the broken thing that is Durban II, we must commit to creating something better. That the federal NDP does not share the same vision — one embraced by the Conservative government and Liberal opposition — puts it at odds with the values of most Canadians.

- Rabbi Reuven Bulka and Sylvain Abitbol are the co-presidents of Canadian Jewish Congress. Moshe Ronen is chair of the Canada Israel Committee.
 
 

 

 

 

 
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