Smith should avoid racist conference

By Alan Gold 
February 26, 2009
The Australian
Original Source: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25107079-7583,00.html

The 120th anniversary of Hitler's birth falls on April 20, which coincidentally is the day nations will gather in Geneva under the banner of the UN to discuss ways of dealing with the growth of racism.
The Durban Review Conference was established to evaluate the progress made towards the goals set by the first World Conference Against Racism held in Durban, South Africa, in August 2001. 
It was a worthy topic that should have made for a worthy conference in which to debate how the world should react to the pernicious forces of racial and religious hatred, cancers that ruin the lives and security of millions of people. But as so often happens with the world body, the exhilarating promise proved to be very different from the deadening reality. 
DurbanI was a notorious hate-filled gathering that devolved into one of the most racist and prejudiced meetings in the UN's history. Its anti-Semitism and anti-Israel agenda and hysterical crowds of extremists still send shudders of horror through the corridors of human rights organisations. This is why many nations, especially from the West, are considering boycotting Durban II which, like Durban I, is likely to become a platform for anti-Semitism and anti-Western xenophobia and hatred. 
Like its predecessor, Durban II has been appropriated by nations that have scant regard for human rights, and whose anti-Western and anti-Israel stance has made the UN Human Rights Council into a forum for the evils it was created to oppose. 
As one of the small number of Australian delegates in Durban eight years ago, I witnessed some of the most egregious anti-Semitic propaganda, speeches and decisions since World War II. 
So bad was the venality, so biased the organisers, so effete the UN secretariat running the conference that the US delegation walked out in disgust halfway through. 
This time it is shaping up to be even worse. How could this conference not be antipathetic to human rights when Libya, Iran, Sudan and other members of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference are using the gathering in Geneva to demonise Israel, give official credence to Holocaust denial and legislate against freedom of speech? 
Using the catch-all phrase of Islamophobia, the OIC is attempting to deny nations the right to criticise extremism and violence. 
Canada and Israel are so appalled at the agenda for this hate-fest that they have already announced their intention of boycotting. 
Officials in a growing number of European nations also have expressed their concern about attendance and giving legitimacy to the way in which the UNHRC has manipulated the agenda. 
The Obama administration has said it will attend the preparations for the UN's Durban Review, but this must be viewed as a dangerous move. Obviously with wider implications than just the conference itself, the US has decided to participate because of its desire to show that it will extend an open hand rather than a clenched fist towards Iran and the Arab world. 
This is a high-risk gambit. If the US does manage to shift the focus away from Islamic hatred of Israel, and turn the spotlight on to the pressing religious and racial discrimination across the world, US influence will be boosted. But what if this policy fails? And where does Australia fit into the scheme of things? 
Foreign Minister Stephen Smith hasn't yet announced whether Australia will attend the review in Geneva. Much is at stake. 
Australia is a leading contender for a non-permanent seat on the UN Security Council and boycotting may affect how we are viewed at the tables of the world body. But with many countries, especially the 27 members of the European Union, seriously considering boycotting, Australia may find itself compromised as it sits in the middle of another conference as notorious as Durban I. 
The 2009 agenda of the Geneva conference must give Smith cause for concern. And surely he must be influenced by the fact Islamic nations continue to insist that Islamophobia is in a special category and must not be allowed under national laws. 
But the very idea of censorship in democratic nations is the antithesis of Australian values. We should play no part in this conference. 
Alan Gold is a novelist and was a delegate at the 2001 UN World Conference Against Racism.