ChicSunTimes

No need for West to apologize

September 9, 2001

BY MARK STEYN SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST

There is no great issue facing the world today that can't be made worse by having a UN conference on it. But even so the grand comedy at Durban last week effortlessly surpassed all expectations.

There was head honcho Mary Robinson, the Irish colleen with a boundless appetite for blarney, doing her "Ich bin ein Jude" routine to quiet down the noisier Jew-haters. There was the Norwegian delegation soberly negotiating into the small hours with the world's preeminent dictators over the degree and number of vile slurs the final communique could accommodate (''OK, you can have two 'bloodsucking Zionists' but take out the 'Jew Fascists' "). There were the Syrians, who denounced the Holocaust as "a Jewish lie." There was the unmatched ovation for Fidel Castro, hailed by South Africa's foreign minister as leader of "the most democratic country in the world." There was the Organization of African Unity's demand that reparations for the Hutu slaughter of the Tutsis in Rwanda should be paid--by the Americans. There was the Zimbabwean government, taking time out of its hectic schedule of terrorizing white farmers to call on Britain and the U.S. to "apologize unreservedly for their crimes against humanity."

But, most importantly, a useful spotlight was beamed on the most wicked racist societies on earth--like Canada. Matthew Coon Come, chief of the "First Nations," told delegates that he and his fellow natives were victims of a "racist and colonial syndrome of dispossession and discrimination" and only last year had been savagely attacked by "white mobs" acting on the behest of the Canadian government. The crowd applauded wildly. (Needless to say, the Canadian government had paid for Mr. Coon Come to fly to Durban to explain how oppressive it is.)

I think we can all agree that the world would be a better place if there were fewer Canadas and more Zimbabwes. Alas, the U.S. bailed early, much to the regret of other delegates such as the Rev. Jesse Jackson, President-for-Life of the People's Republic of Himself. According to progressive opinion, only by remaining at the table can we "influence the debate." Take those Syrians, whose position is that the Holocaust is "a Jewish lie." OK, we can probably never get them to accept that 6 million Jews were murdered but, if we join the Norwegians in all-night negotiations we might be able to persuade Damascus to accept a compromise position acknowledging that, oh, 800 or 900 may have died, mostly troublemakers who were asking for it. This would represent what dear old Jesse, Mary Robinson, and Norway call "progress."

As a conference on "Racism, Racial Intolerance, Xenophobia and/or Related Intolerance," it was perhaps misnamed, though it exhibited large quantities of all four. But as a UN Conference Against Whitey, Jews And Capitalism--or, in the preferred formulation, "techno-racism"--it was a roaring success. Like a plump Rotarian hanging upside down in a bondage dungeon, the West wound up paying for the delicious frisson of being flayed by the world's thugs. Twenty-five percent of the cost of the Durban conference was borne by the Americans alone.

Along with Britain and Europe, they're also expected to pick up the tab for slavery, even though they were last to get into the game and first to get out. The UN and its conventioneers are not really interested in actual, specific, here-and-now "intolerance"--like the Taliban's recent introduction of that retro fashion accessory, yellow identifying patches for Hindus--or even in slavery, which today is alive and well in the Sudan, Mali, Niger, Ghana, Sierra Leone, the Ivory Coast, etc, etc. What they're interested in is the grand historical reckoning--in putting the white man in the dock, getting him convicted, and thus enabling what the OAU calls a "massive injection of new capital into places from Harare to Harlem."

What no one in Durban would say is this--that the West has nothing to apologize or pay for, least of all Britain. London abolished slavery in the British Isles in 1772 and within the Empire in 1833, in the teeth of fierce opposition from Arab and West African traders. Yet the further the colonial era recedes into the past, the more it's to blame. The reflexive shame in their inheritance is such that no British delegate would dream of standing up for the historical record.

If Colin Powell wanted to he could, for he considers his Caribbean family a beneficiary of British imperialism. "American blacks sometimes regard Americans of West Indian origin as uppity and arrogant," he writes in his autobiography. "The feeling, I imagine, grows out of an impressive record of accomplishment by West Indians. What explains that success? For one thing, the British ended slavery in the Caribbean in 1833, well over a generation before America did. They told my ancestors that they were now British citizens with all the rights of any subject of the Crown. That was an exaggeration: still, the British did establish good schools and made attendance mandatory. They filled the lower ranks of the civil service with blacks. Consequently, West Indians had an opportunity to develop attitudes of independence, self-responsibility, and self-worth." And so the most prominent black man in American life today is the son of British subjects, raised outside the grievance culture Rev. Jesse promotes so assiduously.

But even in Jesseland things aren't so bad. Life expectancy for American blacks is 69.6 years; for Ugandans it's 45 years, and falling. If the Ugandan comparison's a little too easy, consider this: For all their problems, the approximately 30 million American blacks have a greater combined wealth than the 30 million Canadians. Blacks don't need reparations to prosper, just the civic freedom and economic integrity of democratic society. If, on the other hand, they take seriously Castro, Mugabe and Jesse's other Durban pin-up boys, you can pretty much guarantee which way average income, life expectancy and other social indicators will be heading.

That's why Colin Powell's analysis is right in a broader sense, too. The institutions the British brought with them--the rule of law, the law of contract--more than compensated for any of the "evils" of colonialism. In fact, the only thing the West has to apologize for is that it was too indulgent of Kwame Nkrumah, Julius Nyerere and post-colonial Africa's other founding frauds, and simply stood by as they beggared the continent with their uniquely virulent strain of Afro-Marxism. Those countries which have prospered are those that have deviated least from their Britannic inheritance. There's the real lesson for Africa, if only the guilt-ridden wimps of the Western delegations had the guts to point it out.

-- Anonymous, September 09, 2001

Answers

ChicSunTimes

Jackson faults U.S. on talks

September 9, 2001

BY CURTIS LAWRENCE STAFF REPORTER

The Bush administration has moved dangerously close to isolating itself by sidestepping the Middle East conflict and issues of reparations, the Rev. Jesse L. Jackson said Friday on his return from the United Nations racism conference in Durban, South Africa.

The United States and Israel walked out of the conference Monday, protesting what they said was "hateful language" in a draft resolution in a coalition of Arab states. As the conference neared a close Friday, delegations remained deadlocked over a resolution on the Middle East conflict.

"We should have had a visible presence at that global conference," Jackson said at Midway Airport. "You can't lead from the rear, you can't lead by ultimatums, and you can't lead by threats."

Last week, Jackson attempted to persuade Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat to agree to a compromise resolution with softer language addressing the concerns of both Israel and the Arab states.

But shortly after their meeting, Arafat called on delegates to condemn Israel's "colonial, racist plot" against the Palestinians.

When asked by the Chicago Sun-Times editorial board Friday if Arafat had lied to him, Jackson said: "I wouldn't say so . . . because I kept appealing to them to write it down that they were not going to put the Zionism-racism equation in a resolution. That doesn't mean he's not going to attack Israel because [he feels] they are immoral."

Jackson said Israel should not have been singled out in the resolution, and he regretted that the Middle East issue had "sucked the oxygen" out of the conference, taking attention from other issues, including the sub-Saharan AIDS epidemic and genocide in Rwanda.

Jackson criticized President Bush for not sending Secretary of State Colin Powell to the conference, saying it sent the wrong message to other countries, as well as to African Americans.

"Indeed, it was his duty to be there as the secretary of state and as an African American," Jackson said. "The United States sent in a low-level delegation late, never took a seat and left early."

The Rev. Christopher Bullock, a Republican and president of the South Side Branch of the NAACP, met Jackson at the airport and also had harsh words for the Bush administration.

"For us to walk away from the conference was wrong, and it sent the wrong message," Bullock said. "A stronger delegation should have been there, and I think it would have played much better here and abroad."

By walking out of the conference, the Bush administration also missed out on an opportunity to discuss reparations for victims of racism, an issue that Jackson said he will put on the front burner, along with improving education.

"For 200 years, we in effect used African labor and raw materials to subsidize American development," Jackson said.

"In our own Constitution, we pointed out African descendants as three-fifths of a human being. No immigrant, no other body of Americans were named in our Constitution as three-fifths of a human being."

Still, Jackson refused to call the conference a failure.

"The fact that we were in South Africa is a major victory for reconciliation and healing and against racism in the world," he said.

-- Anonymous, September 09, 2001