UN Statement

Statement by Youth Against Racism (Non-ECOSOC NGO) President Saeed Fotohinia to the Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent on January 17, 2008 in Room XIX of the Palais Des Nations, Geneva, Switzerland
Saeed.Fotuhi@gmail.com

Thank you, Mr. Chairperson.

Today I would like to respond to yesterday afternoon’s wish by Mr. Joe Frans to have more NGO’s present at the Working Group and share their personal stories with racism.

As Mr. Booker and Mr. Jabbour have pointed out recently, the Durban Conference and the good work that took place there in the fight against racism was “put on hold” and “overshadowed” – if I may use their phraseology – by what transpired in the US soon afterwards. Yet, in view of the revolution that has taken place in the world in its treatment, institutionalization, and acceptance of racism as a redundancy, a matter of fact, a standardized security check, I would contend that these phraseologies are rather euphemistic. What happened on 9/11 was a series of hijackings.

Our good work was hijacked, our ideas were hijacked, our conviction was hijacked, and most of all our sense of what normal is was hijacked. I think that an author such as the Canadian Naomi Klein in her recently-released book Shock Doctrine can offer some theories as to why and how this might have happened. Shock was treated as an opportunity for a clean slate, and the patient etherized upon a table in this case, was the entire world. In twenty-four little hours September 11th 2001 changed the subject.

My story can and must perforce stand for that of many. After 9/11 I silently observed the stoning of mosques, I patiently waited for moderation to return, I spoke genteel words, in the hope that the army of young people I had so recently shared the dream of a world without racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia, and related intolerance would echo them, and our united voice would resound in the mighty valley of equality. But there was only a whimper. So, I did what any good social actor and promoter of human rights and democratic values would do: I enlisted to become a Peace Keeper.

In my time as a Muslim officer in the Canadian Forces I experienced the best and the worst in the September 12th debate over racism. I was successful in starting the first Centre for Muslim and Middle Eastern Relations in the history of that army. Under the argument of reducing casualty rates, I was able to give Korans and speeches about the value and richness of the Muslim and Middle Eastern World to some of the same members in uniform who had accused me of working for Al-Jazeera or even worse for Al-Qaeda, or jeered at me, or condescended upon me as though I was both the elephant in the room no one talked about and the guy no one talked to. I was also the victim of hate crime and had horrible things done to my face. Disfigured but not disillusioned I moved the fight back out into civil society with the realization that it is the public that will most change the mind of G.I. Joe.

Now I am in search of my true comrades-in-arms. Those 700 young people who, better than anyone else in the world today, know the distinct ideological difference between Durban 2001 and Durban 2009, and possess enough confidence and conviction to meet frenzy with moderation in the decades to come. I call on this Working Group, Mr. Chairperson, to recommend the immediate organization of regional, national, and International Youth Summits as a keystone to the Durban Review Process