M. Gabovich. Geneva. Second day

The official part of the program consisted in the continuation of the "high-level segment" - speeches by high-ranking representatives of states or interstate organizations, as a rule - ministers or deputies. ministers. From the very beginning of the conference, few adhered to the time limit (Ahmadinejad alone spoke for half an hour instead of the six minutes officially allotted to him). However, today (Wednesday) this part should end, or rather, smoothly flow into the “general segment”, consisting of five-minute speeches by representatives of countries not represented in the first part, as well as a number of organizations like UNICEF and UNESCO. The shortening of the debate, according to press reports referring to the presiding Kenyan Amos Wako, is due to the fact that the final document of the declaration has already been "adopted" ("by common consent", without a vote), which was agreed even by the representatives of the EU countries remaining at the conference, such as British ambassador.

On the third day, delegates from "two to four" NGOs were supposed to speak at the general assembly - however, their speech was canceled due to the fact that only four organizations submitted applications, and some other NGOs contacted the organizing committee, indicating that several delegates may not represent all civil society.

Although yesterday I was unaware of all this, I decided not to waste time on the official part and focus on the "side events" organized by a number of NGOs and international organizations. What we heard and saw reinforced the impression that under the heading of "fighting racism" completely different and virtually non-overlapping groups gathered here, pursuing different goals and having little interest in dialogue with each other. Thus, there were practically no non-Hispanic people in the discussion of the situation of the indigenous population of Bolivia, the discussions on "slavery, memory and reparations" were mostly attended by Africans and representatives of associations of citizens of African descent from their Caribbean region, North America and Western Europe, at a round table called "Racism is the road to genocide" was clearly dominated by Jewish activists, and so on.

Events can be divided into three types:

1. Stories of victims of racism, often presenting themselves as representatives of a particular ethnic group. The most poignant speech heard yesterday was the story of a Bolivian Indian about a comrade who was taken away by an ambulance with a wounded leg, and delivered with a bullet through his head and chest.

2. Discussion of specific anti-discrimination practices: OSCE programs and publications, representation of the Cities Against Racism Coalition under the auspices of UNESCO, etc. To some extent, the stories of African-American and African-Canadian lawyers about the struggle for reparations for slavery in the courts and speeches by UN representatives about attempts to create a specific system of state accountability, based on the Durban final document, can also be attributed to this.

3. Purely political events. Among them is the already mentioned "Racism - the road to genocide", where it was mainly about how bad the Iranian government and Hamas are. Somewhat problematic (regardless of my personal assessment of the political opinions expressed) seems to me to be the participation of scientists in the role of activists at such events. Thus, Professor Charles Small, director of the Yale Anti-Semitism Research Initiative, at the beginning of his speech, asked everyone present to stand and observe a minute of silence for the victims of the Holocaust - after which he delivered a very emotional speech about "why some of those present refuse to do this."

To this we should add performance actions: yesterday at about 4 pm, many meetings of the "side" program were actually interrupted by another noisy performance in the lobby of activists in clown costumes and noses, shouting "Durban-2 is a masquerade." It took the UN police almost half an hour to bring out about 20 young people (by my estimation, schoolchildren or very young students) - I did not understand, representatives of some international Jewish NGO and a local group who gained access to the building with guest passes .

In the Square of Nations in front of the UN complex, meanwhile, the European Union of Jewish Students (I think so) was demonstrating against the genocide in Darfur. In general, the combination of the Holocaust with Rwanda and Darfur themes is one of the few examples of a more or less successful combination of an ethnic, "sacrifice" perspective - with a universal one (again, I'm talking about the formal side of the question, without a meaningful assessment).

In terms of substantive events, it is interesting to note the contrast between different approaches to the problem of racism, which are not erased even by common membership in interstate networks and coalitions. It was especially interesting to listen to the story of the situation in Bolivia at a round table organized by the government of this country in conjunction with one of the Bolivian universities - the government of Morales claims to represent the oppressed indigenous population and therefore is not afraid to talk about cases of "institutional" racism in their own country. For comparison: Vera Sakharova, representative of the Committee for External Relations of the city administration of St. Petersburg, in response to a question about the statistics of racist crimes in St. Petersburg, answered: "Like in any other city, we have such incidents. But they do not form statistics." It is also interesting to compare the approaches of, for example, Peter and Nuremberg, partners in the European Coalition of Cities against Racism: the head of the Nuremberg Bureau for Combating Discrimination (I hope I reproduced the title of the position correctly) talked about how he personally went to a fitness club that refused membership to black citizens, and threatened to lose their license the very next day (as a result, athletes were offered free membership for several months). St. Petersburg's contribution to the coalition is the "Tolerance" program, in which citizens learn about the "traditional culture" of different "communities". In one case - the fight against discrimination of specific citizens on ethnic grounds, in the other - emphasizing the differences between "communities". In view of such a difference in approaches, one has to doubt the prospects of a number of attempts (which representatives of UNESCO and the OSCE spoke about yesterday) to create at least some general criteria for collecting statistical data on racist incidents.