Keith Locke said it was "an unacceptable insult" for New Zealand to snub the United Nations Forum on Racism. I think he's right.
A more acceptable insult might be to send a shoe to the convention.
The reasons Keith Locke and the Greens cite for going to the convention are typical:
"There may be some criticism of Israel at the meeting, but surely that is par for the course at UN meetings, and has some validity given the way a number of Israeli administrations have treated Palestinians, particularly those residing in Gaza.
Looks like Locke got confused. Even though it's a forum to discuss racism, it's not actually supposed to encourage racism, but look at ways of curbing it. Starting out with a Jew hating tirade shouldn't be "par for the course". Just as it didn't back in 2001. Just think of it as breaking the cycle Keith.
"Pulling out of the conference is an unacceptable insult to the UN"
The United Nations is a bureaucratic machine. Bureaucratic machines cannot be insulted. Only the members of the machine, and the servants of the machinery. Who are these people? Helen Clark? Are we offending her? Ki Ban Moon? Surely, he should be more offended about happenings in Sri Lanka, North Korea, Zimbabwe, The DRC - places where people are dying and the UN failing to stop it.
just at the time when our former Prime Minister Helen Clark is taking up a major UN post," said Mr Locke.
Oh, so we have to buy Tupperware because your aunt works for the company?
"It is also a slap in the face for Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, who will be opening the conference and played such a key role in getting Helen Clark appointed as head of the UN Development Programme."
Well maybe he should have appointed her a conference delegate instead, if its that important? Are you saying Helen didn't get the job because of her ability? That the whole job is just some big leftist quid-pro-quo? I think you've just given Helen an unacceptable insult.
The UN High Commissioner on Human Rights Navi Pillay apparently went to great lengths to produce a draft conference text that avoided controversial issues, such as the Middle East, and any restrictions on criticising religion.
And then went to great lengths to re-affirm the 2001 Durban Declaration and Program of Action, reminding all of the anti-Israeli views expressed first time around. And to add the icing to the cake, brings in Ahmadinejad as the opening speaker. No wonder Keith Locke is wetting his pants.
"Our boycott is letting down the victims of racism around the world and putting us at odds with most other nations.
Who are the victims of racism? New Zealanders?
Maybe Ki Ban Moon should have invited Turia, who could speak on how important racism is for New Zealand, and how she would like a racially based prison system, racially reserved seats on a local council, racially protected seats in National Elections and ownership of New Zealand's resources, racially based health care, racially based education and a separate superannuation scheme to be paid according to race.
"It is not a good look for us to be seen once more as a pawn of the bigger Western nations trying to enforce their will on a world body, to stop any criticism of Israel."
And there goes your same excuse again - you want a forum that is going to criticise Israel. You are like a broken record. With Ahmadinejad the opening speaker, who is the pawn? The Western nations are not enforcing their will, they are just choosing not to play this petty game.
Let's spend our tax dollars on something more fruitful, and we'll wait for the DVD edition of the conference. Then we can fast forward through all the racist bits.
Related Link: Going against the Geneva Convention
Related Link: Greenies Red With Anger Over Lost Opportunity to Bash Israel
Oswald asks the United Nations to make diplomatic overtures
Inventory2 points out that Keith probably has a "Palestinians want peace - it's not rocket science" bumper sticker.
And I'm sure the other blogs are getting around to commenting. The more that do, the more the Greens will probably decry the excessively unfair and disproportionate disagreement :-)
A more acceptable insult might be to send a shoe to the convention.
The reasons Keith Locke and the Greens cite for going to the convention are typical:
"There may be some criticism of Israel at the meeting, but surely that is par for the course at UN meetings, and has some validity given the way a number of Israeli administrations have treated Palestinians, particularly those residing in Gaza.
Looks like Locke got confused. Even though it's a forum to discuss racism, it's not actually supposed to encourage racism, but look at ways of curbing it. Starting out with a Jew hating tirade shouldn't be "par for the course". Just as it didn't back in 2001. Just think of it as breaking the cycle Keith.
"Pulling out of the conference is an unacceptable insult to the UN"
The United Nations is a bureaucratic machine. Bureaucratic machines cannot be insulted. Only the members of the machine, and the servants of the machinery. Who are these people? Helen Clark? Are we offending her? Ki Ban Moon? Surely, he should be more offended about happenings in Sri Lanka, North Korea, Zimbabwe, The DRC - places where people are dying and the UN failing to stop it.
just at the time when our former Prime Minister Helen Clark is taking up a major UN post," said Mr Locke.
Oh, so we have to buy Tupperware because your aunt works for the company?
"It is also a slap in the face for Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, who will be opening the conference and played such a key role in getting Helen Clark appointed as head of the UN Development Programme."
Well maybe he should have appointed her a conference delegate instead, if its that important? Are you saying Helen didn't get the job because of her ability? That the whole job is just some big leftist quid-pro-quo? I think you've just given Helen an unacceptable insult.
The UN High Commissioner on Human Rights Navi Pillay apparently went to great lengths to produce a draft conference text that avoided controversial issues, such as the Middle East, and any restrictions on criticising religion.
And then went to great lengths to re-affirm the 2001 Durban Declaration and Program of Action, reminding all of the anti-Israeli views expressed first time around. And to add the icing to the cake, brings in Ahmadinejad as the opening speaker. No wonder Keith Locke is wetting his pants.
"Our boycott is letting down the victims of racism around the world and putting us at odds with most other nations.
Who are the victims of racism? New Zealanders?
Maybe Ki Ban Moon should have invited Turia, who could speak on how important racism is for New Zealand, and how she would like a racially based prison system, racially reserved seats on a local council, racially protected seats in National Elections and ownership of New Zealand's resources, racially based health care, racially based education and a separate superannuation scheme to be paid according to race.
"It is not a good look for us to be seen once more as a pawn of the bigger Western nations trying to enforce their will on a world body, to stop any criticism of Israel."
And there goes your same excuse again - you want a forum that is going to criticise Israel. You are like a broken record. With Ahmadinejad the opening speaker, who is the pawn? The Western nations are not enforcing their will, they are just choosing not to play this petty game.
Let's spend our tax dollars on something more fruitful, and we'll wait for the DVD edition of the conference. Then we can fast forward through all the racist bits.
Related Link: Going against the Geneva Convention
Related Link: Greenies Red With Anger Over Lost Opportunity to Bash Israel
Oswald asks the United Nations to make diplomatic overtures
Inventory2 points out that Keith probably has a "Palestinians want peace - it's not rocket science" bumper sticker.
And I'm sure the other blogs are getting around to commenting. The more that do, the more the Greens will probably decry the excessively unfair and disproportionate disagreement :-)
Hold on Tiger. There is quite a bit of racism in NZ. Oh yeah, quite insidious stuff.I can smell it, feel it and touch it. Don't need to see or hear it.
ReplyDeleteIs the 'usual' anti-Israel tirade the only racism in the world? Surely that is an issue amongst others.
My favourite is how silent all the usual suspects are on Darfur - because their Muslim brothers were slaughtering non-Muslim Africans.
ReplyDeleteNormal breathtaking hypocrisy - it is like all those murderous dictatorships in Africa and Asia throwing stones at South Africa, while nobody looks at the bones they break within their own countries.
http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/2009/04/ahmadinejad-blasts-israel-denies.html
ReplyDeleteRe Ahmadinejad speaking first:
ReplyDelete"Ahmadinejad was the first speaker at the conference because he was the only head of state to respond to the invitation, conference spokesman Ramu Damodaran told CNN.
"Invitations are sent to all member states. They decide at what level they wish to be represented," he explained. Ahmadinejad "was the only head of state who had confirmed as of today -- and when you arrange the list of speakers, heads of state get precedence over non-heads of states.""I agree the whole things has become a joke but this should not excuse Israel for their excesses. It is well known that they treat their internal Arab population as second-class citizens. And then there's their treatment of the Palestinians.
Well didn't that work out well?
ReplyDeleteThe joke Sean is how Hamas treat some of their own citizens, and the world remains silent on that.
ReplyDeletePerhaps the conference shouldn't be to tackle the issue of racism specifically, but to run a scorecard over the member countries adherence to the UN Declaration of Human Rights? Then members will need to turn up to defend themselves, which might be entertaining in itself.
Does the Declaration of Human Rights cover the unborn? How does Hamas treat it's citizens- I wonder if they murder 18 000 of their citizens per year in the name of choice? I don't think Hamas really disguise themselves as a charitable organization.
ReplyDeleteYou might like to read this post mzala: Human rights, Amnesty and the death penalty
ReplyDeleteThank you Zen for the link.
ReplyDeleteHere's Walker Percy if you interested.
http://www.creativeminorityreport.com/2009/04/walker-percy-on-great-abortion-con.html
I caught Ahminejad's(?) rant on CNN this pm.It's good that he was first. Once done, the delegates could move on to other issues of discrimination which afflict our planet.As Navi Pillay replied, " If everybody walked out, who would deliver a rational(?) response". Sometimes you gotta take the bad with the good.
Granted, the UN is pretty toothless, weak etc.
The more we tell those hypocritical pricks in the UN to take a running jump, we're not going to play their games, the better. Let them talk to each other while we get on with shoring up borders. Pass the ammunition.
ReplyDelete@ mzala - are you actually Archbishop Desmond Tutu? (as in your image) Boy, you're involved in everything... ;)
ReplyDelete@ Zen - Keith Locke did not suggest "starting out with a Jew-hating tirade...". Criticism of Israel (or the suppressed state of Palestine) is not racism, because Israel is not a synonym for Jewish (even though it is a state founded to preserve the Jewish culture and religion); thee are 1 million Palestinian citizens of Israel y'know.
And you need to brush up on your capitalist history - since the creation of limited liability companies a couple of hundred years ago, corporate bodies have all the legal rights & responsibilities as if they are persons; so the UN can be insulted ;)
Affirming the Durban Declarations and Action Plan does not automatically endorse everything said at the Durban conference. Which parts of the Durban Declaration did you think were racist?
Oh, and Keith wanting a forum where criticism of Israel (and any other nation state) is NOT BANNED, is not the same as saying he wants to criticise Israel (though given the history of openly racist Israeli state actions, it's on the cards! They did just ban 'Arab Israeli' political parties from their elections - how very democratic).
But I do agree with you that we should have sent Tariana - she would certainly have given a memorable speech.
Hi Squaredrive.
ReplyDelete"Starting Out" simply meant that Amadinejad was the first speaker, and he hates Jews. He hates Israel. He hates Zionists. He hates any similar words, and it looks like he doesn't discriminate on the subtle variations of the meanings.
A minor quibble to offer on capitalist history: legally making a business a person still doesn't imbue an object with feelings or thoughts, although it can seem that way, given that an organisation often speaks as if it is independent from the people that run it.
I am not sure why or how you are defending Keith, as his semantics on Semites is largely irrelevant to the point that he doesn't just have a pro-Palestinian view, he has an anti-Israeli view and his own words demonstrate this in his press release.
He didn't need to say such things to argue the case for going. And that ultimately is the point about not going. People like him and Ahmadinejad just cannot help themselves, and the conference was always going to go off the rails.
No need to give them a chance to prove otherwise, Locke opened his mouth and removed all doubt.