Robinson hopes for “a breakthrough” in Durban that ushers in new era in human relations. The “catharsis” will come, in her view, from nations’ addressing “the exploitations and violations of the past” and making amends–or at least sincerely apologizing–for colonialism and slavery.
Many of Robinson’s U.N. colleagues share neither her enthuiasm nor her faith. Instead of seeing the conference as an opportunity for global reconciliation, they see it as an invitation to litigation and demands for compensation, and a venue of potential embarrassment. So the preliminary sessions of the conference have bogged down in disagreements. What was to have been the final preparatory meeting ended a month ago with delegates miles apart on language for the main conference documents.
They will reconvene at the end of July. In the interim, Robinson is traveling the globe, trying to persuade foreign secretaries and other high-ranking officials to get personally involved. Without their engagement the conference may fail, she suggested over a recent breakfast in New York.
Some of the difficulties were inevitable, for the subject requires countries, as Robinson puts it, to look into their “dark corners”–a task most would rather avoid. It also raises thorny questions not just of diplomacy but of history, philosophy, morality and law. And deliberations have been complicated by the intense involvement of NGOs (nongovernmental organizations). Activists of all stripes from around the globe see the conference as their big chance to get the world’s attention.
Representatives of the Roma (Gypsies) have furiously lobbied delegates to focus on the discrimination Roma face in housing and education. Leaders of the Dalits (otherwise known as the untouchable caste) have turned out in force to beg that their people–who are still brutally persecuted in India and other counties–not be ignored. Black groups from the United States and elsewhere in the Americas view the conference as a means of pressuring for reparations. American civil-rights groups also think the meeting may be an opportunity “to see how collectively we can use international forums to advance our domestic civil-rights agenda,” in the words of Wade Henderson of the Leadership Conference for Civil Rights.
No single gathering could satisfy all the various demands–certainly not a U.N. conference. What a successful gathering can do–as Beijing made clear–is shine a powerful light on ideas that deserve the world’s attention; and sometimes (especially to the extent that they give persecuted populations a foothold in international law) they can embarrass nations into treating certain groups better.
It is obvious that Robinson began the world-conference process with great hope that by reassessing history and reimagining the future together, the countries of the north and the south might begin to close the gap, to see a common destiny. That was probably unrealistic. It also may have been unrealistic to believe that countries would allow language into a U.N. document that would shame them into treating ethnic minorities better. With the distinct exception of Roma advocates, who already have used the conference mechanism to greatly increase awareness of their grievances, most ethnic leaders who saw the conference as an avenue of redress are likely to be disappointed. And as for ushering in a new way of thinking, the cold reality is that midlevel diplomats are not those to whom we generally look for innovation. Unlike Saul, who got inspiration and insight from a blinding flash of light, diplomats get their instructions cabled from home, and they typically don’t stray far from the script.
In the end, the conference’s real contribution may have little to do with the machinations of diplomats. It may lie in the fact that it will have summoned thousands of people from every corner of the earth to bear witness to how widespread the impulse for equal treatment has become, to testify to how easily that impulse (in others) is ignored and to remind us that we are no better than the magnitude of our compassion.
