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| Subject: a CANZUK federation could only be good for indigenous Australians - our human rights record is dreadful | |
Author: Ian (Australia) | [ Next Thread |
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] Date Posted: 21:48:35 11/26/04 Fri In reply to: David Hicks 's message, "European Network for Indigenous Australian Rights" on 19:01:23 11/26/04 Fri [ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ] |
| [> Subject: United Nations? | |
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Author: Ed Harris (Venezia) [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 22:15:32 11/26/04 Fri "The UN Committee on the Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD) exists to monitor and end racial discrimination." That's a bit quixotic, isn't it? "We can't end or even reduce ethnically-motivated genocide, but we can stop people from being denied jobs as management consultants on the grounds of race..." The trouble with this and many other aspects of the UN is that it can only hope to have any success in wealthy western nations in which there are not many problems in any case: tidying up real problems which seem bad by our standards but which many billions of people would be happy to have as their worst problem. Admirable as this body may be, I rather think that the UN's energies could be better employed preventing genocide, torture, nuclear proliferation and so forth. But they can't so they concentrate on this sort of thing. Rather like the old cliche of a bully being badly beaten in a fight so going home to beat his wife. Try to explain to the people of Dharfur what CERD is about and, if they had the strength, they'd probably laugh. That is not what the UN was set up for, and the fact that this is all that it is prepared to do reveals rather neatly why the Americans and (albeit less publicly) the Russians and Chinese don't take the body seriously. I also don't like racial discrimination - my people have suffered enough from it on our own account for centuries, although not much in Britain since the late 13th Century - but I also really don't like the fact that 28,000 people die of starvation every day whilst the UN debates the fact that ethnic minorities make up 12% of the British population but only 8% of the British police force. Get with the programme, people! **I'd like to mention that this is not a criticism of the ENIAR, but of the UN committee mentioned on its website. [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |