Rene Keijzer wrote:I have been closing three threads. The first because my opinion this was more political then it was related to Human Rights. Two others because they were old.
Interesting behaviour. Also you use strange terminology, what in the world is 'unpolitical' about Human Rights?
About the threads I opened and you closed: I agree that there was no real dialogue going on in those threads but nevertheless the topic is not "old", it is an ongoing discussion. In fact everybody who cares about Human Rights and does not live under a rock has heard now about the attempts to subvert the meaning and role of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights within the the UN.
Or do you really want to tell me you have not heard of "Durban II" the so called UN "World Conference Against Racism (WCAR)" that promises to be another megaphone for anti-Semitic, homophobic and totalitarian propaganda? (Most probably also an event to celebrate the genocidal dictator of Sudan)
Or as the French writer Pascal Bruckner stated:
In a nutshell: Anti-racism in the UN has become the ideology of totalitarian regimes who use it in their own interests. Dictatorships or notorious half-dictatorships (Libya, Pakistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Cuba etc.) co-opt democratic language and instrumentalise legal standards, to position themselves against democracies without ever putting turning the questions on themselves. A new Inquisition is establishing itself, which brandishes "defamation of religion" to quash any impulses of doubt, particularly in Islamic countries. And this at a time when millions of Muslims, particularly in Europe, want to distance themselves from bigotry and fundamentalism. In a reversal of values, anti-racism is being propagated by despots in the service of obscurantism and the suppression of women! It is being used to justify precisely the things which it was formulated to fight: suppression, prejudice, inequality.
In the hands of these powerful and organised lobbies, the UN is becoming an instrument of retrogression in the world, when it was created to promote justice, peace, and human dignity.
http://www.signandsight.com/features/1710.html
In fact the discussion is more or less now: "do we (those who really care about Human Rights) 'continue dialogue' with delegations from murderous dictatorships like Libya, Iran, Cuba and the OIC and try to convince them to be not so harsh in their propaganda against "the West" or do we leave this club of dictatorships alone in disguising their hateful drivel in the language of human rights?" (Iran presides as a vice-chair, Libya will serve as the chair of the "Main Committee" running the conference and Cuba will be the "rapporteur.")
The USA, Canada, Italy, Israel and Australia already decided to boycott this travesty, other countries are about to follow, the EU threatened a boycott to try to have some changes done (which were unofficially droped, to be brought back on the agenda by Iran and Syria). The conference starts on Monday 20th of April 2009. Whatever your opinion on this is, you really want to tell us this is "old"?
