Towards the World Conference against Racism
By Dr William Jonas*
I am very pleased the Asia Pacific Forum has devoted this session to consider the role we can play in the UN World Conference against Racism, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance.As the acting Race Discrimination Commissioner and the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner, I will be working actively over the next year to ensure Australians make the most of this opportunity to add momentum to the forces opposing racism.
Before I address our work in relation to the World Conference, I want to say a few words about the importance of the Conference itself.
I believe this Conference is immensely significant in the global struggle against the many forms of racism, racial discrimination and xenophobia. Mrs Mary Robinson, the High Commissioner for Human Rights, has quite rightly described racism as having "fundamental importance for the universal realization of human rights". She has noted that combating racism is both a challenge and a duty, if we are to prevent conflict, reduce racial and ethnic tensions and inculcate respect for difference.
That is, the struggle against racism is central to the struggle for the whole range of human rights. Ultimately, work against racism cannot be separated from any of the human rights concerns within our mandates.
The World Conference provides us with opportunities at national, regional and international levels: to discuss racism in all its forms, to share experiences of discrimination and to exchange strategies for preventing it. It offers the potential for a renewed focus on issues of race and racial discrimination between now and the Conference, and over the next several years.
We must work in the intervening year to ensure that the Declaration that emerges from South Africa provides the strongest possible basis for our work in this area. In having our say as national human rights institutions we are, after all, helping to ensure that the Conference realises its potential to further develop and strengthen our work against racism.
In Australia, the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission (HREOC) is taking a two-fold approach to the Conference. On the one hand we are planning to take part directly in the World Conference. On the other hand we wish to use the preparation process itself to raise awareness of and counteract racism within Australia.
It is fair to say that there has been no loud and concerted voice speaking out against racism in Australia for some time now. While it is true that political debates may have moved beyond the well-publicised xenophobia and intolerance of the One Nation period, many of the issues remain the same.
There is still entrenched racism which has been of concern in recent times to both the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination and the Human Rights Committee of the United Nations. Both of these Committees have expressed concern, for example, over the continuing disadvantage of Australia's Indigenous people and the effects of mandatory sentencing.
There has been to date no adequate acknowledgement or apology for the generations-long practice of removing Aboriginal children from their families. And when a mere two per cent of the population of one of the world's richest nations suffer disadvantage so deep, so profound and so enduring that their life expectancy is twenty years less than for the rest, fundamental questions of human rights and racism must be raised.
In addition to this, mandatory detention and subsequent treatment of asylum seekers have been of concern to the Human Rights Committee. Certainly the attitude of the press and some other sectors of Australian society to this issue can fairly be described as xenophobia.
When United Nations Treaty Committees have examined Australia's performance over the past few months, there has been an unprecedented level of hostility towards international scrutiny. In this environment we must continually point out that Australia is simply being measured against commitments it has freely made, commitments to a system of values which we have considered to be what we want for Australians. Breaching these treaties is actually a betrayal of Australians.
So we will be encouraging the wider community to stand up against racism. We want to help generate momentum within Australia towards the Conference, momentum to condemn racism and examine the ways in which it erodes human rights and poisons our multicultural community. Perhaps most importantly, we want people to share and develop those strategies which are most successful at combating racism.
I would now like to briefly outline some of the work HREOC is doing in this regard. As a first step we are looking at ways of building a common platform against racism, a platform that brings together as many diverse sectors of the community as possible in a united stand against all forms of intolerance.
We have begun discussions with a number of organisations concerning the links between their work and the themes of the Conference. These include peak bodies from the trade union movement, religious groups, Indigenous communities, ethnic communities and so on.
On the 10th of December each year we present the Commission's Human Rights Day Awards and Human Rights Medal. This year we are bringing the Reverend Barney Pityana, the Chair of the South African Human Rights Commission, to Australia to speak at the awards ceremony. He will address his work in the struggle against racism and South Africa's preparations as host of the Conference.
To give you an idea of some of our other activities, we have:
- Established an
electronic discussion group among migrant women, so they can exchange
- with the Commission and with each other - their concerns relating
to racial discrimination and strategies they have employed to address
it;
- Included discussions
of the World Conference in our regular consultations with ethnic communities;
- Met with the
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC) to discuss
how we can ensure Conference preparations in Australia pay specific
and appropriate attention to the meaning and experience of racism for
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people;
- Begun exploring educational activities - for example, to strengthen anti-racism education in all schools.
At the international level, we will pursue an independent role in World Conference proceedings. In the coming months we will prepare a major paper addressing racism in Australia, and particularly questions of women and racial discrimination and the different experiences of racism among Indigenous and migrant communities.
Our submission will canvas the main race issues confronting Australia today affecting Indigenous people, immigrants and refugees, as well as broader questions relating to disadvantage in health, welfare, access to services and so on.
We are concerned, not only that HREOC has an independent voice, but also that Australia makes a high quality contribution in South Africa.
In conclusion, I want to stress the importance of the World Conference against Racism throughout the Asia Pacific region. It is vital that our region makes a robust contribution to the Conference and national human rights institutions can and should take the lead.
I look forward to working with you.
* Dr William Jonas is the Acting Race Discrimination Commissioner, Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission (HREOC). This article is an edited version of a speech delivered to the Fifth Annual Meeting Of The Asia Pacific Forum Of National Human Rights Institutions, 8 August, 2000.
For more information on HREOC's work on the World Conference Against Racism, contact HREOC's Race Discrimination unit at worldconference@humanrights.gov.au
Last updated 24 June 2003.
