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You would understand why the United Nations values the inputs of non-governmental organisations at world conferences when you ponder over this 'chance meeting' we had with the official Malaysian government delegation led by Information Minister Khalil Yaacob whose first comment was:"Why are you all here? You know we don't have any racism or racial discrimination in Malaysia"
"Hullo.." I interjected, "Ask the New Straits Times reporter (who was journalist in attendance). He'll tell you that the NST has been reporting about our racial problems especially during the recent Kampung Medan incident; the problems of non-bumiputras with straight As who can't get into our local universities In fact, the NST has had editorials lamenting the dire problem of racial polarisation in our local universities"
The marvel about our local politicians is that they never seem to suffer any intellectual injuries when their utterances or arguments have been proven asinine. All the same, we managed to present the Malaysian NGOs' Declaration on Racism and Racial Discrimination in Malaysia to the Minister, a feat seldom achieved on Malaysian soil!
From that statement by the head of the Malaysian delegation, you can imagine what the Malaysian government could have contributed to this most important World Conference Against Racism of the last three decades.
As with the Rio Conference on the Environment and the Beijing Conference on Women, the WCAR at Durban began with a week of deliberations by NGOs of the world on the Declaration and Programme of Action. Suaram, the Malaysian NGO I represented, was given official accreditation by the UN for the Durban Conference. It was a week of plenary sessions, panel discussions and caucus meetings during which delegates tried to ensure that their country's problems were adequately highlighted in the documents.
This NGO Declaration and Programme of Action then became the basis for the Governments' Conference the following week. The WCAR was certainly dominated by the Palestinians and the Dalits of India, who lobbied to include 'caste' as a category in the world conference.
Checklist
While the news of the conference was filled with the controversies over slavery, reparations, Zionism and the eventual pullout of the US and Israel from the conference, I merely want to present a checklist for Malaysia as a result of the Durban conference for Malaysians to think about:
1) Ratify the International Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD) and recognise the competence of the UN Commission on Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) to enable filing of individual complaints to the commission;
2) Lobby Suhakam to include monitoring racism and racial discrimination in Malaysia and to accept complaints from individuals;
3) Introduce a Race Relations Act and establish a Race Relations Commission or Commission on Racial Equality;
4) Impose transparency and accountability to affirmative action programmes;
5) Implement the Malaysian NGOs' Declaration on Racism and Racial Discrimination which provides non-racial solutions to Malaysian political, economic, social, educational and cultural problems;
6) Press for a National Plan of Action against racism and racial discrimination with NGO inclusion and consultation;
7) Develop expertise on monitoring and evaluating racism and racial discrimination in public institutions, eg. the police and local government; access to justice; reporting to UN and regional institutions and network;
8) Introduce legislation against hate speeches; and
9) Promote anti-racism through formal education; public awareness campaigns in the media; engendering race-sensitivity of public officials; and tolerance and cultural diversity.
Dr KUA KIA SOONG is a director of Suaram and academic director of Dong Jiao Zong's New Era College. He is a former member of Parliament for Petaling Jaya.
