The politics of exclusion

>> The UN's conference against racism will discuss a tough issue, but without some key figures

by PATRICK LEJTENYI

Controversy has been dogging the preparations for next week's UN World Conference Against Racism, not only over sticky issues like reparations and Zionism, but also because certain groups that feel they should be participating won't.

The conference, to be held in Durban, South Africa, will gather together thousands of government bigwigs, NGO hotshots and fiery activist orators to "create a new world vision for the fight against racism in the 21st century," according to the UN Web site. But several groups that have been fighting racism for years, including the Black Coalition of Quebec, are furious over their exclusion.

"The people on the ground know who does what," says Coalition President Dan Philip. "It's wrong to pass over an organization that has 30 years of history in the community and is known throughout Quebec and Canada. The selection process was top-down, 'you-know-me-I-know-you' instead of dealing with the subject at hand. These jokers who are going to South Africa have nothing to do with nothing."

The selection process was an involved one. Non-governmental organizations, like the Coalition and the Centre for Research-Action on Race Relations (CRARR--which is sending a delegate), had to apply through the federal government's Secretariat of Multiculturalism, headed by Hedy Fry of "crosses are burning in Prince George, B.C. as we speak" infamy, for a $7,000 food, lodging and transportation grant. Regional consultations and preparatory committee meetings between the feds and hundreds of NGOs were held throughout Canada this year and last.

When the final list of organizations was finally drawn up, with the Coalition absent despite its accreditation from the United Nations as a legitimate anti-racism group, Philip wrote a series of stinging letters to Fry's department. Fry wrote back, in a letter dated Aug. 2, expressing her condolences that his group wasn't invited but assured him Quebec's black community, anglophone and francophone, "will be very well represented by the Canadian delegation going to Durban, South Africa."

What infuriates Philip most, however, are some of the groups that have been invited. "They are sending organizations that only exist on paper," he says. The process, he thinks, "is all flawed. People are going who never even applied."

The Mirror's calls to conference coordinators at Heritage Canada, under which the Secretariat of Multiculturalism falls, were not returned by press time.

Focus on Ontario

Even groups that will be going to South Africa are less than thrilled about the selection process. Peter Flegel, a 22-year-old conference-goer from Black Youth in Action, an organization fighting for increased representation of visible minorities in business and government, is concerned about some groups' exclusion. "This conference is a very controversial project," he says, "because a lot of feelings have been hurt. The question of exclusion is something to be discussed at a later date."

The African Canadian Legal Clinic (ACLC), a Toronto organization founded in 1994 in Bob Rae's Ontario, is also critical of the list of participants, even though it too is sending their president to the conference. "There should have been better regional representation," says policy research analyst Erica Lawson. "We don't hear a lot [from the black community in Quebec]. There tends to be a focus on Ontario. I get that feeling just by thinking about who's not at the table."

Noel Alexander, president of Montreal's Jamaica Association of Canada, thinks the Coalition's exclusion may have something to do with Philip's often combative temperament. "The whole thing is rather strange," he says. "I'm not sure some of the names going to South Africa have been out there demonstrating. Whatever you want to say about Dan, he has been out there demonstrating. I think the government wants people to go to South Africa and say Canada is doing a great job in fighting racism."

A thought that ACLC's Lawson shares. "The Canadian government doesn't really want a spotlight on racism in Canada," she says. "People who need to be at the forefront aren't there. Governments don't represent the issues."

The Canadian NGO delegation is a long and varied one. Travelling to South Africa are advocacy groups for ethnic minorities (visible and otherwise), linguistic minorities (from Ontario and the Yukon, none from Quebec), gay groups, aboriginal organizations, academics, women's groups, youth groups, religious groups, immigrant groups and combinations thereof. It is an impressive list, but what they, and the hundreds of other participants at the World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance (its official name) will accomplish remains to be seen.

One member of Montreal's black community who holds a more philosophical view of the whole affair is journalist Egbert Gaye, managing editor of the bi-weekly newspaper Community Contact. "Most of the people here are behind Dan's position," Gaye says. "But the conference will be all political posturing. People get to travel to South Africa and pontificate on racism, which is a sexy issue. But there will still be institutionalized racism and jackass landlords. Nothing's gonna change whether Dan goes or Dan stays. It doesn't change shit."