Canadian Classroom: UN official urges sincere fight against racism

Page 33

After spending 12 days in Canada in September, the United Nations' special rapporteur on racism, racial discrimination, zenophobia and related intolerance wants to send a message to Canada's federal and provincial governments.

Racism is alive and flourishing in this country, which boasts internationally of its progressive attitudes towards multiculturalism.

In the areas of housing, employment, education and health, which Doudou Diene describes as the strongest indicators of whether discrimination exists in a country, "the situation of the minorities, and the Indigenous peoples in particular, are clear revelations that they are discriminated against."

Diene, a former diplomat from the West African nation of Senegal, was appointed to the world's most influential position in the fight against racism on Sept. 12, 2002.

Diene is a former deputy representative of Senegal to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), and the former director of inter-cultural projects of UNESCO. He has published many books on problems related to inter-cultural and inter-religious dialogue. Most recently, he edited From Chains to Bonds: The Slave Trade Revisited, a collection of essays dealing with the subject of reparations to the descendants of Africans forced into slavery in the United States.

Diene visited five Canadian cities-Ottawa, Montreal, Halifax, Toronto and Regina-and one First Nation-Piapot in Saskatchewan-during his visit, hearing from government officials and from groups seeking his assistance in getting government attention for their grievances.

He heard presentations from the Algonquins of Barriere Lake, the James Bay Crees, Treaty 4 and the Union of Ontario Indians.

The special rapporteur, whose first language is French, spoke to Windspeaker on Sept. 26 at the end of his Canadian tour.

"My mandate is to draft every year a report for the UN human rights commission and the UN general assembly on the situation of racism, discrimination and zenophobia in the world," he said. "This report is based on information I receive to assess the global situation."

Diene said he had received complaints from minority communities in Canada.

"So I wanted to come to assess the situation with the spirit to contribute to the solutions which the government authority and the people of Canada are going to find," he said.

"When my program was being prepared, I was interested strongly in visiting and encountering members of the First Nations. I even required that my program be structured in such a way that I can visit the members of the First Nations in their place of living. This is what I did in Saskatchewan," he said. "I went to their houses to observe their conditions of living and even attended a powwow that was organized by the Cree community there and even had a dance with them. It was a very strong experience for me."

He said he would be taking home an "extraordinary body of documentation" to read and consider before finalizing his report in early December. It will be presented to the United Nations general assembly and the Commission on Human Rights in March 2004.

"I have some preliminary observations which I shared this morning with the government and the representatives of the civil society. I can share them with you, too. My first observation was the reality and the persistence of racial discrimination in Canada," he said. "The fact that the strongest indicators of discrimination are clearly confirming that."

After seeing for himself that the complaints and allegations he receives have merit, his next step is to see what the government has to say about such matters.

"I must say, and it is a positive point, that most of the people at the official level recognize the existence of racism and discrimination, even if they try to minimize it. But it was recognized. And I may say more recognized in the provinces, also."

Diene gives credit to Canada for some of the steps it has taken to addess discrimination, but he is encouraging officials to take bolder action.

"I have taken note of a very positive and innovative legal and political strategy of Canada. There have been a body of laws and amendments to the Constitution, establishment of legal mechanisms, which have been designed to combat racism and be recourse for the victim of racism," he said. "But I identified also the limits of this legal strategy because certain mechanisms have been put in place, like the commission on human rights which is a very positive institution, federally and provincially, but these commissions do not have any credibility with the minorities concerned. First because the commissions did not get the resources, financial and human, to examine the cases in a speedy way. These cases require quick decisions and the backlog is big and the delay in examining these cases is very long. So this has created a feeling amongst the community members that these institutions are not efficient."

He noted that while the human rights commissions exist in the provinces, they function at different levels of effectiveness because there is no national strategy.

"I realize that the very fundamental inter-cultural training of the investigators of the human rights commissions have not been carefully utilized because racism and discrimination are very complex matters and those feeling complaints, coming from different minorities, are most of the time poor people, very simple people. The expression of their grievances, their feelings, their pain is done through their language, their words, their sensitivities and their cultural values and traditions," he said. "So it is highly important for an institution like the human rights commission to be able to read and understand the nature and deepness of the complaint to be able to give some solution."

He also suggested that authorities in Canada are not yet fully motivated to combat racism.

"Canada has not yet reached to the strategy that I'm promotin, which is an intellectual and moral and ethical strategy which will allow Canada to get to the deep root causes of the culture and the mentality of racial discrimination. This is very important to be done, to link to the legal strategy, because every day we are witnessing the fact that in countries like South Africa and the U.S. and elsewhere where racism has been an historical, profound factor, when even a very well-drafted legal strategy has been adopted, from time to time there are incidents and acts which reveals there still exists and is very profound the feeling of hostility and discrimination among communities. So it's highly important in this context and conclusion that the combat against racism be very closely linked to the construction of a long-term, democratic, vibrant and equal multicultural society," he said.

He concluded that First Nations' people are the most victimized by racism in Canada.

"I must say, one of the groups which has very profoundly touched me in the way they've expressed their situation, their grievances, and their dignity with which they did it, was the Aboriginal group. I was absolutely impressed. These are First Nations, you call them the First Nations, and they are the first discriminated. So this point is important."

Other authors have pointed to a national case of denial about racism in Canada. The special rapporteur said he saw signs of it.

"That is a point of concern for me because the denial of racism leads to the position of not attempting to find solution to racism and discrimination and deepens the whole reality of discrimination and will lead maybe someday, if the political atmosphere or ideological atmosphere is changed or if ethnocentric discourses develop, to the confrontation between communities," he said. "So I fully understand that Canadians, because of their very positive picture of accounting, of promoting and defending human rights and having made progress in multiculturalism, may have the feeling that everyhing is OK. But me, as the special rapporteur, I have to tell them that 1.) racism is still there because it has very profound historical roots, and it is influenced by a new, modern international context. But also even if there has been positive legal solutions, these solutions have their limits and they don't go deep enough. The communities concerned don't trust all policies which have been approved."

He wants Canada to take another look at how it deals with racism.

"This will be part of my recommendation, that the government create the condition of a national collective reassessment of racism and discrimination in Canada. Certainly, recognize the positive steps taken, but the big issues ahead and the fact that the communities are concerned, I'm not convinced of the efficiency of these policies. I will promote also in recommendations, because there is a clear gap, I perceive it, between officials, provincial and federal and the communities concerned. A more stronger, deliberate dialogue should be devised to listen to and discuss with the communities to get them involved in finding lasting solutions," Diene said.