A proxy war over racism

Of direct interest to the participants gathered under the auspices of the United Nations (in Durban) is a vast array of issues in societal and individual justice.

These range from the changing patterns of a more familiar divide between the whites and the non-whites to some arguably novel notions about the need for human rights-related apologies or reparations by the "civilized" West which had historically fattened itself on slavery in the not-so-distant past.

There are also questions whether the Dalits of India should qualify for international patronage despite their constitutional safeguards and whether the Jewish state of Israel, founded by the motive force of Western-backed Zionism, is waging a racist war against the Palestinians and other Arabs.

While the anti-Israel lobbies were ostensibly the prime target of Washington's ire, hardly concealed is the Bush administration's determination to strike out a unilateral path over conspicuously multilateral matters.

This certainly is in sync with the American president's go-it- alone preferences. The question is whether America's pride and prejudices constitute the real problem. On paper, the official and non-governmental discourse at Durban should impose no moral or material burden on the U.S. except for the controversial notion of reparations for the injustice of operating a system of slavery in the past.

Yet, if the U.S. has now chosen to play the card of Israeli innocence after vaguely indicating a certain willingness to evaluate medieval slave-control policies as a possible subject for some form of apology, the reason can only reinforce the impression that Washington wants to demonstrate its ability to chart out its own global agenda for tomorrow.

In contrast, the U.N. Secretary-General, Mr. Kofi Annan, opened the Durban conference with a balanced call for fair play in treating not only the past crimes against humanity such as the anti-Jewish holocaust but also the present plight of Palestinians under Israeli occupation. Both he and the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, Ms. Mary Robinson, have rightly cautioned against allowing the Durban exercise to fail despite the immense challenges.

-- The Hindu, New Delhi