As the US entered World War I in 1917, Hiram Johnson, a US senator from California, issued a warning that goes to the heart of our current predicament. “The first casualty when war comes is truth,” he explained. Although he didn’t mention it, the second casualty is just as obvious: freedom. Since Sept. 11, both have been offered up eagerly as the national media stokes primal fears, setting the stage for the most dangerous rollback in basic rights since the 1950s.
No rocks were thrown, no tear gas canisters exploded. Compared to recent conferences in Seattle, Quebec, and Genoa, the World Conference against Racism, held from Aug. 31 to Sept. 7 in Durban, South Africa, was a sedate affair. The reason is obvious. It was sponsored by the UN, which doesn’t yet have the same image of supporting unrestrained corporate globalization as the World Bank, WTO and, FTAA. Thus, activist groups felt they had a toehold inside the conference.
Nevertheless, verbal outbursts and devious efforts to manipulate the wording of the final Declaration and Platform for Action sometimes made this third global conference on race feel as rancorous as recent corporate gatherings. In addition, South African grassroots organizations, given a megaphone to the world with the help of a newly formed South African Independent Media Center, surrounded the conference site with marches and demonstrations. Starry eyed divestment activists quickly learned that the nine-year-old ANC government has a long way to go in fulfilling the utopian goals of its Freedom Charter.
"You have been a great inspiration and a wonderful teacher to many people over these long hard years of struggle. Without you, there would be less information, less initiative, and certainly less movement." — Leonard Peltier
"For the peoples all over the world struggling for freedom and dignity, you embody the honor of the many good-hearted Americans who opposed imperialist interventions in Vietnam, Central America, Angola and elsewhere, and those who are raising their voices to stop the current aggression against Afghanistan and the threat which the US-led military response to terrorism poses to the world. An eloquent spokesman for non-violence and an unflinching anti-imperialist, your warning decades ago against ‘the insanity of war’ couldn’t be more timely now." — Ricardo Alcaron de Quesada, president of the Cuban National Assembly
Who are you here to see?” asked the guard at the desk. “Dale Byam,” we answered. He went through a card file and drew one out.
“Sign your names on this card and also on the Visitor’s Sheet,” he instructed. “Leave your car keys and ID here on my desk. And be sure your pockets are empty.”
After providing the required signatures, my husband David and I lined up with the other visitors for an electronic search. If the bell rang, we had to remove anything that was metal. Since my steel knee always rings, the guard took a hand device to go over my entire body until satisfied it was indeed my knee that set off the detector.
Shortly after entering Columbia University in 1965, David Gilbert became the founding chair of the school’s Vietnam Committee. He also joined Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), which began five years earlier. By the fall of 1966, he was inspired by the impact of the Black Panther Party on the national scene, and had witnessed the upsurge of militance among Native Americans, Chicanos, Puerto Ricans, and Asians. These movements have exerted a major influence on his actions ever since.
In the age of information and globalization, concern for human rights has become a hot potato in the West. A generation ago, people in the world’s democratic nations seldom worried about whether their fundamental human rights were protected. But as globalization proceeds, serious questions are being asked.
For example, are the basic human rights of individuals or entire populations really protected? And if so, who guards those rights in a globalized world?
Copyright Toward Freedom 2019