Although you'll have to do a lot of clicking around to find this, here's the news: the OSCE conference titled a "high-level conference" on "Tolerance and Non-Discrimination" will take place in Astana, Kazakhstan on June 29-30. It will be preceded by "a round-table for civil society to discuss and finalize their recommendations".
Time for everybody to stop snickering at this tolerance conference and perceiving it as merely a "Jewish project" and take it seriously.
I've been appalled, frankly. I've been in any number of official, semi-official and unofficial meetings and conversations over the past year or so on OSCE issues, the controversial Kazakh chair-in-office, and this topic.
Always and everywhere, it is greeted with a little knowing smile or smirk; an outright expression of indignation about irrelevance; or even a blatant claim that it is the "American Zionists" again -- not to mention, of course, Kazakh cunning in exploiting said "American Zionism" to distract from its own human rights sins.
In fact, I'd have to say that all those little smirks and sneers and actually awful comments about the Jews are *in fact* the sort of intolerance and even antisemitism that this conference is in fact mandated to address.
We all get it that Kazakhstan a) does not suffer from any grotesque forms of antisemitism and b) is not above exploiting this issue for its own ends. Duh.
I have to tell you that antisemitism does remain a problem in Europe and Eurasia, however. As in "the OSCE countries". Perhaps, in the scheme of things in the former Soviet states, where hate crimes tend to be directed more at Caucasians and Central Asians, attacks on Jews seem diminished. They still exist.It all has to be tackled, and not selectively.
For example, I'll just pull the top headlines from the Magenta Foundation ICARE publication, that reports on all forms of racism and discrimination in Europe:
ANTI-SEMITIC DISPLAY AT POLISH SOCCER MATCH MUST NOT GO UNPUNISHED (press release ADL)
GERMAN SYNAGOGUE ATTACKED BY ARSONISTS
JEWISH GRAVES DESECRATED IN SHREVEPORT CEMETERY (USA)
TRIAL BY FIRE FOR AN ASPIRING NEO-NAZI (Germany)
POLISH POLICE DETAIN 5 FOOTBALL FANS FOR UNFURLING LARGE ANTI-SEMITIC BANNER AT MATCH
And so on. BTW, to get this very useful publication on all forms of racism and discrimination particularly in the OSCE counties write info@icare.to
And it seems that one can never report on antisemitism these days without balancing the saddlebags and reporting on this, too -- as if protection of the Jews might depend on whether they get the "politically correctt" position on Israel's policies:
JEWISH LUMINARIES PETITION EU PARLIAMENT OVER SETTLEMENTSThe Union of Councils of Post-Soviet Jewry does nearly daily reports on racism in the post-Soviet states. There are plenty of reports of antisemitism, like this one:
DEATH THREATS PAINTED ON JEWISH SCHOOL IN KYIV
COMMUNIST STATE DUMA MAKES ANTISEMITIC STATEMENT
Of course, this organization, like Magenta, is very careful to point out this:
KYIV MURDER PROBABLY NOT ANTISEMITIC
And we all get that racist comments -- some of which can be prosecuted in Europe and Eurasia, and can't be in the United States -- and attacks on property -- aren't as grave a violence as murder on the basis of one's ethnicity:
HORRIFYING STATISTICS RELEASED OF TAJIKS KILLED IN RUSSIA
Those working in the field of human rights know that all these phenomena are interconnected -- it's not only the "broken windows" school of policing that says you have to address vandalism successfully to create a climate of law and order for larger crime prevention tasks, it's that the forces that can break windows or who are emboldened by an MP's nasty statement are capable of worse. There is no need to diminish or ridicule or make a little smirk about any form of racism because all of it has to be tackled.
Yet many approaching this issue feel that it's more than fine to indulge in that smirk. They believe that the Kazakh tolerance conference is a boondoggle, that it is a "special" engineered by a lobby -- and even *gasp* a "Zionist lobby* at that, and that the Kazakhs are merely placating this lobby for their own nefarious ends.
To be sure, among Kazakhstan's many problems, ethnic hatred, intolerance, discrimination don't seem to loom large on the screen. Torture in confinement, suppression of press freedom, violent attacks on opposition members -- these all seem like more compelling issues. Of course, I'd like to hear about this from an expert, and one problem is that a long-time expert on this subject is unjustly behind bars now -- Evgeny Zhovtis.
It's regrettable that this conference is about the more "lightweight" issues of "tolerance" and "antidiscrimination" -- topics that can guide the conversation to worthy educational programs and boring legal discussions -- and not *hate crimes*. This is partly a definitional problem, I imagine, as there isn't such a well-developed definition of "hate" among the countries, and some of them, like Russia, tend to misuse the anti-hate crime statutes to punish any form of dissent whatsoever, including human rights work that exposes the state's complicity in racism.
There also isn't a standardized police documentation system, although some countries have them. For example, in the U.S., the Federal Bureau of Investigation has exhaustive data on hate crimes and their victims.
Here's some information that might wipe the smirk of some people's faces:
Of the 1,732 victims of anti-religious hate crimes in 2008 (the last year for which the data is compiled):
- 66.1 percent were targeted because of an offender’s anti-Jewish bias.
- 7.5 percent were victims because of an anti-Islamic bias.
- 5.1 percent were victims because of an anti-Catholic bias.
- 3.6 percent were victims because of an anti-Protestant bias.
- 0.8 percent were targeted because of an anti-Atheist/Agnostic bias.
- 12.8 percent were victims because of a bias against other religions (anti-other religion).
- 4.0 percent were victims because of a bias against groups of individuals of varying religions (anti-multiple religions, group). (Based on Table 1.)
That goes completely against the received wisdom, as everywhere in the world, there is a sense that racial and religious profiling of Muslims since 9/11 ares by far the worse crimes, especially in the United States, more common than the old-fashioned antisemitic attacks of all types. They aren't.
There are various reasons for this. The population of Jews is greater than the population of Muslims; the visibility of the Jewish community might be greater in some areas than newer immigrant populations of some Muslim groups; Muslim organizations may not report attacks or may not be able to get action on them. All this needs to be looked at. But this table does tell a story -- a story that lets us know smirks are not in order.
And more than half of these hate crimes were attacks against blacks on the basis of their race -- this, in a country which now has a black president. So it's not as if there isn't anything to discuss at the tolerance meeting.
I hope NGOs will get to work -- there isn't much time left if you've just been smirking and not thinking of what really to do with this meeting -- on making a more sturdy agenda for this meeting.
The first thing I'd do if I could go to Astana (I can't) would be to emphatically get on the agenda:
o the relationship between levels of tolerance and levels of impunity for hate crimes. They are intimately connected.
o the systems of various police and other law-enforcement agencies for recording and reporting hate crimes -- can they be made uniform in the OSCE countries? What would be the process for this exercise? (Get this topic out of the more sequestered sessions of police training and put it into this topic area)
o the impact of the three tolerance mandates in the OSCE -- are they functioning? Do they report? do they have access? Should they be institutionalized rather than appointed by the chair-in-office?
o antidiscrimnation laws -- are they working? Are they enforced? Are they taught in training?
And note to the Obama people: for God's sake, if you are going to go lurching around complaining about the Arizona immigration law, and that's fine if you do, put the word "and" into your sentences and *also* talk about the outrageous numbers of Tajiks and other Central Asian labor migrants *murdered* in Russia. Talk about the unacceptable official statements of antisemitism coming from the Russian parliament and the unacceptable climate of incitement of violence still in Kyiv.
And that brings me to another reason for the sort of indignation that occurs around this topic if the smirk doesn't occur.
And that indignation comes from some of the reforming post-Soviet states that feel they have done an awful lot on this topic -- and they have -- and that they shouldn't continue to hear criticism.
I found this in particular with discussing the few antisemitic outbursts and anti-Jewish attacks that occurred around the Kyrgyz Revolution. Some journalists noted this, and reported it. Loyalists to the fragile new interrim government denounced them for exaggerating or being Jewish themselves and tooting their own horn. I think some people don't get why you report on antisemitism when you hear it, and don't muffle it in the interests of protecting fragile new interrim governments. And that's because it is a marker, a signifier for antiliberal movements that can turn violent, and because of the history of the mass murder of the Jews in Europe and Eurasia.
Antisemitism isn't only about the Jews, as many have often discovered in researching the topic. The Jews could have long since fled, but there will still be nutters muttering about "Zionist conspiracies". Adam Michnik said during the days of Solidarity, "a threat to the Jews is a threat to democracy and a threat to democracy is a threat to the Jews". So it's more than fine to track and worry about antisemitism in this part of the world, and it doesn't detract from the murders of other ethnic or religious groups to do so.
I'm sure there are lots more ideas for this conference that might help turn it into something more than an annoying exercise. As usual, that really will depend on NGOs to inject some life and seriousness into the equation. Below is the letter from the OSCE secretariat on the relevant information and a contact to send your proposals and papers:
Dear All,
On 29 and 30 June 2010 the high level conference on Tolerance and non-Discrimination will take place in Astana, Kazakhstan. On 28 the ODIHR will organize a roundtable for civil society organizations to discuss and finalize the recommendations for participating States and the OSCE.
You will find all the information on participation and registration procedure on TANDIS in the “Upcoming Events” section. Please, follow the link: http://tandis.odihr.pl/
Please, feel free to contact us any time for clarifications.
Best Regards,
Tolerance and non Discrimination Department/ODIHR
Al. Ujazdowskie 41
00-557 Warsaw, Poland
www.osce.org/odihr
[Previous contact information provided is now out of date, working on getting update]
Дорогие коллеги,
С 29 по 30 июня 2010 года в Астане, Казахстан пройдет Конференция на высшем уровне по проблемам толерантности и недискриминации. 28 июня БДИПЧ организовывает круглый стол для организаций гражданского общества, чтобы обсудить и сформулировать рекомендации для стран-участниц и ОБСЕ.
Вы можете найти всю необходимую информацию о мероприятии и процедуре регистрации в секции «Предстоящие мероприятия» на сайте ТАНДИС. Пожалуйста, проследуйте по ссылке: http://tandis.odihr.pl/.
Пожалуйста, не стесняйтесь обращаться к нам, если у Вас есть вопросы.
С наилучшими пожеланиями,
[Previous contact information provided is now out of date, working on getting update]
Al. Ujazdowskie 41
00-557 Warsaw, Poland
www.osce.org/odihr
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