Africana

The High Commissioner took an hour today to answer questions from NGOs.
It was interesting to me to learn that 65 African NGOs have been brought to the conference thanks to last-minute donations, in a process managed by the OHCHR. (Far fewer than attended the Durban conference.) It would be interesting to study whether there was any selection bias that might go some way toward explaining African positions expressed at the conference, although my first impulse is to doubt that.

In several statements by African or Afro-descendant activists during the conference, I have heard the idea that this group should emulate Jewish activists' success in getting the Holocaust recognized as an emblematic case with legal implications, and apply the same strategy to dealing with the slave trade. Once again this speaks to the tensions between purportedly universal principles and the focus on specific cases from which such principles are always ultimately derived, whether by analogy or by a process of generalization (see Boltanski/Thevenot's classic "Finding one's way in social space" and Boltanski's study of how letter-writers format their grievances in general language when presenting it to Le Monde).

I was also present at part of the founding seminar of a new African/Afrodescendent caucus, an initiative by NGO activists from a range of countries who are trying to create a representative group that would protest against the dominance of the Middle East theme at the conference and be able to issue press statements.