Navanethem Pillay, high commissioner for human rights

as the earlier performance showed, "our main reason for gathering here today is to engage in a celebration of tolerance and of diversity" [!]

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It is interesting to compare today's speeches, and generally the language used in the WCAR/DRC process, with the international racism debate of 60 years ago: in the immediate postwar years, the UN debate was mostly directed at debunking the "scientific" bases of racism. A series of brochures and books were written by famous scientists to contribute to this task. It seemed to many at the time that simply "refuting" racism would be enough to get rid of it.

That issue no longer seems to be of interest to most participants: Pillay briefly mentioned "scientific" racism, but most speakers talk about racist "beliefs," institutions etc, and identify economic and social factors as the causes of racism, or the economic crisis and even climate change.

Yet in some contexts, observers till try to distinguish between racism as a pseudo-scientific ideology and other forms of discrimination, which lay no claim to a scientific basis.

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Back to Pillay's speech:

the goal: "attaining discrimination-free societies"

- Does she really believe this is possible? In this formulation, antiracism espouses what I call the abortionist version of obstetric politics: racism is a single phenomenon, which raises its ugly head and must be conquered once and for all.

It is fascinating hwo many people believe that racism is something that can be eliminated once and for all, rather than a structural problem in need of permanent institutionalized responses. Curiously, the same people often believe that racism is an age-old problem that has been with us at least since the Stone Age, since it corresponds to old forms of "communal strife."