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Posted on 09/06/2001 3:19:39 AM PDT by bulldog905

There is no great issue facing the world today that can't be made worse by having a UN conference on it. But even so the grand comedy at Durban this week has effortlessly surpassed all expectations.

There was Mary Robinson doing her "Ich bin ein Juden" routine to quiet down the noisier Jew-haters. There was the Norwegian delegation soberly negotiating into the small hours with the world's pre-eminent dictators over the degree and number of vile slurs the final communiqué could accommodate ("OK, you can have two 'bloodsucking Zionists' but take out the 'Jew Fascists' "). There were the Syrians, who denounced the Holocaust as "a Jewish lie." There was the unmatched ovation for Fidel Castro, hailed by South Africa's Foreign Minister as leader of "the most democratic country in the world." There was the Organisation of African Unity's demand that reparations for the Hutu slaughter of the Tutsis should be paid -- by the Americans, naturally. There were major disagreements on the more general reparations front between the African-American bloviators, who wanted whitey's payments to go to individuals, and African Presidents, who thought it would be more convenient if the West just dropped off one big cheque at the Presidential Palace. There was Robert Mugabe's government, taking time out of its hectic schedule of terrorizing white farmers to call on Britain and the U.S. to "apologize unreservedly for their crimes against humanity."

But, most importantly, a useful spotlight was beamed on the most wicked racist societies on earth -- like Canada. Matthew Coon Come, national chief of the "First Nations," told delegates that he and his fellow natives were victims of a "racist and colonial syndrome of dispossession and discrimination" and that only last year his people were savagely attacked by "white mobs." The crowd applauded wildly. Things got so lively that as accomplished a demagogue as Canada's chief delegate, Hedy ("C'mon, Baby, Light My Fire") Fry, was obliged to concede that some of these chaps were a tad strong meat even for her.

At the time of writing, Ottawa's official position seems to be that it would like to bail out, but the timing is awkward: If they go too soon, it'll look as if they're just tagging along with the Americans; but if they wait too long the EU will have ankled and it'll look as if Canada's just tagging along with the Europeans. Our fearless Dominion's agonizing nicely distills the essence of these confabs: Whatever you do, don't make it look as if you agree with America or Europe.

Meanwhile, back home, progressive opinion, while acknowledging certain problematic aspects, is urging Canada to stay. Only by remaining at the table can we "influence the debate." Take the Syrians, whose position is that the Holocaust is "a Jewish lie." Okay, we can probably never get them to accept that six million Jews were murdered but, if we join the Norwegians in all-night negotiations we might be able to persuade the Syrians to accept a compromise position acknowledging that, oh, eight or nine hundred may have died, mostly troublemakers who were asking for it. This would represent what dear old Mary Robinson, the Rev Jesse Jackson and Norway would call "progress."

As a conference on "Racism, Racial Intolerance, Xenophobia and/or Related Intolerance," it was perhaps misnamed, though it's exhibited large quantities of all four. But as a UN Conference Against Whitey, Jews And Capitalism -- or, in the preferred formulation, "techno-racism" -- it's a roaring success, and an important milestone for those who think the world could use fewer Canadas and more Zimbabwes.

Like a bank manager hanging upside down in a bondage dungeon, the West is paying for the delicious frisson of being flayed by the world's thugs. Twenty-five per cent of the cost of the Durban conference is being borne by the Americans alone. Along with Britain and Europe, they're also expected to pick up the tab for slavery, even though they were last to get into the game and first to get out. The UN and its conventioneers are not really interested in actual, specific, here-and-now "intolerance" -- like the Taleban's recent introduction of that retro fashion accessory, yellow identifying patches for Hindus -- or even in slavery, which today is alive and well in the Sudan, Mali, Niger, Ghana, Sierra Leone, the Ivory Coast, etc, etc. What they're interested in is the grand historical reckoning -- in putting the white man in the dock, getting him convicted and fined, and thus enabling what the OAU calls a "massive injection of new capital into places from Harare to Harlem, from Trinidad to Tanzania, from black Brazil to Burundi."

There is, of course, no point whatsoever to a massive injection of capital into Harare, unless you feel Robert Mugabe's pension plan is in urgent need of topping up. But the pointlessness is its own point. The further the colonial era recedes into the past, the more it's to blame. The West's current leaders -- Messrs. Blair, Jospin, Chrétien et al. -- are ill-placed to resist the charge: In essence they agree with their chastisers about the sins of their fathers, but feel that, as reformed multiculturalists, they themselves should be cut some slack.

What no one in their delegations will say is this -- that the West has nothing to apologize or pay for, least of all Britain. London abolished slavery in the British Isles in 1772 and within the Empire in 1833, in the teeth of fierce opposition from Arab and West African traders. If one had to single out one institution that did more to end the trade in human beings than any other, it would be the Royal Navy, whose ships enforced the ban at great risk to themselves. Yet the reflexive shame in their inheritance is such that no British -- or Canadian -- delegate in Durban would dream of standing up for the historical record.

If Colin Powell wanted to he could, for as the child of British subjects from the Caribbean -- he's sort of the Bush Administration's Hedy Fry -- he regards his family as a beneficiary of British imperialism. "American blacks sometimes regard Americans of West Indian origin as uppity and arrogant," he writes in his autobiography. "The feeling, I imagine, grows out of an impressive record of accomplishment by West Indians. What explains that success? For one thing, the British ended slavery in the Caribbean in 1833, well over a generation before America did ... They told my ancestors that they were now British citizens with all the rights of any subject of the Crown. That was an exaggeration: still, the British did establish good schools and made attendance mandatory. They filled the lower ranks of the civil service with blacks. Consequently, West Indians had an opportunity to develop attitudes of independence, self-responsibility and self-worth." And so the most prominent black man in American life today is the son of British subjects, raised outside the festering grievance culture of the Jesse Jackofied African-American community.

But even in Jesseland things aren't so bad. Life expectancy for American blacks is 69.6 years; for Ugandans it's 45 years, and falling. If the Ugandan comparison's a little too easy, consider this: For all their problems, the approximately 30 million American blacks have a greater combined wealth than the 30 million Canadians. Blacks don't need reparations to prosper, just the civic freedom and economic integrity of democratic society. If, on the other hand, they take seriously Castro, Mugabe and the other Durban pin-up boys, you can pretty much guarantee which way their income, life expectancy and other social indicators will be heading.

That's why Colin Powell's analysis is right in a broader sense, too. The institutions the British brought with them -- most importantly, the rule of law and the law of contract -- more than compensated for any of the "evils" of colonialism. In fact, the only thing the West has to apologize for is that it was too indulgent of Kwame Nkrumah, Julius Nyerere and post-colonial Africa's other founding frauds, and simply stood by as they beggared the continent with their uniquely virulent strain of Afro-Marxism. Those Commonwealth countries which have prospered are those that have deviated least from their Britannic inheritance. There's the real lesson for Africa, if only the guilt-ridden wimps of the Western delegations had the guts to point it out.

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