Durban Diary: Up Close and
Black at the World Conference Against Racism

by Makani N. Themba
SeeingBlack.com Political Editor

Talk about racism, the World Conference, and Makani's journey. Click here.

24 August 2001

I think to myself, as I travel toward the equator along the southeast slant to Johannesburg, that I am flying into spring.

The United Nations World Conference Against Racism, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance represents one of those rare, historic moments in the movement to end racism. A global gathering of activists, governments and organizations, thousands of people will spend two weeks in Durban, South Africa taking up one of humanity's most persistent challenges—racial oppression. Reparations for the Trans-Atlantic slave trade and other proposals to address the treatment of Black people worldwide are at the center of much of the discussion, making the Conference an unprecedented opportunity for African Americans to take racism and white privilege to the world stage.

The plane is absolutely packed with conferees headed toward the conference. Many are African American like me but there's so much of a rainbow that the white couple seated next to me feel compelled to remark on the "startling diversity."

I ignore that. There are plenty of other folk to talk to on the 14-hour flight. In fact, it's a summer night from "old home" week—there are plenty of reunions, late night conversations and loud laughter. A sister works her seatmate's hair into perfect cornrows. The can of hair grease perfectly balanced on the edge of her seat. We are looking good, smelling good, nappy and braided, bald and dreadlocked, in native dress or dress from the land we desperately want to call home. And we are definitely causing the few Afrikaners on the plane to lose serious sleep. One who tried to hush a group of black and brown sisters exchanging baby stories got the finger waving, hip shaking, head rolling comeuppance of his life—in two languages.

The excitement is brimming like uncried tears. When the pre-boarding call went out for those with special needs, one sister says with all the joy of a Sunday shout, "I have a special need to go to Africa!"

Amens follow.

I watch the buzz with a bit of envy. Few of my fellow travelers have been part of the tense negotiations leading up to this moment as I have for nearly two years. We more embattled veterans talk in less enthusiastic tones about the expected next chapter in the battle over the right to discuss reparations, the new proposal from a group of African government representatives to take global reparations off the agenda in favor of country by country negotiations, and a myriad of other issues of process and substance. There's plenty of gossip, too.

I know that few have read the documents and declarations that many of us have labored over. Most folk think this will be a conference loaded with speakers and inspiration. There will be some of that but mostly it will be work and negotiations to wring out something concrete—a plan of action with a kind of global legitimacy that we can take home with us and do. I guess so many of us are expecting something of Sunday service full of performance and spectacle when this is more like a Wednesday committee meeting.

Still, I know it is their hope, their newness, their spring that we so desperately need in this process. So, I remind myself to set aside my disappointments, the histories, the ways in which the Conference process has exposed tremendous weakness in our movement and remember it has also unearthed tremendous strengths. For every setback or cave in under pressure from western governments, there are victories where we have stood together, as black people, as multinational coalitions, as multiracial alliances.

This Conference is still fertile ground I tell myself and I am flying into spring.

26 August 2001

Each day more busses pull up in front of the Kingsmead Cricket Stadium, our conference home over the next two weeks. Some come straight from the airport because they have heard no word on where they'll stay.

We all work to be patient with the process, a process that is woefully under funded and understaffed. This conference is a bit of a stepchild in the U.N. family: the 1995 Beijing Women's Conference had total expenditures of more than ten times the World Conference Against Racism. The U.S. government alone spent an estimated six million dollars on Beijing compared to less than a quarter of a million on this gathering in Durban. And it shows.

Yet despite the challenges, participants are thrilled to be here. One group got off their bus after two straight days of travel, without knowing if they had a place to sleep, and celebrated their arrival with a dance. Of course, these were not folk from the United States. Our tolerance for inefficiency is fairly limited.

In fact, I'm struck by how much nation status, that is being from the U.S., affects one's worldview. It's funny. I never feel very American in the United States. At home, I am the perpetual foreigner. I get hassled in the customs line coming back. At my drivers' test, I, a native New Yorker with paternal lineage that dates back two centuries on these shores, was asked to produce my green card. My green card!

Here in Durban, my links to the U.S. are obvious. Men comment that I walk like an American. Cab drivers ask to speak with me about America—before I even open my mouth to reveal my Harlem twang. The cultural effects of "America" on my tongue and carriage I can cop to. The hard part is facing the fact that my nation status is a privilege. Yes, a privilege that mediates my identities as a woman of African descent living in the most powerful nation on earth.

As I look out the window of my high-rise hotel, I see lots of Black folk that I feel strong kinship with but I know in many ways we are different. Fifty percent of the very poor in Durban, just beyond my hotel, are Black. There are thousands living in shacks, or under the open sky, with little to eat and even less on their backs. As a result, crime is high. The army and the police patrol the streets with M16s ostensibly to protect us from them. We are told to stay away from the townships, from shanties, from "them" so we can be safe. And I don't want to stay away. I want to be where "real people" are.

We resist the temptation to ignore the warnings after a person in our delegation narrowly escaped an attempted robbery at knifepoint in broad daylight. He was saved by a gun toting, local passerby.

The three young black men who wielded the knives weren't stealing to support a drug habit, or to buy some high priced athletic shoes, or even for fun. They were stealing to survive. It didn't matter that we were there to help make a better tomorrow. These brothers needed to eat today.

Crime and security are two of Durban's booming industries. The country of my birth plays a major role in this. And I benefit through the availability of cheap products from exploited labor, the concentration of resources in the country where I live, and the false security that I deserve to have what I have regardless of its role in creating this kind of poverty worldwide. Of course I know I'm oppressed, too. I just don't want to use it as an excuse for any role I might play in the oppression of others.

I realize that the experience of working on the Conference is has made my world much smaller. In fact, Africans and those of us of African descent have forged strong bonds leading up to the Conference and plans are underway for a global gathering of Africans next year.

All of it has helped me to see more clearly the folks with whom I share this planet. Hopefully, it will make me a better ally and a whole lot more patient in lines.

28 August 2001

I have to rush back to read a section from Zora Neale Hurston's classic Dust Tracks on the Road. It's in the chapter titled "My People! My People!" where Hurston satirically lambastes us colored folk for having such a hard time getting together that even God can't help.

'Lawd,' Brother Isham began again, 'I really want to ask you something but I just know you can't do it.

'Aw, Brother Isham, go on and tell the Lawd what you want. He's the Lawd! Ain't nothing He can't do! He can even lead a butt-headed cow by the horns. You're killing up time. Go 'head on, Brother Isham, and let the church roll on.'

'Well then, Lawd, I ask you to get these Negroes together, but I know you can't do it.'

I'm rushing back to read this chapter in order to relish the fact that Zora Neale Hurston is wrong. Here in Durban, Black people have somehow moved past the fear and loathing, the national divisions and the petty politics in order to address our common challenges in Africa and throughout the diaspora. And it's beautiful.

Walking into the "Africa" tent, the "home" of the African and African Descendants Caucus, is a joy and wonder behold—Black people in all hues, speaking in many tongues and wearing every imaginable type of national dress. There's the awe inspiring traditional clothing of the continent, the traditional Negro uniform of high priced suit and tie and plenty of us rocking jeans and t-shirts in defense against the humidity. Women and men, youth and elders—a microcosm of the global village that could be—are here working hard and laughing often.

In fact, the joking is almost as relentless as the work. I've come to see humor as one among the many common bonds we share as a people. There's also that "sister thing"—the flippant roll of the neck with our hands to the hip—I've learned that, too, is universal. Whether the sister is from Lagos, London or Louisiana, she's got the head thing going on.

Of course, there are many things that make us different, that challenge our work together. There are times when we black folk from the U.S. get a little pushy and have less patience for our brothers and sisters with less linear approaches to the work. We understand that, for many reasons, this unity is wrought by ignoring other differences just beneath the surface. But right now, I don't care. I just enjoy it.

And even with these differences, the common bonds are strong. It all makes me wonder what mystery makes it possible for a people separated under the most brutal of circumstances to retain so much in common over centuries? And what more do we have in common that we cannot see?

It just may be that Brother Isham's entreaty was answered before he even uttered it, that somehow before we were separated one from another some divine encryption was performed, some code that allows us to recognize each other. If we can only open our eyes.

29 August 2001

I got to feel Winnie Mandela today. I think that's the only way to describe what happened to the room when she arrived. I saw her, sure, but it was the wave of her presence that vibrated in my chest and pulsed all the way up through my eyes. It caught me completely off guard.

I'm no starry-eyed kid who gets impressed by celebrity. In fact, I've walked politely past our "famous ones"—the Danny Glovers, the Harry Belafontes—as they patiently posed for pictures with yet another respectful but pleading participant. I've even felt sorry for them as it was clear that they would've rather been somewhere else attending to the work.

But I was completely unprepared for Winnie. In spite of the controversy and her admissions of past wrongdoing, she is still South Africa's first lady. And the moment she held the room, we were all transported to the glory days of the most revered and widely supported liberation struggle in modern history.

Harmonies gathered strength from every corner of the room as the sisters from South Africa began dancing and singing the old songs of struggle. The glee on their faces was infectious as they laughed out loud and started telling stories in a symphony of "remember when." One would start with simply a word or two that was instantly greeted with a chorus of enthusiastic nods.

After Sister Winnie finished, the music did not stop. No one wanted to leave that place where memory dulls the hard-edged knife of the present. The gavel came down repeatedly, the facilitators pleaded that we needed to get on with the work of the session, but the sisters refused to be evicted from the moment.

Nearly half an hour later, the meeting of African and African Descendants resumed with Sister Winnie right there alongside participants working to develop the document and action plan that was the meeting's impetus. It is this residue of memory that keeps me up tonight as I ponder what makes it so compelling.

It is far easier to organize against a common enemy than for a common vision. This struggle of transforming rights into reality, into what some organizers call nation building is clearly a whole 'nother party. This all makes the past a much more comfortable place to be.

I certainly can't judge. We in the U.S. have a similar attachment to the 60s. It was when the "real" movement was going on and the revolution was just around the corner. There was the passage of watershed legislation that gave us new legal handles to assert our rights. Jim Crow cars were a thing of the past and anyone who could afford a first class ticket could get a seat in the bosses' car. The bottom line is that even with all the rights in the world, without the resources to make them concrete it's all just paper. It's why few constitutions guarantee the right to food and shelter—the right to have as much freedom as you can buy is an easy promise.

And while the work of eradicating poverty, building infrastructure, and addressing exploitative economic conditions dominate the talk of most South Africans, it's mostly off the agenda for much of the civil rights movement. The last NAACP protest I heard about was small, well dressed and took place at the offices of television networks. As a person who cares deeply about media, I can't really knock that too hard but I'm still struck by how few of these national groups make the connection that Dr. King, the icon they all claim, made between poverty, racism and freedom. Class difference provides a partial explanation for this blind spot but I think there are other, deeper issues.

South Africa knows there are few examples of how to build a nation where everyone is truly free. Making sure people have enough to eat, have a roof over their heads, and enough space in their lives for love and laughter are not the rousing stuff of songs.

In the U.S., black people have never held state power but the truth is that we have done relatively little with what we do control. When people talk about "the movement" with few exceptions they are reminiscing. Few organizations have a vision of what they are for, some picture, some notion of what it means to have strong and vibrant communities—and what must change to make it so. To do so would mean letting go of the uneasy peace between an ambiguous future and the comfort of the past.

Like many unsung groups in the U.S. trenches, South Africa does not have the luxury to stand still. A half an hour was all they got today to live in gilded memory. Then, it was time to go to work.

2 September 2001

Lights. Cameras. Action. The curtains go up on the government meeting just as I prepare to journey home. Everything is changing, surreal. It's as if the meeting of non-government organizations (NGOs) that, until yesterday, occupied our every waking moment is melting, morphing into this new larger, more complicated organism.

In other words, our "leaders" are here.

Rev. Jackson opened the circus with his press announcement that he and Arafat have devised terms for new peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians. He waves a handwritten letter he claimed was penned by Arafat, a claim the Palestinian leader vehemently denies. Jackson's press conference is one of many as folk stand in line for another 30 seconds of fame. This is clearly becoming a whole 'nutha party.

Many of us who cruised the NGO forum in dashikis and jeans are now buttoned down in suits. The meeting area is now an armed encampment where dignitaries' security stand stone faced mumbling into mouthpieces and Durban police and South African soldiers keep curious locals at bay. I, too, am on the outside looking in. I'm so ready to go home but I'm taking a lot with me.

These last twelve days have shown me that, at the core, there's much unity among us NGOs. It sure didn't start out that way. We all had some stretching to do. Two years ago, few of us knew the oppression facing the 250 million Dalits in India. We never heard of the Bhutanese or contemporary slavery in Niger. Many of our colleagues came into this process unsure about reparations for slavery and colonialism and a significant number had little clue about present day racism in the U.S. By the time the final plenary session closed at nearly 1 a.m. this morning, most of these issues were not only understood—they received unanimous support.

"We Are All Cuban"

If there was ever a moment when I knew we'd really forged some common ground it was during the closing ceremony. We were all waiting for Fidel.

After two days of rumors about his possible appearance at the forum, delegates packed the Cricket Stadium as they awaited the beloved Cuban leader. For nearly a half an hour before his arrival, the group sang liberation songs, rocked political chants and waved makeshift Cuban flags. His Excellency was easily the indisputable star of the proceedings.

The excitement was so palpable that the crowd literally gasped in unison when Fidel finally made it to the stage. The space reserved up front for the Cuban delegation filled up instead with supporters worldwide. Ugandans, Chinese, Mexicanos, Samoans were among the folk who simply brushed past the usher charged with controlling admittance to the area and said in their best English, "I am Cuban." One Ugandan woman said ceremoniously, "We are all Cuban."

It was a moment of pure theater. Fidel moved gracefully through his trademark gestures in a kind of verbal dance with his interpreter. He held the silence in the palm of his hand, and then released it in a dramatic staccato of gestures and postulations. Although the length of his speech (nearly two hours) proved too much for those who had to return to the work of the meeting, I was struck by how Fidel's words and our enthusiastic greeting of them gave voice to a common vision.

Most of us agree that there are central issues of injustice—poverty, racism, sexism, marginalization among them; that globalization has meant a great deal of escalation of these and other challenges; and that we must take on both the market and our governments if we hope to make a difference.

We also leave committed to ensuring that it all doesn't end here. A group of organizations in Asia, Africa, North America, Europe and South America are coming together to think collaboratively about fundamental causes of "ethnic conflict" and what can be done to stop it. Africans and African descendant organizations are already planning a meeting next year and have even developed interim work committees. Women's groups are looking at the ways race and gender oppression combine to create particular challenges for women and girls of color with an eye toward developing global strategies. These efforts and more are few of the things we'll take home and do.

There's also much I'll take home and feel. The mysterious death of an Italian delegate, born in Morocco; the tearful conversation I had with his colleague as he left to identify the body; the robberies; the dead-eyed children who gathered outside of the conference grounds in hopes of spare change. In short, the way globalization was reflected in the eyes of desperation and made us clutch our wallets.

I, too, will never forget the time I unwittingly spent as a colored person here in Durban. End of formal apartheid notwithstanding, this is still a place where one is pegged by their surname. In South Africa, I'm a walking contradiction—an African American woman with long dark hair, a sort of butterscotch brown and with a Zulu last name. One hotel clerk was so undone he blurted out in disbelief, "It cannot be. Themba is a black name."

And I am a black woman, I say and say again trying to ignore the way these words dig at these old wounds I carry. I still hate when Black folk ask me what I'm mixed with. I pull myself together and find some patience for those who "don't know". I have learned repeatedly that I am surely among them.

These last twelve days offered yet more evidence that mainstream news media is more interested in covering the same old hopelessness than new stories of hope. The debate related to Israel's treatment of the Palestinian people dominated coverage. A black woman was among the network reporters refusing to attend a press conference less than 20 feet away on reparations in order to film yet another hour of verbal conflict between Israelis and Palestinians.

The press also mostly ignored the quiet group of rabbis that protested along side Palestinians in their effort to forge new definitions of Zionism. Perhaps most importantly, they missed the truth—and given the fact that mainstream media outlets conducted few interviews with attendees, it didn't seem as if the truth really mattered to them all that much. It all has made me even more grateful for the ethnic and independent media that worked tirelessly to tell the whole story of the gathering.

I take one more careful walk along the beach for the little girl in me that wants to cry for all the times I have to explain my blackness, to assert my membership in the clan. The sand between my toes brings me back to the moments of laughter, camaraderie and victory that have punctuated this arduous process. Whatever our "leaders" and the mainstream press do from here on in, the people have spoken. That's the music I'll fly home by.

Makani Themba is Political Editor for SeeingBlack.com. Her latest book is "Making Policy, Making Change" and she is a contributor to the recently published anthology, "State of the Race: Creating Our 21st Century."

-- September 10, 2001

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