HUMAN RIGHTS: U.N. Spotlights Xenophobia in the West

By Thalif Deen Reprint | | Print |

Thalif Deen

UNITED NATIONS, Dec 15 1994 (IPS) - The United Nations, responding to growing demands from developing nations, is turning its attention to human rights violations in Western countries.

A new U.N. report on racism specifically focuses on the rise in xenophobia, negrophobia, anti-Semitism, and anti-Arab sentiments both in the United States and Europe.

Maurice Glele-Ahanhazo of Benin, the U.N. Special Rapporteur of the Commission on Human Rights, concludes that these manifestations of latent racism are triggered and sustained by the rebirth of extreme right-wing nationalist, neo-fascist ideologies.

“They are caused by the economic crisis shaking industrialised societies, which are stricken by recession and unemployment, and by the crisis in European cultural values, a model of civilisation that sought to impose itself on the contemporary world,” he says.

The result is the fear and distrust of “the outsider” who often comes from the South and is an easy scapegoat bec0use he wants to share in the development or comfort enjoyed by the Northern rich, he adds.

Glele-Ahahanazo says these expressions of rejection or refusal of foreigners, which take the form of intolerance or violence, are also found in newly industrialised nations and developing countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

Andrew Clapham of Amnesty International told IPS the report is the first “important treatment” of human rights violations in the West.

He says the report draws some of its inspiration from Amnesty International reports on countries such as Australia, Britain, France, and the United States, and could counter-balance the heavy U.N. emphasis on human rights violations in developing nations.

The United Nations has traditionally focused on human rights violations in Third World nations in response to General Assembly resolutions. But there have been no resolutions calling for investigations in industrialised countries, primarily because these nations argue they have no human rights abuses.

In March 1993, however, the Commission on Human Rights appointed a Special Rapporteur to report on “contemporary forms of racism”, including xenophobia which is prevalent mainly in Europe.