Voice in Durban

Aamera Jiwaji

G21 Africa Staff Writer

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Aamera Jiwaji

The UN Conference against Racism held in Durban may have failed to release any substantive policy measures on the issue of racism. In fact, like many bureaucratic gatherings it was a lot of talk and no action. But it succeeded on one front. It banished forever the stereotype that racism is a black-white dynamic.

The human soul has many colours. Not black, white, and brown but smiles of blue, whispers of green, drops of red and echoes of yellow. "Voices of Victims" built a rainbow from the colours of pain, sorrow, and suffering. Those that shone through were of strength and survival.

Voices of tragedy and sorrow echoed around the ICC (International Conference Centre) in Durban begging a release from every member in the audience through hoarse tears and gasps of horror. But the kind of pain that was carried in the words of the victims and hidden in the shadows of their eyes could not be communicated, could not be shared. Like a silent scream, it was pent up inside with no release.

Nusreta Sivac spoke of her experiences in Bosnia during the ethnic cleansing operation carried out by the Serbs. An intellectual, she was among the first group to be targeted. Forcibly removed from her home, she was taken to a concentration camp and subjected to torture. She was repeatedly raped and beaten along with many other women.

Arturo Gomez Gomez: from Mexico,
is a Tojolabales

Rape was used as a systematic means of torture in Bosnia. But it wasnąt a recounting of these experiences that made Nusreta break down into tears. It was the memory of all the friends she had lost, most of whose bodies had not yet been found.

Ana del Carmen Martinez told of how racism against Afro-Colombians emerged from the civil war and narcotics trafficking in Colombia. Her and her family were evacuated from their home and forced to live on the run, while being chased by helicopters and militia men. Eighty people in her community have been killed or disappeared since they were displaced.

Ana recounted an incident where a guerrilla group chose to make an example of one of her friends. They tied him up and decapitated his head, using it as a soccer ball. With every word she spoke, she halted ­ the pain of the memory too fresh to speak of. By the end of her story, she was quiet, worn out and the audience was left with hiccupping tears ­ the pain of her memory too fresh for them.

Lorraine Nesane is a fifteen year old girl living in Hamaila village in South Africa. Young as she is, she has been the victim of a post-apartheid racist crime that has scarred her for life. She recounted how she went to the shops one day to buy something, only to be accused by a white sales clerk of being a thief and a shoplifter. She was taken to the back of the store where she was beaten by the female clerk. Her upper body was stripped and then a black male painted her face and her body with white paint before throwing her out of the store, bare of her money and her clothes.

Sarah White
from Mississippi

The case reached trial but resulted only in minor fines and suspended sentences for both white perpetrators. Lorraine continues to live the shame of that experience, and has no hope of the racism between white and black people ever reaching an end in South Africa.

Twenty two people from all over the world spoke at the Voices forum. Gay McDougall of the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination said that the word "voices" rather than "victims" would be used.

"This is not stories from a number of pitiful people," she said. "Some of them have been through hell and they will talk about how they coped and survived, even how they became activists."

Monica Morgan: from Australia, Aboriginal descent
Ashid Ali: from Oldham, United Kingdom, Bangladeshi

By the end of the week, there was too much pain in the air. Too many terrible stories had been told and it was difficult to put them into perspective. The stories shared were from all over the world: Willy Weisz, an Austrian Jew; Monica Morgan, an Australian Aborigine; Murugesan Manimegalai, a Dalit from India, Ashid Ali, a Bangladeshi from Oldham, United Kingdom. All the continents were represented from a small rural village in South Africa to a large metropolitan city in Mississippi.

Racism and racial discrimination was represented as a global issue at the Voices forum. Perhaps a global recognition will be reached and policy introduced to protect the victims of the world.

I left Durban with the myriad of these voices echoing in my head, the layers of suppressed tears weighing down my eyes. The stories that the voices had told made me simultaneously proud to be a human being since I could associate myself with the strength and courage that these people had shown, and at the same time disgusted at myself since as a human being I was also associated with the perpetrators of these horrific acts of hatred.

So with the criticism against the UN that is being voiced in the aftermath of the Racism conference, remember to also open your eyes to the colours of the different souls and your ears to the voices and the messages that they tell.

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AAMERA JIWAJI is a 21 year old student currently reading for her Bachelor of Journalism at Rhodes University in South Africa. She has written for the Grahamstown Arts Festival, the South African National Science Festival, the multi-media conference Highway Africa, and the National Sanlam Business Festival. She has freelanced for iafrica.com, and was one of a group to represent her university at the recent UN Racism Conference.

She is also a published short story writer and her interests include travel, language, and writing for the marginalised communities of the world. This is her second article for The World's Magazine.