Time Immortal

Following Canada’s lead, the United States has announced that it too will not be attending the Durban II “anti”-racism conference. Good show, Yanks!

Meanwhile, the NDP is continuing to…fail at making up their minds. First they were critical of the government decision to back out of the conference. Then they endorsed that decision. Now it seems they’ve flipped again and want us to participate in the Israel bashing after all.

Fortunately, that’s not going to happen. What has happened, in the meantime, is that Canada set the tone and pace: we backed out of the conference, and the Americans are now following our lead. That’s another reason to like this Conservative government; they’re getting us noticed, in meaningful ways, on the international stage.

The irony is too good to miss:

The Canadian Arab Federation has come out strongly against the Canadian government’s decision, supported by the NDP, to not participate in any way with the upcoming UN-sponsored Durban II conference on Racism. The position of the Conservative government, supported by the NDP, is that Durban II is shaping up to be an exercise in the most vile and repellent Anti-Semitism, as was experienced by the Canadian delegation that attended the Durban I conference in 2001.

The CAF has every right to take a different position. But to call Jason Kenney an Islamophobe who is contemptuous of Arabs and of Islam?

But then CAF president Khaled Mouammar, who has all sorts of links with the , declares anyone who sympathizes with Israel to be guilty complicit in war crimes.

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Mouammar was embroiled in the Liberal Party  leadership campaign, when in an attempt to derail Bob Rae’s campaign, Mouammar was linked to the infamous “Jew flyer”:

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In addition to targeting Bob Rae, Khaled Mouammar went after Gerard Kennedy for being too friendly to Jews:

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Kennedy criticizes Hizbollah and Hamas, and so earns the enmity of Khaled Mouammar.

Only leadership candidates Michael Ignatieff (who declared Israeli actions during the 2006 war in Lebanon to be war crimes) and Stephane Dion were spared being called stooges for Israel by Mouammar.

The bottom line is that anyone who expresses support for Israel is a criminal, according to Khaled Mouammar, as he explained in a letter to the Globe and Mail in December 2006.

As noted previously, I couldn’t be happier that Canada is skipping out on the next Durban conference. Although in theory, Durban is supposed to be about combatting racism on a global scale, in practice it became (back in 2001) an exercise in the very thing it supposedly existed to condemn, and there’s little doubt that it will once again turn into just that sort of shameful UN farce.

And if Canada’s refusal to participate in Durban annoys and/or angers the likes of Khaled Mouammar, then that’s just icing on an already delicious cake.

Update: Welcome, BlazingCatFur readers!

And a good thing it is that we did. In theory, the Durban conference is supposed to be a “World Conference Against Racism“, but in practice it turned into an exercise in the very thing it purportedly was convened to oppose.

The so-called Durban II conference “has gone completely off the rails” and Canada wants no part of it, said Jason Kenney, secretary of state for multiculturalism and Canadian identity.

“Canada is interested in combatting Racism, not promoting it,” Mr. Kenney told The Canadian Press. “We’ll attend any conference that is opposed to racism and intolerance, not those that actually promote racism and intolerance.

“Our considered judgment, having participated in the preparatory meetings, was that we were set for a replay of Durban I. And Canada has no intention of lending its good name and resources to such a systematic promotion of hatred and bigotry.”

The 2001 World Conference Against Racism in Durban turned into “a circus of intolerance,” Mr. Kenney said.

One government official on Wednesday called the conference “a gong show.”

Arab and Muslim countries ganged up in their criticisms of Israel. Israel and the United States walked out in protest; the Liberal government of the day remained in an effort to decry the attacks.

With Libya elected to chair the next gathering, Cuba appointed vice-chair and rapporteur, and anti-Israel rhetoric and actions building, Mr. Kenney said his government was left with no choice but to abandon the preparatory process for the followup meeting.

Canada applauded the government, saying Durban I “degenerated into a hate-fest directed at Israel and the Jewish delegates attending the conference.”

The group’s executive vice-president, Frank Dimant, said Ottawa has acted “clearly and decisively by refusing to participate in a venue that pays lip service to anti-racism but in fact provides a platform for the promotion of hatred and bigotry.”

You know, it really is so true, what RightGirl notes: every day that we have a Conservative government, Canada embarrasses me a little less. That’s not to say that ’s government has a perfect track record (far from it, to be sure!), but it is to say that I can’t recall times under past Canadian governments in which I have felt genuine pride at being Canadian. All too often under the Liberals, it seemed that the definition of what was Canada consisted of little more than syncophantic adoration of the UN and all its initiatives. I like that under the Conservatives, Canada is a global player that isn’t afraid to act in its own interests, or in the interests of one or two of the nations it regards as allies, even if it means snubbing other nations or transnational bodies in the process.

And this is a principled rejection that has taken place here. The UN has become the playground of thug states and third-world tinpot dictators; any organization that lets Libya (of all places!) chair a conference about human rights, racism, or pretty much any other issue is not worth the time it takes to acknowledge its existence.