Conferences Books

In this article, Peniel Joseph discusses a conference that could have been a landmark in the struggle for human rights. And he begins by mentioning the Bandung conference, which was held in 1955. That conference included many people who were indeed fighting for their rights. And I think the folks at that conference made a big mistake to cancel their invitation to Israel to be there. Israel had won its freedom against some very cruel oppression by British colonialists. But some Arab racists convinced the people at the Bandung conference to withdraw that Israeli invitation.

In general, I think it is a big mistake for those who stand to profit from universal human rights to ally themselves (or even appear to ally themselves) with racist thugs. It isn't hard to think of an example. For centuries, the European Pagans had no rights. They were in danger of being arrested and killed on sight. Finally, in the 1930s, they seemed to get a break, when some nationalist governments in Europe chose to take on other enemies. But when the German National Socialists were defeated and discredited, so were many Pagans.

That sort of error can happen again. Peniel boasts about the NGO portion of the Durban racism conference in 2001. And the folks at that conference did discuss an issue he happens to like: reparations for slavery. On the other hand, it did so in a rather undiplomatic manner. And it also came up with some extremely racist anti-Israeli proposals. Once again, the potential exists for the same sort of discrediting of what could have been worthy opposition to racism.

We're faced with the prospect of yet another United Nations conference on racism. Will it be just as bad as Durban in 2001? If so, it will discredit the cause of anti-racism even more. Peniel does not even appear to notice the problem. But he should have.

My advice to Peniel is very simple: if you like human rights, support them and do not oppose them, and do not ally yourself with those who do oppose them.

I am Ph.D of Agricultural Entomology. I am rock climbing coach! I love Mathematical biology.

The contributors make a point of showing how little has been written on older gay men and lesbians in this country. Unfortunately, they don't have much to say either. The chapters here are incredibly short. This book was the result of a conference. This becomes obvious when reading so many of the entries that sound like speeches, rather than well-elaborated texts meant for reading.

Some articles are brilliant. For example, the narrative from an older transgendered person almost brought me to tears, and to action. The books last chapter on homeless, HIV-positive, older gay men was also eye-opening. Still, one article seemed like an advertisement for a visual clinic, that wasn't even gay-specific. In fact, much in this book would apply to all senior citizens, not just the gay ones. One chapter that seemed like it would talk about intergenerational couples in film went on to discuss this group in biography and real life. Why not put it in the title of the chapter then?

The book is written by a mix of men and women. However, the chapters are male-dominated, thought the editors' seem to have gender equality as a goal. This is shocking given that women live longer than men, regardless of sexual identity. Some chapters did not discuss people of color at all. However, others did so impressively, but you wouldn't know it from their chapter titles.

This was a nice book to get the conversation going. However, it has many rough edges.

I ordered the item from amazon and it was missing the CD-ROM in it. Then I made a replacement so that they can send me the book with CD. However the replacement was also missing the CD-ROM. SO this item doesnt include a CD-ROM !!! The book is fine though. I warned amazon.com so that they could change the title of the item but I see that noone cares about it. So if you just want to buy the book its fine. If you also need the CD-ROM, then dont bother yourself and look for a different store.

I read this as a required reading at high school and am interested in rereading it as I think futurologistists do not have their predictions tested.

Since I couldn't find a copy of this work for sale anyplace, I requested it from my library. It turns out that it's not a book, but a paper written for the "International Men's Studies and Gender Studies Conference" by a California State University history professor. It is 19 pages long, including 4 pages of footnotes, and was written for other professors, though the references are all to readily available popular works.

The paper begins with wistful mention of the collapse of the Soviet Union; apparently the author feels the 100 million people it killed during its near-century of existence just weren't enough. Then he proceeds to discuss the variations on the socialist-feminist alliance that have existed over the decades.

There are a few interesting historical footnotes here. For example, in the nineteenth century, a "family wage" was something most workers hoped unions or the law would give them, making it possible for a man to support his wife and children without them having to work outside the home, and this is something socialists and union organizers promised workers in order to win their support. It wasn't until decades later that they decided that women could only be happy if they were wage slaves too. Also, shortly after World War II, male bartenders tried to bar women from their profession because they saw bars as a male refuge, the poor man's version of the gentleman's club.

Whether you are a feminist or a patriarch, this paper won't shed any particular new light on the issue.

I didn't enjoyed this at all, sorry to say! But I also purchased Theological immortal romance, which I can suggest. Which was a wonderful, uplifting, spiritual and romantic experience.

This article is about the infamous Durban racism conference of August 31 to September 8, 2001.

I happen to think that the Durban Conference is, so far, the greatest diplomatic disaster of this century, and that it basically advocated a total overthrow of human rights. It mocked truth and justice. That's because the nongovernmental organization (NGO) Forum at Durban adopted an "action program" which called for:

1) dismantling "Israeli colonies"

2) a "right of return" of Arabs to Israel

3) reinstitution of the UN resolution equating Zionism with racism

4) the repeal of Israel's Law of Return for Jews to Israel

5) preparation of "educational packets" by the UN describing "the Israeli racist apartheid system"

6) establishment of a special UN Special Committee on Israeli apartheid

7) development of UN programs to counter "propaganda" that portrays Levantine Arabs as violent terrorists

8) launching by the UN of an international anti-Israel apartheid movement

9) convening of a War Crimes tribunal to prosecute Israel's leaders

10) demanding that the international community completely isolate Israel

11) condemning all states supporting, aiding, and abetting Israel

Decent people tended to notice that the tenor of all this was strikingly similar to some of the worst anti-Semitic literature of the twentieth century.

I think that all this is so far out of bounds that there's no point in even trying to look for redeeming features. But Rita Maran reports on the conference as if it simply had some good and bad points. She discusses what she thinks went right and tries to suggest some ways in which it could have been improved. And I think we need to see if we agree with her or not.

The conference agenda included topics such as reparations, race and gender, environmental racism, race and health, race and education, race and poverty, race and criminal justice, migrants' rights, and an international convention on elimination of all forms of racial discrimination. These sound like reasonable issues. But having already heard the manifestly false thirteenth note of this Durban cuckoo clock, does it even make sense to listen to the other twelve? In any case, the issue of reparations for slavery was handled in an extremely dubious manner as well.

The United States obviously had hoped to have some official presence at the conference. After all, as Maran says, "approximately one-fourth of the NGOs were U.S. Americans." But the issues of reparations for slavery and the equating of Zionism with racism were simply too much: official participation would have implied some sort of recognition of the nonsense that was being spewed there.

Maran says that "In the view of many, the U.S. opportunistically let the Zionism issue consume the attention of both the Forum and the Conference, leaving less time and space for the discussion not only of reparations for slavery, but also of the hundreds of other issues involving racial discrimination that had brought so many NGOs to Durban." I don't buy it. The conference had already been hijacked by racists, and I think the U.S. was right to walk out after one day. And even Maran admits that had the United States stayed, in an attempt to negotiate a better NGO document, it would have faced people who were not "inclined towards compromise oriented language."

Maran does say that the final NGO document "did contain inflammatory language." And she even quotes an NGO, the European Roma Rights Center, which stated in part: "We cannot but deplore the fact that an event of such importance for Roma and other victims of discrimination was apparently hijacked by biased activists, forcing through their own agenda." But I think that even this is not nearly enough on her part. This conference was not merely counterproductive, but notoriously so. And I think we need to examine not what went right, but how such disasters can be avoided in the future. Maran isn't much help on this topic.

There's some useful information in this article, so I'm giving it two stars. But I think Maran really has missed the point of what happened here.

This is very important source about the fuzzy researc

To be honest, I have not read through the book yet so I can not comment on the content of it. However, I felt like I should at least mention the physical quality, or rather, lacktherof, of this book.

I paid $95 for what I thought was a new book, but what I received today was quite obviously used and abused. It did have the CD still inside in good condition, but the corners of the cover was water damaged, and the cover appears to be water damaged and worn out as well. I can actually see an outline of the CD burned through the front cover.

I had to wonder if this book was 20+ years old... Nope, it was published just a couple of years ago. I will say however, the text and everything is clean and unmarked at least, but I was extremely disappointed in the physical quality of this so-called new book. This might have been acceptable for a used textbook, but thank goodness I wasn't buying this as a gift... I would seriously be embarrassed to give this to someone.