Response to Robinson Speech in the Gazette

by Gil Troy

May 20, 2004

Update: On Sunday, the Gazette Reprinted a Speech Mary Robinson delivered in Maryland in March -- which seemed to be a forceful denunciation of anti-Semitism, thus seemingly rebutting the critique; and a form letter has been circulating from McGill's Principal, Heather Monroe-Blum defending Mary Robinson and saying that at worse she is charged re: Durban with sins of omission not commission. Many have emailed me asking for my thoughts, so one more time -- even as I try to get back to my work pile -- here goes...

A RESPONSE TO HEATHER MONROE-BLUM’S LETTER – AS WELL AS MARY ROBINSON’S SPEECH PRINTED IN THE GAZETTE OF SUNDAY, May 16, 2004 (both found below).

For starters, allow me to say that I have tremendous respect for Prof. Monroe-Blum -- in my initial article I contrasted the behavior of the two leaders -- the McGill principal who understood the "broken windows" theory of policing -- that little incidents mushroom into big ones, thus must be stopped -- and wrote a courageous and candid public letter against anti-Semitism at McGill versus the "Human Rights Commissioner" who only stood up long after the anti-Semitism at Durban had veered out of control.

My issues with McGill have to do with the timing of this award -- a mixed message from the university that the award was indeed first offered in 1994 -- but according to a McGill Press Relations Person -- it was initiated again only a year ago, meaning AFTER Durban. So the real process question for the future is: What kind of due diligence did the University pursue? Was it so slapdash that no one noticed that Mary Robinson was controversial, or did the administrators look at her Durban record, and the ensuing controversy, and proceed nevertheless?

To me, the question of "omission" versus "commission" is a clever sidestep. Think, for example, of Donald Rumsfeld and the current Abu Ghraib problem (not that I’m comparing Durban to Abu Ghraib). Many are calling for Rumsefeld’s resignation, whether or not he was personally responsible -- because it happened on his watch. Some of the most pointed indictments of Mary Robinson go even further. Not only was the Durban conference her baby, so to speak. Not only did she at the end of the conference -- and a year later -- defend it as a success -- thus compounding the insult to those who were shocked by the anti-Semitism. But a close look at her behavior during the buildup to Durban -- especially in the pre-meetings in Tehran and Geneva, suggests that she occasionally added fuel to the Islamic fire, and certainly did not do all she could have done to stop it.

Mary Robinson failed at Durban - and during its contentious prelude. Mary Robinson failed when in February's regional preparatory conference in Tehran she was silent as the anti-Semitic rhetoric escalated, then hailed the "consensus" achieved, rather than challenging the bigotry. Robinson failed when in an inflamed atmosphere she singled out the Palestinian conflict, and, later in Geneva, linked talk of the Holocaust with Palestinian suffering. This behavior violated UN protocols. World human rights conferences, notably Vienna in 1993, and Beijing in 1995, did not specify any single state or conflict. Robinson's rhetoric at the critical meetings in Geneva just before Durban helped derail the conference, Democratic Congressman Tom Lantos charged. Emboldening Islamic radicals, she "legitimized" the obsession with "a single territorial conflict at the exclusion of all others and at the expense of the conference's greater goals."

Ha’aretz reported at the time that: "At the [Israeli] Foreign Ministry, as in the Jewish organizations, a large part of the failure is being attributed to Mary Robinson's behavior. Alan Schneider, director of B'nai Brith in Israel, explains it thus: 'If she had wanted to, Mary Robinson could have taken the drafts she got from the regional conferences, informed the various countries that she is a partner to the process, and formulated a completely new document that would have expressed the planned character of the conference, not veer off in the political directions the Arabs are interested in. Instead, she has taken all the drafts and made a salad of them, with the formulations that were brought up in Tehran.'"

Congressman Lantos in retrospect wrote: "To many of us present at the events in Durban, it is clear that much of the responsiblility for the debacle rests on the shoulders of UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson, who, in her role as secretary-general of the conference, failed to provide the leadership needed to keep the conference on track" He also writes of the emergency meeting in Geneva, held a month before the actual conference, in an attempt to get the conference back on track, "Mrs. Robinson’s intervention with the assembled delegates later in the same day left our delegation deeply shocked and saddened. In her remarks, she advocated precisely the opposite course to the one Secretary Powell and I had urged her to take. Namely, she refused to reject the twisted notion that the wrong done to the Jews in the Holocaust was equivalent to the pain suffered by the Palestinians in the Middle East. Instead, she discussed, 'the historical wounds of anti-Semitism and of the Holocaust on the one hand, and … the accumulated wounds of displacement and military occupation on the other.'"

In fairness, the American boycott of the actual conference helped. During the conference in Durban, Robinson belatedly tried to tame the anti-Semitic beast Lantos and other critics said she helped unleash. Diplomatic brinksmanship moderated the final statement, deleting talk of "holocausts," rather than the "Holocaust." Still, the debate distracted the delegates. "The sad thing is that this conference was hijacked, and it didn't deal with the agenda that it should have," Condoleeza Rice lamented.

Nevertheless, despite the ugly rhetoric and the despicable images hovering over the formal conference and the NGO meeting, Mary Robinson declared "We ... succeeded" in the end. Nearly a year later, she told a Salon.com interviewer "I'm not defensive about my record on ... the Durban conference."

Robinson's spin compounded the insult. The double trauma of Durban came from enduring the bigotry, then seeing the passive complicity on the part of NGOs and of people who purportedly care about human rights. For many in the 1970s, the General Assembly's declaration equating Zionism with racism epitomized the UN's surrender to Third World dictators. The Durban conference epitomizes the 21st century UN's degeneration into a kangaroo court where the Human Rights Commission votes off the United States but installs Libya as chair; a forum which repeatedly sanctions Israel while ignoring abuses in Egypt, China, the Sudan, and the sacrosanct Palestinian Authority.

In the Montreal Gazette this weekend, Mary Robinson had a speech of hers from March 17 of this year reprinted. It is a fascinating document. Reading it superficially, many conclude that I was wrong. I draw the opposite conclusion for the following reasons:

the protests are working: I can’t claim to have read everything she has said in the last few years, but if you compare Mary Robinson’s speech at the end of Durban, her Salon.com interview a year later, her March 17th speech, and her most recent May 10 address at Emory University, you see her denunciation of anti-Semitism becoming clearer – and her acknowledgment of the pain of Durban becoming more pronounced. This does suggest that she is more responsive as an individual than many of her defenders – who have indulged in what I now call Durban Denial. But it also means that we have to continue explaining to her and others, just went wrong there – and why it crossed an unacceptable line from criticism and debate of Israeli policies and even Zionism to blatant anti-Semitism. Her description of the Durban process blames "some participants, both inside and outside the conference" who "wanted to make the conflict in the Middle East … the principal focus of Durban." She then makes herself a passive participant – or actually a heroic actor who “condemned such language” – thus sidestepping Congressman Lantos’s critique that in trying to appease the Islamic extremists she repeatedly encouraged them rather than squelching them during the buildup to the conference. Most nefarious – and I’m sorry to say, sadly characteristic – is the last third of her article, when she reflects on “the lessons” to “learn from the Durban experience in countering anti-Semitism today.” She starts off by again condemning anti-Semitism but then spends the bulk of her time contextualizing it – saying we have to “be vigilant in distinguishing legitimate criticism of acts by the Israeli Security Forces” – note the subtle renaming of the Israeli DEFENSE Forces to make them sound more aggressive – “from the anti-Semitism that masquerades as concern.” She lectures the Jewish community about the need to criticize Israel “whenever its policies and security forces violate … international standards.” And she condemns “Islamophobia.” In my original article, I did not address where Mary Robinson stands on Israel. I would never suggest that only pro-Israeli people should get honorary degrees. Again, I return to the Durban betrayal – the ugly Jew hatred witnessed there should not be contextualized by talking about the Middle East conflict, Palestinian suffering and/or the Jewish community’s need not to be so monolithic. To me, this is a slightly more elegant – and detailed – rehash of the 4th paragraph of her concluding speech at Durban which began: “It is not surprising that the Middle East has played such a prominent part during the preparations for Durban and in the discussions here. Nobody could be unmoved by the human tragedy which continues unabated in the region.” Giving the passions of the Middle East debate as an explanation for the anti-Semitism that festered there implicitly excused it – and to me is unacceptable.

I do not presume to look into Mary Robinson’s heart. I have not called her an anti-Semite. I have not attacked her integrity. I have questioned her moral leadership at a critical time – as people would question Donald Rumsfeld’s moral leadership were I proposing him for an honorary doctorate at McGill. And I have questioned, and continue to mourn, the timing of this award, at this sensitive time in the life of this city, this province, this country, and the world.

I am also realistic. I have not called for her not to get the honorary doctorate, because I know that universities – like all bureaucracies – are far more likely to stick by their initial decision than to change it. My request, from the start, has been for her to meet with students – who are upset by her being the one to speak at their graduation and concerned faculty – so that we can turn this problematic symbol into a proper educational process; and that the powers-that-be strongly request a clear, no-if-ands-or-buts denunciation of the Jew hatred that showed its ugly face in Durban – and continues to manifest itself in too many places around this world.

: I have documentation for all of these statements -- the most cogent critique of Robinson's role I have read comes from Congressman Lantos, who wrote a detailed article in The Fletcher Forum of World Affairs vol.26:1, Winter/Spring 2002
Tome Lantos Report



Dear Mr. Medjuck,

Thank you for sharing your views on McGill Universitys decision to confer an honorary degree on Mary Robinson. The process of awarding such degrees is one that often takes several years, including evaluation of the candidates contributions to society and scholarly endeavours, and issues around scheduling the ceremony when the honouree can be in Montreal.

The nomination of Dr. Robinson first came forward in 1994, recognizing her distinguished achievements as a scholar, lawyer, and politician and as a voice for the cause of human rights in her own country, Ireland, and around the world. Scheduling conflicts precluded her accepting it before this year.

Dr. Robinsons record on the advancement of human rights, by any measure, indisputably meets the very high standard of accomplishment against which all McGill honorary degree recipients are measured.

The criticisms levied against Dr. Robinson focus largely on whether she did enough to counter and condemn anti-Semitic activity in 2001 at the United Nations anti-racism conference at Durban, South Africa, while she was the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. There is no doubt that the conference itself was conducted in a highly-charged and politicized atmosphere and was overshadowed by a sideshow of despicable displays of anti-Semitism and hatred.

Did she personally do enough to counter this? Can we single her out for criticism on this issue? No matter what measure one uses to judge the performance of Dr. Robinson and conference organizers, the issue here is one of omission, not commission, and there are different views of what happened at the conference, even among those who were present.

Indeed, it is a fair question and one that can apply to all of us. Do we, in our daily lives, do enough to counter intolerance in all forms be it anti-Semitism or hatred against other minorities, cultural and ethnic groups, women, gays and lesbians, and others? Could we do more?

In the wake of recent events and political realities at home and abroad, McGill University and its leadership are adamant about the need for respect and tolerance, and of the need to speak out against intolerance and racism. For example, as illustrated in the attached document, we spoke out strongly in the wake of the recent firebombing of a school in Montreal and against hateful graffiti that appeared on campus. As members of the University community, we respect the freedom of all people to take positions and express their ideas and views. We welcome debate and indeed encourage it on issues such as the one at hand. We also focus on the responsibilities that accompany freedoms and whether we as individuals do enough to speak out against intolerance of all kinds.

McGill is honouring Mary Robinson for her remarkable and distinguished achievements and contributions to society and to the advancement of human rights. We appreciate your views and I thank you for taking the time to write.

Heather Munroe-Blum

Principal and Vice-Chancellor


Office of the Principal and Vice-Chancellor April 15, 2004

Dear faculty, staff and students,

McGill is a model of diversity and I take great pride in the culture of openness and tolerance that we foster at our University. Certain recent events remind us of how important it is to actively promote these qualities.

I write not only as the Principal of McGill, but also as a concerned member of the larger community, about something that is deeply troubling to me the issue of intolerance.

The recent firebombing of a children's school library in St. Laurent was a vile and hateful act that is contrary to the values of any civilized society. One might have the impulse to view this act an isolated incident, remote from our daily lives, as such incidents are relatively rare in this country compared with other places in the world.

But as an overt expression of hatred and ignorance, the firebombing was not unique. Intolerance is all too prevalent in our world and here at McGill, despite our many strengths as a diverse community, we are not immune. Look around our University carefully and you can see and hear the words of intolerance and prejudice.

These words are often targeted at gays or women, sometimes openly and deliberately, sometimes unintentionally. Muslims, Jews, and members of other cultural communities are all too often the object of objectionable and derogatory language.

Earlier this month, anti-Semitic graffiti was scrawled on the bathroom wall in the Bronfman Building. The Hillel office on Stanley Street was also vandalized during Passover. McGill security was alerted in both cases in one case, not quickly enough, so let me take this opportunity to remind everyone that if you see graffiti, vandalism, hate literature, or offensive material of any kind, you should call security immediately at 398-3000.

As members of the University community, I believe we must respect the academic freedom of people to take positions, including those that are controversial or provocative. But at the same time, we must remember that this freedom carries responsibility.

We must not remain passive in the face of hatred, ignorance and prejudice. Words and acts of hatred and violence big and small are signposts on a particular road that has appeared many times throughout history. Every time a community follows this road, it experiences massive suffering. Historically, it is when a population is passive and says nothing, or does nothing, that atrocities multiply.

We must speak out against intolerance. It is the duty of each one of us to take up the responsibility that comes with freedom of thought and expression. A hateful attack on any group in our university, city, province or country is an attack on each one of us and our families.

It is essential especially for those of us who work for the advancement of knowledge to speak out in public, and also in private with our friends and families. The firebombing and the graffiti are not aimed at someone else's school or someone else's children they are aimed at us.

I am asking everyone in the McGill community to actively protect the values and principles that are at the core of our University, and every enlightened society.

Heather Munroe-Blum
April 15, 2004

MONTREAL GAZETTE MAY 16, 2004, INSIGHT

Learning from the fight in Durban

Anti-semitic acts need to be seen as violation of human rights (Here are edited excerpts from a speech to the University of Maryland on March 17.)

Mary Robinson

One of the most disturbing forms of discrimination and intolerance is anti-Semitism. Much media coverage of anti-Semitism has centred on the situation in Europe where synagogues and Jewish cemeteries have been defaced and Jews have been physically attacked on the streets.

While many in Europe will point out the situation today is a complex one that cannot easily be equated with historical anti-Semitism on the continent, it is vital Europeans take effective action to stop these reprehensible events.

Nor should we forget the anti-Semitic diatribes so common in the Middle East. Even in the United States, on some prestigious college campuses, there have been attempts to cast Israel as a pariah state, and equate its actions with those of South African apartheid, a first step toward questioning Israel's right to exist.

Allow me to reflect briefly on an experience during my term as UN high commissioner for human rights when I came face to face with such anti-Semitism. It was in a setting I had hoped would be one of tolerance and respect - the Durban World Conference against Racism.

I should give some brief background on the conference that took place the first week of September 2001, just days before the terrible attacks on the United States on 9/11. The decision to hold this conference, the third UN global forum to address the subject of racism, was taken by the UN General Assembly in 1997.

It was decided that the conference should address in a comprehensive manner all forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related contemporary forms of intolerance, that it should be action-oriented and focus on practical measures to eradicate racism, including measures of prevention, education and protection and the provision of effective remedies for victims.

The decision to hold this conference in Durban, South Africa, was fitting given the country's own legacy of racism and its inspiring example of reconciliation. As secretary-general of the conference, I was determined to play a role in helping make it a global event that would encourage each society to ask itself hard questions: Is it sufficiently inclusive? Is it nondiscriminatory? Are its norms of behaviour based on the principles enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights? How best could the conference confront the many horrors of racism - from slavery to the Holocaust, from apartheid to ethnic cleansing - and agree on comprehensive measures to prevent them from happening again?

Unfortunately, some participants, both inside and outside the conference, wanted to make the conflict in the Middle East, which at the time had entered a new phase of violence, the principal focus of Durban. At the conference's nongovernmental forum, a parallel meeting, which, as is common practice at UN conferences, was also held in Durban to coincide with the inter-governmental discussions, some participants resorted to blatant anti-Semitic speech and activities to convey their message.

And so, at a conference in which we were supposed to be defending human rights values, we found ourselves faced with appalling bigotry and intolerance. I and many others condemned such language and I refused to recommend the final NGO document to the conference.

Meanwhile, in the conference itself, inter-governmental attempts were also being made to insert unacceptable language concerning Israel which had first emerged - in brackets and, therefore, not as agreed text - at the Asia regional preparatory meeting held in Tehran in February 2001. I should point out here that, as is the practice in UN conferences, governments, during regional preparatory meetings, are entitled to place on the table for discussion issues they consider relevant. Such issues are then discussed and negotiated in a lengthy process that ultimately reflects a global consensus in the final document. Usually, agreement is reached in the last hour of the final day.

The decision by the U.S. and Israeli governments to leave the conference before its conclusion was regrettable because it occurred during intense efforts to remove the unacceptable language and make the event a success. In the end, all anti-Semitic language was successfully removed, but the terrible attacks of 9/11 three days later understandably prevented a considered appraisal of the Durban outcome.

Now, more than two years later, I find that many people want to understand what happened in Durban, yet few in the United States are aware of the real progress that was actually made. The final declaration and program of action are powerful tools for lobbying governments, educating people, empowering civil societies and establishing frameworks for dialogue. Their specific calls and strategies for countering anti-Semitism, challenging rising xenophobia and protecting minorities, indigenous peoples, migrants and other vulnerable groups should be used and not disregarded out of hand.

Equally important, Durban created an opportunity for victim groups around the world, many of whom had been without a voice on the world stage, to articulate their concerns and engage their governments in a new and powerful way.

Groups representing the Roma, the African-descendant communities in Latin America, migrants, the Dalits of India and many other marginalized peoples found in Durban an energizing place to forge new alliances and strengthen grassroots efforts to address the problems they faced at home.

What lessons can we learn from the Durban experience in countering anti-Semitism today? I would say, first, that governments everywhere must acknowledge that anti-Semitism is a virulent form of racism and that anti-Semitic acts need to be seen as violations of international human rights law. Governments need systematically to monitor and report on hate crimes, and to adopt aggressive measures to prosecute those who are responsible.

Second, I believe we must all be vigilant in distinguishing legitimate criticism of acts by the Israeli Security Forces - which have raised serious and legitimate human rights concerns - from the anti-Semitism that masquerades as concern. While rightly condemning suicide attacks and other assaults against civilians, the global community must set and honour clear lines in the debate about current Israeli practices with respect to the Palestinians.

Supporters of Israel need to recognize that criticisms of Israeli policies and practices are not in and of themselves anti-Semitic. Many human rights groups here and elsewhere are sharply - and I believe rightly - critical of some of Israel's practices, such as targeted killings, based on the application of universally accepted international human rights norms.

The Jewish community should engage in this discussion, and use its influence to challenge the government of Israel whenever its policies and security forces violate these international standards.

At the same time, those who advocate for the rights of Palestinians must ensure that their criticisms and related actions do not become broadside attacks against Jews and the Jewish State. It is at this point that they become racist.

The conflict in the Middle East between Israelis and Palestinians - and by extension much of the Arab world - will become even harder to address if the rhetoric continues in this way; if anger against Israel continues to spill over into broader patterns of antagonism against Jews, and if the speech devolves into outright racism and calling into question Israel's right to exist.

And just as there has been a rise in anti-Semitism, so also, in the aftermath of 9/11, there has been a sharp increase in Islamophobia and anti-Arab sentiment. Families and even whole communities live in fear or endure new levels of hostility. Students are unable to obtain visas, academics cannot attend conferences and people worry about travelling out of the country and being unable to return.

All of this leads me to a final point that I believe we must look at together in an open and honest way. There are some who suggest that human rights concerns, including the specific issues of discrimination I have been raising, might get in the way of winning the peace or the war against terrorism. But experience throughout the world, including my own homeland of Ireland, demonstrates that this is wrong thinking.

We must, and do, condemn and combat terrorism. But there can be no stable peace, no true human security without human rights and real public participation. There can be no true enjoyment of human rights by all where some are excluded by discrimination and prejudice.

Mary Robinson is a former president of Ireland and the former UN high commissioner for human rights.

© The Gazette (Montreal) 2004