Committee:GA 2 – Human Rights

Committee: GA 2 – Human Rights

Issue: The Promotion and Protection of Human Rights In a Multicultural Context Through Combatting of Intolerance, Discrimination and Xenophobia

Student Officer: Mert Kıvanç Paker (Deputy Chair of GA 2)

I- Introduction

Alienation has become a massive problem of the humanity since its existence. As people came up with different ideas, thoughts and ideologies; they differed from themselves and formed different groups. Along with physical differences, these kind of ideational variations were often challenged with society’s disapproval, which led to occurrence of discrimination, intolerance and xenophobia.

Discrimination, intolerance and xenophobia are still important issues that the humanity is facing with. Right now, countries across the UN are experiencing racial incidents of a soaring violent nature. Physical damages, arson activities and social oppressions due to discrimination have become “sad but true” incidents in diverse societies. Moreover, discrimination is one of rare problems that can be seen throughout the world. Although it is more prominent in miscellaneous societies, it is possible to see these events in all member states.

In many parts of the world; discrimination, intolerance and xenophobia create an agitation between societies, yet they become the biggest weapon of some powers in order to provoke people and increase hatred. Thus, discrimination had been supported by some administrations, and the humanity experienced its unfortunate results. Discrimination and xenophobia can be very treating, as it is responsible of 6 million Jews being killed by Nazis, thousands of Cambodians being tortured, almost a million Rwandans being massacred etc.

II- Involved Countries and Organizations

The United States

Although the US was established under the purpose of “respecting all types of beliefs”, the multicultural structure it has created a chain of problems which found place in history books. Slavery, McCarthyism and famous discriminative groups like KKK (The Ku Klux Klan) separated “some people” from “others”.

Right now the situation is not that dangerous, but it is still a big concern for the country. The immigration of Mexicans and the overwhelming increase of Hispanic population have been brought up many stereotypes, created a group of people that avoid Hispanics who become “others”. Nonetheless, the 9/11 incident has changed the point of views of many Americans against Islam, now many people in the country relate Islam with terrorism. Still, the US compromises millions of people from various countries and continues to keep its multicultural structure.

European Union (EU)

After World War II, most of the European countries that were involved in the War lost many people, which instigated lack of labor force. These countries provided their needs from other countries, and the mass population movements began. Most of the immigrants did not return to their homelands –even after the necessity was over-, therefore they were faced with “culture shock” and the disapproving treating of Europeans who could not get used to new people’s differences. As EU promises a better life for the poor people in LEDCs, more people are settling, which tempers many Europeans. Recently, the European Union has published a video about “different cultures living together”, which garnered criticism from foreigners because of its consisting of discriminative figures.

III- Focused Overview of the Issue

6 billion humans in the planet share lots of things in common; we all eat, drink and breathe the same air in order to stay alive. However, whilst we think we come up with different thoughts, and we differ from each other. As it was stated before, these different thoughts cause people being categorized by “us” and “them”. People start to stick to people that are similar to them, which let the formation of different groups and societies.

The separation of these people made some of them reject others, and have prejudices about different groups and societies. At this point, when these thoughts turn into actions, discrimination exists. With the definition of the United Nations, “Discrimination is an action that treats people unfairly because of their membership in a particular social group.”

Discrimination was felt more efficiently after the existence of nationalism, which started to become the hegemonic political point of view in Europe after the 19^th century and in the whole world after the 20^th century. Whereas it merged dispersed countries such as Italy and Germany, it also caused the separation of multicultural countries such as Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire. New countries were being formed, leaving millions of dead people behind the nationalism ideology. People living in peace for hundred years started to fight with themselves; massacres and genocides of minorities under the ideology of nationalism started to be seen.

Xenophobia is the situation when these terms become a fear for a person; it is an aversion to foreigners and members of “others”. A xenophobic reaction is a reaction based on socially formed images but facts and objective observation. Xenophobia is one of biggest weapons that provoke people against others and abuse power. It has been also used by governments and leaders for several times, when it was compatible with their interest. For example, the Nazi government was the main responsible of 6 million Jews’ death, and as members of the government, the Nazis, were the ones who provoked the Germans against Jewish people. The National Socialism ideology made Germans scared of Jews. It created xenophobia against Jews and people categorized “us” and “them” separately, which was what the Nazis have always wanted. Like this systematic discrimination, there are many other countries that condone or do not care about violations due to increasing xenophobia.

In order to understand discrimination more and realize how it affects human rights, it should be separated into sub-groups and be evaluated one by one:

1) Racism

Racism can be examined in many ways, but it is simply conscious or unconscious belief in the inborn superiority of one race over another. Racism believes that the biological differences between races should determine individual position of people in the society. Even though racism is usually only related with skin color, it is the abasement of people who belong to a different ancestry or ethnic origin. Nowadays racism is forbidden in member states, but there are still active illegal racist groups that threaten races.

2) Gender Discrimination

Gender discrimination is the ideology that keeps one gender superior from the other one. Disregarding exceptions, it is usually seen as males’ discrimination against females in the history. At the present time, the gender discrimination is highly seen especially in Middle East and nondemocratic countries. However, the complete equality of genders is a problem for all member states. As the United Nations concludes, “there are no societies in which women enjoy the same opportunities as men.” Meanwhile in some societies it even affects the basic rights of people, progressive societies face with comparatively smaller problems such as but not limited to salaries, education and social life.

As an example, the Newsweek magazine[1] states that –according to the data of the nation's leading headhunter, Chinahr.com – the average salary of white men was 6,441$, compared to women’s salary of 4,201$. Moreover, the graph that inspects the distribution of salaries according to ethnic groups and genders is a good resource to realize the serious gap between races and two genders:

V- Important Events & Chronology

Date	Event
18^th Century	Increasing discrimination due to nationalism, new countries being established with lots of people died for independency
September 19 1983	New Zealand became the first country that gave women rights to vote, combating gender discrimination
1930 – 1940s	The Holocaust. 6 million Jews were killed by Nazis, it became a clear evident for how discrimination and xenophobia can affect the society
December 211965	Adaption of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination
October 1	Denmark became the first country that recognized same-sex unions, combating of transsexual discrimination

VI- Past Resolutions and Treaties

The United Nations has adopted the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide on 9 December 1948, as GA Resolution 260. However, only France and the Republic of China ratified the resolution at first. Soviet Russia could ratify it in 1954, the United Kingdom in 1970, and the United States in 1988. As a matter of fact, it could only be enforced by the union after 1990s.

In addition, the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination has also been adopted by the United Nations on December 21, 1965. The convention had been supervised by the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.

VII- Failed Solution Attempts

Despite solutions that member states offered, the United Nations became silent or inefficient in many discrimination activities, and they could not track incidents successfully. As an example, in the Srebrenica Massacre during the Bosnian War, United Nations Peacekeeping Forces collected all the ammunition that Bosnians had in the Bosnian city of Srebrenica in order to provide security. However, UN Peacekeepers left the city, which led to the entrance of the Serbian army. There, Serbs killed more than 8000 unarmed people, and this overwhelming discriminative event was just watched by the UN.

Recently, the killings of people in Arab Spring have become another failure of the UN. Since the benefits and policies of P5 (UK, USA, China, Russia, France) countries have usually contradicted, many innocent people have been killed without UN’s coming up with a competent solution.

VIII- Possible Solutions

Initially, if discrimination, xenophobia and intolerance are going to be combated, then solutions should be taken in the United Nations. It should be remembered that the UN has not come with a proper resolution yet that brings sanctions and other types of applications to the issue. Moreover, diplomatic conflicts and benefits between countries represent another hole in the system, which resulted with UN’s not taking the role that it is supposed to take. Such as it was experienced in the Rwandan Genocide, the world has witnessed the mass murder of 800,000 people and could not do anything to stop the crime.

The role of member states should be examined as well. As it was written before, administrations hold a big responsibility in discrimination for condoning or supporting what happened. The United Nations Research Institute for Social Development Report points out this inequality in their “the role of police in discrimination report”, “In many jurisdictions, ethnic, cultural and other minorities are disproportionately subject to intrusive and coercive police powers such as “stop and search”, “on-street interrogation” and arrest.”

Finally, it is advised to look at other types of discrimination (such as ageism, religious discrimination, reverse discrimination, discrimination against disables) and the situation of discrimination in different countries in order to comprehend the subject. Do not forget, no one is born with stereotypes; media, family, the education that the person gets play a huge role in the formation of discrimination.

IV- Useful Links

I advise all delegates to check out these two links below, in order to comprehend the progress that the UN has achieved and done so far.

http://www.un.org/en/events/racialdiscriminationday/

http://www.hrweb.org/legal/cdw.hml

V - Works Cited

Anti-Racism and Hate. n.d. <http://www.antiracismandhate.com/>.

Discrimination and Xenophobia. n.d. <http://eycb.coe.int/compass/en/chapter_5/5_4.html>.

Jureidini, Ray. "Migrant Workers and Xenophobia in the Middle East." 2003.

Labor, U.S. Department of. "Highlights of Women's Earnings in 2009." 2010.

United Nations In South Africa. 12 07 2008. <http://www.un.org.za/iom-launches-counter-xenophobia

programme/#more-100 -->>.

Willmore, Larry. "Chapter VII." Report on the World Social Situation. United Nations Department of Economic

and Social Affairs, 1997.

Age Discrimination. n.d. <http://www.agediscrimination.info/Pages/Home.aspx>

[1] http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2009/07/31/they-re-not-going-to-take-it.html

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