Author(s): Gina Thésée | Paul R. Carr
Journal: Decolonization : Indigeneity, Education & Society
ISSN 1929-8692
Volume: 1;
Issue: 1;
Date: 2012;
Original page
Keywords: International Year for People of African Descent (IYPAD) | racism | invisibility | United Nations | decolonization | Durban declaration | racial identity | Whiteness
ABSTRACT
The United Nations declared that 2011 be recognized as the “International Year for People of African Descent” (IYPAD). This year marks the tenth anniversary of the World Conference Against Racism (often referred to as the Durban Conference), in which a resolution was approved stating that slavery and the colonization that sustained it were crimes against humanity. The outcome for this International Year is disappointing, if not shocking, at several levels, in terms of mediatisation, appropriation, program content, educational connection, and, significantly, any tangible impact in relation to people of African descent (PAD). The IYPAD was largely ignored and trivialized at the local, regional and national levels in almost all of the countries concerned. Following the hegemonic leadership of the United States, a number of nations proceeded to convert this International Year, which sought to underscore and engage all peoples in debates, actions and measures that could formally acknowledge historic injustices in relation to people of African descent, into the paradox of willingly rendering the focus of the Year invisible. Within this context of banalization of the IYPAD, this study, within an anti-colonial perspective, seeks to examine the international dynamic and related motives that characterize the significance of this problematic. Our analysis has led to three central interpretations: i) Africa, and all related and inter-connected questions, remain on the periphery of the world’s politics, economics and international political economy; ii) the competition between nations for the recognition of human history remains a political and economic affair, and Africa and her descendants are not accorded a seat at the same table as the colonizing forces; and iii) the IYPAD declaration, ensconced in the yolk of an empathetic conscience by some and bad faith by others, can be seen as the residue of colonization, in which the degree of invisibility of people of African descent is still tethered to the heart-beat of colonizing nations and their proxy consorts, which are economically coerced and subjugated.
Journal: Decolonization : Indigeneity, Education & Society
ISSN 1929-8692
Volume: 1;
Issue: 1;
Date: 2012;
Original page
Keywords: International Year for People of African Descent (IYPAD) | racism | invisibility | United Nations | decolonization | Durban declaration | racial identity | Whiteness
ABSTRACT
The United Nations declared that 2011 be recognized as the “International Year for People of African Descent” (IYPAD). This year marks the tenth anniversary of the World Conference Against Racism (often referred to as the Durban Conference), in which a resolution was approved stating that slavery and the colonization that sustained it were crimes against humanity. The outcome for this International Year is disappointing, if not shocking, at several levels, in terms of mediatisation, appropriation, program content, educational connection, and, significantly, any tangible impact in relation to people of African descent (PAD). The IYPAD was largely ignored and trivialized at the local, regional and national levels in almost all of the countries concerned. Following the hegemonic leadership of the United States, a number of nations proceeded to convert this International Year, which sought to underscore and engage all peoples in debates, actions and measures that could formally acknowledge historic injustices in relation to people of African descent, into the paradox of willingly rendering the focus of the Year invisible. Within this context of banalization of the IYPAD, this study, within an anti-colonial perspective, seeks to examine the international dynamic and related motives that characterize the significance of this problematic. Our analysis has led to three central interpretations: i) Africa, and all related and inter-connected questions, remain on the periphery of the world’s politics, economics and international political economy; ii) the competition between nations for the recognition of human history remains a political and economic affair, and Africa and her descendants are not accorded a seat at the same table as the colonizing forces; and iii) the IYPAD declaration, ensconced in the yolk of an empathetic conscience by some and bad faith by others, can be seen as the residue of colonization, in which the degree of invisibility of people of African descent is still tethered to the heart-beat of colonizing nations and their proxy consorts, which are economically coerced and subjugated.
