Scandal at the UN as Ahmadinejad enters:

After queuing up for 45 minutes to regain the UN conference room after the lunch break, we were refused access as there were too many NGOs trying to get in....obviously (and ironically may we add), everyone was waiting for Iranian president Ahmadinejad who was due to speak at 15h15. While waiting to get in the room, we noticed that the majority of people were either from Jewish organisations or Iranians!

We were redirected to room 17 where there was to be a live retransmission on big screen of the conference for NGO members that were not allowed acccess into the UN conference room.

We watch on the screen as Ahmadinejad arrives under a round of applause.

He starts his speech in Farsi, most people put the earphones to their ears to get the translation, and there....shock and scandal! There is no translation supplied to room 17! Nothing! People in the room start yelling for the translation to come on, scandalised that they are denied the possibility of understandinmg the gibberish that the iranian president is about to pronounce!

All of a sudden....on the screen retransmitting what is happening in the conference room, a commotion occurs. A young man, wearing a clown's multicoloured wig has got up right in the front of Ahmadinejad. He calls the iranian president a racist. The security comes to take him away. The majority of room 17 stands up, cheers and applauds! Some brave guy is trying to show the world what a comedy this whole process is.

Ahmadinejad continues his speech: we are sitting nearby a woman who speaks farsi, and who is willing to translate, but all of a sudden, another outburst is occuring in room 17. A group of Afro-Americans are making a scandal and saying that we (who are "we"? the anti-iranians???) are jeopardizing the conference. A big argument follows, making a lot of noise and drowning out the sound of Ahmadinejad, thus unenabling our "translator" to hear what he is saying. The arguement of the Afro-americans is that the jews put all the focus on Israel on purpose in order to get more media coverage! How surrealistic is that? One of the reasons that the US and some of the european countries refused the original text was because they didn't accept the focus on one particular country (namely Israel) as the countries of the Islamic conference wanted!

Anyhow, finally on the big screen, we see the european delegations leaving the room following Ahmadinejad's declaration that the Jews use the Holocaust to their own use.

Big round of applause in room 17 as people cheer and yell "Vive l'Europe! Vive l'Europe!"

The europeans have decided to show their indignation at the Ahmadinejad's inacceptable speech and their refusal to endorse it.

Ahmadinejad continues his declarations, attacking both the "Zionists", the US and accusing the capitalists of controlling the world. he goes on to say that we are now experiencing the decline of the Western power.

Ahmadinejad finishes his speech under another round of applause.

The President of the Durban review conference after Ahmadinejad’s speech asked participants to behave and listen to others who « have different views ». He went on to say « if you do not like the speaker, simply walk out of the room ».

The next speaker was M. Jonas Gahr Stoere, Norwegian Minister of foreign affaires who had the difficult task of responding to the inflammatory speech that had just occured. He said that Ahmadinejad threatens the focus of this conference. Speaking about the text that aims at protecting people against incitement to hate, he said that it had brought broad concessus and that Iran was placing itself outside of this concessus.  He said « I heard his speech and I heard incitement of hate .... Ahmadinejad with his declarations has made Iran the odd one out, and Norway will not accept that the odd one out hijacks the efforts of the many".

The Norwegian foreign minister then spoke about Norway's red lines for the text, namely that human rights protects individuals not religions, that Norway will not compromise on freedom of expression, the necessity of free media, the fact that the text was of universal reach and should not pinpoint one particular conflict over another, and finally the importance of refusing all kinds of revisionnism.

Mr. Gahr Stoere said that Norway is ready to accept the text as it stands and that he regrets that some states decided at the last minute to withdraw. 

He ended his speech saying that although he strongly disagreed with the first speaker: " we cannot surrender the floor of the UN to extremism". 

This speech reflects the different approaches of the European countries towards extremism.

While we can understand the US position and that of the other countries who decided to boycott the Durban 2 conference, while we can applaud the european countries who chose to show their disagreement by leaving the room at the words of Ahmadinejad's hatred, we can also recognise that leaving means allowing the very regimes that violate the most strongly human rights to control the message of the UN conference against racism. 

What's a better choice? We'll leave that question open to debate...

NR