On
Racial Discrimination
The specter of racial discrimination which has for so long
cast its dark and evil shadow over much of this globe is slowly
disappearing. Men are coming increasingly to be judged by
their talents and abilities rather than by the less meaningful
and far more superficial standards of race and religion. But
there yet remain those who, in their bigotry and ignorance,
resist this flooding tide, and it is against these that our
efforts must be directed. The struggle to win for our brothers
in South Africa that status as free men, free to stand, heads
high, among free men as equals, which so many millions of
Africans and Asians have attained but yesterday, goes on.
Our duty is not discharged, our course is not run, our victory
not won so long as apartheid, the legitimized policy of the
Government of the Union of South Africa, prevails in any area
of the world.
In South Africa, an attempt has been made to legislate the
inequality of the races. This attempt is doomed to failure.
We here are all pledged not to pause in this strife until
its emptiness and mockery are revealed for all to see and
those who have used it for their own purposes have abjured
this doctrine which is an insult to all men and to Almighty
God in whose image we are created. But, at the same time,
let us not bemuse ourselves with the notion that it is any
more possible to legislate equality, for these matters concern
attitudes and values over which intellect sadly exercises
but little control. Let us not recoil in hatred against those
who, even while protecting their freedom from bias and prejudice,
reveal by their actions that the poison of discrimination
has left its lasting effects, and by this reaction reveal
that we, no less than they, are prey to unreasoning emotion,
that we, no less than they, are susceptible to that virus
which is called intolerance.
Apartheid Must Be Discredited
The African states have already imposed direct sanctions
in the economic and diplomatic fields in an attempt to influence
the policies of South Africa and to convince the South African
leaders that it is in no sense in their interest any longer
to adhere to this policy. We should, during this conference,
consider if there are not additional measures which we may
adopt to speed the inevitable day when the policy of racial
discrimination and the principle of apartheid are discredited
and abandoned.
But let us take pride in the fact that as free men we attack
and abhor
racial discrimination on principle, wherever it is found and
in whatever
guise. We can, in addition to the economic pressures of which
we
dispose, bring our moral weight to bear and rally world opinion
to our
cause by revealing the brutality, the inhumanity, the inherent
viciousness
and evil represented by this policy.
It is only natural for man to strive towards a better life,
to wish to educate
his children while he himself was uneducated, to desire to
shelter and
clothe them while he himself was naked and scourged by the
elements,
to strive to spare them from the crude diseases by which he
himself was
ravaged. But when these ends are realized at the expense of
others, at
the cost of their degradation and poverty, these desires,
which are not
intrinsically immoral or pernicious in themselves, must be
frustrated, and
the means by which these otherwise legitimate ends are sought
to be
attained must be scorned and shunned.
We ourselves, the Non-Aligned Nations of the world, seek
no less than others these same objectives. And it is not by
mere chance that we also count among our number the great
majority of the underdeveloped nations of the world, for not
until the direction and determination of man's fate is firmly
within his own grasp can he devote the totality of his strength
to his own good.
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