In 2001, very appropriately, Durban was selected as the venue for the UN-sponsored Anti-Racism Conference which, like the just-concluded counterpart parley in Geneva, did not prove to be free of controversy. After all, South Africa had rid itself of the terrible scourge of apartheid following a decades-long struggle by particularly the country’s blacks for democratic equality and had launched itself on a non-racist, multicultural and democratic path with the promise of being a model of racial equality.

While only time will tell whether South Africa could live-up to this promise fully, apartheid-free South Africa would continue to be seen by many as a success story in the fight against racial oppression and as an inspirational example in race-free governance. However, the indications are that that race and ethnicity would continue to be a sensitive issue in most polities around the world and in international politics.

That this is very much the case was evidenced in none other than the recent UN Anti-Racism Conference in Geneva. The fact that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad could launch yet another verbal onslaught against Israel at this forum is not only proof of the painfully slow progress made by the world community to resolve the Middle East imbroglio but is disquieting testimony that ethnicity and race are continuing to considerably shape international politics. In other words, the demon of ethnicity and race is yet to be exorcized from some collective minds, which, unfortunately, are in a position to drive world politics.

These considerations, in turn, pose the question: how effective are the present UN mechanisms in containing racism? There could be no quibbling on these questions: if a UN member state maintains that it is part of a collective, international effort to contain racism, then, it must be compelled by the UN to prove that it is in earnest when it joins up in these worthy undertakings. The UN cannot permit member states to make a mockery of its fora by using the same mechanisms to undermine the purposes for which they were brought into being – in this case to fight the ignominy of racism.

Besides, the UN would need to constantly monitor the effectiveness of its mechanisms of international dialogue. By making an anti-Israeli speech at the anti-racism confab, the Iranian President, among other things, proved the inefficaciousness of the relevant UN mechanism in lowering some raging racial tensions.

These observations, however, should not be seen as reflecting on the substantive issues currently under debate in the Middle East conflict. There is no doubt, for instance, that justice must be meted out to the Palestinian people and that full Palestinian statehood is central to resolving the conflict.

However, there is no getting away from the fact that Heads of State cannot make destructive use of particularly UN fora, focused on a noble cause, to rake-up divisive issues in world politics. This amounts to undermining the cause taken up by the relevant dialogue process. But substantive issues in the Middle East conflict can be taken up in UN fora specially fashioned for the purpose or in other mechanisms set-up to resolve these issues.

The Iranian President’s anti-Israeli diatribe, however, should be seen as an eye-opener by the world community. Here’s unsettling evidence that besides race-hate continuing to drive a substantial proportion of world politics, it is continuing to dry-up what is left of man’s spirituality. For, spirituality, correctly understood, cannot stand alongside race-hate. On the other hand, spiritual development and the humanity that goes along with it, usually compels the human consciousness to empathize with the whole of mankind and eschew narrow,sectional nationalisms of all kinds – be they Israeli, Palestinian, US, British, Sinhalese or Tamil.

One of our prime standards on these questions continues to be Mahatma Gandhi of India. For the Mahatma, his love for India and his profound sense of kinship with the whole of mankind went together and reinforced each other. Thus did Gandhi speak of his brand of nationalism: ‘My idea of nationalism is that my country may die, so that the human race may live. There is no room for race hatred there.’( ‘Thoughts of Gandhi, Nehru and Tagore’ by Brij Kishore Goyal, CBS Publishers and Distributors, New Delhi ).

The West, in particular, should wake-up to the realization, on witnessing these developments, that time is indeed relentlessly running out for a just solution in the Middle East. If race hate is exploding in the most unexpected places and is proving pervasive, the West needs to realize that conditions are being permitted to exist which nurture these destructive emotions. One such condition is the discriminatory handling of the parties to the conflict. The two main parties, the Palestinians and the Israelis, should be treated equally if progress is to be made towards a just solution. The West and the US in particular, should be seen as having an equi-distance between the Israelis and the Palestinians. As long as this is not so, current international tensions, feeding on racial prejudice, would continue.

The UN has, very laudably, taken upon itself the task of promoting understanding and dialogue among the world’s religions. Ideally, this initiative should go hand in hand with the effort to contain race hate. It is to the extent to which spiritual development is promoted that negative emotions, like race hate, could be contained. However, it would prove crucial to have the full participation of the world’s prime military and economic powers in these processes. This is because the global military - industrial complex could not be kept going if we are to be serious about lowering international tensions. The world’s biggest powers thrive on military sales. Accordingly, it is to the degree to which these powers come to appreciate the need for world peace that global tensions could be reduced and arms sales which keep the world’s trouble spots on the boil, drastically brought down.

It needs to be also realized that organizations, such as Al-qaeda, which enjoy a considerable presence internationally, and which aim at overthrowing the current world order, have pretensions to religious zealotry. More so why groups of this kind need to be isolated internationally by establishing worldwide an indepth understanding of the humanistic content the world’s religions teach.