Racism is not either a threat to democracy!!!
This one’s a jaw-dropper.
A Trump administration appointee to the State Department tore into standard UN documents that condemn racism as a threat to democracy.
The deputy assistant secretary for refugees and migration, a foreign service officer promoted by the White House to an unusually senior position for his rank, disputed the idea that leaders have a “duty” to condemn hate speech and incitement, and repeatedly rejected use of the words nationalism, populism, and xenophobia.
“The drafters say ‘populism and nationalism’ as if these are dirty words,” wrote Andrew Veprek, the deputy assistant secretary for refugees and migration, in documents obtained exclusively by CNN. “There are millions of Americans who likely would describe themselves as adhering to these concepts. (Maybe even the President.). So are we looking to here condemn our fellow-citizens, those who pay our salaries?”
If they’re racists and xenophobes we should be condemning their racism and xenophobia, yes. Hell yes. Hell yes times a thousand.
It may be theoretically possible to be a populist and/or nationalist without being racist and xenophobic, but that’s looking a lot more theoretical than actual at this historical moment.
Veprek also pushed to soften language about fighting racism and about racism in politics in his proposed amendments to a UN Human Rights Council resolution titled “The Incompatibility between Democracy and Racism” that is adopted without a vote, with much of the same language, every few years.
In response to one section that says national leaders have a responsibility to condemn hate speech, Veprek writes, “‘[d]uty to condemn’ goes too far. Our public figures can’t be obliged to police every intolerant thought out their [sic] at the risk of being condemned for intolerance themselves.”
He’s not even literate. “At the risk of” is not the phrase he’s looking for.
And he repeatedly argues against using the word “xenophobia,” or the fear of foreigners, writing in side notes that he has concerns over “the malleability of the term now and in the future.”“[W]hat real or perceived offense is next to be considered ‘xenophobic?'” he writes. “How does that square with our historic respect for the right of free expression? The drafters need to focus on behavior and actions – which states can control – rather than attitudes and states of mind.”
It’s not clear that his scribbles have any force, but it’s telling that the deputy assistant secretary for refugees and migration thinks this way.
Rob Berschinski, a former deputy assistant secretary of state for human rights and member of the National Security Council under President Barack Obama, called Veprek’s changes to the documents “explosive.”
“It seems clear (Veprek) feels the UN language is targeted at the Trump administration, when it mentions racism in political circles,” Berschinski told CNN. “Clearly, he is making these edits to reduce the power of the resolution, as relates to racism in politics.”
…
Berschinski, now senior vice president for policy with Human Rights First, said that by eliminating references to terms like “populism and nationalism,” “xenophobia” and “the rise in racism,” the edits seem to suggest an administration that feels targeted by what are otherwise fairly anodyne diplomatic documents.
“Not being able to support this kind of language is indicative of an administration that has to defend a President who has said that Mexicans are rapists, white nationalists are ‘fine people,’ and that Muslims shouldn’t be allowed to travel to America,” Berschinksi said.
Basically Veprek is saying “This is all about Trump, isn’t it!!” and crossing it out for that reason.
If the shoe fits…
Isn’t the US leaving the HRC? What business is it of the Americans what is put in a resolution of a council they’re leaving?
The business of the Trump Administration is, according to itself, whatever it cares to make it. It’s going to get concerned, most of all, about things that it thinks may refer to it, and anyone worried about racism is clearly thinking about the Trump Administration. (That one’s partially on narcissism, but it’s not necessarily wrong in this case.)
It’s also ironic that they should be worried about the administration being called upon to police things too minutely, when Trump tweets about the least bit of political relevance to do with TV programs or sports figures. Trust me, he’s got the will to pay attention to every little bit of speech, just so he can say all the wrong things about it. He doesn’t mind!
Having read this far, my initial thought was that Veprek was simply misunderstanding the terms, mistaking populism for being popular and well-liked, and nationalism for patriotism (itself problematic, but apparently mandatory for ‘real’ Americans), and was ready to cut him a bit of slack. Then I read the rest, and it became clear why he has been promoted way above his abilities.
The ploy is almost genius in its childish simplicity; remove or re-define all the bad words and Trump and his misadministration won’t then be doing bad things, so it’s just plain logic (for a very wrong definition of logic) that if the U.N. won’t re-write the resolution to Trump’s spec’s, Trump won’t sign it, and he can’t be held to account for not adhering to standards if he didn’t agree to them in the first place, can he?
He’s “close to” the odious Stephen Miller. ‘nough said.
Well, the HRC has seats for China, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia. They don’t seem to feel any problems with language about racism, xenophobia, nationalism etc.
Trump should have no difficulty matching their hypocrisy.
Oh, he doesn’t – but the stakes are different.
The U.S. has – has always had – an identity crisis. On the one hand, there’s the vision of it as a white Christian patriarchal ethnostate, with others included only on sufferance, insofar as they support that vision. On the other, there’s a more nebulous vision of a state constituted by the commitment to shared institutions of government and living as a community in a specific place – without regard to religion, ethnicity, even language.
The Trump Administration is the triumphant crusader of the former vision; the HRC, its work, its declaration, are all denunciations of the ideas that ground it, in the attempted defense of the ideals the other side holds dear. And the Trump Administration holds power only through the willingness of the partisans of the White American Ethnostate to trample on democratic ideals and institutions to retain power and advance their agenda, in defiance of actual majorities of their fellow citizens and our laws. They have to remain true believers, and the opposition has to remain partly divided, confused, indifferent, or despairing, for things to go on.
By contrast, India, China, Australia, can get along politically – well enough, by the standards of those in power – regarding themselves as (sometimes, somewhat genteel) ethnostates, with political organization being a practical problem rather than a deep-seated sociological and philosophical one. And they can take steps (and do) to remain more-or-less ethnostates, with marginalized minority religions, languages, and ethnic groups. They’re happier to keep that quiet, and it’s not without resistance, but it’s not the same sort of problem.
There’s also the importance of foreign opinion. India and China are so large that, when you’re caring about how people see your state, you run low on care before you run out of domestic interest. The U.S. makes a much larger splash in the world per capita, and that foreign opinion is that of a lot of our families and business partners. And Australia can benefit from the rest of the world’s news drowning out much of what it does.