Racism Increasing Worldwide Says United Nations Special Rapporteur.

United Nations Special Rapporteur on Racism, Dr Doudou Diene, is concerned about the increasingly violent face of racism worldwide.

He made this point in an exclusive interview with Channel NewsAsia in Tokyo. He told that some governments, as well as their citizens, have a distorted perception of some ethnic groups.

Racism triggers discrimination and even killings - that's the warning issued by him.

Dr Diene identified racism as a serious problem in parts of Europe and Latin America, and some Arab countries. The targeted groups are people of African descent and indigenous origins. The trend, he said, started after the September 11 terrorist attacks in the United States, and worsened with subsequent bombings by terror groups.

Dr Diene said: "Entire communities or groups are targeted as being potentially terrorists. And all of this is creating this dynamic of racism which I'm trying to analyse in my reports. So behind the violence you find one single issue. The refusal or rejection of multi-culturalism."

While acts of violence prompted by racial prejudices are rare in modern Japan, Dr Diene urged the country to adopt a national law and programme to combat racism. The concern is that minority groups in Japan are discriminated against.

Education Minister Bunmei Ibuki recently made a controversial comment, describing Japan as an extremely homogeneous nation. It is the first time that a Japanese leader since 1986 then Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone, made such a comment. And that comment drew strong criticism from the Ainu community or the indigenous people of Hokkaido. Human rights groups and opposition party leaders added their protests, but Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said he saw nothing objectionable in his minister's comments.

Mr Diene said: "I am very much concerned about this statement. Now I am more concerned because in my report of my visit in Japan, I did emphasize the depth of racism, xenophobia in the country." In feudal times since the late 15th Century, there was widespread discrimination against minorities like the Burakumin, Ainu, and Okinawan. But Dr Diene is encouraged by the fact that Japan is now studying its history with the aim of learning from the past.

He is optimistic that Japanese scholars, working with their counterparts from China and South Korea, will be able to promote anti-racism sentiment. (Channel Newsasia)

***** While on the above subject, I wonder what the UN Special Rapporteur would have to say on the practice of racism by our government, if he were to visit Malaysia. Or would we be judged by a different standard from the Japanese? If merely a ministerial statement that "Japan is extremely homogeneous" is considered racist, then what term would the UN man use to describe our ministers who wielded keris and made racial threats during the Umno General Assembly? Or perhaps we 'Third World' sods in Asia don't count.
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