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 onah
Goldberg, beware! The United
Nation's "World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination,
Xenophobia and Related Intolerance" could make you an international
outlaw.
Even a cursory
reading of this conference's Draft
Declaration of Conference Themes, indicates you won't be alone.
People like
John O'Sullivan and myself will be in the dock right alongside you
because we dare suggest that America's immigrants would do well
to learn English instead of depending on government translators:
97. We strongly
condemn the persistence and resurgence of . . . linguistic chauvinism
. . . in all their forms and manifestations, and state that these
phenomena can never be justified in any instance, including as
a means to promote and protect human rights and fundamental freedoms,
in particular those of persons belonging to national minorities[.]
Critics of
bilingual education, like Linda Chavez and Ron Unz may also find
themselves fleeing a U.N. indictment:
79. We recognize
that a child belonging to an ethnic, religious or linguistic minority
or who is indigenous shall not be denied the right, in community
with other members of his or her group, to enjoy his or her own
culture, . . . or to use his or her language[.]
Any critic
of teaching African-American children Ebonics rather than standard
English, a category which includes most African-American parents,
is also in violation of U.N policy:
43. We recognize
that people of African descent have for centuries been victims
of racism, . . . Recognition should therefore be given to their
righ[t] to maintain and use their own languages[.]
Because National
Review Online regularly publishes articles on such topics, the U.N.
human rights machinery could charge NRO with aiding and abetting
discrimination:
105. We express
deep concern about the use of new information technologies, such
as the Internet, for purposes contrary to respect for human values,
equality, non-discrimination, respect for others and tolerance,
including to propagate racism, racial hatred, xenophobia, racial
discrimination and related intolerance, and that children and
youth have access to this material[.]
Thankfully,
even this excruciatingly politically correct U.N. agency is unable
to live up to its own standards on language rights:
25. We express
our concern that in some States political and legal structures
or institutions, some of which were inherited and persist today,
do not correspond to the multi-ethnic, pluricultural and plurilingual
characteristics of the population and, in many cases, constitute
an important factor of discrimination in the exclusion of indigenous
peoples[.]
The organization's
website however, does not correspond to the "plurilingual characteristics
of the [world's] population" since it provides materials available
in but six languages, while there are an estimated 6,800 languages
spoken worldwide.
Maybe U.N.
Secretary-General Kofi Annan will order himself arrested for this
"crime against humanity."
And then Jonah
could enjoy his honeymoon in peace.
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