| International opposition to apartheid in South Africa |
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The International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination is observed annually on 21 March since declared by the United Nations in 1966. In South Africa, the country in which the event took place that gave rise to the observance, the Sharpeville Massacre, the day is commemorated as Human Rights Day, and is a public holiday.
On 21 March 1960, police opened fire at a peaceful demonstration in Sharpeville, South Africa, against the pass laws. [lower-alpha 1] In the event known as the Sharpeville massacre, 69 people were killed and 180 injured. [2]
Proclaiming the day in 1966, the United Nations General Assembly called on the international community to redouble its efforts to eliminate all forms of racial discrimination. [2] [1]
In South Africa, the day has been commemorated on 21 March each year as a public holiday called Human Rights Day since 1994, [3] when Nelson Mandela was elected president of a new democratic South Africa. [4] The day is regarded as a day of mourning by some, commemorating the lives of those who died to fight for democracy and equal human rights for all in South Africa during apartheid, an institutionally racist system built upon racial discrimination. [1]
On this day, the government asks that "South Africans... reflect on their rights, to protect their rights and the rights of all people from violation, irrespective of race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, whether they are foreign national or not". [4]
Every year, the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination is under one specific theme:
Racism is discrimination and prejudice against people based on their race or ethnicity. Racism can be present in social actions, practices, or political systems that support the expression of prejudice or aversion in discriminatory practices. The ideology underlying racist practices often assumes that humans can be subdivided into distinct groups that are different in their social behavior and innate capacities and that can be ranked as inferior or superior. Racist ideology can become manifest in many aspects of social life. Associated social actions may include nativism, xenophobia, otherness, segregation, hierarchical ranking, supremacism, and related social phenomena.
The crime of apartheid is defined by the 2002 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court as inhumane acts of a character similar to other crimes against humanity "committed in the context of an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over any other racial group or groups and committed with the intention of maintaining that regime".
The World Conference Against Racism (WCAR) is a series of international events organized by UNESCO to promote struggle against racism ideologies and behaviours. Five conferences have been held so far, in 1978, 1983, 2001, 2009 and 2021. Founded after World War II and the Holocaust as a dependent body of the United Nations, UNESCO started as soon as it was created to promote scientific studies concerning ethnic groups and their diffusion in public opinion to dispel pseudo-scientific rationalizations of racism. One of its first published works was The Race Question in 1950, signed by various internationally renowned scholars.
United Nations General Assembly Resolution 3379, adopted on 10 November 1975, "Determines that Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination" with 72 votes in favour, 35 votes against, and 32 abstentions. It was revoked by Resolution 46/86, adopted on 16 December 1991 with 111 votes in favour, 25 votes against, and 13 abstentions. The vote for Resolution 3379 was held nearly one year after the adoption of Resolution 3236 and Resolution 3237: the former recognized the "Question of Palestine" and invited the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) to participate in international diplomacy; and the latter designated the PLO as a non-member Assembly observer following the "Olive Branch Speech" by Palestinian political leader Yasser Arafat.
The Sharpeville massacre occurred on 21 March 1960 at the police station in the township of Sharpeville in the then Transvaal Province of the then Union of South Africa. After demonstrating against anti-black pass laws, a crowd of about 7,000 black protesters went to the police station. Sources disagree as to the behaviour of the crowd: some state that the crowd was peaceful, while others state that the crowd had been hurling stones at the police and that the mood had turned "ugly". The South African Police (SAP) opened fire on the crowd when the crowd started advancing toward the fence around the police station; tear-gas had proved ineffectual. There were 249 victims in total, including 29 children, with 69 people killed and 180 injured. Some were shot in the back as they fled.
Human Rights Day (HRD) is celebrated annually around the world on 10 December every year.
UNITED for Intercultural Action is a European network against nationalism, racism, fascism and in support of migrants and refugees, in which over 560 organisations from 48 European countries cooperate. UNITED was founded in 1992 and provides a forum for active solidarity and cooperation between a wide variety of organisations in Europe and their activists across European borders.
Harmony Day, an event officially expanded and renamed as Harmony Week for its 20th anniversary in 2019, is a government-declared observance celebrated annually on or around 21 March in Australia. It was introduced by the Howard government 1999, and coincides with the United Nations International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. The colour orange is associated with the day.
Israel's policies and actions in its ongoing occupation of the Palestinian territories have drawn accusations that it is committing the crime of apartheid. Leading Palestinian, Israeli and international human rights groups have said that the totality and severity of the human rights violations against the Palestinian population in the occupied territories, and by some in Israel proper, amount to the crime against humanity of apartheid. Israel and some of its Western allies have rejected the accusation, with the former often labeling the charge antisemitic.
The year 2001 was declared the International Year of Mobilization against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance by the United Nations General Assembly.
The article describes the state of race relations and racism in the Middle East. Racism is widely condemned throughout the world, with 174 states parties to the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination by April 8, 2011. In different countries, the forms that racism takes may be different for historic, cultural, religious, economic or demographic reasons.
Foreign relations of South Africa during apartheid refers to the foreign relations of South Africa between 1948 and the early 1990s. South Africa introduced apartheid in 1948, as a systematic extension of pre-existing racial discrimination laws. Initially the regime implemented an offensive foreign policy trying to consolidate South African hegemony over Southern Africa. These attempts had clearly failed by the late 1970s. As a result of its racism, occupation of Namibia and foreign interventionism in Angola, the country became increasingly isolated internationally.
The Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination is a human rights proclamation issued by the United Nations General Assembly, outlining that body's views on racism. It was adopted by the General Assembly on 20 November 1963. The Declaration was an important precursor to the legally binding Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination.
Racism in South Africa can be traced back to the earliest historical accounts of interactions between African, Asian, and European peoples along the coast of Southern Africa. It has existed throughout several centuries of the history of South Africa, dating back to the Dutch colonization of Southern Africa, which started in 1652. Before universal suffrage was achieved in 1994, White South Africans, especially Afrikaners during the period of Apartheid, enjoyed various legally or socially sanctioned privileges and rights that were denied to the indigenous African peoples. Examples of systematic racism over the course of South Africa's history include forced removals, racial inequality and segregation, uneven resource distribution, and disenfranchisement. Racial controversies and politics remain major phenomena in the country.
The International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD) is a United Nations convention. A third-generation human rights instrument, the Convention commits its members to the elimination of racial discrimination and the promotion of understanding among all races. The Convention also requires its parties to criminalize hate speech and criminalize membership in racist organizations.
Anti-racism encompasses a range of ideas and political actions which are meant to counter racial prejudice, systemic racism, and the oppression of specific racial groups. Anti-racism is usually structured around conscious efforts and deliberate actions which are intended to create equal opportunities for all people on both an individual and a systemic level. As a philosophy, it can be engaged in by the acknowledgment of personal privileges, confronting acts as well as systems of racial discrimination and/or working to change personal racial biases. Major contemporary anti-racism efforts include the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement and workplace anti-racism.
South Africa–Sweden relations refers to the bilateral relations between Sweden and South Africa. Formal relations between the two countries began with the opening of a South African legation in the 1930s with relations being upgraded to ambassadorial level in 1994 following South Africa's first non-racial democratic elections. In 2000 a South African - Swedish Binational Commission was established by President Thabo Mbeki and Prime Minister Göran Persson.
The 1973 United Nations International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid was the first binding international treaty which declared the crime of apartheid and racial segregation under international law. It was adopted by the General Assembly on 30 November 1973 and came into force on 18 July 1976. It passed by 91 votes in favor, four against and 26 abstentions. 110 countries are currently parties to the convention, with 26 signatories.
World Days or International Days observed at UNESCO designated by United Nations General Assembly for marking and commemorating "important aspects of human life and history".
The International Day of Black Latin American and Caribbean Women, shortly known as B.L.A.C Women's Day, also known as the International Afro-Latin American, Afro-Caribbean and Diaspora Women's Day and International Afro-descendant Women's Day, is linked to Afrofeminism movement and the broader recognition of the African diaspora and the rights of people of African descent that observed on 25 July since 1992.
