Oral Statement to the 57th Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights., August 2005, Agenda Item 5C: Prevention of discrimination and protection of minorities
Speaker: Mr. Silis Muhammad
Thank you Mr. Chairman.
Several years ago, I was questioned by a young lady from Europe. She asked, “Isn’t it rather naive on your part, for you to come to the house of the same people who enslaved you, seeking justice?” I responded, “I believe that there are people in the UN who know what is right, and I have faith.”
The Working Group on Minorities, inquiring into their area of expertise, found there was not a place established within the UN that Afrodescendants could fit, because Afrodescendants are coming back to life absent their mother tongue, original culture and religion. The Working Group on Minorities began seeking to find a way for us.
Under another mandate, following the 2001 Durban World Conference, the UN appointed a Working Group on People of African Descent.
There is a vast difference between Afrodescendants and people of African descent. While we enjoy the same comely color, we both view ourselves as being different. People of African descent still have their original identity: their mother tongue, culture, and religion, while Afrodescendants mimic the mother tongue, culture, and religion of our slavemaster’s children. Our identity, our dignity, and thus our essence, was taken. We can put on all the African clothes we want, and we still don’t have our identity.
We, collectively, are rendered a stateless people by the depravation of these most precious human rights, as defined by Article 27 of the ICCPR. People of African descent can enjoy the comfort of their tribal kinships and the protection of their governments. We, Afrodescendants, cannot. We have only the UN to look to in the hopes of protection.
The Working Group on Minorities is instrumental in bringing us together – some 250 million souls who have been left out: in existence, yet unobserved by the UN but for the Working Group on Minorities.
The Working Group on Minorities also views us, Afrodescendants, as being different from people of African descent. Is this a contributing reason why the Working Group on Minorities is now under attack?
In La Ceiba, Honduras, in 2002, the Working Group on Minorities orchestrated a seminar in which Afrodescendant leaders from 19 countries chose the term, Afrodescendants, as an identity. Since this date, we have been asking the UN to recognize our self-chosen identity and the Working Group on Minorities has recognized us. Afrodescendants enjoy a permanent place on the agenda of the Working Group on Minorities. Is this a contributing reason why this working group is under attack?
On behalf of Afrodescendants, we recommend that the Working Group on Minorities be given more power, not less. We recommend that our self-chosen identity, Afrodescendants, be recognized by the entire UN, and by the governments under which we live. We further recommend sanctions against all Governments that have deprived us, for every day we have been so denied human rights.
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