Oral Statement to the Working Group on Minorities 8th Session, May 2002

Oral Statement to the Working Group on Minorities

8th Session, May 2002

Greetings Mr. Chairman and Members of the Working Group on Minorities. We know that it is through the diligent efforts of the Working Group on Minorities that we Afro Descendants approach collective human rights, and we wish to continue to trust the expertise of this Working Group.

If we learned anything in La Ceiba, Honduras we learned that minority is an evolving term that can be used creatively. Rather than looking at majority or minority with respect to numbers only, we looked at the terms with respect to who has the majority of the power and wealth, and who has the minority of the power and wealth. When minority is seen in that light then we, all of us Afro Descendants, are in the minority, and South Africa is a great example of this axiom.

It has been five years since I first came before this group. At that time I had examined the Declaration on the Rights of Minorities, and it appeared to me that African Americans did not fit in the UN system. I felt that the protections offered minorities did not apply to us, for we do not have our original identity, our mother tongue, culture or religion. At that first meeting one of the esteemed members of this group said, "We will have to find out where you fit." Today I thank him. Over the years this Working Group has demonstrated that it is not willing to leave us out.

In 1998 the Working Group on Minorities assigned one of its members to write a paper on the existence and recognition of minorities. The paper has been of tremendous benefit, for it started the process of our recognition as minorities undergoing ethnogenesis. Today I thank the esteemed expert who wrote that paper.

In 1999 the Working Group on Minorities placed African descendants in the Americas on its agenda. This was the first time, to my knowledge, that we were placed on the agenda of any UN meeting. In the year 2000 the Working Group announced that it would hold regional seminars to study the issues of African Americans. In 2001 the Working Group participated in a special Saturday session in order to listen to our issues. In 2002 the Working Group on Minorities held a historic meeting in Honduras where we, as a newly emerging family of some 240 million souls, were able to determine the name by which we would like to be known in the UN. We are now in agreement that we will approach the UN as Afro Descendant Minorities.

Mr. Silis Muhammad