{"id":103378,"date":"2020-06-10T15:14:56","date_gmt":"2020-06-10T22:14:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=103378"},"modified":"2020-06-10T15:14:56","modified_gmt":"2020-06-10T22:14:56","slug":"secretary-generals-letter-to-staff-on-the-plague-of-racism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2020\/06\/10\/secretary-generals-letter-to-staff-on-the-plague-of-racism\/","title":{"rendered":"Secretary-General’s letter to staff on the plague of racism"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dr. Sarath OBEYSEKERA\u00a0<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

Secretary-General’s letter<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dear Colleagues,<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Following the virtual town hall meeting held on Thursday, 4 June 2020, in New York, I wish to share with you a rough transcript of what I said to the colleagues in New York.\u00a0 We gathered amidst the COVID-19 pandemic to focus on another urgent challenge \u2013 the plague of racism, prompted by a murderous act of police brutality that has led to widespread protests in the United States and, now, cities around the world.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The position of the United Nations on racism is crystal clear: this scourge violates the United Nations Charter and debases our core values.\u00a0 Every day, in our work across the world, we strive to do our part to promote inclusion, justice, dignity and combat racism in all its manifestations<\/em>. \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I also want to be clear about the recent guidance issued by the Ethics Office and relevant Departments.\u00a0 It does not in any way indicate that staff are to remain neutral or impartial in the face of racism.\u00a0 To the contrary, there is no ban on personal expressions of solidarity or acts of peaceful civic engagement, provided they are carried out in an entirely private capacity; rather, the guidance was meant to emphasize the need to balance such activities with one\u2019s best judgement as international civil servants and our official duties.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The United Nations has a proud record of fighting racism and all forms of discrimination, from our leading role in the struggle against apartheid to the welcome extended to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.\u00a0 Indeed, our own illustrious former colleague \u2013Ralph Bunche \u2013 was the first person of colour to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and a front-line figure in the civil rights struggle.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

You will see in the attached transcript that I am calling for a deep and sincere discussion among colleagues about racism, including at the United Nations.\u00a0 I look forward to continuing our dialogue and, together, strengthening our Organization to face the critical challenges of our age. <\/em>\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yours sincerely,<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ant\u00f3nio Guterres<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

********<\/p>\n\n\n\n

THE SECRETARY-GENERAL’S REMARKS AT TOWN HALL MEETING, 4 JUNE\n2020<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before we start I want to suggest that we have a minute of\nsilence for all the victims of racism in the United States and abroad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I want to once again express to all colleagues my enormous\nappreciation, my enormous gratitude, for your fantastic professionalism, your\nflexibility and the way you have been able to fully deliver for the people we\ncare for during this period. And to say that as we hopefully approach a moment\nin which we might return to normality, that we will do it very carefully and in\na phased way, because the safety and the well-being of the staff will be the\nprimary consideration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But of course, today we are here gathered for another\nreason. I will not be able to stay until the end, and management colleagues are\nhere to answer any questions. But I felt compelled to give you my testimony in\nthese dramatic moments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We are all shocked by the brutality of the murder of George\nFloyd. And we are all impacted and concerned, with lots of events that followed\nthat we have been very attentively looking at. And I think it’s important to\nrecognize that the center of these is a serious question of racism. Now, racism\nis abhorrent, nasty, and must be rejected everywhere at any moment, condemned\nin a clear way. Racism is the rejection of our common humanity, which is a\ncentral aspect against the Charter of the United Nations. So something that\njustifies the Charter of the United Nations is the fight against racism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But I think we need to go a little bit further, and to look\ninto this from an ideological perspective, from an economic and social\nperspective, and also from a perspective of relations between police,\ngovernments and people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First, the ideological perspective. We are unfortunately\nentering a phase that some have called the post-enlightenment. Enlightenment is\na European concept largely but I think the values of the enlightenment — the\nprimacy of reason, tolerance, mutual respect — are common to many\ncivilizations and many cultures around the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And indeed it is as if these values are now being put\ndramatically into question. It is nationalism, it’s irrationality, it\u2019s\npopulism, it\u2019s xenophobia, it is racism, white supremacism, it is different\nforms of Neo-Nazism, that are apparent in our societies. And it is clear that\nin the center of these drives to irrationality, there is racism, and many other\nthings have racist components. We have been fighting a lot against antisemitism\nand anti-Muslim hatred. And in antisemitism and anti- Muslim hatred, there is a\nracist dimension. So racism is in the center of many other things that we deal\nwith and fight against.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It’s important to recognize that this is an ideological\nbattle, in which it is essential to assert our values, the values of common\nhumanity, the values of the Charter, equality, non-discrimination,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

mutual respect, and the capacity to support all the\nmovements that fight for these values that are also deeply linked to the\naffirmation of human rights.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, if racism is something that exists everywhere, racism\nalso exists within the United Nations. This is another aspect that I would like\nto underline today. We have very robust policies in relation to discrimination,\nharassment, abuse of authority. There was recently a review of those policies\nthat are in the SG bulletin. But we have not paid enough attention within the\nOrganization to the specific question of racist bias and racist discrimination.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course, there is a general question of diversity and\ninclusivity. When we try to fight sexual harassment, the most important\ninstrument is gender parity. When you try to fight racism, the most important\ninstrument is to have regional diversity and inclusivity in our work. But this\nis general and of course we are fighting for it. But we need to go deeper.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think we need to have within the United Nations an honest\nconversation on racism. We have some instruments already that were decided. We\nhave the united in respect\u201d dialogues. We have the inclusion dialogues. But\nthese are, again, generic. We need to have something specific. I asked the\nOmbudsman together with the human resources department to prepare, in\narticulation with the staff representatives, a plan of action for a one-year\ndebate on racism within the Organization, aiming at conclusions that, obviously,\nI want to listen to and be able to act upon. I would like to have a chapter on\nracism in the next staff engagement survey to see if we are able to make\nprogress or not in this regard. My idea is for there to be a free-flowing\ndiscussion. I want people to feel totally at ease through the Ombudsman\noffices, through the civility caf\u00e9, through inviting experts to come and do TED\ntalks and through debates that are organized. I’ve seen the staff engagement\nsurvey, I know that some feel that there is not enough respect within the\nOrganization, that they can\u2019t freely express themselves because they are\nafraid. I want this debate to be a clearly open, free-flowing debate without\nany restriction, and I’m very much interested in participating.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is also a social and economic dimension in all of\nthis, the central question of inequality in society, the central question of\ndiscrimination in society. And it is clear that diversity is a richness, not a\nthreat. The societies that are diverse can only succeed if there is a massive\ninvestment in social cohesion, by governments, local authorities, civil\nsociety, churches, against discrimination and inequality. This is central to\nour 2030 Agenda, and this is central to the Sustainable Development Goals, and\ncentral to the values of the United Nations. So our values are not only related\nto the questions of racism as a human rights violation, they are central to the\nquestions of inequality and discrimination. And these are vital in the\nperspectives of the work we do in relation to the 2030 Agenda and to diversity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We also need to understand that when we have situations in\nwhich social cohesion does not exist, where social protection is not enough,\nand where we have different forms of discrimination, there are grievances: those\ngrievances have a legitimate right to be expressed in societies. And for that\ndemonstrations are something that is perfectly normal. It is our role to ask\nfor demonstrations to be peaceful and at the same time to ask authorities to\nlisten to the grievances and for police forces and others to be restrained in\nthe way they handle these situations. And this is very much at the center of\nwhat we have been saying in relation to the recent events and other similar\nones around the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And this brings us to the question of police brutality. One\nof the central problems that we are witnessing, and it’s very general, it’s not\nonly police brutality, it is the difficulty of many authorities to deal with\ndiversity. The most obvious aspect, which is less evident, but many colleagues\nhave already felt it, is the so-called profiling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But more dramatic than that is, of course, the police\nbrutality in itself. We have seen a murder, but there are many other forms of\npolice brutality that we see around the world, expressing racism. Police forces\nneed to be fully trained on human rights. Many times police brutality is the\nexpression of the frustrations of the police officers themselves, as well as of\nthe lack of adequate psychosocial support to them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now the UN positions have been clear. The Human Rights High\nCommissioner has spoken. I have also been very clear in all my messages. Of\ncourse, many colleagues would like to be much more vocal and active, and we\nhave the limitations of being International Civil Servants. But there is one\nthing that we all can do, which is to spread the UN messages. This can be done\nby everybody with the tools at their disposal. All of us can multiply and\namplify our messages against racism, our message against police brutality, our\nmessages against the inequalities and discriminations that lead to situations\nlike the ones we live in, fully asserting our values.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And I’d like to say that I count on our colleagues and on\nthe staff representatives to help us organize an effective internal discussion\non racism. Because I think we need to look deeply into it. And we all need to\nlook into ourselves, into our prejudices and do everything possible to\neradicate these aberrations from us and from the societies around us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr. Sarath OBEYSEKERA <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr Sarath Obeysekera
\nCEO Walkers Colombo Shipyard
\nColombo
\nSri Lanka<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dr. Sarath OBEYSEKERA\u00a0 Secretary-General’s letter Dear Colleagues, Following the virtual town hall meeting held on Thursday, 4 June 2020, in New York, I wish to share with you a rough transcript of what I said to the colleagues in New York.\u00a0 We gathered amidst the COVID-19 pandemic to focus on another urgent challenge \u2013 the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[116],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-103378","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dr-sarath-obeysekera"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103378","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=103378"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103378\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103378"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103378"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103378"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}