So, the Durban Review Conference II commenced today. According to the Telegraph, Canada was among the USA, Israel, Italy, and Australia in boycotting the conference. When I first read about this, I found it a little confusing since the conference purports to be focused on anti-racism. However, the first conference was apparently rife with anti-semetism and was so offensive that the United States walked out on the conference half way through.

Here’s what Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Maxime Bernier, in announcing Canada’s choice to boycott the event:

Unfortunately, [the 2001 Durban] conference degenerated into open and divisive expressions of intolerance and antisemitism that undermined the principles of the United Nations and the very goals the conference sought to achieve…I had hoped that the preparatory process for the 2009 Durban Review Conference would remedy the mistakes of the past. We have concluded that, despite our efforts, it will not.

In addition to producing irrefutable evidence of the event’s hypocrisy by citing its agenda, the Telegraph’s article also alluded to the UK’s disappointing choice not to boycott the event alongside its Western allies. An interesting move.

Also contrasting the Western boycotts is the list of NGOs in support of the event in 2001 available here, and the reported list of major NGO attendees which includes Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and UNICEF.

I don’t pretend to be well-informed enough to reserve judgement on the Canadian, English, or NGO decisions made here, but it certainly seems like, once again, the world’s leaders need to learn how to get along. If repeating the mistakes of Durban I is not the answer, then another conference on a more balanced set of issues and perspectives should be held by the UN in cooperation with its member nations. From the sounds of it, Canada made the right move to back out, but non-cooperation isn’t enough; problems don’t get solved by pointing at the solutions that aren’t working. I am interested to see what gets published on the Iranian Prime Minister’s opening speech today.

I’ll write more on this later I’m sure…

//Mark

So, I sat down to write a post focused about a recent Macleans cover story on non-rebellious teens, but before I dive into that, I’d like to point out that it seems Macleans can’t make up their mind on the subject. Googling “macleans teens” brought up this article, a dilute version of the larger article in question that focuses on Christianity vs. Atheism + Islam trends, this post, announcing the larger article in question, and a very different article suggesting that teen pregnancy is now cool. On one hand, there’s something to be said about reporting from different sides of the fence to reduce bias, but on the other hand, there seems to be a lack of coherence.

In any case, the print article I originally alluded to says some things about teens today that apparently many experts find surprising. The gist of the article is that teens today are drinking less, smoking less, having less sex, valuing their families more, and, as an aside, there are fewer Christians, more Athiests, more Muslims, and more (as the statistical world insists on calling it) “other religion”-ists.

Reginald Bibby, the leadership of the survey squad that has been questioning teens for over two decades now, makes an important point that youth today, while experiencing greater freedom than preceding generation, have been through many of the hardships that come from abuse of that freedom such as fragmented family life, divorce, etc. Bibby suggests that the bad habits of their parents has increased teens’ resolve to correct the collective mistakes of a society that was, in its previous generation, tinkering with new freedoms for the first time.

I think that Bibby’s point sheds light on a greater ideological error in prevalent thought. Freedom does not inherently corrupt, and furthermore, it is a part of humanity’s coming of age to collectively come to appreciate that liberty and happiness emerges from the mature and responsible exercising of freedom, not the flagrant abuse of it.

It’s refreshing to see that systematic studies are exposing youths’ capacity to accelerate the process of a morally advancing civilization.

Welcome to The Eclectic v2, an early sign that I have finally broken down and invested in hosting that I don’t manually manage myself. My old server is on the verge of kicking the bucket and I can’t afford to replace it right now. To compound the issue, if something serious went wrong with the server’s operation, I definitely don’t have time to fix it right away, and as some of you may know, I was hosting others’ sites as well.

For the time being, I have decided not to move old posts from my previous blog to this one. If you would like to see the old posts again, please feel free to contact me.

//Mark