My wife is a native of the Philippines, which was a former colony of Spain. She has an interesting observation - no former colony of Spain has ever amounted to very much. Off hand, I can't think of an exception. She claims it had to do with the way Spain ruled their colonies and the attitudes that infected the populace.

How many former European colonies went on to have stable governments and prosperous economies? The number probably isn't very high. It just goes to show that the "enlightened" Europeans with their superiority complex really aren't as great as they think.

This conference isn't interested in addressing racism. Instead, it seems the participating nations have two primary agendas. First, they want to condemn racism as they see it in other countries while deflecting attention from their own problems. For example, 250 million people in India are still treated as untouchables despite periodic government decrees, slavery still exists in the Sudan, women and nonmuslems are treated as non-entities in several countries like Afghanstan, and racial issues are common even in countries that are almost homogeneous. Even Japan has racial issues with their Ainu population.

The second real demand for this conference is for reparations for slavery. This is where a great deal of hostility comes in. Slavery has existed in every culture and racial group throughout history. It has only been in the past 160 years that countries have tried to end slavery. All these demands for reparations amount to is yet another attempted confiscation of wealth from rich countries to the poor ones, even when the poor countries actively participated in slavery themselves. It's nonsense like this that is causing the backlash against the UN and international organizations in the US. Keep it up and those organizations will be doomed. Why should Americans have to pay reparations for slavery? Fewer than 10% of families in the old South owned slaves. The percentage from the North is even lower. Furthermore, millions of people immigrated to this country after slavery was abolished.