Inspired by the words in ’dis poem’ I chose to write this global issue essay on racism and the influence of young people in politics.

UN held in late summer of 2001 an international world conference against racism in Durban, South Africa. This was the third conference of this kind since the first one, held 30 years ago. At the same time as some of the worlds most powerful and influential men sat in their suits and discussed racism in politically correct manners, over 500 young people was gathered in the same city to discuss the same issue. The only difference was that these people knew how it felt to be a victim of racism, all aspects of it. Some of them lived in countries where economic apartheid was the most striking form of daily-life racism, others had have to live with harassment every day of their lives because of their race or origin, and some of them had experienced to be thrown out of their homes to make way for the ”white man”. The knew what they were talking about, as well as they knew that what the men on the UN-conference were talking about, not could have any effect on their single lives. But they were sure that if they were the ones sitting in that conference room, they could have made a difference.

Racism is such a complex problem that people in high positions are not the right ones to handle it. All they can do is to make declarations that are so diffuse and generalized that they have no particular effect. I believe that to try to deal with racism, we need people like those on the youth conference, who really want to make this world a better place. Although, unfortunately, some places having an opinion means risking ones life…

I think that of the issues we have discussed this cemester, tolerance and human relations are the most important ones. Although we have not been discussing this in particular, I believe that this is what many of the articles, poems and stories we have been working with are trying to tell us. We live in a world where human relations are getting more and more important every day, so it is great that we as students are so privileged to have the oppurtunity to work with this.