Conference against racism held in Durban slated for promoting antisemitism, anti-capitalism, and anti-Westernism

The 2001 U.N. World Conference Against Racism held in Durban, South Africa, has been slated by United States diplomat Jeff Bartos.

Jeff Bartos has been the United States’ ambassador to the United Nations for Management and Reform since 2025.

In a speech posted by the U.S. Mission to the United Nations, Bartos said that the Durban conference was an utter failure.

He added that it platformed and promoted antisemitism, anti-capitalism, anti-Westernism and anti-Americanism.

“Durban’s radicals weren’t only obsessed with Israel. They demanded reparations from the United States and other Western countries for slavery and colonialism,” he said.

“They conveniently and lazily reduced history to oppressors versus victims and treated Western prosperity as evidence of exploitation.”

He added that, at one of Durban’s anti-racism gatherings, participants wielded copies of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

“Anti-Semitic caricatures show Jews with blood dripping from fangs while protesters in the city streets carried signs saying Hitler should have finished the job,” he said.

“This is the kind of stuff you’d imagine to find in terrorist chat rooms, not at the United Nations, a body supposedly devoted to peace and human flourishing.”

Bartos argued that it was immoral and unconscionable for the UN and its member states to promote such evil.

What happened in Durban did not stay in Durban

Bartos said that much of the woke ideological vocabulary that erupted across America and the West in 2020 was rehearsed at the Durban conference.

This included systemic guilt, reparations, settler colonialism, capitalism as oppression, immigration enforcement of xenophobia, and discrimination in the name of anti-racism.

“What began in conference tents in South Africa made its way to UN chambers in New York and Geneva, universities, boardrooms, city governments, and the streets,” he said.

“Worse, allegiance to this stuff became a litmus test. Those who failed to swear fealty or self-flagellate were out. Those who did were in.”

“I reject this personally as well as politically. I’m convinced we lost a generation of good, honest politicians, professors, businesspeople and citizens as a result.”

“We certainly lost a generation of good work done by and through the UN. The UN poisons its good name by associating with Durban in any way.”

Bartos said that the United States will not participate in laundering the 2001 U.N. World Conference Against Racism held in Durban’s legacy.

He argued that the answer to poverty is not grievance, but prosperity. The answer to division is not racial sorting, but equal opportunity.

“The answer to historical injustice is not an endless bureaucracy of blame. It is freedom, growth, trade, investment, faith, family, and the dignity of work,” he said.

“President Trump has made it clear America will not apologise for being America or perpetuate a system that teaches others to hate us for our success.”

“The world has had 25 years to see where Durban’s ideology leads. We reject its poison of grievance politics and virtue signal grandstanding.”

He said that it was time to burn and bury the Durban legacy of anti-Americanism, anti-westernism, and anti-semitism.