Welcome to the approval of the United Nations Permanent Forum on People of African Descent

On the International Day of People of African Descent, the CLACSO Working Group: Civilizational Crisis, Reconfigurations of Racism, Afro-Latin American Social Movements The Declaration issued by ARAAC (Regional Articulation of Afro-descendants of the Americas and the Caribbean) in August 2021 celebrating the approval of the Permanent Forum on People of African Descent of the United Nations.

31 of August 2021
CLACSO Working Group
Civilizational crisis, reconfigurations of racism, Afro-Latin American social movements

ARAAC Declaration – August 2021
Approval of the Permanent Forum on People of African Descent, United Nations

As Afro-descendant activists and intellectuals from the Americas and the Caribbean, we welcome the approval of a Permanent Forum on People of African Descent at the United Nations (FMA). The FMA has been a demand since the very beginning of the UN, when the eminent intellectual and activist W.E.B. Du Bois, as spokesperson for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored Peoples (NAACP), attempted (with limited success) to place the intertwined problems of colonialism and racism at the heart of the agenda of the UN's founding conference held in San Francisco in 1945.

Along similar lines, in the pursuit of justice and liberation for African American peoples, the prominent leader and intellectual Malcolm X, as head of the Organization for African American Unity (OAAU), addressed the UN in 1964, demanding a debate on racism as a violation of human rights, as well as representation in that global body. Continuing this tradition, Afro-descendant social movements, with the support of numerous spokespeople (governmental, intellectual, social and community organizations) from the international community, advocated for a democratic anti-racist path at the Third World Conference against Racism and Related Forms of Discrimination, held in Durban, South Africa in 2001. Since the declaration of the International Year for People of African Descent (2011), they demanded the continuation of the International Decade for People of African Descent (2015-2025) and the Permanent Forum for People of African Descent as a guiding star to ensure that, through our representation and the creation of a space for deliberation and planning, the implementation of the goals of recognition, justice and development that serve as the motto of the Decade is promoted.

Throughout this history, communities and social movements have been the driving forces behind these organizational goals as means for collective empowerment, justice, and democracy—ultimately, for decolonization and liberation from the web of oppressions (racial, class, gender, sexuality, etc.) that we have suffered for over 500 years since the conquest/colonization, the transatlantic slave trade, and the systemic/structural racism that persists to this day as a living legacy of slavery and white imperialism. Echoing this sentiment, the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action recognizes slavery as a “crime against humanity” and, consequently, the structural racism that persists as its legacy, as a major cause for achieving a social contract of justice, democracy, equity, and freedom on a global scale. To that end, we propose restorative justice as an ethical-political principle and endorse the creation and adoption of public policies on Afro-reparations as necessary to forge a more just, democratic and equitable world.

In this context, we understand the Permanent Forum on Afro-descendants as a space of paramount importance for promoting these necessary transformations. At our founding conference as the Regional Articulation of Afro-descendants of the Americas and the Caribbean (ARAAC), held in Caracas, Venezuela, in June 2011, on the occasion of the International Year for People of African Descent, we affirmed our commitment to advocating for the Permanent Forum on Afro-descendants.

We now face the arduous collective task of ensuring that the Permanent Forum is born honoring its tradition, that it truly becomes a conclave that brings together the diverse voices that comprise the vast multitude of African and Afro-descendant peoples of the world. We have a good example in the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Peoples, in which not only states are represented, but where the main protagonists are the communities and social movements that represent the majorities. Judging by the example of the International Decade for People of African Descent, in which there has been a lack of representation of grassroots communities and social movements, and where we have not achieved many concrete gains as peoples, we consider it absolutely necessary that the Permanent Forum be established through a profoundly democratic process, using inclusive procedures that promote diverse representation, ensuring that the aspirations and needs of the Afro-descendant majorities are considered in order to develop an agenda that addresses the interests and problems of those whom Du Bois called “the Black peoples of the world.” In this spirit, we declare our enthusiasm, our concerns, and our willingness to actively participate in this promising process of collective construction.

Regional Articulation of Afro-descendants of the Americas and the Caribbean
[email protected]

This statement expresses the position of the Working Group Civilizational crisis, reconfigurations of racism, Afro-Latin American social movements and not necessarily that of the centers and institutions that make up the CLACSO international network, its Steering Committee or its Executive Secretariat.