Dear authorities
Dear those present
Geneva finds us, once again, thinking about the demands and aspirations of the
victims of conflict. We used to think of the direct victims, unfortunately today we do too.
The difference is that today we talk about experience, those experiences that the past gave
us. Thanks to them, we can anticipate that the undeniable relationship between
racialisation, impoverishment, gender and vulnerabilisation, the so-called "minorities" need
the intervention of states and, therefore, also of the international system. Racialised people
always bear the brunt of the fighting, and us women and diversities often become an
extension of the battlefields.
If we stop to think about it, and add up all these populations that we call minority
populations here, we can no longer think of them as "minorities". The term "minority" is not
universal: it is a concept that has a geo-political origin, where some nations defined
themselves as the standard and labelled the rest as the Other. This does not necessarily
apply to the perception and self-perception of the groups that the term "minority" is
intended to represent. In most countries of the world, what are stereotypically thought of
as "minorities" are in fact popular majorities. That is why it is urgent to continue working
for recognition and to highlight the processes of social and institutional invisibilisation that
do not allow for the recognition of national, ethnic, cultural, religious and linguistic
differences and belonging. Differences which, according to the Declaration on the Rights of
Persons Belonging to National, Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities, must be
protected by the state, and these states must take measures to preserve their history and
traditions, not only to allow the use of their language in all social spheres, but to promote
and guarantee it, in short, all these things mean that we wtates have a lot of work to do to
preserve the identity of each member.
These identities present in each of our countries make it possible for us to abandon
the old paradigm of multiculturalism and to start working on the paradigm of
interculturalism: firstly, because ethnicity, nation, race and gender are categories that
intersect in each and every one of us, and secondly, because each of the identities we present
also undergo changes, interpenetrations and updates. This is what makes our societies
increasingly rich and diverse. It is the task of states, civil organisations, academia and
activism to work so that this wealth is seen as a power and not as an obstacle. The 21st
century must be intercultural: the two years we are going through teach us that, this