A/59/329 from South America is a threat to the American identity. He thereby deepens the theoretical rift established by his notion of a clash of civilizations and designates a new object of discrimination, the “Latino”. In this context, the spreading of racist and discriminatory speech constitutes a double distortion of the democratic ideal, through its dissemination using new communication technologies such as the Internet and through the manipulation of freedom of expression and opinion and, more seriously, through its pervasiveness and ability to structure political debate and influence traditionally democratic political parties and its legitimization by the intellectual and academic world. The current upsurge of discrimination, which has revealed a new paradigm of strengthened links between racism and xenophobia, confirms just how pervasive discrimination is, even in countries that have shown an undeniable political and democratic will and developed comprehensive legal strategies to combat racism and confront their historical experience. It has become clear that, while anchoring human rights in legal instruments is a fundamental way of achieving progress and expressing the universality of those rights, it is no longer capable of eliminating or even grasping the underlying causes of discriminatory culture and mentalities. The new battle grounds in the struggle against discrimination — identity constructs, value systems, images and perceptions — therefore raise the issue of renewing or deepening the notion of human rights. Action on human rights must henceforth be encouraged and renewed by discussing the underlying causes of racism, discrimination and xenophobia. In this context, the Special Rapporteur recalls the importance of an intellectual front to combat racism and his recommendation concerning the urgent need for an intellectual and ethical strategy to combat racism that targets precisely the deep and intangible sources of racist culture by uncovering and analysing in detail the seedbeds and roots of racism: ideas, concepts, images and perceptions. The warning sounded by Bertolt Brecht in the wake of the Second World War is now more topical than ever: “The womb from which the vile beast emerged is still fertile.” B. Racist propaganda on the Internet 29. The Internet has been used since the mid-1990s as an instrument for widespread dissemination of heinous speech by racist and xenophobic organizations. According to the Simon Wiesenthal Center, there are now several thousand sites engaged in racist propaganda, xenophobia and related intolerance, whereas in 1995 there was only one. The Durban Programme of Action, adopted by consensus on 8 September 2001, recommended that States should encourage the media to adopt self-regulatory measures to enable them to combat the use of the Internet for racist ends and apply legal sanctions against any incitement to racial hatred (A/CONF.189/12 and Corr.1, paras. 144-147). However, in order to prevent the use of the Internet to spread racism and discrimination, we must find a solution compatible with international law and the need to reconcile the contradiction between respecting freedom of expression and respecting the values and principles of international law, including the condemnation of discrimination and racism. The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, in its recommendation 1438 (2000), stated that “legislation should be enacted — where it does not exist — to prohibit oral or written instigation to racism, anti-Semitism and xenophobia; freedom of expression cannot be accepted as an excuse for it”. 15