E/CN.4/2005/18 page 6 purposes and on how to promote its use to combat the scourge of racism. The Special Rapporteur sees an urgent need for a political agreement on this question. He also sees a need for wider cooperation and complementarity, such as the Special Rapporteur has already initiated, between the United Nations and other international organizations that are actively involved in this domain, such as OSCE and EUMC. 7. While the Special Rapporteur underlined the central role of education, he also pointed out that it is primarily the quality and content of education, in particular the value systems which it transmits, that play a decisive role in combating racism, discrimination and xenophobia. Indeed, education as a vehicle for the transmission of information and knowledge is not in itself a sufficiently powerful tool for combating racism. Nazi Germany was an educated country, but that did not prevent the horror of the Holocaust and the concentration camps. Those who practised apartheid in South Africa also considered themselves to be “educated”. In this connection, the Special Rapporteur has called on all countries to include in their education systems not only the writing and teaching of the history of identity constructions that are likely to ostracize or discriminate against others, but also intercultural education and education in democratic values and human rights, in accordance with paragraph 130 of the Durban Declaration, which calls “upon States to undertake and facilitate activities aimed at educating young people in human rights and democratic citizenship and instilling values of solidarity, respect and appreciation of diversity, including respect for different groups”. 8. With regard to the study on the question of political platforms which incite or encourage racial discrimination (A/59/330), the Special Rapporteur expressed deep concern not only at the growing electoral success, in several countries, of political parties which openly promote racist and xenophobic platforms, but, above all, the insidious and alarming way in which these platforms have penetrated the political agendas of democratic parties on all continents, under the guise of combating immigration, promoting “national preference”, combating terrorism or protecting national security, helping to downplay the importance of racism, discrimination and xenophobia. II. CONTEMPORARY MANIFESTATIONS OF RACISM, RACIAL DISCRIMINATION, XENOPHOBIA AND RELATED INTOLERANCE A. Impact of identity constructions on racism, discrimination and xenophobia 9. A number of recent incidents, notably in the Netherlands, Thailand and Côte d’Ivoire, demonstrate the decisive role, often glossed over by most countries, which identity constructions play in the dynamic of racism, discrimination and xenophobia. In the Netherlands, the particularly brutal murder of film director Theo Van Gogh, a harsh critic of Islam, sparked off a wave of intercommunity and inter-religious violence, even though the murder was the act of an individual. In Thailand, deadly acts of repression committed by the forces of law and order against young Muslim demonstrators led to bitter clashes between the Muslim minority and the Buddhist majority, claiming many lives. In Côte d’Ivoire, in the context of the political crisis and the race for power, the concept of “ivoirité”, or Ivorianness, was used to justify