To­day, March 21, is the In­ter­na­tion­al Day for the Elim­i­na­tion of Racial Dis­crim­i­na­tion. This an­nu­al ob­ser­vance com­mem­o­rates the Sharpeville Mas­sacre in 1960, when po­lice in Sharpeville, South Africa, opened fire and killed 69 peo­ple at a peace­ful protest against apartheid ‘pass laws’.

The theme for 2026 is Mo­bil­is­ing Po­lit­i­cal Will. There is an ur­gent need to se­cure com­mit­ment among politi­cians/de­ci­sion-mak­ers and rel­e­vant stake­hold­ers to un­der­take, sus­tain and pro­mote nec­es­sary leg­isla­tive and pol­i­cy ac­tion to elim­i­nate racial dis­crim­i­na­tion. They should be in the fore­front of the strug­gle to build in­clu­sive com­mu­ni­ties in which equal­i­ty/eq­ui­ty, jus­tice and peace can be­come a re­al­i­ty.

The 1948 Uni­ver­sal De­c­la­ra­tion of Hu­man Rights pro­claims that “all hu­man be­ings are born free and equal in dig­ni­ty and rights and that every­one is en­ti­tled to all the rights and free­doms set out there­in, with­out dis­tinc­tion of any kind, in par­tic­u­lar as to race, colour or na­tion­al ori­gin.”

Note that there is one hu­man race but many eth­nic groups.

On De­cem­ber 21, 1965, the UN Gen­er­al As­sem­bly adopt­ed The In­ter­na­tion­al Con­ven­tion on the Elim­i­na­tion of All Forms of Racial Dis­crim­i­na­tion. It came in­to force on Jan­u­ary 4, 1969. In the con­ven­tion, the term “racial dis­crim­i­na­tion” means “any dis­tinc­tion, ex­clu­sion, re­stric­tion or pref­er­ence based on race, colour, de­scent, or na­tion­al or eth­nic ori­gin which has the pur­pose or ef­fect of nul­li­fy­ing or im­pair­ing the recog­ni­tion, en­joy­ment or ex­er­cise, on an equal foot­ing, of hu­man rights and fun­da­men­tal free­doms in the po­lit­i­cal, eco­nom­ic, so­cial, cul­tur­al or any oth­er field of pub­lic life.”

The con­ven­tion states that “any doc­trine of su­pe­ri­or­i­ty based on racial dif­fer­en­ti­a­tion is sci­en­tif­i­cal­ly false, moral­ly con­demnable, so­cial­ly un­just and dan­ger­ous ... there is no jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for racial dis­crim­i­na­tion, in the­o­ry or in prac­tice, any­where ... dis­crim­i­na­tion be­tween hu­man be­ings on the grounds of race, colour or eth­nic ori­gin is an ob­sta­cle to friend­ly and peace­ful re­la­tions among na­tions and is ca­pa­ble of dis­turb­ing peace and se­cu­ri­ty among peo­ples and the har­mo­ny of per­sons liv­ing side by side even with­in one and the same State...the ex­is­tence of racial bar­ri­ers is re­pug­nant to the ideals of any hu­man so­ci­ety.”

We must nev­er for­get the im­pact of racism in all its forms on the lives of our an­ces­tors. Sad­ly, to­day, we con­tin­ue to see the con­se­quences of this evil on bil­lions glob­al­ly. Stereo­typ­ing, the clo­sure of bor­ders, the build­ing of walls and bar­ri­ers, “eth­nic cleans­ing,” end­less wars con­tin­ue apace. The UN has warned about the dan­ger­ous bond be­tween racism and con­flict.

For­mer sec­re­tary gen­er­al Ban Ki-moon, said: “Racism and racial dis­crim­i­na­tion have been used as weapons to en­gen­der fear and ha­tred. In ex­treme cas­es, ruth­less lead­ers in­sti­gate prej­u­dice to in­cite geno­cide, war crimes and crimes against hu­man­i­ty.”

Cur­rent UN Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al An­tónio Guter­res states: “The an­cient poi­son of racism is alive and kick­ing in every com­mu­ni­ty, so­ci­ety, coun­try and re­gion of the world ... The an­ti­dote is uni­ty and ac­tion.”

Erad­i­cat­ing racism in the minds and hearts of peo­ple and cul­tures to­day is a task for all of us. We must build con­sen­sus to re­spect the in­her­ent dig­ni­ty of each hu­man per­son and view eth­nic di­ver­si­ty as a tremen­dous as­set.

The Cat­e­chism of the Catholic Church states: “Cre­at­ed in the im­age of the one God and equal­ly en­dowed with ra­tio­nal souls, all men and women have the same na­ture and the same ori­gin...The equal­i­ty of men rests es­sen­tial­ly on their dig­ni­ty as per­sons and the rights that flow from it.”

“Every form of so­cial or cul­tur­al dis­crim­i­na­tion in fun­da­men­tal per­son­al rights on the grounds of sex, race, colour, so­cial con­di­tions, lan­guage, or re­li­gion must be curbed and erad­i­cat­ed as in­com­pat­i­ble with God’s de­sign”— Gaudi­um et Spes para 29, 1965.

There is hope in the words of Mar­tin Luther King, Jr.: “I refuse to ac­cept the view that mankind is so trag­i­cal­ly bound to the star­less mid­night of racism and war that the bright day­break of peace and broth­er­hood can nev­er be­come a re­al­i­ty... I be­lieve that un­armed truth and un­con­di­tion­al love will have the fi­nal word.”

The time is long over­due for peo­ple of the world to de­nounce/re­ject racism and pro­mote uni­ty in our di­ver­si­ty. I call on faith com­mu­ni­ties, the me­dia, the ed­u­ca­tion sec­tor, and all peo­ple of good­will to raise pub­lic aware­ness about the scourges of racism, racial dis­crim­i­na­tion and their con­se­quences. It’s time to root out in­di­vid­ual and en­dem­ic/sys­temic/in­sti­tu­tion­al racism and racial dis­crim­i­na­tion and build fair­er so­ci­eties in which every­one has an op­por­tu­ni­ty to flour­ish.

Let’s mo­bilise po­lit­i­cal will to de­vel­op and im­ple­ment laws, poli­cies and prac­tices that aim to pro­mote jus­tice and peace.