The Arabian potentates were livid at the temerity of Malaysia, Turkey and Qatar to hold an Islamic Summit in Kuala Lumpur. The Arabian rulers forced Pakistan not to attend but the summit also exposed their incompetence and subservience to imperialism and Zionism.
Most of the participants at the third UN World Conference Against Racism arrived in Durban filled with cautious optimism, coming to raise critical issues of racial justice. Some were seeking reparations for the trans-Atlantic slave-trade, others for exposing the racist core of Zionism.