The International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination is marked every year on 21 March with activities led by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in Geneva, New York and at the field-presences. This year’s theme is Fighting Everyday Racism.
“We must combat all forms of intolerance by celebrating the diversity and the differences that enrich the human family. But we must work to reduce the differences that are imposed, rather than chosen, that speak of deprivation rather than fulfilment and that fuel the xenophobic discourse about the relative merit and desert of individuals based on stereotypical attributes attached to their race, religion or ethnicity.â€
Louise Arbour
United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights
More info: UN High Commissioner Website
Download poster in Arabic|Chinese|French|Spanish|English|Russian
Luc Van Braekel
March 22, 2006 at 12:55 am
There’s a lot of fuss about the fact that Lego is Danish, and that the ad implies that the Danish Muhammad cartoons were a from of racism. In a reaction, Louis Arbour has denied that the poster makes a reference to Lego.
“”The Geneva-based Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights said no affiliation to Lego was intended and apologised for the misunderstanding.”
So, that Lego block is not really a Lego block. Or not intended to be a Lego block.
Coolz0r
March 22, 2006 at 6:58 am
Hehehe. :) Thanks for sharing. I never thought about it this way.
Luc Van Braekel
March 23, 2006 at 10:31 am
It even seems that the puzzle takes the shape of Denmark, which I hadn’t noticed.
Anyway, the PDF files have mysteriously disappeared from the UN server. Apparently the campaign has been canceled???
Coolz0r - Marketing Thoughts » UN Pulls Campaign Against Racism
March 23, 2006 at 11:27 am
[...] The International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination is marked every year on 21 March with activities led by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in Geneva, New York and at the field-presences. This year’s theme WAS Fighting Everyday Racism. The campaign has been taken offline, due to critical voices worldwide who were first suggesting Lego is now a politically charged toy and next that the puzzle looked like Denmark. So… all PDF documents I linked to in the previous post have been pulled. You can’t download the campaign anymore. No more images are available on the website. [...]
Katie
March 27, 2006 at 3:05 pm
Gotcha real nice blog, great reading for your visitors.