President John Mahama has advocated equality across nations, insisting that no race is superior or inferior.
Mr Mahama, who made the remarks on Thursday when he addressed the 81st Session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, said differences in race, nationality, language, faith and culture must not be used to justify discrimination, persecution, displacement or war.
“Everybody in this chamber today and every global citizen listening to my words possesses an origin. No race is superior. No nation is inferior. We carry inherited memories, values, rich cultures, and distinct identities of our homelands.
“Belonging anchors us, and it reminds us that we are part of a human story that is far larger than ourselves. It is a vital wellspring of dignity and pride, but belonging also has its dark side,” he stated.
Mr Mahama noted that the weaponisation of identity can deepen forms of prejudice that threaten peaceful coexistence among nations.
He added, “When belonging is weaponised by political expediency, it transforms into nativism, chauvinism, xenophobia, and the dangerous prejudices that are extended to people who are deemed different from us. It becomes the pretext for discrimination, for displacement, for persecution, and war.”
Noting that the founding principles of the United Nations must remain firm in confronting such forms of discrimination, the president stressed that a person’s worth must not be determined by their identity, beliefs or place of birth.
“No child’s life is worth less because of the language they speak or the faith they profess or the colour of their skin or the land of their birth. This is the unyielding moral foundation upon which the United Nations must stand,” he explained.
The president further recalled his pledge last year to secure international recognition of the transatlantic trafficking and racialised chattel enslavement of Africans as the gravest crime against humanity.
“Some cautioned that we were reopening old wounds. We came to seek healing. Africa does not seek charity. Africa seeks equal partnership anchored in mutual respect,” he stated.
Mr Mahama also decried global conflicts, warning of “a dangerous drift toward unilateralism, lawlessness and the erosion of multilateral norms”.