Away with your pesky rights
The UN’s human rights resolution has passed.
The top U.N. rights body on Thursday passed a resolution proposed by Islamic countries saying it is deeply concerned about the defamation of religions and urging governments to prohibit it…The document, which was put forward by the Organization of the Islamic Conference, “expresses deep concern at attempts to identify Islam with terrorism, violence and human rights violations.” Although the text refers frequently to protecting all religions, the only religion specified as being attacked is Islam, to which eight paragraphs refer…”It is regrettable that there are false translations and interpretations of the freedom of expression,” the Saudi delegation told the council, adding that no culture should incite to religious hatred by attacking sacred teachings…The resolution expresses “grave concern at the serious recent instances of deliberate stereotyping of religions, their adherents and sacred persons in the media.”
No culture should incite to religious hatred by attacking sacred teachings – so therefore all cultures and everyone in them should simply accept ‘sacred teachings’ and that’s that. ‘Sacred teachings’ should be treated as special and inviolable and immune from criticism and disagreement – in spite of the fact that they are based on nothing but long tradition and determined belief. (Or rather, because of that fact.) Well, I just have ‘attacked sacred teachings,’ because I think they are wrong, harmful, and malicious, so I naturally don’t think the UN Human Rights Commission’s new resolution is a good idea. I also don’t think the Organization of the Islamic Conference really gets it about rights. The Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam illustrates why.
All human beings form one family whose members are united by their subordination to Allah and descent from Adam…Life is a God-given gift…and it is prohibited to take away life except for a shari’ah prescribed reason…Men and women have the right to marriage, and no restrictions stemming from race, colour or nationality shall prevent them from exercising this right…Woman is equal to man in human dignity, and has her own rights to enjoy as well as duties to perform…It is prohibited to exercise any form of pressure on man or to exploit his poverty or ignorance in order to force him to change his religion to another religion or to atheism…Every man shall have the right, within the framework of the Shari’ah, to free movement…Everyone shall have the right to express his opinion freely in such manner as would not be contrary to the principles of the Shari’ah…Information is a vital necessity to society. It may not be exploited or misused in such a way as may violate sanctities and the dignity of Prophets, undermine moral and ethical Values or disintegrate, corrupt or harm society or weaken its faith.
And so on, and so on. All the rights are qualified by ‘as long as the Shariah doesn’t mind.’ It is prohibited to force people to change religion, but it is not prohibited to force people not to change religion. Restrictions on marriage stemming from religion are quite all right. Woman has her own rights to enjoy, but she doesn’t have just plain rights – and anyway they’re always qualified by having to get the Shariah’s permission. And so on, and so on. Not what people who are not united by their subordination to Allah recognize as rights at all – more like non-rights. So it’s unfortunate that the OIC has so much clout at the UN Human Rights Council.
Ban Ki-moon is chiming in on the anti-rights talk.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Friday joined Muslim nations in expressing outrage over the film. Ban called Wilders’ film offensive while Iran and Bangladesh warned it could have grave consequences and Pakistan protested to the Dutch ambassador. “I condemn in the strongest terms the airing of Geert Wilders’ offensively anti-Islamic film,” Ban said in a statement. “There is no justification for hate speech or incitement to violence. The right of free speech is not at stake here.”
Oh really.
I don’t like to sound hysterical — and I don’t hear very clear contradictory statements coming from western governments over this issue — but isn’t this the first step towards world theocracy?
This matter has been discussed fairly thoroughly over at Philosopher’s Mag, but without any clear outcome. If we continue to dither over this, without making it clear where we stand on this matter of the right to free expression, then we will very soon find that our rights will be severely limited.
Is it clear that if this resolution is adhered to, we will not be able to say anything about the conduct of Muslims in western democratic societies, for fear of defaming Islam? that Muslim women in Britain and elsewhere will continue to be treated a chattel property? that Christians will quite happily hitch-hike on this ruling, to prevent the criticism of Christian beliefs? and, in the United States and elsewhere, no doubt, creationists will protest being made the object of mockery by scientists? The mind reels!
Isn’t it more than unfortunate that the OIC has so much clout? It could be a human rights disaster!
Protestant churches will have to be outlawed, because they were established on the basis that the mother church was corrupt, which is certainly disrespectful to say about a religion.
And, taking RXC’s logic further, Christianity will have to be outlawed altogether, as it is built on disrespect toward first-century BCE Judaism! And Islam will have to be outlawed for its disrespect to both Christianity and Judaism! Judaism will be outlawed for its disrespect toward both the Canaanites and the Egyptians, and so on and so forth. Buddhism, too, will have to go, as it is disrespectful toward Hinduism. Perhaps this could be a good thing after all?
Eric, well the good news is that it’s just a resolution, it’s not binding, and it’s certainly not international law. The US, for one, couldn’t possibly adhere to it, even if it wanted to; it violates the US constitution six ways from Sunday.
But it’s interesting to know what some people and international bodies think is a good idea.
“Saudi Arabia called for tolerance of all religions”!!!!!!
That is so funny!
Thanks for the link, Andy, I looked for the dang pr and couldn’t find it.
Andrej Logar of Slovenia talked sense. ‘The concept of defamation of religion was not consistent with human rights discourse. The focus of the concept of defamation could be used by Governments to deny other peoples freedoms.’ Hey Tea – a relative of yours?
Yes, Ophelia, I know I’m a bit extreme on the point, and I know it’s only a resolution, but these things have a way of getting out of control, especially since resolutions of this kind can be used to ‘justify’ all sorts of really crazy behaviour. And then they can point at UN HRC resolutions that are being ignored by the wicked warlocks and witches of the west. After all, they were warned. And western governments are ridiculously supine when it comes to religious demands. So, resolution or not, I think there is cause for concern. But I take your point. I do go off like a firecracker over this issue.
‘attacking sacred teachings’
– I can hardly respond to this without swearing, so I’ll hold my tongue.
PS Download Fitna here:
http://www.mediafire.com/?ngmddlzedny
Eric
Check out the other resolutions and then compare what they say, and have repeatedly said over the years, with what actually happens. It might help you to relax a bit! Unless of course you are living on land that Israel wants to build settlements on…
Eric wrote:
“And western governments are ridiculously supine when it comes to religious demands”
Important point Eric. If it weren’t so, we could treat this resolution with the contempt it deserves. Instead, here we all are, worrying about its ramifications.
Well, Eric, I certainly think there’s cause for concern too! Along with irritation and disgust. Otherwise I wouldn’t keep going on about it…
“Sound and laughter”
Over @ talkingphilosophy.com blog
I also went into howls on laughter when I heard on RTE I “Au Charlotte de la lune – -which sounded like a “Green bee buzzing in a bottle”.
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7318173.stm –
You have to wonder what this body is all about. For the same IHT article that Ophelia linked to:
“In a separate vote, South Korea joined European countries and Japan in passing a U.N. resolution against human rights abuses in North Korea….
The no votes included China, Cuba, Russia, Indonesia, Egypt, Malaysia and Nicaragua.”
Leaving aside the absurdity of these countries partaking in a UN body on human rights, North Korea is close to being, if it is not really, the worse place for human rights on the planet, so how can any country defend it ?
Regarding Saudi’s call for “tolerance of all religions”:
A while ago a young Irishman died in a work accident in Saudi. His parents went over to escort his body home. They brought some Rosary beads with them to place in his hands, as is very common among Irish Catholics. The beads were confiscated by the Saudi authorities when they arrived, as no other religion than Islam is allowed inside that country.
Whenever anyone, particularly a Muslim, tries this “you must limit your freedom to respect my religion” nonsense tell them this story and invite them to fix this before you’ll entertain them. If they counter that Saudi is nothing to do with them, reply by pointing out that the same applies to your freedom.
My, isn’t that a pretty story. So compassionate, so senstive, so kind.
(I hope the Rosary beads weren’t made by victimized children…)
“The beads were confiscated by the Saudi authorities when they arrived,”
The Saudi’s, after all, are dear friends of me auld heart. Never did they confiscate something that was so hateful to me auld memory.
“They brought some Rosary beads with them to place in his hands,”
They placed some beads in the hands of little children, not for just an hour, not for just a day, not for just a year, but instead for years and years and years. Which in essence amounted to the livelong day of their childhoods? They placed them too in their memories until death do they part.
Wilder’s film is, in my opinion, childish spite. Dishonest, simplistic and impelled by crude nativism and a desire to provoke for his own political ends.
I note that muslim organisations in the Netherlands are begging their co-religionists to stay calm and let the nasty little thing wither through indifference.
AHA has distanced herself from it, posting a very hostile review on her blog.
Ali Eteraz puts it in context here;
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/ali_eteraz/2008/03/the_fitna_farce.html
Freedom of speech – absolutely. Real menace from triumphalist religiosity in general and islam in particular – sure.
Wilder? Vile.
@don,
ahem, Ali Eteraz might be right in some of his comments, but his musical memory leave quite a bit to be desired.
The music in Fitna is unfortunatly not Tchaikovsky, but Grieg ( Peer Gynt Suite #1 op 46 (Movement: The death of Aase). You’ll find a fairly good recording here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AB4m885sTeE
Another movement (the morning song)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAMLCDnCLzs&feature=related
Somewhat ironically, you’ll also find the movement “Arabian dance” played by an Israelian orchestra nearby :-)
I also must admit I find A.E. attempts to put the responsibility for the seeds of The Muslim Brotherhood on the (ugly captalistic?) :-) Suez company, to be a strange argument.
Cassanders
In Cod we trust
Yes, I didn’t quite see the point about Suez, but other than that (and misattributing the music)I find myself in general sympathy with his approach.
I think the idea is that once the threat of secularism/atheism (and the concomitant Enlightenment value system) is defeated, the Abrahamics can get back to settling their disputes the old-fashioned way.
Paul Power,
Would you climb Uluru?