Last weekend President Obama announced the appointment of Rashad Hussain as Special Envoy to the Organization of the Islamic Conference. Already embroiled in controversy over remarks Hussain was alleged to have made in 2004 concerning the prosecution of Sami al-Arian, this appointment warrants careful consideration because of the problematic mission and track record of the OIC, which has embraced an intolerant religious agenda antagonistic to international human rights standards.
Comprising 57 states, the Organization of the Islamic Conference is the second-largest intergovernmental institution in the world after the UN. It is a unique body. A political organization, it pursues a religious mission. The charter of the OIC makes clear that it exists, not only to promote the economic and humanitarian goals of member states, but also to “defend” and “disseminate” Islam itself. The OIC even has a “Department of Islamic Propagation (Dawa) Affairs” dedicated to establishing Islam. Earlier this month the OIC’s High Commissioner for Dawa, Salem Al Houni, presented a speech in Cairo in which he affirmed the OIC’s commitment to spread Islam through the world.
It would be inconceivable for nations with Christian majorities to band together to form an intergovernmental organization devoted to advancing Christianity and the global interests of the Christian Church. The existence of the OIC is testimony to the reality that mainstream Islam recognizes no distinction between politics and religion.
In fact the OIC lobbies aggressively in UN forums to shield Islamic states from criticism on human rights grounds. The key issue is the role of the OIC in advancing Islamic Sharia. In 1990 the OIC promulgated the Cairo Declaration of Human Rights in Islam, which subordinates human rights to the Sharia, declaring in Article 24 that “All the rights and freedoms stipulated in this Declaration are subject to the Islamic Shari’ah,” and in Article 25 that “The Islamic Shari’ah is the only source of reference for the explanation or clarification to any of the articles of this Declaration.”
One of the subsidiaries of the OIC is the International Islamic Fiqh Academy, which claims to rule on doctrine and issue religious edicts in the name of the OIC for the whole Muslim world. In May 2009 it promulgated a series of fatwas, including rulings on Religious Freedom, Freedom of Expression and Domestic Violence. These affirm support for Islam’s traditional apostasy laws (which require that those who leave Islam should be killed); they call on the Muslim world to prevent freedom of speech from being used to criticize Islam; they declare that in Islam it is not “violence or discrimination” to criminalize homosexuality or apply Sharia laws for adultery (which include stoning adulterers); they endorse “non-violent beating” of wives; and they call upon Islamic nations to reject provisions of international covenants on the rights of women and children, if they “conflict with the provisions of Islamic law and its purposes”.
In announcing his new Special Envoy’s appointment, it is commendable that President Obama expressed hope that Rashad Hussain would be able to strengthen partnerships with the Muslim world in education, economic development, science and technology and global health.
But conspicuously absent from this list was human rights.
Without a doubt, Rashad Hussain has strong religious credentials for this appointment. The Texas-born and Yale Law School-educated Hussain was characterized by President Obama as a hafiz, someone who has memorized the whole of the Arabic text of the Koran. This skill reflects a pious Islamic upbringing. His position on individual rights and freedoms under Sharia conditions, however, is not so apparent. One clue can be found in a co-authored 2008 article he published through the Brookings Institute. In it, Hussain argues that the counterterrorism efforts “must reject labels that make mainstream Islam a part of the problem,” and the US should recognize “the benefit of strengthening the authoritative voices of mainstream Islam”. Does Hussain also believe that, when it comes to human rights in OIC member states, “mainstream Islam” is the solution, and not part of the problem?
At his most recent post as White House Deputy Associate Counsel, Hussain helped draft President Obama’s “New Beginning” address to the Muslim world in Cairo last June. That speech mentioned human rights, but it emphasized dialogue rather than defending individual liberties as the key to improving relationships with the Muslim world.
The OIC makes a strong claim for itself to be considered the global voice of mainstream Islam. However killing those who leave Islam, criminalizing homosexuality, banning any critical analysis of Islam, wife beating (non-violent or otherwise)—all these are antithetical to international human rights principles, and impediments to a true partnership between the OIC and the United States. Strengthening the authoritative voice of the OIC, while it actively works to defend such practices, would harm American interests. Lack of engagement on these central human rights issues would be understood as acquiescence or approval. This could be a high price to pay for a New Beginning with the Muslim world.
Mark Durie is a human rights activist, Anglican pastor and author of The Third Choice: Islam, Dhimmitude and Freedom.
Comments:
The author says:
"It would be inconceivable for nations with Christian majorities to band together to form an intergovernmental organization devoted to advancing Christianity and the global interests of the Christian Church. The existence of the OIC is testimony to the reality that mainstream Islam recognizes no distinction between politics and religion."
To me, this just shows that Muslims take their faith seriously, and Christians don't. The author uncritically accepts two of the most pernicious errors of today: liberalism and individualism. As a liberal, he thinks that government should operate on atheistic principles because this is somehow "neutral", when in reality it's just the establishment of a particularly odious worldview. As an individualist, he fails to see that God's authority extends over all men not only individually, but collectively. As Augustine said, a republic that doesn't collectively recognize God is no republic. I for one see nothing wrong with the idea of explicitly Christian countries, or with them banding together to promote the one true path to man's salvation. For most of Christian history, this was the ideal.
Furthermore, the author criticizes Muslim countries not for imposing explicitly Islamic norms, but for enforcing basic principles of the natural law. The purposes of government are to establish justice and to protect the common good. Why then should we object to the criminalization and punishment of adultery and sodomy? These acts are intrinsically wicked, as can be known through unaided reason, so punishing them is an act of justice. Furthermore, these acts are grave menaces to the common good: adultery by eroding the assumption of marital fidelity, and sodomy by eroding the distinct gender roles, on which social order depends. Consider what happened in the satanic West when we chose to legitimate and then celebrate homosexuality; it has meant an all-out attack on Christianity and the patriarchal family. Why should we wish such a thing on our Muslim brothers?
The author says:
"they call upon Islamic nations to reject provisions of international covenants on the rights of women and children, if they “conflict with the provisions of Islamic law and its purposes”.
Good for them. These "covenants" are designed by atheist androgynist liberals to attack the family, erode parental authority and male headship, and to encourage promiscuity, perversion, and abortion. I for one am glad that the Pope doesn't have to stand totally alone against these abominations.
Some aspects of sharia law may indeed be objectionable, but this article makes no distinctions between what offends natural justice and what merely offends Western liberal prejudice.
The question of how Sharia law is contrary to principles of natural and divine justice is a separate subject which demands a completely different treatment.
Will Bonald concede that it is more than just 'objectionable' to stone adulterers, beat wives, kill Christians for leaving Islam, and make criminals of people who criticize Islam?
For all the limitations of the international Human Rights frameworks - and they are limited – they do provide grounds for resisting such aspects of the Islamic Sharia.
In a spirit of compassion for the victims of such human rights abuses, one must surely hope that the United States will include human rights on its agenda in dealings with the OIC.
It sure isn't:
http://www.vulcanhammer.org/2010/02/17/vanderbilt-professor-homosexuality-punishable-by-death-under-islamic-law/
How can the UN, having made a “Universal Declaration of Human Rights”, the acceptance of which is a fundamental requirement of membership, be engaged at all with the OIC is outrageous. We should, in the liberal West, be preparing for and actually engaged in warfare against this cult of Islam.
There is not a single country in the entire World, ruled by religious authorities, that is not a tyranny.
I agree the international covenants are pretty much propaganda for a leftist ideology, but we have to be careful with whom we join forces. Muslim nations are not simply standing up for what's moral; they reject the international covenants because they interfere with sha'riah. Sha'riah is harsh on women, encouraging genital mutilation, honor killings, and even the execution of rape victims as adulteresses. The Pope wouldn't stand for such things! If we're not careful about our alliances, we may find ourselves supporting people who do abominable things to women and children in the name of their god. How will we answer to God when asks why we didn't stand for these innocent victims?
Islam is not what you think it is and sharia is not what you think it is. The topics covered these days are not equivalent. There's a tendency (either deliberate or accidental) to paint everything to do with Islam with such a broad stroke that the world doesn't even take you seriously.
The fact is: you just don't know what you say.
I can go on and on...but it's pointless.
THIS IS A FACT (well, two): you do not know what Islam is, you do not know what sharia is.
You can talk about these matters and cloak them in whatever terminology but it is not going to help.
Priests molesting kids is criminal but priests molesting non-kids is not! That's just wonderful.
When it comes to Saddam killing Kurds, human rights are violated (and rightly so)...but...
When it comes to hundreds and thousands of kids dying from brutal sanctions, it's business as usual.
The problem is that while the West wants to separate the religious from the wordly, it hardly applies the same standard to others.
He is clearly a hard line muslim, how then can he possibly represent the US?
He would certainly agree with the fatwas issued by the fiqh academy, what place have these ideas in our society?
The fact is that they, and the aims of the OIC, are antithetical to the principles fundamental to our society.
We should nothing to do with these people except to tell them that we will not tolerate, on any level, their bigotry.
Fr. Durie admits that the Human Rights framework is limited, but still useful for criticizing Musliim abuses. I think this strategy is flawed. We have better ethical frameworks for criticizing true abuses; we don't need to be legitimating a body of thought that can be used just as well to attack Christianity, as Mr. Beesley's comment demonstrates.
David, I'm not a Muslim, but I can be fairly obtuse at times. It is, of course, true that God deals out ultimate punishments in the next life, but the state deals them out in this one. To do this, the state must have some guiding principles of justice--neutrality towards "comprehensive accounts of the good" cannot be maintained. The only question is whether the state shall use Christian, Muslim, atheist/utilitarian, or some other account of justice. My problem with the Muslim view is that it is not entirely correct, not that it's being imposed.
Frankly, most people in the West couldn't care less about Islam were it not for this religion's militants who, however naively, are involved in savage terrorist actions in an attempt to establish the crudities of Sharia Law. If the Arabs of the world wish to remain in a primitive tribal state that contributes little to civilization, fine; just keep your crude behavior to yourselves.
The issue of human rights in international diplomacy is a delicate one. The US has to maintain good working relations with countries such as China for any number of practical reasons, even if China's human rights practice sometimes is deplorable by Western criteria. The US also is allied to a number of Muslim countries qua countries, such as Egypt and Jordan--not because they are Muslim, but because they are countries with whom the US has mutual interests (e.g., suppressing terrorism). Egypt has one of the highest incidences of female genital mutilation in the world, a practice that horrifies the West, but that is not will not change America's relationship with Egypt.
The US has a reponsibility to articulate its views on human rights when speaking to national states with whom it has mutual interests, but cannot impose its view on other states, nor should it make human rights issues the main subject of discussion with other countries.
But Pastor Durie raises a critical point regarding OIC: the OIC is NOT an organization like NATO, or the EC, in which national states have delegated some portion of their powers for practical reasons. It is better described, in Durie's words, as a "United Nations" of Islam: a talking-shop for countries that may have divergent or antagonistic interests, but nonetheless have a general dialogue under the umbrella of Islam.
In this instance--unlike diplomatic representation to a national state or a multinational organization with some quasi-state powers--the most important subject to discuss is, in fact, human rights. The whole concept of an ambassadorship to the OIC is questionable from the outset: what if Christian countries were to form an "Organization of Christian States?" The idea is self-contradictory, for there are no Christian states, only states with a majority Christian population, in which religion has no voice in governance. But there are very few secular Muslim-majority countries, and the most important of those, Turkey, is gradually reverting to an Islamic state. In other words, the OIC only could exist to begin with because Islam is hard to imagine without theocracy (I did not say impossible, but there is no persuasive counter-example). And the OIC only exists to discuss general principles among commonly-minded states. The general principles that it exists to discuss are antithetical to the American (or UN Charter) concept of human rights, precisely because they are premised upon theocracy, and are hostile to freedom of religion.
Pastor Durie's focus on the human rights issue strikes exactly the right one.