Last week, the attacks in India and the threat to New York City’s
subway system provided another stark reminder of the need for a
united front against global terrorism. Yet instead of figuring
out how to combat Islamic extremists, the United Nations is
worried about offending them.
On November 24, 2008, the U.N. passed a draft resolution against
the defamation of religion sponsored by the 57-member
Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), where all U.N.
members are being asked to pass domestic legislation against
blasphemy. The resolution was originally introduced in 1999 by
the OIC, asserting that “Islam is frequently and wrongly
associated with human rights violations and terrorism.”
In reality, terrorism happens in Islam’s name, or more
accurately, in Islamism’s name. Islamism is a 20th century
product arising from the writings of sincere Muslims such as
Hasan al-Banna and Syed Qutb. Frustrated by the fallen status of
Muslims vis-à-vis the West, they offered a new version of Islam
as a totalitarian socio-political alternative to democracy and
Western license. Disparate followers from Osama bin Laden,
Hezbollah and Hamas to the Jihadis that waged war on Mumbai last
week are not deranged or crazy. Rather, they subscribe to a
worldview that is antithetical to most Muslims and the
West.
The OIC nations charge critics of Islamic extremism with “racism”
and “Islamophobia” to deflect attention from the fact that such
violence originates at the hand of Muslim clerics born and bread
in their lands. This is because they realize they can’t control
Islamism, or they tacitly agree with its message.
These Muslim clerics also export this ideology to the West to
radicalize Muslim immigrants abroad, and reform-minded Muslims
are usually the first victims.
Kadra Noor was beat up in 2007 for speaking out against “Islamic”
female genital mutilation in Norway. In Sweden, cabinet minister
Nyamko Sabuni proposed
that honor killings be labeled a separate crime in the Swedish
penal code and girls get mandatory gynecological exams to
discourage female circumcision. She also told the Sunday Times
that arranged marriages are not a part of Islam.
As a result, she was called an “Islamophobe” and instead of
supporting her, 50 Islamic Swedish organizations petitioned
against her appointment to the cabinet in an effort to suppress
her growing influence in Swedish politics.
Pakistan, spokesman for the OIC, recently promoted a politician
to minister of education after he defended the live burial of
five girls in Balochistan as “tribal custom.” It is not a stretch
to argue that Pakistan is not an OIC member interested in reform.
The 2005 Danish cartoon controversy kick-started the OIC campaign
to pass last month’s resolution when it was cited as another
example of increased discrimination against Muslims after 9/11.
The “cartoon intifada” arose 5 months after the original printing
of the images of Muhammad, but only weeks before the UNHCR was
due to consider the OIC’s resolution on “Combating Defamation of
Religion.”
Such a coincidence caused the National Secular Society to state
in its
Memorandum to the United Kingdom Parliament that “the Danish
cartoon crisis was manufactured…to exploit sensitivities around
racial discrimination and to promote (or even exaggerate) the
notion of ‘Islamophobia’ in order to restrict possibilities for
open discussion or criticism of Islam….[M]easures calling for
legislation banning ‘defamation of religion’ …. aim[] to remove
religion, especially Islam, from public scrutiny and public
debate.”
The OIC forgets that Muslims are already protected in the West.
The U.S., for example, increases sentences on crimes ranging from
assault and battery to murder if they are deemed “hate crimes,”
which includes crimes against a victim based on his or her
religious identity.
So what is this 57-nation organization really pushing with this
“anti-blasphemy” resolution at the U.N.?
In the Muslim world, anti-blasphemy laws are regularly used to
suppress free speech by attacking fellow Muslims and non-Muslims
who criticize the government or protest human rights violations.
Such laws are also used as pretext against individuals in
personal and business disputes. The mere allegation puts mobs
before the accused before the police can arrive to investigate.
At the U.N., the OIC has manipulated the language of racism to
make its anti-democratic agenda more attractive to “third world”
nations recovering from their own genuine post-colonial
struggles. Nations that voted in favor of the resolution or
abstained were predominantly from Latin America or developing
African nations.
A final version of the resolution is up for a vote this month. It
would be a mistake for these U.N. members to fall for
anti-colonial rhetoric once again. By aligning with Islamists,
the U.N. would be supporting the stifling of free speech and the
suppression of human rights, and crushing the goal of building
tolerant democratic societies.
