The meeting, as has been previously noted, took place in Uganda. Among the subjects considered, as posted yesterday, was a plea by a coalition of Islamic human rights groups to the effect that the OIC could not continue to be silent in the face of the "killing and suffering" of "millions of Muslims" at the hands of "Black Africans." The coalition was disingenuous in its characterisation of events in the Darfur region of the Sudan.
Sudan is a majority Muslim country with approximately seventy percent of its population being Sunni. These are primarily concentrated in the north. The minuscule Christian population is found in or near the capitol of Kharthoum. Darfur is populated by a mixture of "indigenous" faith subscribers and Muslims.
It is not a surprise that the OIC ignored the human rights coalition's plea. The Sudanese government, which includes Muslims and non-Muslims alike, is sufficiently Islamic to fall under the protective blind eye which the OIC and its members routinely turns toward violence which is strictly or predominantly Muslim-on-Muslim.
The OIC passed a resolution on Sudan. It called for negotiations (yawn) and pointed the Flying Middle Finger of Blame at one rebel group and "outsiders" seeking to put pressure on the Sudanese government. http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewForeignBureaus.asp?Page=/ForeignBureaus/archive/200806/FOR20080623b.html.
As far as the OIC is concerned, Sudan goes in the same category as Somalia. Let Muslim kill or displace Muslim and Allah will sort it all out in the end. We at the OIC have more important matters to handle.
More important than states foundering in waves of blood?
You bet.
There's those cartoons. Those damn Danes and their Freedom of Speech Fetish.
Consider, http://www.oic-oci.org/oicnew/topic_detail.asp?t_id=1156.
Well, considering facts, something that the OIC does only when it is in the interests of Islam, the Danish court's finding is correct. Not that this minor consideration slowed down the Islamic group.A spokesman of the OIC Observatory on Islamophobia today in a statement expressed disappointment and dismay at the decision of the Western High Court of Aarhus in Denmark that the publishing of offensive cartoons of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) by the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten in 2005 and reprinted earlier this year by 17 other Danish newspapers was not illegal under Danish law on the ground that terror acts were carried out in the name of Islam.
The spokesman reiterated the principled position of the OIC and that of the OIC member states that terrorism had no connection with Islam or with any other religion and that its proponents were the common enemy of entire international community , He added that the linkage drawn by the Danish Court between Islam with terror to legalize the printing of the offensive cartoons and causing widespread insult to the sentiments of the Muslims was most unfortunate and that it could create a precedent for exacerbation of Islamophobia.Crank up the old noise machine, please. But, while you are at it, would you be so kind as to explain why the OIC has no difficulty finding Islam compatible with the eternal exsanguinations in Somalia and Sudan?
Speaking of "principled" positions, consider the other truly awesome example of arrogance, of delusions of adequacy coming out of the ole OIC. Unfortunately this aspect of the recently concluded meeting has been overlooked by the msm.
It shouldn't be. (The matter hasn't been ignored by some web newsletters. You can see, for example, http://www.crosswalk.com/news/11577911/ or for a little fuller coverage and more quotes there is Cyber News Service at, http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewForeignBureaus.asp?Page=/ForeignBureaus/archive/200806/FOR20080623a.html
It is an indicator of the shape of international politics to come. The OIC is demanding that any restructuring of the UN Security Council done in a way which does not take into full and effective account the fact that Muslims constitute one fifth of the human race will be opposed. There are several plans being mooted about for the reconstitution of the Security Council, but none currently provide for the maximal Muslim goal.
That goal?
Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei said this month that Islamic countries must secure a permanent seat on the UN Security Council because “the Islamic world has been deprived of the power to defend itself."
Yeah. Right.
It seems that Iran has been doing a darn good job of "defending" itself against the Security Council in the contest over its uranium enrichment program. Other Islamic countries such as pre-2003 Iraq and pre-2002 Afghanistan have also done very well in the defend-against-the-Security-Council game.
Just last week, during the same time frame as the OIC was cranking up its bitch over not being adequately represented in the Security Council (despite the fact that Islamic countries get their shot at being elected to the reserved regional seats for the Mideast and Asia) the representatives of Egypt, Iran and Pakistan made a travesty out of the UN Human Rights Council meeting as they pressured the Council's president into issuing a gag order preventing all critical mention of sharia. This was defense of a sort. An objectionable sort.
The Geek has long been of the view that some sort of restructuring of the Security Council might well be in order. While not particularly enamored of any of the currently mooted plans, he is happy that discussion is open.
A discussion would be unacceptable that contains either a dilution of the current veto power held by the five permanent members (such as would be the case by adding a Muslim veto) or an ending the right of veto held by the five.
It is not that the Geek is notably Islamophobic. He is equally opposed to admitting India or for that matter Germany or Japan to the Veto Wielders' Club. Nor is the Geek unaware of how often and how counterproductively the veto has been employed to block arguably collective interests in order to serve the agenda of a single permanent member.
On the whole the five permanent members use of the veto has been functional. Barely so on occasion, but still functional. It has forced not only the more effective building of coalitions and even consensus, it has also provided for the effective explorations of alternatives which might otherwise have been left unknown territory.
The US might well consider the relative importance of the UN to it and it to the UN. Way back in the beginning, back in San Francisco over sixty years ago, a number of small countries protested the Great Power veto. The US representative ostentatiously ripped a copy of the UN Charter in half. It was a clear message. The world could have a UN with the Great Power veto intact--or it could learn to live without a UN.
The choice was clear. It was made. Correctly.
In the course of the next administration we may well be faced with the same choice. It must be made clearly. And correctly.
No comments:
Post a Comment