The chosen forum is the UN Human Rights Council. No surprise in the choice. OIC members along with such other stalwart defenders of open inquiry and expression as Russia, China, and Cuba have an absolute majority in this body. Since raw power assures the reactionary and primitive states of the OIC can pass whatever bit of repressive resolution might be wished, it is shocking that the OIC member states try to offer a rationalization for their effort.
It seems that the Always Vigilant Protectors Of The One True Faith have discovered that a new form of "racism" is abroad in the West. The new form is termed, "Islamophobia" and manifests itself by any number of icky-poo things directed at Muslims including criticizing the faith itself, casting factual aspersions upon the Muslim historical narrative, and, actually expressing disapproval of Islamic characteristics such as stoning adulterers, chopping the heads off of apostates and blasphemers, putting women in garbage sacks, and, The Greatest Blood Libel Ever, animadverting that men who shout, "Allahu Akbar!" before flying aircraft into buildings or pushing the clicker on the suicide vest might be Muslims.
The Egyptian delegate wound himself into a state closely approximating apoplexy when he charged, "People of Arab origin face new forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia..." The diplomat also claimed that these unfortunate people suffer "intolerance, discrimination and marginalization."
The Egyptian's play was quickly backed by his colleague from Pakistan. The Pakistani demanded that the Council's Special Rapporteur on Religious Freedom investigate this "racism" particularly "in Western societies."
Wowie! Zowie! If these two diplomats were Jewish, it would be fair to say they possessed chutzpah in truckload quantities.
The nerve of these duplicitous purveyors of tergiversation. The OIC members as well as the OIC itself want the world to believe that they are motivated by a sincere desire to protect all religions from abuse. They hope that people generally are so intellectually challenged and historically ignorant that their protestations (to quote the Pakistani representative at the HRC) of a need to "create and promote an atmosphere of respect and tolerance for religious and cultural diversity" will be believed.
Fer sure, dudes. If this really, really, really is the goal of the OIC, perhaps the group and its members can establish a greater street cred by answering a few simple questions.
In what "Western societies" and the polities they have created is it illegal for a Muslim to proselytize openly? In what "Western societies" and the polities they have created is it illegal for a Muslim to pass out copies of the Koran on a public street? Or wear symbols of their faith? Or denounce Christianity? Or Judaism? Are not any and all Muslims free to question, criticize, or flat out defame Christianity or Judaism or any other religion throughout the "Western societies?"
While you are at it, boys (it is not possible to address the question to those of the distaff given the strictures of Islam) please name any Western state where conversion to Islam from any other religion is a punishable offense? That is, punishable by any measure, a civil fine even, unlike the death penalty which is authorized in Muslim countries for the "apostate."
In a similar vein, Sincere Upholders Of Islam, please name those "Western societies" where a woman's testimony in court is held to be worth less than that of a man? Or, those "Western societies" which disenfranchise a person on the basis of their having mammary glands? Or those "Western societies" which authorize the police to arrest (or administer on-the-spot physical chastisement) to any woman caught in the company of a man other than her blood relative or husband?
In how many "Western societies" are revolting antisemitic works not only sold in bookshops and in the bazaars, but spewed forth on television and radio (including those broadcasters owned or controlled by governments) available to the degree they are in, say, Egypt? In how many "Western societies" do clerical, political, or civil society leaders call for killing people simply on the basis of their faith?
The list could go on, ad nauseam but the point has been made.
The OIC members, including the two American "allies" referenced, are engaged in one more attack on the values of the West, on the very roots of Western greatness. Beyond that, their effort demonstrates yet again that the fear ridden and insecure nature of Islam and the societies and polities predicated on Islam are not simply reactionary, trying desperately to roll the centuries back and transform as much of the world as possible to a simulacrum of the Arabian Peninsula in the Seventh Century, but that they are primitive enclaves in a world which has passed them by.
That's the ground truth, Islamic majority societies, and the polities they have created have been responsible for little or nothing positive over the past thirteen centuries. Islam, by its very nature, by its reliance upon the "will of Allah," has not and cannot practice genuine science. By virtue of its many strictures, Islamic societies can not add measurably to the general store of human knowledge, artistic brilliance, scholarship, or make any other significant contribution to the overall improvement of the human condition.
Other than a certain crude capacity for the waging of war, for killing people and breaking things, Islam is not to be noted. Well, it can be argued that Islamic polities have demonstrated a skill at repression, suppression, and oppression, but these are not generally numbered among desirable accomplishments.
Perhaps there exists a dim awareness deep in the semi-consciousness of the assorted Islamic majority states that they are not the jewels in the crown of humanity. Perhaps it is this awareness of inbuilt primitiveness which makes the OIC membership (and so many individual Muslims) so insecure in the value of their faith that extraordinary measures of self-defense are indicated.
As these states and their citizens lack the self-confidence, the sure sense of self and its value which immunizes against both insult and criticism, they have no choice other than to seek to stop the voices, halt the pens, of those who would be so bold as to question, criticize, and utter unpleasant truths. The OIC and its members must try to silence the opposition lest they perish.
The Muslims and their fellow travelers on the Oppression Express may have the votes in the Human Rights Council. But that is all they have. The other side, the civilized states and their relatively secure and self-aware citizens, have both truth and history as allies.
So it has been. And, so it will continue.
No comments:
Post a Comment