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Shirin Ebadi, the OIC and human rights
Having chosen to host the OIC meeting this year, we pulled all stops and
embarked on a publicity blitz long before the event to impress upon the
cynical muslims of the world that this time it was going to be different.
But it all ended up as usual, like the NAM meeting previously, with
accolades of Malaysia being a very hospitable host, generously treating
delegates with pomp and extravaganza, as if to make up for the deficiency in
substance and intellectual content. Like it or not, The world is already
too familiar with the notion that the OIC is at best a weak, ineffectual and
poorly regarded club of muslim leaders whose yearly jamboree is nothing more
than diplomatic tourism and mutual congralutory back-slapping, or worse, a
gathering of leaders, often unelected or whose representation of the popular
will less than legitimate, of nations distinguished by various shades of
bad-governance and corruption, economic mismanagement, political repression,
poverty and backwardness, such that it would be easy for others to heap all
that on a single factor: the religion of the muslims.
There is some basis that the OIC meeting in Malaysia promised to be
different. It is after all the model of Islamic moderation, the most
successful muslim nation that has leapfrogged into the twenty-first century
while remaining faithful to its Islamic and Asian values and tradition. In
these turbulent and challenging times, we are supposed to lead the muslim
world to become respected players on the global stage, to stand up to the
imperialistic designs of the world's hyperpower, and to speak up for our
oppressed brethren in Palestine.
We may have worked out everything to the finest details months ahead but
events beyond our control and our own silliness have their own way of
conspiring against our best laid plans. It was as if fate was planning its
sweetest revenge on us. One could sense that the Kuala Lumpur OIC meeting
was not going to be a ground breaking one that would take to organization to
new heights, as we hoped it would, but instead stumbled from one disaster to
another. For a start, it did not help that Kofi Annan failed to show up
without giving a good reason. That must have struck a cruel blow to our
collective self-esteem. Was that supposed to be a measure how much contempt
the world harbours toward leaders of muslim nations? There was not much we
could do about Kofi Annan not showing up, but can't our judges wait to
convict Irene Fernandez? The trial has been going on for years anyway, what
harm does it do to come out with a verdict after the OIC bash? The whole
world now knows that the most moderate and enlightened muslim nation
convicted a rights activist who blowed the whistle on the brutal (with
fatalities) and humiliating abuse of muslim illegal immigrants awaiting
deportation in detention camps. How dare they lecture us on all this
nonsense about human rights for illegal immigrants. And if that was not bad
enough, our highly efficient police force gave us unwanted publicity at the
worst possible time. For a number of years now the public and civil
society NGOs have raised their concern over the inordinate number of deaths
of suspected criminals in shootouts with the police our in lock-ups. But
this time, it was a form six student whose disbelieving family was told that
he was armed and dangerous, with 20 criminal records.
Whenever muslim leaders meet, they would not miss on the opportunity for
grand-standing to the world's muslims by championing the cause of Palestine
which means also condemning Israel, zionism and jews, only that we are often
confused about the distinctions between them. We thought the only way to
appease the already too cynical muslims is to condemn the jews ever more
strongly. But little do we realize that Jewish Conspiracy card has been
played too many times, that they would immediately recognize its frayed
edges and worn out appearance. The denunciations came fast and furious from
all over, even from our friend Chirac. Damn. It was meant to be our
finest hour and everything had to go wrong!
Depending on how one looks at it, the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to a
muslim woman, an Iranian lawyer and human rights activist, may be seen as
recognition of efforts towards genuine reforms for democratization in the
muslim world. Strangely, despite the flood of congratulatory messages from
international human rights organizations and world leaders, the muslim world
especially their governments have been rather mute. To the conservative
fundamentalists who see a conspiracy lurking in every shadow, this is the
west's machination to destroy muslim societies and dominate them. Like the
hard-line clerical factions in control of major institutions of government
in Iran, they viewed the award to Shirin Ebadi as western intervention in
Iranian politics, using human rights issues in Iran as a political tool in
the pursuit of its own agenda. That the conservative fundamentalists
remained in muted embarrassment is hardly surprising given their deep
suspicion of every outside influence, especially the west, but that the
champions of moderate and enlightened Islam were also silent seemed awkward,
especially when we were in the midst of showcasing our enlightened Islam to
world. Perhaps we were too conscious that Shirin Ebadi gave the lie to our
claims to moderation and enlightenment. Yes, if she were Malaysian, she
would have ended up with a fate not unlike Irene Fernandez's. Beneath that
veneer of Islamic moderateion, we have a catalogue of executive abuses,
corporate corruption, inhumane laws, judicial improprieties etc.
Simplistic this might be, the Islamic world seems to be perpetually torn
between the religious fundamentalism that wants to bring the muslim people
under a theocratic authoritarianism hostile to everything that the west
represents, and on the other hand "secular" nationalist forces with a warped
understanding of secularism, anxious to import and copy the west's material
glitter but unwilling to submit to the more positive values that had helped
shape western civilization, such that the muslim world today has become
characterized by "first world infrastructure with third world mentality",
repressive, corrupt and intolerant of criticism.
Could the recognition accorded to Ebadi by the Nobel Committee symbolize a
new force in muslim society, one that is genuinely concerned with democratic
reforms free of the ideological baggage of secular nationalism or
conservative fundamentalism whose popularity owed much to the failed
experiments with modernization of the former? The abuse of human rights in
muslim countries is a very valid issue. As long as we don't seriously
address them, western governments will continue to close their eyes to these
abuses one day and use them against us for their own leverage the next,
whenever it suits them.
It is time that human rights issues are seen as what they really are. We as
muslim nations have the dubious distinction of having among the worst human
rights records, integral to the package of bad-governance, corruption and
intolerance of dissent. The time has come for us to stop accusing the west
of trying to impose their ideas of human rights and democracy on us on the
grounds that those "western" values are alien to our culture and religion.
The notion that our Islamic or asian values are more suited if not superior
for our own people may have sounded sweetly persuasive and self-reassuring
at first, but many of us now are beginning to wise up to the deceit that
they are mere pretext for the elite to maintain a ruthless control over the
people and exclude them from participating in the political and
nation-building process.
The announcement that the Nobel Peace Prize winner for 2003 is a muslim
human rights activist who is also a woman must have caused many embarrassed
faces among leaders of muslim nations. Not only did it remind the world of
the sorry state of human rights in muslim nations, but it also undermined
all pretensions that we have about ensuring human rights in the way that
suits us best, the muslim way, or the OIC way. To show that the west are
not the only ones concerned about human rights, the OIC approved the Islamic
Human Rights Declaration at its foreign ministers meeting in Cairo in 1981,
something that is perhaps little known to the muslim bureaucrats themselves
who were busily checking on the last details of the Kuala Lumpur meeting
before the arrival of "the big guns". Ironically the Islamic Human Rights
Declaration was Iran's initiative, which was quite understandable as it was
then receiving criticisms from the international community for its summary
justice against opponents of the Islamic Revolution. 20 years on, nobody
talks anymore of the re-invented Human Rights wheel as muslim governments
are the among the worst abusers of the basic rights of their own people.
Today, free of the ideological constraints of the Cold War, the world is
more rational in discussing human rights issues and into accepting one
common standard. After all, the 1948 Universal Declaration, even if the
majority of muslim and 3rd world nations were not yet inexistence when this
was framed, when viewed objectively, the basic principles of the Declaration
are truly universal, acceptable to the moral teachings of all the great
religions and secular humanism. Furthermore human rights discourse has
evolved very significantly especially after the Cold War and to say that it
is the preserve of western governments is inaccurate. That western
governments are hypocritical and selective in their judgement of human
rights practices in third world and muslim nations is no basis for
re-inventing the wheel, for there's no reason why they too should not be
judged by the same standard.
Finally, at the level of individuals, many among the educated middle class
are still not comfortable, may even harbour a strong distrust towards the
idea of a universal standard for human rights, swayed no doubt by the
argument that it is an alien western concept with too much emphasis of
individual rights. Most are probably unaware of the existence of the
Islamic Declaration, which on the core issues do not differ with the
Universal Declaration in spirit. Conferring the Nobel Peace Prize to a
muslim woman is viewed as a devious and deliberate attempt at secularizing
an insular traditional muslim society. Here too, we should set aside our
religious - ideological baggage and view things objectively-human rights as
human rights. The Norwegian Award Committee said it chose her because of
her focus on promoting human rights and democracy in her country. Shirin
Ebadi is not the typical muslim feminist whose idea of liberation for muslim
women is transplanting western social norms into muslim societies. In an
interview with the German daily, Tageszeitung, she pointed out that muslim
women who wear religious headscarves do not see it as a sign of submission
and often feel stronger than men, dismissing the muslim feminists' popular
contention that the muslim woman's hijab is a symbol of religious
oppression. Although media reports tended to place emphasis on her struggle
for the rights of women in Iran, to stress the feminist aspect of the award
does not do justice to the breadth of her work as a lawyer. Other than
her focus on promoting the rights of women, she helped found the Society for
Protecting the Child's Rights in Iran and she was also actively involved in
the struggle for refugee rights. But her best known engagement which led to
her subsequent brief imprisonment was working as the lawyer representing the
families of writers and intellectuals who were victims of the 1998 - 1999
"serial murders", where officials of the government of conservative clerics
were implicated. However, being an opponent of the repressive policies of
the hard-line religious government does not mean that she would welcome
western, especially US intervention for regime change in Iran.
It is refreshing to hear a voice like Ebadi's that strives for justice and
democracy, but still working within the tradition of Islam. The Norwegian
Nobel committee citation states that "with Islam as her starting point,
Ebadi campaigns for peaceful solution to social problems, and promotes new
thinking on Islamic terms. She has displayed great personal courage as a
lawyer defending individuals and groups who have fallen victim to a powerful
political and legal system that is legitimized through an inhumane
interpretation of Islam. Ebadi has shown her willingness and ability to
cooperate with representatives of secular as well as religious view".
She is certainly not the first Iranian to advocate such reforms.
Intellectuals like Abdul Karim Shoroush and reformist President Khatami have
long echoed similar views, at times at some personal cost. In the 70's Ali
Shariati's impassioned speeches awakened the consciousness of Iranian youths
for an Islam that places great emphasis on social justice and democratic
principles, throwing their weight behind the revolution, only to be hijacked
later by the conservative clerics. The experience of post-revolution Iran
and Afghanistan under the Taliban are lessons enough that the sway of
conservative fundamentalism will unlikely hold on for very long in muslim
societies.
Dr. Mazeni Alwi
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