I don’t normally like to agree with Republican Representatives, but I’m afraid this one time I’m going to have to. Actually I think I’ll see his bet and raise it.
A US lawmaker has urged Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to push back against the “criminalization of speech deemed critical of Islam” at a meeting next week of the world’s largest Muslim body.
In a December 8 letter, Republican Representative Ted Poe pressed Clinton to use a December 12-14 meeting of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in Washington to address the issue.
What.the.fuck.
What the fuck is Clinton doing having a meeting of the fucking OIC in Washington?!
When’s the last time Clinton held a meeting of the Organization of Christian Cooperation (formerly the Organization of the Christian Conference) in Washington? Oh that’s right, never, because there isn’t one.
Does Clinton have a clue what the OIC is? She must, being the Secretary of State…but then what the hell is the administration doing inviting it to Washington.
Remember the Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam? There’s an examination of it in Does God Hate Women? Here’s a little refresher.
The Member States of the Organization of the Islamic Conference,
Reaffirming the civilizing and historical role of the Islamic Ummah which God made the best nation that has given mankind a universal and well-balanced civilization in which harmony is established between this life and the hereafter and knowledge is combined with faith; and the role that this Ummah should play to guide a humanity confused by competing trends and ideologies and to provide solutions to the chronic problems of this materialistic civilization.
Wishing to contribute to the efforts of mankind to assert human rights, to protect man from exploitation and persecution, and to affirm his freedom and right to a dignified life in accordance with the Islamic Shari’ah…
…
ARTICLE I:
(a) All human beings form one family whose members are united by submission to God and descent from Adam. All men are equal in terms of basic human dignity and basic obligations and responsibilities, without any discrimination on the grounds of race, color, language, sex, religious belief, political affiliation, social status or other considerations. True faith is the guarantee for enhancing such dignity along the path to human perfection.
(b)All human beings are God’s subjects, and the most loved by Him are those who are most useful to the rest of His subjects, and no one has superiority over another except on the basis of piety and good deeds.
…
ARTICLE 9: (a) The question for knowledge is an obligation and the provision of education is a duty for society and the State. The State shall ensure the availability of ways and means to acquire education and shall guarantee educational diversity in the interest of society so as to enable man to be acquainted with the religion of Islam and the facts of the Universe for the benefit of mankind.
(b) Every human being has the right to receive both religious and worldly education from the various institutions of, education and guidance, including the family, the school, the university, the media, etc., and in such an integrated and balanced manner as to develop his personality, strengthen his faith in God and promote his respect for and defense of both rights and obligations.
ARTICLE 10:
Islam is the religion of unspoiled nature. It is prohibited to exercise any form of compulsion on man or to exploit his poverty or ignorance in order to convert him to another religion or to atheism.…
ARTICLE 12: Every man shall have the right, within the framework of Shari’ah, to free movement and to select his place of residence whether inside or outside his country and if persecuted, is entitled to seek asylum in another country. The country of refuge shall ensure his protection until he reaches safety, unless asylum is motivated by an act which Shari’ah regards as a crime.
When it says “man” it means man, not human being. That’s one of the many ways the Cairo Declaration re-wrote the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to make it sharia-compliant.
The Cairo Declaration is the work of the OIC.
It’s an outrage that Hillary Clinton held a meeting of the OIC.
Where’s the upshot of this for America’s interests at home or abroad? I doubt that Islamic regimes will care either way, or turn down whatever we offer them in military aid.
You know we’re in trouble when Democrats aren’t even willing to pay lip service to actual human rights.
I wonder what other major world documents would look like rewritten to appease certain religious groups.
Well, if the article in Forbes is anything to go by, the Secretary of State is doing more than inviting the OIC to Washington. It seems that the US is now prepared to accept the UN resolution put forward by the OIC, and so effectively, anti-religious speech will be outlawed. Please tell me that Washington is not that stupid!Eamon at CFI Ottawa thinks there is too much creeping Sharia in the Forbes article. Is there? Am I being paranoid? Is there no reason for concern here over and above Clinton’s arranging for an OIC meeting in Washington? I think the whole thing stinks, and someone had better tell her so before she makes a big mistake and damages her chances of reelection next time round (if she elects to go as Obama’s running mate).
It’s via your post on the Forbes article, and the Forbes article, that I went looking around for this, Eric. I was hoping for a source other than Forbes, and didn’t find what I wanted, but did find this, which is at least helpful background. Clinton co-chaired an OIC meeting in Istanbul in July…which is horrifying to me. I want to find more info.
Good catch. Sec.S. Hillary should get off of this bus, like, now. Preferably even sooner.
But of course, then there is the small matter of the price of coal in Killingsworth, New South Wales. And the coming blockade of the Straits of Hormuz, and the Iranian nuke program, intermittently thwarted by – apparently – Israel. Well, who can we pray to? Whom to trust, eh? Bad faith is bad.
I had a dream, once, about a tv series with John Cleese as Teh Evild running the Apocalypse Boogaloo from Brazil to The Holy Land of Holocaust. This was 30+ years ago and I haven’t seen it since, so I hope it wasn’t preminiscient. Or perhaps I did really dream it? Please. LET ME OUT
Are there any practical implications of this though?
Whatever the US does in the UN , this resolution would be clearly unconstitutional within the US right?
But yeah – what the fuck?
There seems to be a few contradictions among those articles, and one or two completely unsupported assertions. I think that when Henry Ford told customers for the Model T that they could have any colour they liked as long as it was black he was making a joke. The Islamists seem to be such humourless bunch that I doubt that they even know what a joke is. So when they say that you can have any religion you like as long as it conforms to the tenets of Islam, I don’t think that they are joking.
As for submission to Allah, isn’t he supposed to be all powerful? If he wants me to submit to him, why doesn’t he use his super-powers to make me? Allah is terrified of atheists because he is dependent on believers to exist. Once the last Islamist realises that he is imaginary, he will be sent to the densly packed graveyard of the gods. He, or rather, his followers know this, hence their desperate measures to keep their tinkerbell alive.
The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation is concerned – desperately concerned – with the treatment of Muslims in Europe and America. Their hearts bleed. Yet, somehow, I haven’t heard them speak against the oppression of the Coptic people of Egypt; the Assyrians of Iraq; the Bahá’í of Iran and Christians in majority Islamic countries from Pakistan to Somalia. And, despite their sinister, self-righteous responses to the supposed defamation of Islam and Muslims in the West, I haven’t heard them touch upon the popularity of Mein Kampf and the Protocols across the Middle East. It’s almost as if their concern for human rights isn’t entirely sincere. In fact – it isn’t.
The UN just passed a resolution specifically without the OIC’s religious criticism language (as Ed noted last week), and Clinton has been leading the way in getting that kind of crap taken out. So I think it’s more likely that you’re getting taken in by right-wing “Obama/Clinton are promoting Sharia and giving the UN sovereignty over us” bullshit, than that you actually agree with them.
@ Ophelia:
That, and the fact that their definition of humanity is even more limited, IMO. Every paragraph posits the equation of humanity (or at least the portion of humanity entitled to human rights) with “faithful and observant Muslims living under Shariah in an Islamic state”:
The OIC is working very hard to redefine “universal human rights” in a way compatible with Sudan or Saudi Arabia!
I wonder what could motivate Sen. Clinton to even get in talks with them. The question of economic negotiations jumps to mind, of course. Oil-rich states have a strong card to play, especially in times of recession. And then, there are the sanctions on Iran, and the advantages for the USA of their endorsement, even tacitly, by other Islamic states…
Oops. Thanks, Midnight Rambler! Great moniker, BTW 😉
Now, I’m rethinking my last paragraph: it’s more like Clinton getting in talks with the OIC to make them swallow the fact that the US and UN have put their foot down. Good diplomacy is efficient diplomacy.
MR – well that’s why I looked for other sources. And you may be right, but I still think giving the OIC legitimacy is a crappy idea. It’s just a bunch of unelected heads of state pretending to be an organization of “Islamic states” – whatever they are. I don’t think the US should act as if it has standing.
Irene – I know – I did the same kind of underlining in the book. Many of the clauses end with “provided they are consistent with sharia,” which of course neatly guts whatever “right” has just been declared.
But the CD also does specifically use “man” which the UDHR carefully (and even surprisingly, to me) does not. That ain’t the default “man” – because of course woman does not have the right to move around freely…under sharia.
Rrr wrote:
I think you’re thinking of the ITV series Whoops Apocalypse! in which international spy-for-hire Lacrobat (Cleese) steals one of six prototypes of the latest U.S. thermonuclear weapon, the Quark Bomb, and smuggles it across the U.S. and the Atlantic and ultimately to Israel. Along the way he disguises the bomb as a six-foot phallic idol and a coffin, among other things. This is one of several threads in the plot, all ultimately leading to WWIII (including the successor to the Shah of Iran being trapped on a cross-Channel ferry because neither France nor the UK want to deal with him, two elderly American tourists being held in Moscow on seemingly ludicrous espionage charges, etc.).
The series originally aired in 1982, so it’s actually not quite 30 years. And you didn’t dream it.
Talking to groups such as the OIC is Clinton’s modus operandi. She may disagree with their aims as vehemently as we do, but she believes that a dialog is the only way forward.
Take a look at the transcript of the (rather impressive) speech she gave to a UN meeting last month ( http://www.dallasvoice.com/transcript-secretary-state-hillary-clintons-speech-today-lgbt-rights-1096073.html ).
Quote:
“Universal human rights include freedom of expression and freedom of belief, even if our words or beliefs denigrate the humanity of others. Yet, while we are each free to believe whatever we choose, we cannot do whatever we choose, not in a world where we protect the human rights of all.
“Reaching understanding of these issues takes more than speech. It does take a conversation. In fact, it takes a constellation of conversations in places big and small. And it takes a willingness to see stark differences in belief as a reason to begin the conversation, not to avoid it.”
I’m glad you’re looking into this Ophelia, as WTF was certainly my reaction.
To shed some more light on the US policy in the Muslim world: “End of the pro-democracy pretence”, by Glenn Greenwald.
Highlights:
In this context, talks with members of the OIC don’t come as very surprising if the USA want to score points with the Islamic politicians in the Arab world, even though they are no more pro-Human Rights than the secular dictatorships of the region. The US policy hasn’t changed, but the problem feels more acute because unlike nationalist dictators, the Islamists want to propagate their ideology to other countries, including to the Muslim minorities who live in Western societies.