If Dickens lived today, perhaps he would have included as well, “the strangest of times”, for that is really all that could be said of what is occurring lately at the UN Human Rights Council.
Some days it is hard to not read about current events and question whether our world has slipped into madness overnight, or perhaps it is us who has crossed the boundaries into some twisted alternate version of our own sane world, where eerie music and Rod Serling’s voice will soon inform us that we too have entered that fifth dimension between knowledge and fear known as the Twilight Zone.
In March, a proposal was brought before the UN Human Rights Council which in effect suggested that defamation of religion of any kind, but especially in regards to the Islam religion, be considered an offense against human rights and a criminal action.
The proposal passed without so much as a general awareness of what had just occurred. The proposal reads fairly innocuously enough; it ’sounds’ like a lot of human rights-ish literature, and for the most part is very general, until about 2/3 the way through, and then it spells it out. This is about stamping out negative press on the Islam religion.
Can I understand people not liking negative things said about their beliefs? Absolutely. And do I recognize that there are a lot of countries out there that don’t have the same snarky sensibilities that many westerners do? Of course. So they don’t get our humor and enjoyment at poking fun at every. single. thing. in our path. Fair enough.
But if it is possible for freedom of speech on a world stage to take a HUGE step backwards, we’ve just seen it happen, and it has occurred quietly. The fallout from this in the long-term is hard to predict, but it will absolutely have its effects.
It will affect people in any Islam-dominant country seeking to speak out against a theocratic-based government (think recent events in Iran). It will affect journalists in those countries trying to report on events occurring — the basic act of doing their job could become interpreted as a criminal offense if someone does not like what they are saying.
At its extreme even a person trying to switch from the Islam religion, leave the Islam religion, or practice any other religion in those countries may find themselves unable to, due to how this policy plays itself out. It will further suppress the rights of women in any of those areas, because to speak out could be considered speaking out against the tenets of their faith; the consequences of which could cost them their lives, has already cost the lives of many women seeking the right to be acknowledged as human beings.
What I’m curious about is what this UN Council will do when some radical Islam group decides to declare ‘jihad’ on some Christian or Jewish group. What then? Will the UNHRC step in and speak out against that as a Human Rights violation according to this new defamation of religion ruling, despite only the Islam religion being specified in this proposal?
Or instead, will they say that the term infidel and the flag burning was directed at the political system of the country in question and not the dominant religion base. And certainly referring to the entirety of western civilization as the Great Satan doesn’t really count because Christians don’t actually worship and/or acknowledge Satan as a religious symbol, thus it really isn’t wholly defamatory. More just like a little sand kicking between friends.
And why do they include humanists, atheists, agnostics, and other non-Judeo-Christians living in North America into that mix? Are they collateral damage? Simply guilty by association? Guilty by virtue of birth on a specific landmass?
Then there’s that whole Palestine/Israel situation. Is it just that the Muslims there were being good neighbours and returning the artillery gained in mutual exchange? Isn’t that what good neighbours do? What about all those anti-Semitic epithets? Do those get white washed? Negated as religious defamations, explained away as racially or culturally based, thus having nothing to do with religion?
However, if anyone non-Islamic (Christian, Jewish,… anyone living in the general vicinity of the North American continent) begins posturing or gets mouthy, will the UNHRC immediately cry foul? When so much is interconnected between church and state in the world of Islam, how is it even possible to say anything regarding anyone of an Arabic background without there being a possibility of religious defamation connotation?
And where does this leave writers, journalists and broadcasters? What is the possibility that they can be targetted in their own countries? Will it come to that? Will there eventually be a gag order on them regarding the Islam religion, but all other religions are basically fair game? Will it become a case of, “Well officially ALL religions are covered under this ruling but we’re only prosecuting those who target Islam”?
Whose hands will be strengthened here in our own country and in what ways? How will this be twisted? There are enough people in our own backyards itching to ban some book or music based on a narrow-minded view of acceptability and religious fervor. Will this proposal give them the justification to light the bonfires of self-righteous zeal again? Is censorship seeping back into our lives?
What does the future hold? Will we someday see guerilla journalism, where reporters converge like some surreal terrorist group intent not to destroy with bombs, but with facts and truths, while the world becomes dominated by Ministries who know best, whose politics are enforced by Thought Police.
Too much dystopian bleakness? Perhaps. But when facing a juggernaut of “world going crazy”, and thus far Stan Lee’s mutants haven’t decided to jump the comic books into the insanity, a person can either turn a blind eye and hope it all just magically goes away (it’s easiest), or have a totally useless rant.
It is simple to overlook hyperbolic commentary with a shrug and complacently console ourselves that only in movies and literature do our worst fears and nightmares truly exist. Yet perhaps it is equally effortless to overlook that the road to human rights and freedoms is a long and bloody one, a costly one. Losing ground on that road should never be taken lightly.
I certainly do not espouse any form of prejudism or limitation to freedom of any kind. The reality is if both sides are wrong, neither can be right, and prejudism is never right. Sustaining human rights and freedoms for everyone will always be right and worth working for, worth sacrificing for. But it is always the harder road.
One of the things my parents taught me growing up, and I firmly believe to this day, is that respect cannot be demanded, it is earned by first being given. One doesn’t build tolerance by jamming the principle down the throat of another, or by stripping away rights and freedoms. It doesn’t work that way. It all goes back to the very simple golden rule “Do unto others…”. It isn’t that hard a concept to understand or even to practice.
Personally, I enjoy the right to NOT read or NOT listen to whatever I choose NOT to, and vice versa. I enjoy the right to worship or NOT worship as my conscience guides me. I enjoy the right to criticize the ridiculous where I see it, and wholly expect that someone has the right to point it out in me when it exists (which is probably a little too frequently; all’s fair!).
Differences of opinion have a place and a purpose, it is a part of the checks and balances that attempt to keep people, organizations, governments, religions, etc, honest (?!) and responsible, as far as possible. Take those away, and we recede back into the dark ages; we may as well go back to sitting around campfires dressed in animal fur, grunting monosyllabically at each other.
Dialectics (aka oral explorations)