I could add 'Orwellian' to that title. My comment in the post
yesterday prompted this post. Yesterday ended the presentation to the 40th Council of Foreign Ministers the 6th OIC Observatory report on Islamophobia [
report:pdf]. You can make up your own mind about Islamophobia
(a) here or
(b) here (pdf). I tend towards the (b) link and concur with the dozen writers (including Salman Rushdie and Ayaan Hirsi Ali) who
a few years ago - after
this incident - declared "
After having overcome fascism, Nazism, and Stalinism, the world now faces a new global threat: Islamism...". Soeren Kern at
Gateway The Gatestone Institute highlights a key point to the OIC report: "
The common thread that binds the entire document together is the OIC's repeated insistence that the main culprit responsible for "the institutionalization of Islamophobia" in Western countries is freedom of speech." It is not an exaggeration to say that when you read the report (if you don't fancy that just read the two pages of conclusions and recommendations, pages 33 and 34; everything after that is annexes anyway) what Soeren says is true and highlights a massive contradiction, from the OIC:
"Many distorted facts and ill conceived ideas about Islam... ...include the perception that Islam is linked to terror; that it is intolerant of other religious beliefs, that its values and practices are incompatible with modern democratic systems; that it favours repression of freedom of expression and undermining human rights and other misperceptions." Errm, can anyone point out how any of that [edited 4pm] is distorting facts or ill-conceiving something? And then their recommendations in the report: their solution to stop people thinking they want to repress freedom of expression is by repressing freedom of expression! FFS. A suggestion OIC: take one step back and look at the causes of "Islamophobia".
2 comments:
Not only a massive contradiction but also a high level of paranoia - although it has to be said there is plenty of that on both sides.
The (b) link is also the one I would agree with, I find the treatment of women and minority groups truly appalling and as the report says Islam has not undergone any reformation process since the 7th century, it really is a medieval religion/political system.
Incidentally a couple of weeks ago this report was published http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/11/12/us-arab-women-idUSBRE9AB00820131112 (sorry I couldn't do the HTML thingy!) which shows that Muslim countries don't do themselves much good in the PR department.
You are definitely right re medieval religion/political system and it never fails to surprise me how our (UK, EU, US) politicians ignore that obvious fact. That Egypt thing is a surprise and not a surprise at the same time. Most Egyptians I meet are well spoken well educated and reasonably 'Western' but the you read the percent of women/girls in Egypt that suffer FGM and shudder!
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