Has the Whole World Gone Mad?
By PaganPower on June 29, 2008 at 3:45 PM in Barack Obama, Islam, Sharia Law, UN Human Rights Council
Does the practice of female genital mutilation concern you? What about child marriage? Stoning female adulterers to death? Well don’t bring it up to the UN Human Rights Council because such talk is forbidden there. What say you? You mean it is verboten to ask the UN Human Rights Council to intervene in these barbaric practices? And sadly the answer is yes. Why? Because the practices are a part of a radical Islamic law and thus protected under the auspices of the United Nations.
UN ‘Human Rights Council’ bans criticism of Islam
The UN ‘Human Rights Council’ decided this week that it is forbidden to criticize Islam because “religious issues can be “very complex, very sensitive and very intense…This council is not prepared to discuss religious matters in depth, consequently we should not do it.” From now on, only religious scholars would be permitted to broach ‘religious matters’ before the Council.
So if you have a problem with a practice that is barbaric and inhuman you can’t ask the UN Human Rights Council to intervene. Not if that practice just so happens to be sanctioned by some nutjob that believes the practice is blessed by what he calls God. And yeah, I know that these same nutjobs believe that they also have the right to put out a hit on me for making the allegation. I am not only a non-believer, I am an infidel. An infidel that couldn’t care squat what some wacko Grand Sheikh says.
The ban came after a heated session on Monday, when the representative of the Association for World Education (AWE), in a joint statement with the International Humanist and Ethical Union, denounced female genital mutilation, the penalty of stoning for adultery and child marriage as sanctioned by Islamic law. Egypt, Pakistan and Iran angrily protested, interrupting the AWE speaker, David Littman, with no less than 16 points of order, and succeeding in getting the Council’s proceedings suspended for over half an hour.
It is especially peculiar that Shia Iran aligned itself with the Sunni nations of Egypt and Pakistan.
Imran Ahmed Siddiqui, the representative from Pakistan, echoed the ever-echoing refrain of all Islamic apologists in the West, when he complained that Littman’s initiative on genital mutilation, stoning and child marriage amounted to an “out-of-context, selective discussion on the Sharia law.” He asked that Littman not be allowed to speak: “I would therefore request the president to exercise his judgment and authority and request the speaker not to touch issues which have already been debarred from discussion in this Council.”
So there are certain things we can’t bring up at the dinner table we call the United Nations? Even if it is a chat about barbaric practices sanctioned by the radical offshoot of a religion by some Grand Poobah that issues a fatwa and justifies it as something consistent with Sharia law?
This is a form of madness, in my opinion.
I thought that the word Islam was supposed to mean peace. But for radical Islamists, peace requires remaining silent on the matters of genital mutilation, child marriages and the stoning to death of female adulterers. If you ignore those and of course those pesky little jihads then radical Islam is pretty chill. Unfortunately, diplomats from Egypt, Pakistan, and Iran are enabling the radicals by refusing to challenge these extremist views.
This is about the Sharia law.” Pakistan’s Siddiqui added: “I would like to state again that this is not the forum to discuss religious sensitivity.” Why not? Again sounding notes that are increasingly familiar in any discussion of the elements of Islam that jihadists and Sharia supremacists use to justify oppression, Siddiqui explained: “It will amount to spreading hatred against certain members of the Council. I mean, it has happened before also that selective discussions were raised in the Council to demonize a particular group.” He addressed Costea: “So we would again request you to please use your authority to bar any such discussion again, at the Council.”
Oh! So we cannot discuss these matters because it might make some people look bad. Isn’t that the fricking point? Is it now considered not ok to address some of the most horrid abuses of human rights because if we did so it might offend someone?
After more discussion, a recess, and another warning from the representative from Egypt, Littman was finally allowed to proceed. After noting that “almost 90% of the female population in the north of Sudan undergo FGM which, in many cases, is practiced in its most extreme form known as infibulation,” Littman declared: “We believe that only a fatwa from Al-Azhar Grand Sheikh Sayyed Tantawi – replacing the ambiguous fatwas of 1949, 1951 and 1981 – will change this barbaric, criminal practice, which is now growing even in Europe.”
At this point Egypt interrupted, complaining that “this is an attempt to raise a bad traditional practice to Islam. Sheikh Al-Azhar [Sayyed Tantawi] is the president of the largest and the biggest and the oldest Islamic university in the world.” He exclaimed: “My point is that Islam will not be crucified in this Council. That’s why we are challenging this ruling” – that is, Costea’s decision to allow Littman to deliver his address.
Crucifying Islam? This is at best a reprehensible statement. Islam does not practice Christianity. But these folks and their radical interpretation of Islam apparently believe that it is okay to make a mockery out of Christianity. Who would anyone complain to after all?
According to these insane people and their heinous form of religion, the mutilation of female genitalia is an honor. Yes, you read that right.
An honor.
Yet an Islamic legal manual endorsed by Al-Azhar states that circumcision is required “for both men and women” (‘Umdat al-Salik, e4.3). And Tantawi himself has said, according to Geneive Abdo, author of No God But God: Egypt and the Triumph of Islam, that female circumcision is “a laudable practice that [does] honor to women.”
So line up ladies. And let these self declared ministers of peace honor you. After all, it’s a religious tradition and you wouldn’t want to offend anyone.
Would you?
Not only does this shameful episode bode ill for the human rights of women in the Islamic world; it also represents another victory in the war against free speech that Islamic supremacists have been pursuing with particular energy lately, calling on Western authorities to prosecute Dutch politician Geert Wilders for his film Fitna and Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard for his drawing of Muhammad with a bomb in his turban, and in general to outlaw what they perceive as insults to Islam.
You might imagine that with a name like Pagan I might understand a thing or two about discrimination and distortion of what I practice as a religion. As old as my religion is there is one thing that has been a principle from the start. Men and women are equals. And the law applies to everyone.
So if my point of view offends you please know that I am the one offended. Because my religion requires that I speak out when anyone is treated with less respect than which they are entitled by the Goddess. This latest incident at the UN is a sad reminder that the task of rooting out the hatred that fuels much of the terrorism is difficult and, ironically, being thwarted by the very people who suffer its consequences. We need to be able to talk about difficult things in international fora. If we cannot discuss the matter then what other alternative remains but to fight? That’s not a guaranteed path for world peace if you ask me.
by Ronald Scott
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