The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation has strongly condemned recent Qur’an burnings in Sweden and Denmark as “despicable acts of aggression” and called on intervention by the United Nations amid a growing diplomatic crisis.
A special session of the body of foreign ministers met virtually on Monday, on the same day as a further protest involving the desecration of the Muslim holy book took place outside the Swedish parliament.
In a 35-point action plan, the OIC, which represents 57 states, called on the UN secretary general to appoint a special rapporteur on combating Islamophobia and urged all governments to fully implement existing law or adopt new legislation if needed, citing the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. » | M iranda Bryant in Stockholm | Tuesday, August 1, 2023
This is nonsense! There is clearly a linguistic misunderstanding here. A phobia is not a HATRED of, but a FEAR of something. The word derives from the Greek Φόβος which itself derives from the mythological Greek god Phobos, who had a special talent to be able to inspire fear and panic in others. How can one legislate against people’s fears? It simply CANNOT be done. No more than any government or authority can introduce legislation to make people love something or somebody.
It should be obvious to all by now that Islamophobia is a problem, and a growing one; but tackling it lies not in Western legislation; rather, the solution lies in changing legislation in Islamic countries.
Westerners have every reason to be fearful of Islam and its growth here in Western countries. They see on their TV screens, on the Internet, and they read in their newspapers the atrocious treatment that Islamic governments mete out to their citizens for relatively trivial misdemeanours, and often to people who, in our eyes, commit no crime whatsoever.
If the UN wants to eliminate Islamophobia—and I am certain that they do (and should)—the Organisation needs to start piling pressure on countries governed by Islamic law—Shar’iah law—not on Western governments. The UN needs to work towards Islamic governments respecting UNIVERSAL HUMAN RIGHTS. Most of them do not respect human rights. There are so many examples that could be cited; but here are just a few: the brutal treatment in Iran of women not wearing, or wishing to wear, the hijab; people being put to death in many Muslim-majority countries simply for being homosexual, a nature and predisposition most gays can do absolutely NOTHING about – they are simply born with this proclivity; and so many Muslims are jailed (and brutally treated whilst incarcerated) as ‘political prisoners simply for having different viewpoints than the government’s. Need I go on?
Then there is the problem with Islam itself. It is the indisputable belief of all devout Muslims that Islam will one day conquer the whole world. In their view, the whole wide world belongs to Allah; so, it must be Islamized for Him. The sooner, the better. Well-informed Westerners know this, so is there any wonder that Islamophobia is growing here in the Western world?
If the UN, if Islamic governments, and if Muslims want to combat this growing problem, they need to look East not West! Their behaviour needs to be modified, their laws need to be changed or modified, so that our fears can be eradicated. Ergo, the solution to this thorny problem lies not in the Occident, but in the Orient. – © Mark Alexander
