The Uneven Response of Islam to Universal Human Rights

**cooterhein** · 06-29-2016

In 1948, the UN adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It was the first global expression of what rights all human beings are entitled to. It holds the distinction of being the most-translated document in the world, and is understood by many international lawyers as being part of customary international law. It is a fundamental constitutive document of the United Nations.
Many Islamic countries, most notably Turkey, signed on and praised the document. Saudi Arabia was a notable opponent that offered some harsh criticism. Pakistan would later lodge a formal disagreement with these criticisms. Most African countries at this point were not a part of the UN, so it didn't really apply to them.

Later, in 1990, the Cairo Declaration of Human Rights in Islam was created. Countries like Egypt, Saudi, Iran, Syria, and Afghanistan signed on. It affirmed much of what the Universal Declaration said, but it upheld the inequalities inherent in Islamic law. To clarify, these countries are generally known as bad actors when it comes to human rights, the treatment of women, and religious freedom, but they went out of their way to protect Islam and uphold inequities in the name of Islamic sharia.

You can probably tell where I stand on this, but I want to put this out there for a random group of Muslims to comment on. What do you think of the different options that Islamic countries had available to them? Should they have all gotten on board with the Universal Declaration? Is the Cairo document something that you're sympathetic toward, or do you view it as a mistake, an embarrassment, or something that is used to prop up evil in the name of Islam?

And in general, from you as a Muslim to me as a Christian in the United States, what do you want me to know about either of these documents and about a particular kind of Islamic approach to this sort of issue?

**cooterhein** · 07-02-2016

Originally Posted by najimuddin

Are they democracies?

Everyone in the GCC at this point is some kind of monarchy, and the two most probable new members- if it does expand- are also monarchies, if I'm not mistaken. I think Iraq is the only possible future member that's not a monarchy, and they may not ever be a full member.

**cooterhein** · 07-02-2016

Originally Posted by Eric H

Greetings and peace be with you cooterhein;

A list of countries America has bombed since WW2, millions have died. Presumably, these bombings do not come under any human rights issues, or America would be at the bottom of the list.

Ask yourself, does this help to answer the questions that I've been asking? Please remember that putting someone else down does not raise yourself up. Raising yourself up raises yourself up, that'll do the trick.

**AhmedGassama** · 07-03-2016

Originally Posted by cooterhein

Well, 1948 was the first time ever for a credible effort at getting the entire planet on the same page with this type of thing. Since that have never happened before....bad planet?

I'm not sure what type of response people are looking for when they assert that they used to be so much better than they currently are.

That wasn't at all what I asked about in the OP. I'm asking about how Muslim countries treat non-Muslims from country to country, acknowledging that there are differences from one to the next with a curiosity as to exactly why that is. Almost everyone who's responded seems to be dissatisfied with that as a starting point and all you want to talk about is "What about our grievances against you, or anyone else?" And I've had about enough of that.

After the WW1 and the WW2 which was caused by the countries of the West, as a matter of a fact, one of the reasons of the WW was because the countries of the west were fighting each other to invade the Arab countries and the African countries. After they destroyed the world, they made that "incredible effort" to protect themselves!

but the question is are they recognizing human rights for all humans in the earth or are they recognizing human only for themselves ? Is this how we need to defend human rights ?

Anyhow, yes, all civilizations must be in a contest to make for this world a better place and to promote human rights. but of course they do not need to be in a contest of defending human rights in the way that the western countries are doing today! you agree, right ?

You asked us a question, i replied to you and then i asked you the same question and i'm expecting an answer from you in your next post!

As for your question of asking about how the Muslim countries treat non-muslim countries, well then, we need to return back to the Quran. And the Quran told us to defend the oppressed people. So when for example the western countries make carnages like the carnage they did against the Indians in the new world, well then, Muslims must defend them!
As for peaceful countries, Muslims need to be peaceful to them and never start hostility against them and if we attack them, then that's against Islam.
But if they are not peaceful like the countries of the west now, we need to fight them! not to fight the innocent people but to fight only those who fight us.
So, your country Mr. Cooterhein, is oppressing people everywhere in the world now! And if we Muslims were strong, we would [fight for justice]. But it's okay, every civilization has it's ups and downs, we are weak now, but when we will become strong we will fight the oppressive countries again and we will spread justice and peace and listen to this, we will spread REAL HUMAN RIGHTS!

Now, reply to my question!

**Search** · 07-03-2016

(In the Name of God, the Most Beneficent, the Most Merciful)

Yes, in a way, it does answer your question, cooterhain. Your original thread title is, "The Uneven Response of Islam to Universal Human Rights." I'd object to the title because as I've already explained to you here and other Muslims I'm sure would agree, no Muslim-majority country today represents the ideals of Islam in itself. Therefore, Muslim-majority countries' response to universal human rights cannot be said to be the same or even equivalent to the teachings of Islam. A heinous example of that is honor killing. Honor killing in Islam is haram (forbidden), yet countries like Pakistan (which is a third-world country) has a systematic inequality for its indigent population and has one of the poorest literacy rates in the world, engages in this forbidden practice due to cultural strains dominating over Islam.

Secondly, I did address your assumptions in a previous post on page 3 and already informed you on why from even an anthropological perspective the document is imposition of neocolonialism and an attempt at redefining cultural standards to suit First World hegemonic ideals. I do not blame other countries for not signing on the document; if I was another country, I'd refrain from signing onto the document as a conscientious objector on the grounds that my unique culture's needs are made to be subservient to the dominance and hegemony of First World's ideals which I might in some cases not share and that should be seen as my right to not share. If this document was again presented to be signed in the modern context today, I'd this time object on the grounds of a conscientious objector on the grounds that I refuse to sign onto a document that Allies in the First World continually violate without any repercussions and the dominant discourse is on presumably bad actors in other regions because it is easier to point fingers than to look inside one's own collar.

Also, EricH is a Christian like yourself, but one of the things that I love about him as a person and respected member here is that his humanity, compassion, and empathy shine through his posts, and he sees human suffering, not sides.

Originally Posted by cooterhein

Ask yourself, does this help to answer the questions that I've been asking? Please remember that putting someone else down does not raise yourself up. Raising yourself up raises yourself up, that'll do the trick.

**kritikvernunft** · 07-03-2016

What about international law, which deals with a whole lot of non-Muslims? Why should international law be subject to Quranic interpretation?

International treaties are only permissible if they do not conflict with Islamic law. Otherwise, they are void and not applicable to Muslims. In that sense, is a question of making sure during the negotiations that such treaty remains halal. Otherwise, Muslims, regardless of their countries of origin or residence, will be forced to regard the treaty as being unlawful.

As you can imagine, in these days of suicide bombing and wholesale shootouts, that ruthlessly decimate the pagans by the dozens, it has become very dangerous practice to attempt to enforce rules contrary to Islam against Muslims. Islamic law really has dangerous teeth. It amounts to venturing into a hornets nest. If you don't do anything rash, once in a while one of the more aggressive hornets will sting you, just for the hell of doing so. If you make sudden movements, however, they form an attack swarm and sting you in large numbers. Therefore, you would only have made the problem worse. Better not to do anything rash. But then again, your presence in the hornets nest disturbs the hornets, and therefore, the frequency at which individual hornets will sting you, tends to go up and up and up, to the point that in the end it will still look like it were an entire swarm attacking you.

I have extensively studied the hornets nest, and I actually came to the conclusion that you can trivially easily convert to something that also looks like a hornet, meaning that the other hornets will not seek to attack you. At the same time, however, they keep attacking other intruders, but that actually suits me perfectly fine, because I was sick and tired of being inundated with pagan laws anyway. In that sense, I am perfectly ok to let hornets be hornets. It also means that the intruders will never manage to get to the back of the nest, where I am sitting, because of the incessant stinging that goes on. So, yes, Ich bin ein Berliner! ("I am also a native of the city of Berlin"). Irrespective of the rules at the meta-religious level, objects of practical, real world religious engineering will always be required to be useful or else just be ignored. Purely at the mathematical level, usefulness is indeed mostly irrelevant, but in the real world, in terms of producing tools and equipment that embody these theoretical concepts and rules, usefulness does matter. In God we trust and in nothing else.

**sister herb** · 07-03-2016

Originally Posted by cooterhein

Show me an official metric that puts lots of Muslim countries at a superior level to a lot of Western countries when it comes to human rights issues. I haven't seen any such thing. All that I've seen is Western countries at the top, a couple of mostly-Muslim countries near the top group, a few more Muslim countries in the middle, and then no Western countries at the bottom, only Muslim countries. And they're not mostly-Muslim countries, they're exclusively Muslim countries.

What kind of lists have you been looking at?

If you would open your eyes, you could see the western countries at the top of the list "which countries have violated the human rights the most in this world". It´s a long list, containing colonial times, massacres of native populations, robbering the natural resources and believe me, this same continues also at 2016. Also, it´s a typical the western arrogance to see the west at the top (of everything) and not to understand that the same the west has caused many of the social, economical etc problems to others.

And by the way, who´s making the kind of lists you are talking about? The west of course, measuring everything by its own values.

Now we have the situation where "the west" has decided to create their own list of the principles of the human rights, it believes they represent the human nature and it demands that everybody has to accept them and follow them. They forget two things: they think that their way to see the things is the norm and they forget to follow those high principle by themselves when it goes dealing with others.

But those others of course should follow them at every situations.

In the simple: you go to your neighbors home, hit him, insult him, make mess in there and tell to him "you have always treat other people with respect as its the basic value of the human rights". Then when your neighbor will make same to you in your home, you are terrified about his brutality. But he only followed your own example.

**Karl** · 07-03-2016

Originally Posted by *charisma*

Firstly, the UN sucks. Its doing nothing in regards to the palestinian-israeli conflict so I personally dont think they have any validity or authority to tell any country what to do since its quite hypocrital. They only makes moves based on how it affects first world countries. Israel has broken MANY UN resolutions as well as international laws, so what difference does it make what we think?? If the UN allows Israel to continue what its doing then whats the point of their list of "human rights"? The UN can list a million "human rights" but it means nothing if they themselves cannot implement it. So enough about pointing fingers towards countries like saudi arabia and pakistan cuz im 100% sure whatever "rights" their governments deny them, the people will still rather be in their own respective countries than to be palestinians under occupation, isolation, and oppression.

Agreed. The UN totally sucks, mainly because it zealously seeks to foist it's own self-righteous dogmatic worldview onto all races and cultures, even ones who want absolutely nothing to do with it. I suppose that's no wonder really, given that the UN is an organization originally set up by leftists and communist Jews -- their secret agenda being to eventually use the UN to destroy sovereign nations and bring the entire world under the totalitarian boot of a collectivist New World Order. Ever read the Protocols of the Elders of Zion?

The thing is, even if the satanic UN DID fulfil every single thing it claims to stand for, that in itself does NOT universally legitimize the UN anyway. Really the UN is only legitimate to those who actually support it. It is NOT however legitimate to those such as myself who are its sworn enemy. The UN and "international law" is only compatible with atheistic internationalist control freaks. It is NOT compatible with the vast majority of religions, not only Islam, but even Christianity; nor is it compatible with those who simply value freedom and who want live their own domestic lives as they personally deem fit rather than what some internationalist collective of busybodies and complete strangers deem fit.

**kritikvernunft** · 07-03-2016

Originally Posted by Karl

Agreed. The UN totally sucks, mainly because it zealously seeks to foist it's own self-righteous dogmatic worldview onto all races and cultures, even ones who want absolutely nothing to do with it.

In my own way of thinking, we should be grateful to the One God that the UN sucks so badly. If they did not suck, the UN would have even more false credibility, turning them into an even more dangerous false god.

Even in the worst things that may happen, there is always something good and for which we can be grateful to our beloved Master.

Now he has given us the UN, so that we can utilize it as spitting and pissing target, and in that way prove again our total trust in the One true God and our total distrust in this false pagan god. It is only by disbelieving and distrusting everything else that you can prove your faith in the One God.

We simply need things to hate. Life would be so boring without them.

Therefore, I am so grateful to the One True God that he gave us such utterly detestable, false pagan organization such as the UN, and such a great opportunity to shun, reject, abjure, dismiss, repudiate, and to denounce it for its utmost detestable pagan depravities!

**cooterhein** · 07-03-2016

Originally Posted by sister herb

If you would open your eyes, you could see the western countries at the top of the list "which countries have violated the human rights the most in this world". It´s a long list, containing colonial times, massacres of native populations, robbering the natural resources and believe me, this same continues also at 2016. Also, it´s a typical the western arrogance to see the west at the top (of everything) and not to understand that the same the west has caused many of the social, economical etc problems to others.

And by the way, who´s making the kind of lists you are talking about? The west of course, measuring everything by its own values.

Now we have the situation where "the west" has decided to create their own list of the principles of the human rights, it believes they represent the human nature and it demands that everybody has to accept them and follow them. They forget two things: they think that their way to see the things is the norm and they forget to follow those high principle by themselves when it goes dealing with others.

But those others of course should follow them at every situations.

In the simple: you go to your neighbors home, hit him, insult him, make mess in there and tell to him "you have always treat other people with respect as its the basic value of the human rights". Then when your neighbor will make same to you in your home, you are terrified about his brutality. But he only followed your own example.

Here's one link. https://freedomhouse.org/report/free...5#.V3l-sfkrLIX Look up whatever country you want, there's plenty of explanations to go with various scores and it's easy to see which way the scores moved from year to year.

Do you have a link? Or is this original research that you may publish at some point?

**cooterhein** · 07-03-2016

Originally Posted by kritikvernunft

International treaties are only permissible if they do not conflict with Islamic law. Otherwise, they are void and not applicable to Muslims. In that sense, is a question of making sure during the negotiations that such treaty remains halal. Otherwise, Muslims, regardless of their countries of origin or residence, will be forced to regard the treaty as being unlawful.

What about mostly-Islamic countries that have a secular government? Do they seem to have less of an issue with worries about Islamic law and international law being in conflict?

As you can imagine, in these days of suicide bombing and wholesale shootouts, that ruthlessly decimate the pagans by the dozens, it has become very dangerous practice to attempt to enforce rules contrary to Islam against Muslims. Islamic law really has dangerous teeth. It amounts to venturing into a hornets nest.

On the other hand, when those hornets go up against drones....

If you don't do anything rash, once in a while one of the more aggressive hornets will sting you, just for the hell of doing so. If you make sudden movements, however, they form an attack swarm and sting you in large numbers. Therefore, you would only have made the problem worse. Better not to do anything rash. But then again, your presence in the hornets nest disturbs the hornets, and therefore, the frequency at which individual hornets will sting you, tends to go up and up and up, to the point that in the end it will still look like it were an entire swarm attacking you.

This is the type of thing that makes me wonder why Muslims seem to have such a different understanding from me when it comes to public space and private space. As far as I know and as far as I've experienced, private spaces can have unique rules attached to them that may be targeted in favor of a certain people-group, but then in public spaces everyone is on equal footing and the same rules apply to everyone. To me, it seems like these angry-hornet type of people feel as if there's a lot of them in a certain country, and that means the entire country is their private space. Nobody gets to enjoy the neutrality of a public space, and if anyone says otherwise there will be some extra-judicial violence.

Speaking of which, how is it that so many Muslims are so quick to go to the extra-judicial violence? Even in Western countries, even when it's perfectly well known that certain rules of Islam are not enforced by common law, the hornet's nest gets stirred up one way or another and then there's some serious violence. Extra-judicial violence, assault which is plainly illegal, and this is commonly done for specifically religious reasons. Then no matter how harmful or clearly illegal the reaction was, you've got all these Muslim onlookers who say something like, "Well....why'd that guy have to go and insult the prophet? (Or whatever the thing was). I mean, he knows we don't play around with that."

These are some people who completely lose their moral compass in defense of a religion that's supposed to make them more moral. What's up with that?

I have extensively studied the hornets nest, and I actually came to the conclusion that you can trivially easily convert to something that also looks like a hornet, meaning that the other hornets will not seek to attack you. At the same time, however, they keep attacking other intruders, but that actually suits me perfectly fine, because I was sick and tired of being inundated with pagan laws anyway. In that sense, I am perfectly ok to let hornets be hornets. It also means that the intruders will never manage to get to the back of the nest, where I am sitting, because of the incessant stinging that goes on. So, yes, Ich bin ein Berliner! ("I am also a native of the city of Berlin").

Tiny little language quibble here....Ich bin Berliner is the phrasing that would explicitly say you are a native of Berlin, whereas Ich bin ein Berliner is something that would suggest Berlin is actually not your homeland or place of residence, but you are proud to say that you have something deep and significant held in common with them that allows for a common identity on that basis. It's like saying I am one of you, Berliners, although it's well known that I wasn't born there and haven't lived there, there's a different reason. It's a claim to a common identity without claiming to be an actual, physical neighbor.

**cooterhein** · 07-03-2016

Originally Posted by najimuddin

We have established that the Muslim countries of the GCC are ruled by dictators. They are not democracies. At present, the GCC is led by Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Arabia also leads a 5-member group of ambassadors, known as the Consultative Group – which is “a key UN Human Rights Council panel, with the power to select top officials who shape international human rights standards and report on violations worldwide” This group has “the power to select applicants from around the world for more than 77 positions dealing with country-specific and thematic human rights mandates.” See: http://www.unwatch.org/again-saudis-...council-panel/

That's very interesting information, I recently found out there were some concerns over the UN representation on the council pertaining to human rights mainly because some of its members and some of the countries that took turns leading it have been some of the worst violators in the world. Also, this group is too large and unwieldy, and it's not doing anything for most of the year. I didn't bring it up before because it seemed like something that would lead to a tangent, but just so you know I have been looking in this type of direction.

To pick just one of their human rights endeavors, in 2011, Saudi Arabia and other members of the GCC used military force to put down a popular revolt against the Bahraini monarchy. See: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/15/wo...15bahrain.html

It seems that these Muslim monarchs don't want to listen to their people. They also stick together in protecting their power.

This leads to a tricky question that there isn't ever a very good answer to, but it does need to be asked at some point: Where do the go from here? How do they become countries that are perhaps no longer monarchies, and definitely listen to their people?

Also, do you think that the GCC can act as an alliance that helps all these countries make positive adjustments at the same time? Or is it more likely to keep everybody in the same place when it comes to this?

The following probably needs to be reflected upon the most:

“NSA Bahrain is situated in the Kingdom of Bahrain and is home to U.S. Naval Forces Central Command (CENTCOM) and U.S. 5th Fleet. NSA Bahrain provides Operational Support to U.S. and Coalition Forces operating throughout the CENTCOM area of responsibility, ensuring security to ships, aircraft, detachments, and remote sites. We operate and maintain superior facilities and services for tenant commands, their deployed assets, service members, DoD civilians and dependents.” Source: http://www.cnic.navy.mil/regions/cnr...a_bahrain.html

What do you conclude when you reflect on this?

In reality, while these are Muslim countries, they were formed by colonial dictate and their un-elected leaders have been supported and protected by Western powers - due to various interests. These leaders are only interested in holding onto power using whatever it takes - military force, the deceptive use of Islam for political purposes, etc. We're still helping them do that.

These are very good points, especially as they pertain to colonialism. I was somewhat aware of the arbitrary abuse of cartography that led to the borders we mostly see now, but I haven't become as aware of the specifics from country to country of Western involvement in the ruling families from the outset. I do have a follow-up question pertaining to this, however.

You look at Indonesia- the fourth most populous country in the world, nearly all Muslim. It's got the most Muslims of any single country in the world. Granted, border issues are fairly non-existent since it's an island. But it does has a history of colonialism, and if you're finding Indonesians in Europe you'll probably want to look in the Netherlands.

Granted, not all colonialism is quite the same. Granted, Indonesia is not perfect- overall though I think it's pretty good on freedom and human rights issues, all sorts of things actually. As far as I'm aware, anyway. And granted, there is a tiny Chinese ethnic minority in Indonesia that's held onto an absurdly outsized share of power, money, and political clout. I'm not aware of any serious problems that have resulted from that (aside from the inequity itself), but maybe there's things I don't know about that. As it currently stands though, it seems like there are some opportunities for some really bad stuff to happen but it hasn't happened.

Ok, so here's the question. What did Indonesia do differently, or how did their colonialism go differently? Again, they didn't chart a course to perfection, but it does seem like they came away from it a lot better overall, at least in terms of the things we're mostly talking about. Also, are there some things you can point to that the GCC countries could still go ahead and do, or will they need to come up with a whole different game plan of their own?

If Indonesia isn't the best example of an Islamic country that did comparatively okay post-colonialism, what would be a better example?

**cooterhein** · 07-03-2016

Originally Posted by AhmedGassama

And if we Muslims were strong, we would [fight for justice]. But it's okay, every civilization has it's ups and downs, we are weak now, but when we will become strong we will fight the oppressive countries again and we will spread justice and peace and listen to this, we will spread REAL HUMAN RIGHTS!

I was initially thinking this fantasy of exterminating every member of the US military and every US politician was a bit of an over-reaction. You do realize extermination generally comes across as if you want to kill and completely destroy every part of whatever you're talking about, right?

Anyway, upon further reflection I've decided it may not be quite like that. I think it's entirely possible that your eschatology is showing.

**AhmedGassama** · 07-03-2016

Originally Posted by cooterhein

I was initially thinking this fantasy of exterminating every member of the US military and every US politician was a bit of an over-reaction. You do realize extermination generally comes across as if you want to kill and completely destroy every part of whatever you're talking about, right?

Anyway, upon further reflection I've decided it may not be quite like that. I think it's entirely possible that your eschatology is showing.

[I would like to stop] everyone who is oppressing people and causing death to the innocent ones and who are spreading corruption in this world. However you don't share the same idea as me, you would like them to live and do their dirty jobs.

btw, why don't you reply to my question ? why are escaping it ? are you afraid of my question ?