I’d like to build the world a home
And furnish it with love
Grow apple trees and honey bees and snow-white turtle doves
While you were lamenting your shrinking investment portfolio, discussing whether Adam (American Idol) looks better with or without eye liner and fingernail polish, and worrying about Obama’s overexposure on national television, the United Nations was once again making a mockery of themselves. The 47 member Human Rights Council passed a non binding resolution that suggests countries around the world seriously consider promoting tolerance and understanding between cultures, religions and races. OMG.
I’d like to teach the world to sing
In perfect harmony
I’d like to hold it in my arms and keep it company
What’s so horrible about that you ask? Well, nothing on the surface. Beyond the crust however this resolution, first introduced to the Commission on Human Rights in 1999 by Pakistan on behalf of the Organization of Islamic Conference under the agenda item on “racism, is the “Dear John” letter of resolutions. Even pretty deep into it (the working resolution pdf) it all sounds pretty “UN We are The Worldish”. You read along and feel like breaking into a chorus of I’d Like To Teach The World To Sing. You’re saying “yes” inside your head, and then you come across the clincher, the “It’s not you, it’s me, I will always love you, I just can’t be with you”, of the resolution. You realize you’ve been duped. You read the suggestion that “media watch what they say and who they criticize”. Then the most certain, true intent is made clear as they say “even though everyone has the right to hold opinions, and freedom of expression is good, it might be wise to enact laws to shut up those who don’t know how to handle the special duties and responsibilities that come with these rights”.
You might consider this unimportant, the West in general voted against, or abstained from voting, and always has, as did India, and it won’t affect us anyway. Don’t be so sure. Journalists, and some of our fellow bloggers, are getting jailed at an increasingly alarming rate. We have to pay attention to this. In a world where we are responsible in some way for humanity, where in some parts of Afghanistan girls are again being denied education due to.… religion, in a decade in which the United Nations has agreed that women’s rights are human rights, where UNIFEM promotes women’s empowerment, rights, and gender equality globally, and where the Secretary General has specifically pledged to end violence against women, this is giving permission to make laws which suppress and consequently oppress. By suppressing the voices, you suppress the cause, be it liberty, justice, or equality. As stated in some of the UN’s own member nation’s past analysis “defamation of religions,” as opposed to the defamation of persons, forcibly requires the state to determine which ideas are acceptable, as opposed to which facts are true. A fundamental rule of law problem presents itself in the notion of “defamation of religion”. Stifling legitimate criticism or even research on practices and laws appearing to be in violation of human rights.”
Those who vote continually for this resolution feel the rights of the organization, in this case religion, and more specifically Islam, trump the rights of human beings. They see religion as threatened by criticism so they designate free speech the culprit of the violence, hatred, and racism, and in so doing set a pretty unsettling picture of what could come for those living in nations who support this resolution.
In the name of peace, love, and Allah of course.
For the Love of God, as they say.
Peace.
Possibly of interest:
UN body OKs call to curb religious criticism
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Review of progress and assessment of implementation of the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action by all stakeholders at the national, regional and international levels-pdf
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UN rights council session ends in controversy
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UN Watch
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SHATTERING THE RED LINES: THE DURBAN II DRAFT DECLARATION
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<a href=‘http://wonderlandornot.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/becket.pdf”>Becket Fund for Religious Liberty Issues Brief, June 2008
This is why I lay the cause of most worldwide conflicts at the feet of organized religions in the first place. It’s a tough time we live in when we blame the solution and not the cause of intolerance.
mojo shivers’s last blog post..The Flag Was Flying At Half Mast, And I Was Thinking ‘Bout How, Everyone Is Dying, And Maybe It’s Time To Live
It has always been that way, it’s funny how little we have progressed in all these years.
Yeah, aren’t you baffled no one seems to care about this? Scary times.
Milena Thomas’s last blog post..My Advice to Single Moms in Sucky Jobs
Baffled if I am looking at it from my perspective but in general I’m not surprised at what people concern themselves with, usually very little.
I’d have cared about it had I heard anything about it. Not something the local or even major state newspapers are headlining. The internet helps me find things I might not find otherwise — given i have a limited about of time to spend on it daily — that’s what’s good about reading a bunch of different blogs.
is the UN a joke or what? I’m not sure being unversed on deep enough, but this sound bullshitish to me.
casey’s last blog post..Happy Anniversary
You have to stop reading lacrosse blogs then.
It’s virtually meaningless except for the fact it’s like an “ok go ahead muzzle those people who are possible speaking truths about your religion because it might incite violence .…or cause some people to really think about things.…
I’ve only met a hand full of Islamic people, and I truly hope most all are not like the few I’ve encountered.
Of the few they seemed to be driven by religious conviction locked in some rather narrow minded views.
If (which I seriously hope not) a majority of them live by these same strong convictions I won’t lie, I’m scared of them.
I hate stereotyping people, I really do, but I will never be comfortable with any group that feels justified to act in lunacy based on man made prophecy.
Oh no! This is going to make me go on another rampage against religion, and I was so happy not thinking about them.
Bennet’s last blog post..I’ve got a 4 inch Iphone in my pants, aren’t you impressed?
It is always the few that represent the all so poorly — remember that. After meeting a lot of southerners. if I generalized about them based on the impression and attitude I have heard from the majority of the ones I have met I be very scared and the stereotype would be ugly, but it wouldn’t necessary represent you now would it Bennett?
No, most don’t so of course not.
Bennet’s last blog post..Folks, Strap In The Kids, Nipples, And Blue Penis Ahead!
You can’t turn your head for a sec and look what happens.
How the UN can sponsor such suggestions is what i wanna know.
The “Human Rights Council, nonetheless.
Dear John” letter of resolutions. Even pretty deep into it all sounds pretty “UN We are The Worldish”. You read along and feel like breaking into a chorus of I’d Like To Teach The World To Sing. You’re saying “yes” inside your head, and then you come across the clincher, the “It’s not you, it’s me, I will always love you, I just can’t be with you”, of the resolution
A brilliant representation of this resolution cooper. I swear to god . A bit ironic given the topic, i know .
Cute wording Joe.
I wish I could get inheavy convo here but Nova…
They are already doing this in Afghanistan, for example, where Sayed Pervez Kambaksh, a student journalist, was sentenced to death for blasphemy. Yeah lets resolve to make it ok for more developed countries to do the same.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/student-facing-20-years-in-hell-1643069.html
kait’s last blog post..Som Spring
Sure this type of ting is picking up speed and this makes it ok.
Yeah, the dreams of people controlling people through democratic means burns in every breast. But you’re right, the fact that I wasn’t going to comply with that resolution isn’t as important as what happens to those who are expected to.
Doug’s last blog post..The Reformation of Wolfshausen
exactly Dog. I don’t think they are going to jail you (yet) for those prattles, but just in case I would have some money in the pillowcase and a map of a tunnel system to Canada at my fingertips — if I were you.
I had not heard this either, meaning I learned two things from this post. The other being that there is another version of that song that doesn’t contain the line “buy the world a Coke.”
Bone’s last blog post..Whatever gets you through the day
Eh, I think I’d used the Coke one in a past post.
It’s all going to eventually affect us in some way. It’s a small world.
g’s last blog post..Noam Speaks
Unless you’ve never left your home town. For some people it’s still a pretty large world in their minds, so they don’t understand how the wave rolls.
it sounds a bit like the bill of rights they keep proposing for the EU — it lists out basically all the rights we have in our own bill of rights, but in different words, more legalise, and then goes on to describe the exceptions.
What’s most worrisome with this is that the countries who signed it are already the countries who tend to oppress, this a UN resolution, is just another justification for them.
It just goes to show how far we are from our stated beliefs. The freedom hammer is one we repeatedly throw at third world countries and yet we don’t have the courage to sign on the bottom line and validate our so-called beliefs. The fact that there is no real social pressure to our leaders to make this pledge only speaks of the sickness in our society.
Renee’s last blog post..Motherhood Is An Active Choice
Signing this would have been pretty unmindful, and I can imiagine signing something which makes it appear to be ok (if not to sanction) to jail people who criticize religion. India had a pretty good response. Those who abstain from yay or nay seem to be trying to work out a resolution which does not include sanctioning laws to suppress free speech.
I think the UN began with the best of intentions but we learned quickly that idealism and reality are two separate entities. I can’t remember the UN ever being effectual and ever causing anything but parking tickets and crimes by diplomats for the people of New York to pay for
Yet until America gets itself together as a nation and stops fighting other countries battles anything we sign would be a joke – and i believe we are, somewhere deep down, amongst the best nations
pia’s last blog post..I moved! And a picture of me from the second era of my life when anything was possible – well a link to
There are definitely some large questions to be asked about the United Nations significance when everything seem so diplomatically hypocritical.
The more I pay attention to the UN, the less I like it. But then, given the past 8 years, it’s not all that surprising that the UN more reflects world views than simply western views.
Not that that changes the double-speak we so often hear from the uber-religious. Nor does it change how political “leaders” view anonymous bloggers who type away in their mothers’ basement. Take the recent outting of a popular Alaska blogger by a state legislator. Yes, I know he didn’t imprison and kill her, but take a look at how far we have not advanced even in this fair country of ours.
sauerkraut’s last blog post..Gerald Michael Doogan sings to AKMuckraker
You have to look at it from it original intent to what it has evolved into.