Not fit for purpose – 1

My last screed – posted in the immediate aftermath of the Charlie Hebdo murders in Paris – posited that further comment should perhaps wait until there had been some time for calm contemplation. This – of course – because the initial surge of emotion experienced might just have caused me to asseverate something in print that I might later have regretted.

That time has passed. One and a half have million people have shown their solidarity – on the wintery streets of Paris – with the victims of this crime and with the principles for which they stood. Much of great wisdom has been said and written regarding these terrible events by those vastly more qualified so to do than I. Though there are no easy answers I am well aware that those who burn to understand how such a tragedy could have come about in this day and age in one of the world’s great capitals will already have spent much time reading and researching. They will learn little that is new or of value from me.

This will, naturally, not stop me from addressing at least one issue – so if you feel inclined – read on… if not – feel free to move on!

In the course of an address in October 1995 the then Pope – John Paul II – described the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) as “one of the highest expressions of the human conscience of our time”. Indeed the document – drafted by more than a dozen representatives from around the world and approved by the United Nations General Assembly in December 1948 by 48 votes to 0 (with only 8 abstentions) – has garnered general approbation throughout much of the world and forms the basis of the International Bill of Rights which has been signed and ratified by more than 150 countries. The UDHR has influenced or been adopted into most national constitutions drafted since 1948, and the International Bill of Rights has become a fundamental element of international law.

The UDHR is intended to be neither a Western nor a Christian document, aiming to be both supra-national and supra-religious and being at pains to emphasise its universality. In spite of these efforts such criticisms as have been levelled against it uniformly declare that it be both Western and Christian in origin, and claim that it does not sufficiently take account of non-Western religious or political contexts. This – incidentally – in spite of the fact that many of the countries from which such criticism has emanated are in fact themselves signatories – though their compliance with the declaration might at best be described as ‘patchy’.

The truth of the matter is clearly that those states – and indeed religions – that approve neither of democracy nor of freedom of thought and expression are almost inevitably opposed to a doctrine that endorses both as inalienable rights. Neither concept is perfect, of course, but the vast majority of the world’s peoples – if not nations – manifestly believe them to offer the closest that it is possible to approach thereto.

The Organisation of the Islamic Conference adopted its own human rights declaration in August 1990 – the Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam (CDHRI) –  as a response to the UHDR. Whereas many of the articles of which the CDHRI is comprised might seem familiar – derived as they are almost directly from the corresponding articles in the UHDR – the most important amongst them (including those referenced in my last post) have had added to them clauses such as – “except as provided for in the Shari’a”, “in such manner as would not be contrary to the principles of the Shari’ah” and “in accordance with the tenets of the shari’ah”. The CDHRI culminates with:

Article 24.

• All the rights and freedoms stipulated in this Declaration are subject to the Islamic Shari’ah.

This renders the declaration subject to Islamic beliefs rather than being the universal code that had been intended and is far, far divorced from the founding purpose of the declaration, the origins of which emanated from the immediate post-war desire that the nations of the world should be able to live in peace, and from the belief that all human beings have as their birthright the basic freedoms by which that aspiration might be fulfilled.

Well – this started out as a simple post. I fear that there is more to be said and that a second epistle will be required…