Interfaith Union to Vanquish Atheism, Human Rights

It's like a bad religious joke: a Muslim, a Christian, and a Jew get together to wander around town looking for gays or atheists to beat up, but before they even really get started the Muslim is kicking the Jew. How long before the Christian is denying that there was anything wrong with what they were trying to do in the first place? Saudi King Abdullah is inviting Jews and Christians to join him in an interfaith dialog for the sake of "vanquishing" atheists and threats to "the family" (code for equality for gays and women).

This isn't an isolated move but is rather part of a multi-faceted assault on basic human rights which some Muslim leaders have been advancing for years. Many traditional, orthodox religious perspectives are simply incompatible with modern pluralism, secularism, science, and human rights. Some forms of Christianity in the West have come to terms with modernity and have, to varying degrees, subsumed traditional absolutist demands to the requirements of secular pluralism.

Other forms of Christianity have not come to terms with this, and the same is true of some forms of Judaism as well as many forms of Islam. That all might be willing to work together against their common opponents — atheism, secularism, science, pluralism, universal human rights — is hardly surprising. The question is, how much damage will they do before their own internal differences pull them apart again?

"I ask representatives of all the monotheistic religions to meet with their brothers in faith," Abdullah told delegates to a seminar on "Dialogue Among Civilizations between Japan and the Islamic World," according to the official Saudi Press Agency (SPA).

“If God wills it, we will then meet with our brothers from other religions, including those of the Torah and the Gospel... to come up with ways to safeguard humanity," he added. Abdullah said the country’s top clerics have given him approval to pursue his idea and that he plans to get the opinion of Muslim leaders from other countries.

According to SPA, the Saudi king also intends to address the United Nations on the subject. "We have lost sincerity, morals, fidelity and attachment to our religions and to humanity," Abdullah said Monday, deploring "the disintegration of the family and the rise of atheism in the world – a frightening phenomenon that all religions must confront and vanquish."

Source: Christian Post [emphasis added]

This call to interfaith dialogue and activism involves three key premises: it must involve representatives only of monotheistic religions, not representative of other religions like Hinduism and Buddhism; it must involve attacks on aspects of modernity which have affected the family (feminism, gay rights); and it must attack atheists as the ultimate outsiders and a source of all that is wrong in the world.

You will be able to tell a lot about how committed people really are to tolerance, pluralism, and equality by observing their reaction to this. Do they praise this proposal because it is reaching out to them, or do they notice that it is targeting atheists, feminists, and others who are active defenders of modernity?

The Christian Post specifically describes Saud's words as a "message of tolerance." Clearly, attacking atheism as a "frightening phenomenon that all religions must confront and vanquish" isn't tolerant, but if you don't think that atheists deserve tolerance in the first place then that won't matter — all that matters is that Saud is reaching out to Christians, right?

Imagine if "atheism" were replaced with "Jews," do you suppose that people would be able to figure out that this is a message of intolerance and hate? I think so, but not even all Jews are able to realize the parallel because two of Israel's chief rabbis welcomed Saud's message of hate:

Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi Yona Metzger said he is in favour of the proposal.  "We are in favour of any dialogue that could put an end to terrorism and violence ", he added. "The idea of an inter-faith dialogue must be encouraged as long as it is made sincerely," said Shlomo Amar, the Sephardi chief rabbi of Israel.

Source: European Jewish Press

So, interfaith-dialogue is acceptable when it is limited to people with similar beliefs and is based on a desire to "vanquish" both atheism and basic human rights? The American government is no less enthusiastic in its support for this rejection of modern civilization:

The White House welcomed the king's gesture. "We think increased dialogue is a really good thing," presidential spokeswoman Dana Perino said Tuesday. "And, of course, when you have someone like the king of Saudi Arabia, and all of his stature, that is recommending such a dialogue, it can only give us hope that there would be further recognition of everyone's right to freedom and freedom of expression and religion. So we are encouraged by it." ...

Michael Cromartie, chairman of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, which monitors religious freedom globally and makes policy recommendations, called the proposed dialogue long overdue. "I don't care who you put in the room - the fact they're having the conversation can only help," he said. "It's a courageous thing for the king to do. One should not expect Utopia, but it's a start to have an open and free dialogue in a country with a reputation for religious oppression."

Source: Examiner

Those who would make common-cause with haters and bigots need to learn what should probably be the first rule of such bigotry: once someone starts dividing the world into "us" and "them," the dividing won't soon stop and the "us" will become an increasingly small, exclusive group. When you are inivited by bigots who are dividing the world into "us" and a "them" who is the enemy, you have to wonder how long it will be before you be shifted from "us" to "them."

The Jewish rabbis who were so enthusiastic in accepting an invitation to participate in an interfaith assault on atheists and human rights appear to be the first to be tossed overboard by their bigoted hosts: Saudi Arabia's grand mufti Abdelaziz al-Sheikh doesn't want them.

According to a report by the official Kuwaiti news agency Kuna on Wednesday, the mufti refused to accept any visit by rabbis to a conference on interreligious dialogue, expected to be held in the kingdom's capital Riyadh. ...

Saudi Arabia's mufti tried to quickly distance himself from the announcement by the Saudi monarch. "I ask the media to check their facts and report the truth before spreading the news," said al-Sheikh.

Source: ADN Kronos International

It's hardly surprising that Jews would be the first "insiders" to become "outsiders" and if there were anyone who should have been able to recognize this in advance, it surely would have been Israeli rabbis.

This Saudi-led assault on the principles of human rights and free expression in the name of "tolerance" is not an isolated case. Wahhabi cleric Sheihk Abdurrahman al-Baraak, the highest Wahhabi Muslim religious authority in the world and teacher of the current Saudi Mufti as well as most of the Saudi official religious leadership, recently issued fatwa against two Saudi journalists for the "crime" of suggesting that maybe Jews and Christians shouldn't be considered "unbelievers" in Islam:

Bin Nijad's article was entitled, "The Islam of the Sharia and the Islam of Struggle," Abu al-Khayl's article was called, "The Other in the Islamic Balance."

The fatwa describes the two journalists as defectors, demanding their repentance. The most dangerous part in the fatwa is probably the incitement to the killing of the two journalists, for the scholar went on to say that "those who are against the Islam should be judged to repent, otherwise they should be killed and denied the burial rituals."

Source: Menassat

Abdurrahman al-Baraak has apparently expressed support for al-Qaeda, but despite this Saudi King Abdullah receives him officially several times every year and even provides hundreds of thousands of dollars in direct financial support.

It doesn't end there, though. Members of the Islamic Conference have recently made great strides towards killing the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. They have used their majority on the United Nations Human Rights Council to pass an awful amendment to a resolution on Freedom of Expression. The UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression will now be required to report on the “abuse” of free expression:

As we have been repeating for the nearly two years since its creation, the UN Human Rights Council is far from being up to the job it has been given,” the press freedom organisation said. “The change to the mandate of the special rapporteur on free expression is dramatic. It turns someone who is supposed to defend freedom of opinion into a prosecutor whose job is to go after those who abuse this freedom.

There are other mechanisms for condemning racist attacks or defamation by the media. It is not the rapporteur on free expression’s job to do this. It is like asking the rapporteur on freedom of religion to investigate human rights abuses committed in the name of religion. Such reasoning is absurd.

The growing influence of Organisation of the Islamic Conference member states within the Human Rights Council is disturbing. All of the council’s decisions are nowadays determined by the interests of the Muslim countries or powerful states such as China or Russia that know how to surround themselves with allies. The UN secretary-general should intervene as quickly as possible.

Source: Reporters Without Borders

So rather than defend the freedom of expression from organized or official repression, the United Nations is now going to be on the watch for "abuse" of free expression — which, from the perspective of the Islamic Conference, basically means disparaging or critical comments about Islam. They have made noises about defending all religion from "defamation," but in practice all they express real interest in is in defending Islam. The "defamation" they worry about appears to include just about any sort of commentary they dislike. They would impose their own religious norms on the rest of the world in order to ensure that no one does anything they find religiously objectionable.