United Nations reforms: Feeble
voice of the Islamic world
The move for deep and democratic reforms of the UN could not have come at a more relevant and opportune time. Now it is for the UN General Assembly to perform its historic task to make the UN and its organs reflect the lessons learnt and the changed realities during the past sixty years,
writes Zakir Husain
The United Nations is celebrating its 60th birth anniversary this year. At sixty, there is much to celebrate but there are also things that mute those celebrations. UN Charter held many promises and articulated many hopes and aspirations of mankind. But the UN failed to fulfil many of those; a fair and equitable world order with universal justice remaining elusive. The United Nations can only be as effective as its member states; in particular its powerful members of the Security Council will let it be. The UN failed when its member states failed to live up to their obligations.
Voices have been raised from time to time on the need to make the structure and functions of the United Nations more democratic and representative; make the secretariat more efficient; and make the organs of the UN more effective. Given the present state of the UN, its 60th anniversary is an occasion for deep introspection and possible rejuvenation. Will the reforms go far and deep enough to correct its structural and functional deficits? Will the UN restore its diminished credibility?
At the present time, debate on reforms seems to be focused more upon the UN Security Council permanent membership. There is one draft proposal by four candidate countries — Brazil, Germany, India, and Japan (G-4). A rival African draft proposal is in circulation. Meanwhile, the US seems to prefer comprehensive reforms. The US enjoys extraordinary clout; what it wants it will likely have. In the end, the geo-political and strategic interests of the five current permanent members will determine the actual reforms.
The interest in permanent membership is understandable. The UN Security Council is the political organ with real clout; its decisions carry strong force and are binding. But in this debate on enlargement, the voice of the Islamic world on permanent representation in the Council is feeble, if not missing.
Europe has two of the five permanent members (the United Kingdom and France). If Germany gets a seat, European continent will have three members keeping its representation disproportionately high.
India with over a billion people and Japan with second large world economy are serious contenders. Their induction into permanent membership has force of argument. What about the Islamic world? The Islamic world constitutes over one fifth of the world population; with fifty-seven member states it spans a vast geographical territory stretching from Morocco to Indonesia. It represents a huge block; its claim is not based upon religious faith of the population but on the significant geo-political strategic value. Yet its permanent representation in the Council is not on the reform agenda. So what is wrong with the Islamic world?
The Security Council is the prime mover of the UN in world affairs — in war and in peace. Its writ is large and wide; its clout is unchallenged. On the other hand, the UN as a general body and its secretariat have virtually been consigned to the role of janitors, to clean up the mess made by its powerful members; members who wish to act unilaterally above international law and agreed conventions. As most recent example, the UN has been warned of its irrelevance when it failed to be compliant with the unilateralist agenda of particular members in the run up to the war on Iraq.
Through a process of attrition, the UN General Assembly which represents the collectivity of all its member states has now been reduced to a gathering of ‘second class’ members for polite or agitated debate on world issues; its decisions are never binding. Today, the Assembly, the world parliament, is effective more in its redundancy.
The move for deep and democratic reforms of the UN could not have come at a more relevant and opportune time. Now it is for the UN General Assembly to perform its historic task to make the UN and its organs reflect the lessons learnt and the changed realities during the past sixty years. The UN needs to revisit its structure and functions and renew itself to meet the challenges of the twenty-first century world.
As to the Islamic world, given its present disarray and debility, it carries no clout and enjoys little credibility in the world forum. Its political, economic and military weaknesses make it largely irrelevant and impotent in the global stage. Despots, dictators, rule many countries though some wear a thin veneer of pseudo democracy. Islamic world could not forge political or economic or military union. Several past attempts at regional alliances aborted or proved short-lived. An extraordinary level of discord and inertia prevented the Islamic world from emerging as a cohesive and effective geo-political entity. As to OIC, it has a pretty poor record — a record riddled with high-sounding rhetoric but empty of any substance.
Islamic world finds itself in a worse situation since the ‘war on terror’ launched by the US and the UK. Governments have gone on the defensive and are busy earning good behaviour certificate from the West. While the sickness of Islamic world is not due to Islam, the violent but futile reprisals by a misguided few have put Islam on trial. Libellous phrases like Islamic fundamentalist, Jihadists, and terrorists have earned new found respectability and currency. Muslims have come under a cloud of suspicion and are often hunted and humiliated or treated with condescension more often on presumption or facial appearance (Middle Eastern, South Asian) than on guilt. The London incident of five shots fired on head of a chased man (later found innocent) is a case in point.
Alas! The blame for this dire situation lies with the conditions in the Islamic world itself. Not on Islam as religion.
Unwilling or unable to make radical and timely political, judicial, and economic reforms, most Muslim regimes are obliged to hide behind excuses that are futile. Regimes are often diverting public anger to external ‘enemies’, for example the West (though covertly collaborating with Western governments) or domestic ‘enemies’ like political dissidents on whom they strike hard. All of these are designed to preserve autocratic rule and not to liberate the hidden potentials of the masses. To make matters worse, Muslims are wasting more resources and energy in factional strife within and failing to forge powerful global alliances.
The war on terror and the militant terrorist acts it has spawned where it never did exist are both misdirected. Militancy by a few to vent anger or outrage is proving counterproductive. These acts by a few are being used to give some respectability to the many criminal violations of human rights committed in the name of war on terror. Accusations ringing in Western press are familiar: governments are not doing enough, religious schools are to be curbed, suspects are to be handed over on mere suspicion etc.
This is no ‘clash of civilisations’; nor is this a battle between ideologies – one divine and the other evil. If anything this is a battle between those embarked upon neo-imperial conquest for neo-liberal capitalism and those who refuse to surrender political and economic sovereignty wrested from colonial subjugation often at huge sacrifice. In some ways there is also a battle between popular will and moral sentiments and the state apparatus bent to the service of vested political, corporate and military nexus masquerading as liberal democracy. That is true for the rich or the poor emerging democracies on probation.
Islamic world’s representation in the UN Security Council is a right and not a privilege. That right is best earned by acquiring strength enough to earn respect and exercise influence. Meanwhile, there are essential and urgent political, economic, and social reforms to address and achieve in the Islamic world.
Bombers look like everybody else
If the security services are going to have any chance of infiltrating the bombers they must first humanise those involved, writes Gary Younge
IN THE movie, Addams Family, Wednesday Addams heads off to a fancy dress Halloween party in her regular clothes. ‘I’m a homicidal maniac,’ she explains when questioned by Morticia about her attire. ‘They look like everybody else.’ Just over two weeks ago Jean Charles de Menezes ‘looked like everybody else’ in London. But on Friday morning, in the eyes of the travelling public and the police, he was transformed into a potential ‘homicidal maniac.’
Perceptions contaminated
In a clear indication of how terrorism not only destroys bodies but also contaminates perceptions, fellow travellers say they saw an ‘Asian man’ with ‘a bomb belt and wires coming out.’ What they actually saw was a young Brazilian in a Puffa jacket. The police saw a threat. To them De Menezes looked like another ‘clean skin’ (a perpetrator with no history of previous terrorist involvement or affiliation) on the run and possibly about to act. Having cornered him and pinned him to the ground they pumped five bullets into his head at close range.
In a world where every brown skin is little more than a ‘clean-skin’ waiting to happen, stop and search will inevitably become stop and shoot. The dominant mood that we are better safe than sorry is understandable. But after Friday’s incident we are left with one man dead, nobody safe and everybody sorry. If there is one thing we have learned over the past two years, it is that a pre-emptive strike with no evidence causes more problems than it solves.
De Menezes’ killing came the day after the police presented Prime Minister Tony Blair with a shopping list of new measures they say they need to tackle terrorism. As though the plea not to allow terrorists to change our way of life does not apply to the authorities, they want to increase the amount of time they can detain a suspect without charge from 14 days to three months. Given that they already have the option of shooting unarmed, innocent people dead in the underground, the police clearly have more power than they can responsibly handle. But De Menezes’ death does not make the case against giving police extra anti-terrorist powers — it simply illustrates it.
Anti-terrorist legislation has a proven record of catching just about anyone apart from those for whom it was originally designed. We knew this way before September 11. According to Home Office statistics, 97 per cent of those arrested under the Prevention of Terrorism Act — a series of draconian measures supposed to thwart the IRA — between 1974 and 1988 were released without charge. Only one per cent were convicted and imprisoned. The strike rate since the declaration of the war on terror has not been particularly impressive either. More than 700 people have been arrested under the Terrorism Act since September 11, but half have been released without charge and only 17 convicted. Only three of the convictions relate to allegations of extremism related to militant Islamic groups.
As the hunt continues for those involved in the last two terrorist incidents, the authorities appear no closer to devising a strategy for working out where the next one might come from. They have proven their skill to gather evidence to reconstruct what has happened after the fact; but are as yet unable to fathom the admittedly far more difficult task of how to gather the kind of intelligence that might prevent the fact itself.
For political and emotional reasons it has been necessary for some to dehumanise the bombers — to eviscerate them of all discernible purpose, cause and motivation. Stripped to their immoral minimum, they are simply ‘evil monsters.’ For those who wish to vent or need to grieve, such a response is understandable.
Those looking for tails and tridents on the CCTV footage of the bombers will be disappointed. In the words of Wednesday Addams, they look like everybody else. If the security services are going to have any chance of infiltrating the bombers they must first humanise those involved. They need to find out what would motivate young men who apparently have so much to live for to die — and kill — in such a manner. Only then can they discover how to spot the determined and stop them in their tracks, and how to catch those vulnerable to their message before they fall into the clutches of the terrorists.
Power of persuasion
The only extra power the police need in this effort is the power of persuasion — the ability to gain the confidence of the Muslim community by convincing them that the aim is to catch terrorists, not to criminalise their community.
In February, after Sajid Badat, a 25-year-old ex-grammar school boy from Gloucester, admitted planning to blow up a flight between Amsterdam and the U.S., the head of the Metropolitan police’s anti-terrorist branch, Deputy Assistant Commissioner Peter Clarke, said: ‘We must ask how a young British man was transformed from an intelligent, articulate person who was well respected, into a person who has pleaded guilty to one of the most serious crimes that you can think of.’
A policy that lets police shoot first and ask questions later will have a drastic effect on the kind of answer they are likely to get.
The Asian Age/ Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
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