cultural-identity, activism-promotion, church-state-separationReference article here. Without getting into a loop about tolerance, I was wondering what the US can/should do to further the ideas of free speech and separation of church and state without infringing into the cultural norms of the countries that sponsored this resolution and are adamently against these mostly American ideals.
US citizens can support their ambassador, who in the same article said that, "We cannot agree that prohibiting speech is the way to promote tolerance, because we continue to see the 'defamation of religions' concept used to justify censorship, criminalization, and in some cases violent assaults and deaths of political, racial, and religious minorities around the world."
Basically, right now the default position of the US is against this sort of resolution. That could possibly change under a different administration, so US citizens (and for that matter anyone living in a democratic society) should make sure to vote for those that will choose ambassadors who would oppose such special treatment of religion, and limit free-speech.
US is not the only one that voted on this resolution, and it just didn't get the votes needed to dismiss the resolution. The best thing to do now is to spread the word in defense of free-speech, and maybe next time when the issue is revisited, a different outcome will be the result.
That said, the real focus of this resolution is to limit discrimination based on religious beliefs, which you can learn more about in the original article here. That isn't a bad thing, in general, so long as it is applied evenly, and is not too heavy-handed.
It’s nothing to do with cultural sensitivity. Human rights are for people, not ideas. Ideas should not be protected by censorship, unless they explicitly promote violence. That may mean that certain ideas you don’t like have to be tolerated, but the best way to defeat them is by rational arguement, or by ignoring them. Any attempt to pass a ruling which says that we can’t argue that stoning women to death for “adultery” is unacceptable automatically shows itself for what it is, and should be strongly resisted.
The best thing you can do is reach out to as many as possible in the countries that voted for this resolution and don’t accept that “cultural sensitivity” trumps human rights. Show them that free speech means protection, especially, of criticism.
The question has no positive answer because it is:
The cultural norm of the OIC membership is Islam. Islam is not a religion, it is a Deen: way of life. Their way is intra-species predation. The religious component of Islam, which serves as a troop motivator and camouflage, is protected by its legal component, which prescribes the death penalty for any criticism of Allah, Moe, the Qur’an or Islam. Doubters and dissenters should open Reliance of the Traveller to Book O, Chapter 8 & Chapter 9 and discover the truth for themselves.
‘Defamation’, ‘negative stereotyping’ & ‘vilification’ [substituted in the latest edition of the resolution] carry the same meanings. Islam can not be defamed because its intrinsic evil is open on the face of its canon of scripture, tradition, exegesis, jurisprudence & biography.
The infamous resolution is a beard for a parallel process running below the radar in the name of an ad hoc cmte. of the HRC. The cmte.’s mission is to code the resolution’s provisions into a binding protocol to ICERD which can be enforced in the World Court. Few people know about that parallel track, Fewer will tell you about it and none will do anything to stop it. Those who are interested in the details can learn more from my compiled blog posts on the subject, linked on my web site.
If you would promote democracy, liberty and free speech, you must first eliminate Islam from the world by emancipating Allah’s slaves. ‘Nation Building’ in which the new constitutions have the Qur’an as the basis of their law is part of the problem, not part of the solution.
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