Item of Interest
December 7, 2005

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Organization of Islamic Conference
Opens Today in Mecca


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Editor's Note:

Saudi Arabia is hosting a meeting of the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) which opens today in Mecca. The assembly of nearly 50 heads of state from among the 57 countries representing over a billion Muslims comes at a time when the Islamic world faces a host of profound challenges. Foreign ministers from about 40 of the OIC countries met yesterday to finalize the summit agenda. Writing today in Arab News Siraj Wahab and Abdul Maqsood Mirza reported on the preparation of a ten-year plan of action for consideration of the OIC. Wael Mahdi analyzed the prospects of a Muslim common market in light of today's OIC summit and the impending WTO session in Hong Kong. Lastly, Lubna Hussain called for members of the Muslim community to be reminded of the principles of Islam at a time when it is "under siege and a billion Muslims worldwide look to these very leaders to guide us into a new era." These three items are provided here for your consideration and with thanks to Arab News.

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Focus on 10-Year Action Plan
Siraj Wahab & Abdul Maqsood Mirza, Arab News

JEDDAH, 7 December 2005 � Nearly 40 foreign ministers of the 57-nation Organization of the Islamic Conference met in Jeddah yesterday to finalize the agenda of a two-day extraordinary summit that opens in Makkah today.

The ministerial conference was held at the Conference Palace in Jeddah�s upmarket Al-Hamra district amid some of the tightest security measures ever seen in the Kingdom. All roads leading to the palace were closed to the public, with traffic diverted due to security concerns. From early in the morning, cars with tinted glass streamed toward the palace carrying foreign ministers of the OIC�s various Muslim nations and non-Muslim member states.

Before the meeting began, Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al-Faisal welcomed the delegates and said Saudi Arabia was proud to host them. He said the OIC should seek to counter attacks on Islam from enemies abroad and also from those within who hold deviant ideologies.

Saud said it was up to the OIC countries to correct the image of Islam and defend Islam�s principles through dialogue. He reiterated the views of Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah that the summit is a historic opportunity and the resolutions of the summit should be a turning point in the history of the Muslim world.

OIC Secretary-General Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu also welcomed the foreign ministers. He said that the 10-year action plan of the OIC, to be agreed upon during the summit, would be a road map for common Islamic action. The plan was meant to be a blueprint for confronting the massive challenges Muslims face in political, economic, cultural and scientific fields.

The focus of the preparatory meeting was on four documents to be approved by the heads of the OIC countries during the Makkah summit. The first document, an update on the activities of the OIC since its last meeting, was immediately passed without contention. It was with the second document that the real work began.

The second document, a 10-year strategic action plan, is meant to confront the challenges faced by the OIC countries. Throughout the day the delegates to the preparatory meeting poured over the document�s text, paragraph by paragraph, in minute detail. The strategic plan is based on the recommendations of Muslim scholars and intellectuals who met in Makkah in September.

After hours without word of the proceedings, OIC spokesman Atta Mannan stepped out from the meeting to advise the assembled reporters that the deliberations would most certainly be continuing until late in the night. He said the strategic plan was quite exhaustive, dealing with issues central to politics, economics, science, culture and trade in the OIC nations. The plan discusses the means of tackling Islamophobia, how to deal with the state of minorities in non-OIC states, ways to initiate dialogue with the outside world, methods to improve the image of Islam and tactics to seize the initiative from the deviants and terrorists.

Mannan asserted that the time being taken by the delegates to consider the plan boded well for its success. He believes that the intense interest in the details of the 10-year plan indicates the seriousness being given to the summit by the entire Muslim world.

He said that from the discussions taking place inside the Conference Palace, it was evident the delegates realized that the Muslim world had huge expectations from these meetings. �The fact that the delegates are giving so much attention to the proposals shows they don�t just want to sign on the dotted lines� as was sometimes the case at previous summits, he said.

�The delegates want to ensure that the proposals they are approving for their heads of government to see are truly implementable and practical,� said Mannan. It is true that in the past the OIC made many declarations that went unheeded.

Another important document being prepared for approval yesterday was the Makkah Declaration, which was to be taken up after the delegates finalized the action plan. The Makkah Declaration presents the general view of the current global situation and the situation in OIC countries as well as the common aspirations and hopes of the Muslim world.

The final item that was to be agreed upon at the ministerial meeting was the drafting of the final communiqu�. Mannan said that a select committee from among the member states had been entrusted with the task of drafting this document.

Summit�s Outcome Important for Islamic Countries on WTO
Wael Mahdi, Arab News 

JEDDAH, 7 December 2005 � There are two important international events taking place this month in which Islamic countries are participating. One event is political while the other is economic. The Third Extraordinary OIC Summit is the political event; it precedes the economic one, the WTO Hong Kong Ministerial Conference (HKMC). 

There is a strong link between the two events in that the outcome of the OIC summit might influence the future of Muslim countries in the World Trade Organization. Without doing a political analysis, it is possible to understand the nature and the importance of the OIC summit by being aware of the challenges that WTO imposes on the economic and political future of Islamic countries. In other words, to understand the political it is essential to understand the economical.

Saudi Arabia and other Muslim countries face significant challenges in the WTO because its rules impose limitations on the interaction of Islamic member countries. The major principle affecting the presence of Muslim countries in the WTO is trading without discrimination. Under WTO most-favored-nation (MFN) treatment, a country cannot discriminate between its trading partners by granting some nations special favors (such as lower tariffs) and not granting them to others. According to this principle, Muslim countries that are WTO members cannot grant each other special favors. Moreover, Muslim countries should treat all member nations equally; this of course includes Israel, which many Muslim countries boycott. Forming a regional trade agreement, however, between Muslim countries might solve the problem of the (MFN) treatment. Under Article 24 of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade � GATT was the forerunner of WTO � countries are allowed to form regional trading arrangements as a special exception even though this might sometimes violate WTO�s principle of equal treatment.

The formation of a Muslim multilateral trading bloc as an adjunct to OIC membership could pave the way for those Muslim countries not already WTO members to join the organization. Countries that are not WTO members such as Afghanistan, Algeria, Iraq, Iran, Lebanon and Libya could be easily absorbed into the multilateral trading system once they became part of an Islamic regional agreement. If the OIC were an internationally effective body, it could provide solid ground for negotiating WTO membership for non-member Muslim countries. It would thus be easier to negotiate with one body instead of having to engage in bilateral negotiations with several different states. Moreover, if the non-member countries are part of a free trade agreement with WTO member countries, then the benefit to all WTO members is obvious. In such a case, the tariffs imposed by the non-members will be more or less on a par with those of WTO members so that accession would not create problems in that area. Secondly, most OIC countries are members of WTO and they could exert pressure within the organization for the admission of non-members. 

There is plenty of evidence to suggest that Muslim leaders realize the importance of reinventing the OIC as a political and economic organization. 

At the present extraordinary summit, OIC countries are considering the establishment of a common market. This is evidence that they have realized the power they could exert on the WTO if they were a unified market. The announcement by Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al-Faisal that increasing trade and economic integration between Islamic countries are major issues at the summit testifies to their importance. Currently, inter-Muslim trade accounts for only 13 percent of their total trade and the aim is to increase this figure as much as possible. 

The strength of the European Union comes primarily from its being a common market; by forming an Islamic common market, the OIC�s role in a multilateral trading bloc could enhance the standing of its member countries already in the WTO. The attendance of the newly elected Iranian president and the announcement of Libya�s participation in the summit are strong indications that leaders have finally been able to abandon their disputes in order to pursue their economic and political interests.

Restoring the True Spirit of Islam
Lubna Hussain, [email protected] 

Today heralds the advent of the summit for the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) where nearly 50 heads of countries spanning the globe will come together in Makkah, the birthplace of Islam, to face one of their toughest challenges yet. It comes at a time when we Muslims the world over are consistently confronted with the fact that the reputation of our faith has been distorted, maligned and plundered by politicized elements both from within our fold and from without.

With Islamophobia on the rise we are at a critical juncture of our history and the decisions that are made about our future will affect the lives of generations to come. In an era when Islam has become symbolic with terror, oppression and intolerance, it�s about time its tarnished image was restored to embody its true spirit and that we, as Muslims, unite to vanquish the demons that have plagued our ranks for far too long.

This week a billion Muslims look forward to seeing concerns addressed that affect our everyday lives. There is a palpable sense of anticipation that, unlike in other years, this summit might just make the difference that is so badly needed. There is a myriad of issues that compound the tribulations that we face, ranging from occupation and war to poverty and poor governance. What remains now to be seen is whether our leadership possesses the courage and determination to not only formulate solutions to the plethora of problems that exist by recognizing its own collective shortcomings, but whether it is tenacious enough to sustain its implementation by actively abandoning the current status quo it has enjoyed for too long.

As a global citizen there are many basic civil rights that I should enjoy and yet, because I happen to be a Muslim, a new climate has pervaded the world that has left me denied of them without recourse. Surely, as a premise of humanity, I should be entitled to treatment that affords me dignity and respect as an individual. Is that too much to ask? And yet it seems that in the current environment it is. More than anything else I would like to have this simple yet fundamental liberty reinstated. Why is it considered justifiable to punish me for crimes that I not only didn�t commit or orchestrate but ones that I never sought to justify or condone? How is it that the vile and heinous acts of a few evil and malicious elements have come to characterize Muslims en masse worldwide? How can a religion whose very name means �submission�, and that has for centuries, since its humble beginnings in the Arabian Peninsula, championed the cause of the subjugated now be depicted as a doctrine of violence, hatred and extremism because of the acts of a handful of deviants over a period of a few years?

More pertinently, those who have misappropriated and subverted a creed that throughout history has been synonymous with peace, moderation and compassion, for their own dark motives should not even be referred to as practitioners of this great faith.

It is time for us to remind the world and ourselves of Islam�s true values and meaning. Nothing could be more far removed from this than the misinterpretations and spurious motives that such fanatics base their incorrigible behavior upon. If they are not in spirit �Muslims� then why is it that I have to bear the brunt of their callous, brutal and disgusting displays of cowardice? How is it that such crimes against the defenseless are termed as �Islamic� acts of terror when, ironically, such crimes are being committed against the faith itself?

But the truth of the matter is that I am held responsible. Being a Muslim, wherever I go I am scrutinized, viewed through prejudiced eyes and regarded with suspicion by default. No longer am I perceived as an individual, but as part of a larger conspiracy to destabilize the world. It really doesn�t seem to matter that hundreds of millions of moderate Muslims, like myself, are appalled by the growing number of atrocities committed in the name of Islam and would like nothing better than to distance ourselves from these monsters who perpetrate them. In order to do this it is time to stop blaming others and start analyzing where it is that we have gone wrong. There is a lot of culpability that rests upon our shoulders and to move away from such trying times means excising from the body of our community several of the malignant aberrations that have been allowed to fester indefinitely. Seeking to create a better future cannot be done without gaining a clearer understanding of the present and the past.

If one of our major objectives is to be treated with tolerance and respect, then we too must espouse these values in our dealings with others. We need to imbibe the principle of reciprocity that has been absent from the very fabric of our societies for too long. This involves respecting the faiths, cultural diversities and traditions of a disparate community that lives within our borders by giving them similar and definite rights to those afforded to them by Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) 1,400 years ago. Fostering mutual acceptance is an important aspiration that we must strive to attain. Discrimination based upon whatever criteria must end, as if we wish to be regarded as individuals then we must start viewing others as individuals too. Restriction of rights, whether of women, minorities or foreigners, is a matter of tremendous exigency that needs to be confronted head on and which no longer merits being brushed aside.

Within our own societies there needs to be a much broader focus on education and critical thinking. People not only need to be given basic freedom of thought, but more importantly need to be taught how to think for themselves. Such scope for criticism will leave the young and impressionable less susceptible to the insidious attempts at indoctrination that have proved so effective in recent years. The dissemination of knowledge and the essential precepts that underpin our faith need to be outlined more clearly. The issuing of fatwas and other edicts in an irresponsible, irrational and inflammatory manner needs to be condemned universally and considered as a punishable offense. Islam is a beautifully logical religion that unilaterally rejects violence toward the innocent. How then can we justify watching in impotence as militant elements manipulate its teachings to undermine everything that it represents? Such a �hijacking� of the faith has only been made possible through the perpetration of ignorance within our countries by those who fear being held accountable by a more well-informed and judicious population. This constitutes nothing short of a total contradiction of the Islamic ideal of promoting enlightenment and striving towards erudition. Allowing so many of our people to remain uneducated and isolationist has served to perpetuate poverty, desolation and provided the perfect nidus for the seeds of terrorism to be sown.

Time is of the essence. If we can rise to the challenge and stand together in an honest endeavor to confront our own demons we may have a fighting chance to regain our sovereignty. Islam is under siege and a billion Muslims worldwide look to these very leaders to guide us into a new era where we can once again live with dignity and respect. But before we have a hope of standing united, we first have to learn how to stand.

Reprinted with permission of Arab News.
http://www.ArabNews.com 

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