Silver LiningDo we need the OIC or Arab League? [Archives:2005/902/Opinion]
Mohammed Hatem al-Qadhi
[email protected]
The Mekka summit of the members states of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) concluded last Thursday as usual with a final statement calling for the support of Palestinians, Iraq, Afghanistan and some other Muslim states plagued with poverty and other miseries. The summit talked about terrorism and the dangers of associating it with Islam as a religion, denouncing the terrorist activities carried out by al-Qaeda and its affiliate groups or members.
This is fine that these regimes denounce terrorism. They claimed that poverty and lack of international justice, the latter reckoned by our president Ali Abdullah Saleh. But, the Muslim leaders have not talked about the absence of reform, justice, democracy and freedom in their countries as a real cause behind terrorism. Why it is only the absence of international justice that brought about violence and terrorism and forget about the fact that the oppression and corruption of these tyrannical regimes against their people produced terrorism and a culture of hatred?
Why do these regimes always try to look for a reason for our failure and problems? I guess that you people agree with me that it is these regimes that is behind almost all problems we are going through including these terrorists who have been born, brought up and supported by these regimes which now, under the pressure of the US, are trying to break away with them.
These regimes have committed to fighting against terrorism. But, part of combating terrorism is looking into the reasons standing behind like absence of democracy and freedom in these countries. The question of reform of the Middle East countries in particular, now a global concern, has not been discussed at all by this emergency summit whose final statement has been full of condemnations and decisions. The OIC in its present form is a heavy burden on people of the member states as it is producing anything of value to them. We just see meetings and leaders delivering speeches we are used to and can predict their content even before they are read.
Where are the recommendations put forward by the committee of the experts to this summit? These recommendations are very good and address most of the important issues like that of reform, democracy, and some other economic issues. But, nothing of that was echoed by the summit.
I wrote last July during the meeting of the foreign ministers of IOC that the idea behind any coalition of countries, companies or organizations is basically economic. It is economy that drives the world rather than dogmas or religious beliefs. I also said I am against such coalitions that have religious backgrounds because they will expand and widen the divide between the world countries rather than brining them together.
Therefore, if the IOC turns into an organization that mainly pushes for more economic cooperation between its members states I think the outcome will concretize.
The Muslim countries should live up to the challenges of today and think seriously how to face problems like poverty, illiteracy, absence of democracy tc. These are the major challenges we are all facing. Can the Arab League or OIC do something to address these issues? Otherwise, we have the right to say we no more need such organizations whose aim is just to further propagate the rulers and their “achievements”. We always hear decisions and recommendations which never become a practice. I guess we do not need just meetings that further our disappointments with such regimes that talk much and work little.
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[archive-e:902-v:14-y:2005-d:2005-12-12-p:opinion]
