This article is from the source 'guardian' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.
You can find the current article at its original source at http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/andrewbrown/2013/may/21/religious-freedom-state-department-report
The article has changed 4 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.
| Version 0 | Version 1 |
|---|---|
| Why we'll never have total religious freedom | Why we'll never have total religious freedom |
| (36 minutes later) | |
| The US state department has just released its annual review of religious freedom around the world. Eight countries are marked out for particularly egregious violations: three are officially atheist, two are Sunni Muslim, one is Shia, one Buddhist, and one, Eritrea, is intolerantly multi-faith in that it recognises three streams of Christianity and one of Islam while persecuting all others. | The US state department has just released its annual review of religious freedom around the world. Eight countries are marked out for particularly egregious violations: three are officially atheist, two are Sunni Muslim, one is Shia, one Buddhist, and one, Eritrea, is intolerantly multi-faith in that it recognises three streams of Christianity and one of Islam while persecuting all others. |
| I'll list them all at the end of the article. For the moment it's quite a good exercise to try and work out which they can be. It sets in proportion the idea that there is one religion that is uniquely wicked and intolerant. | I'll list them all at the end of the article. For the moment it's quite a good exercise to try and work out which they can be. It sets in proportion the idea that there is one religion that is uniquely wicked and intolerant. |
| There is always something a little arbitrary about such lists. There are countries that are more religiously intolerant than any of those on it. To be a member of a religious minority in the wrong part of Afghanistan, Nigeria, Iraq, or Syria right now is more dangerous than any of the countries the state department fingered. | There is always something a little arbitrary about such lists. There are countries that are more religiously intolerant than any of those on it. To be a member of a religious minority in the wrong part of Afghanistan, Nigeria, Iraq, or Syria right now is more dangerous than any of the countries the state department fingered. |
| On the other hand you can hardly expect the American government to admit the frightfulness of either Iraq or Afghanistan while it is still pretending to have delivered both countries from tyranny. And in all those cases the problem arises because the government has collapsed at least in the afflicted areas. What the state department is concentrating on is persecution orchestrated by an efficient government. | On the other hand you can hardly expect the American government to admit the frightfulness of either Iraq or Afghanistan while it is still pretending to have delivered both countries from tyranny. And in all those cases the problem arises because the government has collapsed at least in the afflicted areas. What the state department is concentrating on is persecution orchestrated by an efficient government. |
| Antisemitism was noted in Hungary, Greece, Argentina and France, as well as the more obvious Middle Eastern suspects: | Antisemitism was noted in Hungary, Greece, Argentina and France, as well as the more obvious Middle Eastern suspects: |
"InEgypt, anti-Semitic sentiment in the media was widespread and sometimes included Holocaust denial or glorification. On October 19, President Morsy said 'Amen' during televised prayers in Mansour after an imam stated, 'Oh Allah ... grant us victory over the infidels. Oh Allah, destroy the Jews and their supporters.' This is a common prayer in Egyptian mosques and came in a litany of other prayers." | |
"InIran, the government regularly vilified Judaism. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad continued to question the existence and the scope of the Holocaust, and stated that 'a horrendous Zionist clan' had been 'ruling the major world affairs' for some 400 years." | |
| This is all loathsome but can we hope for this kind of scapegoating to be replaced by a tolerant rationality? | This is all loathsome but can we hope for this kind of scapegoating to be replaced by a tolerant rationality? |
| One of the things the report makes clear is just how much the secular discourse of human rights – from which religious freedom is supposed to derive – rests on large, unsupported, almost theological claims: "Foremost among the rights Americans hold sacred is the freedom to worship as we choose … The right to religious freedom is inherent in every human being." | One of the things the report makes clear is just how much the secular discourse of human rights – from which religious freedom is supposed to derive – rests on large, unsupported, almost theological claims: "Foremost among the rights Americans hold sacred is the freedom to worship as we choose … The right to religious freedom is inherent in every human being." |
| Either or both of these statements may be true. But it's clear that if they are there are kinds of truth wholly inaccessible to science and also incapable of logical proof. The reason that human rights arguments and religious ones can come into conflict is not that one is about fact and the other about values. They are both statements about the same kind of thing. | Either or both of these statements may be true. But it's clear that if they are there are kinds of truth wholly inaccessible to science and also incapable of logical proof. The reason that human rights arguments and religious ones can come into conflict is not that one is about fact and the other about values. They are both statements about the same kind of thing. |
| They are, fundamentally, arguments about what it is to be human. And the answers to that kind of question are not fixed. In good times they are more generous; in bad times very much less forgiving. In some ways what is most surprising about this year's report is not that there is so little religious toleration round the world but that so much survives. | They are, fundamentally, arguments about what it is to be human. And the answers to that kind of question are not fixed. In good times they are more generous; in bad times very much less forgiving. In some ways what is most surprising about this year's report is not that there is so little religious toleration round the world but that so much survives. |
| Oh, and the eight countries picked out? China, Eritrea, Iran, Burma, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Uzbekistan. |