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Submission to the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade (JSCFADT), Human Rights Sub-committee
Concerning: PROTECTING FREEDOM OF RELIGION OR BELIEF
Date: 28 April 2017
From: Christian Faith and Freedom (CFF), Canberra
P.O Box 9465
Deakin, ACT 2600
Phone (02) 6285-3116
E-mail [email protected]
Website http://christianfaithandfreedom.org
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Christian Faith and Freedom (CFF) advocates and defends freedom to proclaim and practice the Christian faith, and we speak up for and help those suffering persecution.
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Contents
Definitions and Christian Mandate 3 Executive Summary 4 A Matter of Worldview 4 Religious Liberty in Context 4 Introduction: Religious Persecution Escalates 5 The US Responds: International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 5 Religious Liberty in Context 7 Populations Trends 7 Rapid Population Growth 7 Mass Migration 7 Rapid Urbanisation 8 Religious Trends 9 Growth in Evangelical Christianity 9 Religious Nationalism 10 Islamic Revival and Revolution 11 Neo-Marxism Rises in the West 13 “Perfect Storm” 13
Trends in Religious Freedom 14 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) 14 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966) 14 Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (1969) 15 Cairo Declaration of Human Rights in Islam (1990) 16 UN Special Rapporteur recommends “complementary standards” (2007) 16 Nepal 17 Burma (Myanmar) 18 Conclusion: A Call to Courage 18 About the author 19 3
Definitions
Religious Freedom: CFF defines religious freedom / religious liberty according to Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR):
Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.
CFF notes that the freedom of religion, as defined by Article 18 of the UDHR, is intrinsically linked to freedom of expression (Article 19) and freedom of association (Article 20).
Proselytism: Traditionally, the word “proselytise” simply referred to any attempt to persuade a person to change their beliefs. Today however, the word has come to mean something more sinister, and now implies the use of insensitive, disrespectful, even immoral high-pressure tactics aimed purely at winning converts (as distinct from genuine believers).
Consequently, when referring to Gospel-mandated Christian witness and ministry, CFF prefers not to use the word “proselytism” for it carries so many negative connotations.
It must be noted, that many groups that accuse Christians of “proselytism” choose that word not because it is justified, but because they hope its negative connotations will elicit the desired response.
Coercion: the Oxford Dictionary defines coercion as: “The action or practice of persuading someone to do something by using force or threats.” The Business Dictionary goes further, defining coercion as: “Improper use (or threat of improper use) of authority, economic power, physical force, or other such advantage, by a party to compel another to submit to the wishes of its wielder. Agreements entered into, or testaments signed, under coercion are considered illegal and invalid.” 1
Christian Mandate
CFF recognises that in the Bible, Jesus Christ mandates Christians to exercise compassion so as to improve the lot of the “harassed and helpless” (Matthew 9:35-38), and to “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you” (Jesus’ Great Commission, as found in Matthew 18:19-20).
Consequently, CFF strongly supports the principle of freedom of freedom of religion, while rejecting all forms of insensitive and disrespectful, high pressure tactics and coercion.
1 While Christian ministries that deliver humanitarian aid or provide health or education services are routinely accused of “coercion”, it is generally a false accusation. To the contrary, Islamic laws mandating death for apostasy and death for blasphemy are most certainly a form of coercion. Similarly, Indian laws that strip Scheduled Caste Hindus of economic benefits and reservations (affirmative action) upon their conversion to Christianity are a form of economic coercion. The Indian government justifies this discrimination by maintaining that caste only applies to Hindus. But this is ludicrous – for in India, caste is inescapable. This is the primary reason why many desperately poor Christian converts never report their conversion, but continue to identify vis-a-vis the authorities as Scheduled Caste Hindus. Faced with the prospect of double persecution (over caste and religion) they simply cannot afford to lose their benefits. To accuse reputable Christian aid groups of coercions is not only false, it is profoundly hypocritical. 4
Like virtually all evangelical Protestant groups today, CFF believes that love for and faith in Jesus Christ is “invalid” unless it is freely given. Immoral proselytism and coercion might produce statistics, but they do not produce genuine converts/believers – not to Christianity, for Christ seeks not get political allegiance, but to give transformation of mind, heart and spirit. To that end, Christians are called to pray, and witness/testify to their faith, giving reason for what they believe.
Here is the Christian standard as expressed by the Apostle Peter:
“Now who is there to harm you if you are zealous for what is good? But even if you should suffer for righteousness’ sake, you will be blessed. Have no fear of them, nor be troubled, but in your hearts honour Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defence to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect, having a good conscience, so that, when you are slandered, those who revile your good behaviour in Christ may be put to shame.” (1 Peter 3:13-16 ESV)
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Christian Faith and Freedom (CFF)2 greatly appreciates the government’s attention to this critical issue, and welcomes the opportunity to make a submission to this important and timely inquiry into protecting freedom of religion or belief.
A Matter of Worldview
CFF acknowledges that the very concept of religious freedom emanates from worldview, and as such, is a highly contested right. Indeed, freedom of religion has its roots not in Islam, or in Karma, but in Biblical Christianity. The traditional Aussie culture of the “fair go” has its roots in the teachings of Jesus. It has long been accepted that Western civilisation was built on a foundation of Biblical Christianity.3 Indeed the Biblical concepts of individual freedom and personal accountability are central to the Judeo-Christian worldview and in turn, to Western legal theory.4
In this globalised world, as in our multicultural communities, it is becoming increasingly clear the belief that freedom of religion is a universal human right, is a belief not universally held.
Religious Freedom in Context
Recognising that most papers submitted to this inquiry will focus on specific situations and case studies, this submission will focus on context, in particular on the global trends that are driving the current escalation in religious persecution, repression and conflict. These trends include:
Population trends: During the later part of the 20th Century, post World War Two, several global mega-trends advanced unchallenged. Population trends including rapid population growth, mass migration and rapid urbanisation converged to produce serious social tensions: a “perfect storm”.
2 Christian Faith and Freedom (CFF): formerly known as ‘Christian Solidarity Australasia’. 3 Recommended: The Book That Made Your World, by Vishal Mangalwadi (Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2011). 4 See: Western Legal Theory: History, Concepts and Perspectives, By Augusto Zimmermann (LexisNexis Butterworths, 2013). Also: http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/WAJurist/2010/1.pdf 5
Religious trends: Coinciding with this, religious trends including the phenomenal growth of evangelical Protestant Christianity in the developing world, the rise of religious nationalism in post-colonial emerging democracies, and the revival of fundamentalist Islam (which criminalises apostasy and blasphemy) have converged to produce serious religious tensions.
By the end of the 20th Century, most competition over resources, jobs and power in the developing world was being expressed in terms of religion.
Obsessed with the threat of Communism – to the extent that it tended to view everything through a Cold War prism – the US-led West repeatedly misinterpreted developments in the developing world with a naivety that was/is, quite frankly, inexcusable.
Making matters worse, the rise of religious nationalism and the revival of fundamentalist Islam (in particular Saudi Arabian Wahhabi Sunni Islam) coincided with the US-led West’s promotion of “democracy” (often reduced to pure majoritarianism) in the highly tribalised and sectarian developing world. This has inadvertently served only to inflame and consolidate tribalism and sectarianism while empowering tribal, sectarian and Islamist forces.
In 1998 the US responded to the surge in religious persecution by enacting the US International Freedom of Religion Act. The Act provided many vulnerable religious minorities in the developing world with a veil of protection – at least for a time.
But the West has changed too, and, since the early 21st Century, has seen the rise of neo-Marxism and “New Atheism”. These ideologies are inherently hostile to religion in general, but especially to Christianity as the foundation and framework of Western civilisation. Consequently, not only is religious freedom under threat in the West, but so too is the Western defence of international religious freedom.
Once one of the key Four Freedoms5, once accepted as a basic fundamental universal human right [UDHR Article 18], religious freedom is increasingly being viewed as an expendable right.
For existentially imperilled Christian in the developing world – be they indigenous Copts in Egypt or remnant Assyrians in Mesopotamia; or members of tiny convert communities dotting the sub- continent and the hills of southeast Asia; or be they the war ravaged Nuba in Sudan’s “new south”, or war ravaged Kachin in Burma’s far north, or the betrayed Papuans of Eastern Indonesia – this abandonment could not come at a worse time.
INTRODUCTION: Religious Persecution Escalates
When the Cold War ended and the gulags emptied, many Westerners believed that religious persecution would be a thing of the past. A quote from leading Christian missiologist David J. Bosch sums up the thinking of the times.
5 The four freedoms: freedom of speech and of expression; freedom of every person to worship God in his own way; freedom from want [requiring economic development] and freedom from fear [requiring a worldwide reduction of armaments]. Franklin D. Roosevelt, 6 January 1941. http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/fdrthefourfreedoms.htm 6
In his 1995 book Believing in the Future, Bosch quotes missiologist Johannes Aagaard who in 1982 (at the height of the Cold War) commented: “‘The days of missio triumphans have passed and the days of missio pressa have come. . . . The decisive missiological questions to which we have to respond will often be put to us by the judges and the prosecutors”. Along with Matthew 28 [the Great Commission] Matthew 10 [which describes future persecution] would now be “the charter for missiological praxis and reflection.”
To this Bosch responds: “In the present climate, after the momentous political events of 1991 and the dawn of a so-called New World Order, the words of . . . Aagaard sound strangely unreal, even apocalyptic. They scarcely seem to have any bearing on mission in the Third World, let alone in the West . . . yet the situation could change rapidly and unexpectedly.”6
Indeed, the situation has changed! Religious repression, persecution and conflict are escalating globally, and increasing numbers of Christians are living with serious hardship and gross insecurity. That freedom of religion and belief is under attack and in decline, is manifestly self- evident.
However, this change did not come “rapidly”. Rather, as is usually the case, it built up over time (in this case, at least a half century). What’s more, this change was only “unexpected” because the West had long focused all its attentions on Russia and the Cold War. For example, Muammar Gaddafi accurately predicted the “Arab Spring” in 1989. 7 The other Arab leaders dismissed his warning, deluding themselves that they could use Islamic jihadists for their own ends. Meanwhile, the West remained either blind to or naive about the threat posed by events and trends and the Muslim world.
The US Responds: In 1998, in an effort to address the issue of escalating religious persecution, the US government enacted the US International Religious Freedom Act (US IRF Act). The Act tied international religious freedom to US foreign policy and mandated that states assessed to be severe persecutors and religious liberty abusers be subject to sanctions. US economic leverage gave the ACT its power/teeth.
While the Act was not perfect and was subject to politicisation and constrained by interests, it did give many dictators a reason to reign in their most hostile elements and even tinker with reforms for the sake of US aid and trade. As such, the US IRF Act of 1998 provided many of the world’s most vulnerable religious minorities with a veil of protection.
6 Believing in the Future: Towards a Missiology of Western Culture, by David J. Bosch (Trinity Press, Harrisburg, PA, USA, 1995) page 61. 7 “In late May [1989], twenty-one Arab monarchs and other heads of state, as well as dozens of senior officials and staff, gathered in Baghdad for an all-Arab summit (. . .) Qadhafi [Gaddafi] delivered an alarming and perceptive speech. Time was running out for the Arab world, he proclaimed. The Arab political system was on the verge of collapse because of the popular groundswell of Islamist radicalism. Furthermore, the new wave of radicalism was all- Islamic and thus undercut the region’s Arab identity. ‘We must all, virtually today,’ Qadhafi warned, ‘establish a joint alliance to stand strong and steadfast against the radical-extremist Islamic groups that are seeking to take over the entire Middle East. They multiply with the speed of lightening. We are likely to wake up one morning to face the masses raising slogans to the effect that “Islam is the solution to all our economic and social woes” and demanding that we, the present rulers, vacate the arena’.” High Cost of Peace: How Washington’s Middle East Policy Left America Vulnerable to Terrorism, by Yossef Bodansky (Prima, New York, 2002), page 31. [Quoted in After Saturday Comes Sunday: Understanding the Christian Crisis in the Middle East, by Elizabeth Kendal (Wipf and Stock, Eugene, OR, USA, June 2016) page 79. 7
However, in August-September 2008, the US housing bubble burst, triggering a financial crisis that ripped the teeth right out of the Act. It soon became clear that the era of the US IRF Act was over, the gloves were off!
Since then, persecution with impunity has become the order of the day.
RELIGIOUS LIBERTY IN CONTEXT
In his March 2008 editorial for Defense & Foreign Affairs Strategic Policy magazine, strategic analysts Gregory R Copley observed: “It is the confluence of individual events and trends – each separately manageable – which transforms strategic situations.” 8
And so it is the case, that religious liberty and security have been profoundly impacted by global trends that, having advanced unchallenged for decades, have now converged to create what Copley calls a “perfect storm”. Already well developed by the end of the 20th Century, this “perfect storm” moved into the 21st Century with a trail of destruction in its wake and decades of momentum behind it.
This “perfect storm” provides the context in which freedom of religion and belief is being challenged as a concept and a respected universal human right.
Population Trends rapid population growth
Since around 1960, advances in medical technology and food production have contributed to the global mega-trend of rapid population growth, with the global population ballooning from 3 billion to 7 billion in the space of 50 years.
There is nothing inherently bad about this; the planet can sustain this population. The problem is not population, but corruption, greed and megalomania – i.e. what the Bible calls “sin”. Sin destroys the earth and ruins relationships; it produces violence, suffering and death. Sin is a problem no amount of aid or “democracy” will ever fix.
While the world population has grown rapidly, trends pertaining to modernisation and technological development, along with issues of poverty, geo-politics and climate (primarily drought) have fuelled the global mega-trends of mass migration and rapid urbanisation.
Mass Migration
The trend of mass migration has not only put added pressure on the world’s long-existing ethnic- religious “fault-lines”, it has created numerous new ethnic-religious fault-lines, which now run through cities, towns and suburbs. Case studies could include Jos, Nigeria, which is now (due to
8 "Early Warning. Here comes the cavalry" By Gregory R Copley, editor-in-chief, Defense & Foreign Policy Strategic Policy magazine, issue 3, 2008 (subscription). International Strategic Studies Association: www.StrategicStudies.org 8
Fulani-Muslim southward migration) divided into a Muslim north and mostly-Christian south;9 or Even Birmingham, UK, or Paris, France – major Western cities which now include Muslim- majority enclaves, “no-go zones” or “sensitive areas”.10
Many mass migrations are predatory migrations, orchestrated and driven by political, military and religious actors, keen to exploit an existing opportunity to change realities on the ground. In these cases, the migrants are pushed by internal forces, as much as they are pulled by the prospect of greater security or prosperity elsewhere. Case studies could include the mass migration of Javanese Muslims into the Melanesian Christian regions of eastern Indonesia; the mass migration of Bengali Muslims into the Chittagong Hill Tracts, as well as across the border into Tripura and Assam (eastern India) and Arakan/Rakhine (Burma/Myanmar); the mass migration of Albanian Muslims into Serbia’s Kosovo province in 1980s; and the perpetual southward migration of nomadic Hausa-Fulani and Misseriya Muslims across Africa’s great ethnic-religious “fault-line” into lands long settled and farmed by African, mostly-Christian indigenes. These mass migrations have resulted in ethnic and religious tensions and conflicts between settlers and indigenes.
Rapid Urbanisation
In 2007 the global population became majority urban for the first time in human history. The problems caused by rapid urbanisation are huge – going way beyond the self-evident problems caused by having masses of humanity pouring into confined spaces where they then must compete for limited resources, jobs and power.11
Nowhere are the problems caused by rapid urbanisation more profound than in the mega-cities of the developing world. In February 2010, the Foreign Policy Research Institute published a report by professors P. H. Liotta & James F. Miskel entitled: The ‘Mega-Eights’: Urban Leviathans and International Instability.12
Professors Liotta and Miskel regard the rise of “10/40 window”13 “megacities”14 as a serious threat to international stability, human security and environmental degradation. “The ‘10/40 window’ demarks regions of the world where socioeconomic challenges are the most daunting; where two-thirds of the world’s population and four-fifths of the world’s poor live. This ‘window’ is a veritable stew of competing religious identities and ethnic groups. This part of the world has been resistant to western political and social culture in general – yet mass media [which now includes social media] make the people there keenly aware of the advantages of the materialism associated with western modernity.”
As the authors note, while megacities in the developed world might struggle with aging infrastructure, at least their institutions of governance were well established before the population
9 See: Why is Jos such a tinderbox? by Elizabeth Kendal, for Religious Liberty Monitoring, 9 March 2010. http://elizabethkendal.blogspot.com.au/2010/03/nigeria-why-is-jos-such-tinderbox.html 10 See Soeren Kern, Gatestone Institute. France: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/5128/france-no-go-zones Britain: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/5177/no-go-zones-britain 11 See, UnCivilization: Urban Geopolitics in a Time of Chaos, by Gregory R. Copley, (ISSA, 2012). 12 Foreign Policy Research Institute. The ‘Mega-Eights’: Urban Leviathans and International Instability, excerpted from The Leviathan Returns: The Rise of the Megacity and Its Threat to Global Security, by professors P. H. Liotta & James F. Miskel. http://www.fpri.org/enotes/201002.liottamiskel.megaeights.html 13 10/40 window is the area running from West Africa, through the Middle East to East Asia between north latitude 10 and 40 degrees. http://1040window.org/ 14 The United Nations Population Division classifies populations in excess of 10 million as megacities. 9 boom. This is not the case in the developing world, where these population trends have been most acute. For example, sixty years ago Karachi, Pakistan, was little more than a fishing village with a population of some 400,000. Today however, Karachi is a megacity, home to some 24 million, only without the infrastructure and institutions to support that mass of humanity. Some 50 percent live in slums, where up to 90 percent are migrants, most of whom are illegal.15
Havens for terrorists and criminals, these cities are increasingly lawless. Karachi today is home to more than 20 million people and more than 40 million guns. The terror group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) flies the flag of its political wing openly across the city and commits terrorism with impunity.
It must be noted, that Islamic fundamentalists are not the only ones who object to Christian activities in these lawless cities; so too do criminals – in particular gun runners, drug trafficker, human traffickers, corrupt officials . . . indeed anyone whose economic or power circumstance could be negatively impacted by the Church’s redemptive ministry and/or transformative message: “repent and be reconciled to God”. These cities are dangerous places for anyone, but especially for vulnerable and defenceless, minority Christians.
These global population mega-trends have converged to produce profound social tension. This increasingly tense environment provides the context in which religious trends have also advanced and converged to produce profound religious tensions – producing an explosive mix.
Religious Trends
Evangelical Christianity
Since the 1960s, there has been phenomenal growth of Christianity (mostly Protestant and evangelical) in the developing world.16
In 1960, some 80 percent of the global Church was white, Western and middle class.
Today, some 80 percent of the global Church is coloured, non-Western and poor.
This trend of phenomenal growth of Christianity in the developing world conincides with the emergence of indigenous missions (i.e. the local, indigenous peoples are doing the missionary work). America might still send out the largest number of Christian missionaries of any country (most being teachers, medics, engineers, church- planters etc, serving everywhere from Albania to Mali to Yemen), but the majority of Christian missionaries in the world are not American, or even Western. Rather, they are Indians, South Koreans, Nigerians and Latinos; Philipinos, Brazilians, Eritreans and Coptic Egyptians.17
15 http://worldpopulationreview.com/world-cities/karachi-population/ 16 Image/graph: The Church is Bigger Than You Think, by Patrick Johnstone (Christian Focus Publications, UK, 1998) 17 Baptism image courtesy Gospel for Asia, https://www.gfa.org/ 10
When one talks of “missionaries” today, they may be referring to Nepalese and Laotian pastors who spend each summer trekking into the mountains; or to Indian and Chinese evangelists engaged in cross-cultural ministry; or Eritreans in Yemen, Koreans in Central Asia, Nigerians in Senegal and UK, Asians in Algeria and the USA etc. Similarly, today’s new churches are totally indigenous, featuring indigenous hymns and songs written by indigenous song-writers using indigenous instruments.
** Policy-makers should not be fooled by anti-liberty, anti-Christian elements and religious dictators deceptively evoking old stereotypes**
A result of the trend of phenomenal growth of evangelical Christianity in the developing world is that today millions of minority Christians are living radically counter-cultural lives in states whose names are synonymous with human rights abuses.
As Christian minorities living amidst increasingly hostile Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist and traditional/animist majorities, their liberty is contested and their security is tenuous. Taking the Biblical mandates seriously, these Christians witness to and serve their own communities and nations, often at great risk to their own life and liberty.
Over recent decades they have watched helplessly as their liberty and security have gone into radical decline, challenged by other religious trends such as rise of religious nationalism, the revival of fundamentalist Islam, and the Western embrace of neo-Marxist ideology (which is hostile towards Christianity and consequently cares little for persecuted Christians).
Religious nationalism
While most religious nationalism was birthed during the colonial era – arising as a response to foreign occupation and repressive colonial policies – it was only after independence that it became a serious issue for religious minorities. This has particularly been the case in emerging democracies where unscrupulous and ambitious politicians have learned quickly how to exploit the religion card for political and personal gain.
Political actors fuel religious nationalism with the aim of drag-netting the majority vote. Meanwhile, religious actors – be they Muslims in Northern Nigeria or high caste Hindus in India – fuel religious nationalism with the aim of restoring and/or retaining influence and control over the masses, and a privileged status in the community.
Exploiting religion for political gain, political and religious actors demonise the minorities, vilifying them as a threat to social cohesion, national security, and even national dignity. The religious majority are then duly exhorted to unify against this existential threat. 11
Religious national produces crippling systematic discrimination and violent persecution which is committed with impunity. 18
Because Christians generally do not and cannot to retaliate, they are the most vulnerable of all minorities.
Islamic Revival and Revolution
Christianity teaches that humanity’s problem is sin: a condition of the heart which results in rebellion against God and separates humans from their Creator. Christianity also teaches that sin is a problem sinful humanity cannot fix. As such, humanity is in need of rescue, for our problem can only be remedied through divine forgiveness through which we are reconciled to God. Thus we have a problem that can only be solved by means of Amazing Grace.19
Islam is the polar opposite of Christianity. For Islam teaches that humanity’s problem is ignorance, a condition of the mind which results in failure to attain what Allah has promised. Islam teaches that the remedy for this is Allah’s guidance as found in the Qur’an and the example of Muhammad. Those who submit to Allah’s guidance (i.e. Muslims) are promised success in this life. The traditional Islamic understanding is that this success is totally material (i.e. power and prosperity); it is not to be spiritualised. What’s more, “Come to success”, is the only promise in the Islamic call to prayer as heard from mosques minarets everywhere, five times every day.
For a thousand years (roughly AD 650 to 1650), Islam expanded through military conquest and colonisation; it was a millennium of success upon success upon success. By the early 17th Century, Muslim armies had managed to conquer a full three quarters of the old Christian world. One would be been forgiven for concluding, at the time, that Christendom was doomed to be supplanted by the more youthful and energetic religion of Islam.
But it was not to be. In 1683, the Ottoman Turks were defeated at the Gates of Vienna and fortunes reversed as Islamic military and imperialist power faded and crumbled beneath the expanse of empire, the corruption of the caliphate, and the rising industrial, military, scientific, technological and economic power of post-Reformation Europe.
Muslims fought hard to resist their humiliation, with routine massacres that forced Russia (as the protector of Eastern Christians) to repeatedly intervene in Ottoman affairs in defence of the Empire’s long-suffering Christian subjects. In exchange for British and French support in the Crimean War (1853-1856), the Ottoman Sultan was obliged to introduce reforms: specifically to end dhimmitude20 by granting Jews and Christians the same rights as Muslims. But the reform efforts failed, and instead some three million of the Ottoman Empire’s Christian subjects – Syriacs, Maronites, Greeks, Bulgarians, Serbs and other Slavs, Armenians, Assyrians etc – were slaughtered. “Thus the final century of the caliphate was soaked in blood as Christians throughout the unravelling Ottoman Empire suffering massacre, forced deportation, forced Islamization, mass
18 Image, taken from youtube footage, shows Pastor Kumar, tonsured and paraded on a donkey by Bajrang Dal Hindutva activists in the presence of police after being accused of converting Hindus to Christianity. Uttar Pradesh, India, 29 January 2016.
19 This truth celebrated in the Reverend John Newton’s famous hymn, Amazing Grace. [Newton was formerly a slave trader; “lost” until God “found” him in the midst of a stormy sea.] 20 Dhimmitude: the condition of Jews and Christians (the People of the Book) subjugated as second class citizens without legal rights under Islamic rule. See the works of Bat Ye’or (an Egyptian Jew now living in Switzerland) and Rev Dr Mark Durie (Australian). 12 starvation, and genocide at the hand of resistant Muslims who would sooner kill than accommodate those whom they believed were beneath them.”21
Confronted with Islamic decline and humiliation, Islamic reformers such as Mohammed Ibn Abdel Wahhab (late 18th C), Sayyid Abu A ‘la Mawdudi (1903-1979) and Sayyid Qutb (1906-1966) called on Muslims to return to the “pure” Islam necessary for success.
In the 1960s and 70s, multitudes of rural, mostly madrassa-educated conservative Muslims migrated into the cities. Pushed by drought, poverty and land reforms, they were drawn by the city lights, the lure of modernity and the prospect of work. Holed up in the slums of Tehran, Riyadh, Cairo, Homs, eastern Aleppo etc., their causes were taken up by the Muslim Brotherhood and by Salafi clerics who shared their conservative Islam and their desire for radical change. The stage was being set for Islamic revolution.
In February 1979, after 13 months of protests and political upheaval, the US-backed-then- abandoned Shah of Iran fled Tehran, paving the way for the return of exiled Ayatollah Khomeini. On 1 April 1979, Iran declared an Islamic Republic.
Then in Saudi Arabia on 20 November 1979, Sunni revolutionaries laid siege to the Grand Mosque in Mecca. With the Saudi armed forces reluctant to shoot fellow Muslims, and unwilling to raise their weapons in the Grand Mosque (an Islamic holy site), it seemed the ruling House of Saud might also fall. Because the uprising was occurring in Mecca (a city forbidden to infidels) the ruling House of Saud needed a fatwa (religious ruling) from the clerics that would grant foreign non-Muslim/infidel troops permission to enter the holy site. The fatwa would not come cheap.
To secure the fatwa the House of Saud had to agree to fund the Wahhabi clerical establishment’s campaign to disseminate fundamentalist /puritanical Sunni Islam worldwide, and to fund international Islamic jihad. Once the deal was brokered and the fatwa was secured, U.S. and then French Special Forces were brought in and the revolution was put down.
The Sunni revolutionaries might have failed in their objective (the overthrow of the House of Saud), but they paved the way for the Wahhabi clerics to secure a most strategic win!
Since 1980, billions of Saudi petro-dollars have flowed through the hands of Saudi Arabia’s Wahhabi clerical establishment to “Wahhabise” the world’s Sunnis Muslims and to fund international Islamic jihad. Thousands of African and Asian Muslims have been granted scholarships to the Middle East’s most puritanical Islamic Universities. Once “Wahhabised” they are sent back home where they “Wahhabise” the locals through local mosques.
The Saudi-funded Wahhabi campaign has been phenomenally successful primarily because it has been so covert, operating as it does from behind the benign facade of the US-allied and protected House of Saud.
By the 1990s, Islamic veils, beards and social mores (no alcohol, no fraternising between sexes etc) were taking root in cities such as Nairobi, Jakarta and Kuala Lumpur; in northern Ivory Coast, Northern Nigeria, West Java, Tanzania . . . In mosques on every continent, radicalised/
21 After Saturday Comes Sunday: Understanding the Christian Crisis in the Middle East, by Elizabeth Kendal (Wipf and Stock, Eugene, OR, USA, 2016) page 55 [from sectioned sub-headed “Islamic Resistance”, pages 48-55.] 13
“Wahhabised” preachers were increasingly preaching separation, intolerance, Islamic supremacy – and in the West, non-assimilation.
Today, most Muslims under the age of 30yrs have been raised on a diet of Saudi Arabian fundamentalist/traditional (as distinct from nominal/cultural) Wahhabi Islam.
The revival of fundamentalist/traditional Islam has: (1) widened the gap between Islam’s traditionalists and modernisers (i.e. polarisation within Islam – with traditionalists/conservatives increasingly hostile towards modernisers); (2) widened the gap between Sunnis and Shi’ites (i.e. polarisation of the sects – with Sunnis increasingly hostile towards non-Sunnis); and (3) widened the gap between Islam and non-Islam (i.e. polarisation of cultures – with Islam increasingly hostile towards non-Islam).22
The Rise of Neo-Marxism in the West
During the Cold War, the atheistic Communist East competed with the Judeo-Christian capitalist West in a covert war to subvert the other. The US backed anti-Communists movements – such as the Afghan mujahideen, along with various ethno-religious separatist movements. The Soviets, meanwhile, backed Marxist institutes and “think tanks”, such as the Frankfurt School with the aim of undermining the West’s cultural foundations through a neo-Marxist “long march through the institutions”.
Both sides were phenomenally successful! Today we are simply living with the consequences.
Marx maintained that for a truly equitable utopia to be realised, religion and family and nationalism had to be abolished (Communist Manifesto).23
The neo-Marxist agenda has advanced through the institutions – especially academia and media (including entertainment) – exploiting political correctness (a Soviet tactic) to influence the thinking of a whole generation. Today our universities are temples of political correctness, displaying diversity in every category – except thought.
Its moral and cultural foundations now thoroughly undermined (as demonstrated in the wide acceptance of moral and cultural relativism), the West is experiencing cultural collapse. Due primarily to geography, the crisis is far more severe in the UK and EU (where it is probably irreversible) than here in Australia.
“Perfect Storm”
By the end of the 20th Century, social and religious tensions had converge to the point that most competition over resources, jobs and power (etc) was being expressed in terms of religion, posing a challenge to freedom of religion and belief.
22 For more on this trend see: After Saturday Comes Sunday: Understanding the Christian Crisis in the Middle East, by Elizabeth Kendal (Wipf and Stock, Eugene, OR, USA, June 2016) 23 Communist Manifesto: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ [Pdf: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/download/pdf/Manifesto.pdf ] specifically chapter 2, Proletarians and Communists. 14
The emergence of religious nationalism and revival of fundamentalist Islam have coincided in the 21st Century with the West’s international promotion of “democracy” (almost as a religion) and tacit rejection of Christianity (the faith/worldview that underpins modern democracy).
The promotion of what is little more than majoritarianism throughout the developing world, in states that are wracked with tribalism and sectarianism, has only served to massively empower radical Islamist and sectarian forces which are by nature anti-democratic, anti-West, anti-liberty and anti-Christian. The legacy is proving to be disastrous for minority Christians, many of whom are actually the indigenous peoples of the region.
Meanwhile, Australia’s (and much of the West’s) embrace of cultural relativism (inherent in ideological multiculturalism and neo-Marxism) has coincided with all of the above trends: Muslim migration and the revival of fundamentalist Islam being the most salient. The tensions in multicultural societies are not imagined. Furthermore, contrary to much elitist opinion, these tensions are not (generally) the product of “ignorant Islamophobia” or “racist xenophobia”. More often than not they are a consequence of the Saudi-funded “Wahhabisation” which has widened the gap between peoples and cultures. The polarisation is such that many long-peaceful multicultural communities are now close to tearing apart. And the primary struggle is centered on liberty, specifically freedom of speech and freedom of religion and belief.
Trends in Religious Freedom
1948: The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR)
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) was commissioned in 1946 in the wake of World War II. It was drafted over two years by the Commission on Human Rights. The Drafting committing comprised nine members, none of whom was Muslim, Hindu or Buddhist nationalist, and most of whom were working from a Judeo-Christian worldview. 24
Objecting from the outset was Saudi Arabia, which requested that Article 18 be amended to remove everything from “This right includes . . .” If passed this would have enabled Islamic states to formulate their own interpretation of what freedom of thought, conscience and religion entails.
When that was rejected, Saudi Arabia revised its amendment, requesting the removal of the words “freedom to change his religion”.
This too was rejected, and on 10 December 1948 the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted as Resolution 217(III) with 48 members in favour, and 8 abstaining.
1966: International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR)
Clause 1of Article 18 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) of 1966 essentially mirrors Article 18 of the UDHR. However, that is then followed by two clauses that quite inadvertently have paved the way for religious freedom to be redefined and ultimately, eviscerated.
ICCPR Article 18 clause 2 introduces concept of coercion. Because the word is undefined, it remains open to interpretation. Doubtless those who drafted the ICCPR in 1996 believed the word
24 http://research.un.org/en/undhr/draftingcommittee 15 implied the use of force, and regarded coercion as something akin to torture (as in a coerced confession). Indeed, that is how most Westerners would define it today. However, Islamists and religious nationalists interpret coercion so broadly so as to include the threat of divine displeasure over sin, and virtually any offer of humanitarian aid and assistance. As such, this clause is increasingly being used by religious nationalists to censor religious expression, persecute religious believers, and even prosecute Christian missionaries.
Clause 3 then introduces the idea of limiting religious freedom in order to protect public safety, order, health, or morals or the fundamental rights and freedoms of others. Doubtless the clause was introduced to counter deadly dangerous heterodox cults. Today, however, it is being exploited by groups and governments opposed to Christianity or indeed to the presence of any religious minority. A riot, or even just the threat of one, is all it takes in some places to convince the authorities that the mere existence of Christian or other minority believers or poses a threat to social cohesion and public safety. Depriving peaceful religious believers of their basic rights in order to appease belligerent elements, is an act of extreme governmental cowardice and betrayal.
The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (formerly the Organisation of Islamic Conference)
The OIC http://www.oic-oci.org/ was founded in 1969 with a mandate to strengthen and unify Muslims, and to protect and advance Islam.
Since then, a number of Muslim-majority states have amended their constitutions to enshrine Islam as the state religion and Islamic Sharia law as the principle source of legislation and standard for human rights.
For example: The Egyptian Constitution of 1923 states:
Article 1) Egypt shall be a sovereign, free and independent country. The monarchy shall be indivisible and inalienable in any part thereof. The system of government shall be a representative hereditary monarchy.
Article 2) Egyptian nationality shall be determined by law.
Article 3) Egyptians shall be equal before the law in enjoying civil and political rights, and in public duties and mandates, with no discrimination among them therein on the grounds of origin, language or religion.
Article 4) Personal freedom shall be protected.
Whereas the Egyptian Constitution of 1971 states:
Article 1) The Arab Republic of Egypt is a democratic state based on citizenship. The Egyptian people are part of the Arab Nation and work for the realization of its comprehensive unity.25
Article 2) Islam is the religion of the State and Arabic its official language.
25 The emphasis on the Arab nature of Egypt begs the question: is Egypt still a nation for the Copts? The Copts are the indigenous people of Egypt – the descendants of the Pharaohs; they are not Arabs. The Arabs invaded Egypt under the banner of Islam in the 7th Century. 16
Islamic law (Sharia) is the principal source of legislation. (emphasis mine)
Today, the constitutions of most OIC member states include phrases such as “Islamic law (Sharia) is the principal source of legislation” or “No law shall be enacted that is contrary to Islamic Sharia Law”, which mandates death for apostasy, death for blasphemy, and death for causing fitna. Even the US-backed constitutions of Afghanistan and Iraq include these phrases regardless of the fact that if Sharia is supreme then equality and religious liberty are illusory.
[All four principle schools of Islamic law mandate that male apostates of age and of sound mind are to be executed (normally by beheading), while under-aged boys are to be imprisoned until they are of age, when they will must either recant or die. Concerning female apostates: the Hanbali, Maliki and Shafi’i schools all mandate death for female apostates; while the Hanafi school and Shi’ism mandate that female apostates be imprisoned until they recant. This is not because they are merciful, but because their view of women is so low that they do not consider female apostates a serious threat to society. As it is their testimony in court is worth close to nothing. [In classical Islam, a woman’s testimony is worth half that of a man’s and an infidel may not testify against a Muslim.]
1990: Cairo Declaration of Human Rights in Islam (CDHRI)
In 1990, the OIC gathered representatives in Cairo to clarify the situation of human rights and religious liberty in Islam once and for all. Rejecting the UDHR as a Judeo-Christian construct (which it is), they endorsed instead the Cairo Declaration of Human Rights in Islam (CDHRI). According to this declaration, all rights are subject to Islamic Shari’ah, that is, they are to be interpreted “within the framework of Shari’ah”, “according to the principles of Shari’ah”. The CDHRI contains no inherent right to religious liberty.26
So as to eliminate any confusion, the final two articles of the CDHRI state:
Article 24) All the rights and freedoms stipulated in this Declaration are subject to the Islamic Shari’ah.
Article 25) The Islamic Shari’ah is the only source of reference for the explanation or clarification of any of the articles of this Declaration.
2007: UN Special Rapporteur recommends adopting “complementary standards”
On 21 August 2007, the UN Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance, Doudou Diène (a Senegalese Muslim) presented his report on “the manifestations of defamation of religions and in particular on the serious implications of Islamophobia on the enjoyment of all rights” to the 6th Session of the UN Human Rights Council.27
The report has served to serious undermine religious liberty.
After lamenting the evils of “Islamophobia”, Diène blamed Israeli policy for the anti-Semitism in the world, and the proselytizing of evangelical Christians for the “Christianophobia” exploding
26 Cairo Declaration of Human Rights in Islam: http://hrlibrary.umn.edu/instree/cairodeclaration.html 27 UNHRC REPORT A/HRC/6/6 https://documents-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/G07/137/32/PDF/G0713732.pdf?OpenElement 17 across the developing world. According to the UN Special Rapporteur, while Muslims who live in the West are the victims of irrational hate, Jews and Christians must wear the blame for their own suffering and persecution.
With that, the Special Rapporteur concluded with a call to reinterpret and amend Articles 18, 19 and 20 of the ICCPR, which relate to freedom of religion, freedom of expression, and prohibition of “incitement”, respectively. “In the light of the polarized and confrontational reading of these articles,” wrote Diène, “the Human Rights Committee [should] consider the possibility of adopting complementary standards on the interrelations between freedom of expression, freedom of religion and non-discrimination, in particular by drafting a general comment on article 20.”
To this end, UNHRC Resolution 16/1828 of April 2011 proposed that “defamation of religion” be criminalised as incitement, citing ICCPR Article 20.
In recent years, several states undergoing constitutional reform have limited religious freedom through the introduction of complementary standards, purely to appease belligerent religious nationalist factions.
The fact that these states were able to eviscerate religious liberty without censure from the “international community” shows the degree to which religious liberty has moved from being one of the Four Freedoms and a fundamental universal human right, to a right that is totally expendable.
Cases study: Nepal
In September 2015, Nepal adopted a new constitution. Note how Article 31 enshrines freedom of religion and belief, before proceeding to eviscerate that right by means of complementary measures which are open to interpretation.
Article 31) Right to religious freedom
Clause 1) Each person shall be free to profess, practice, and preserve his/her religion according to his/her faith, and distance himself/herself from any other religion.
Clause 3) In exercising the right entrusted by this article, any act which may be contrary to public health, public decency or morality or incitement to breach public peace or act to convert another person from one religion to another or any act or behaviour to undermine or jeopardise the religion of each other is not allowed and such act shall be punishable by law.
Nepal is home to some 100,000 Catholic and over a million mostly evangelical Protestant Christians. Most of these are new believers, having embraced Christianity during Nepal’s decade of freedom (2005-2015) during which time Christianity grew at 10.93 percent, the highest rate anywhere in the world surpassing
28 16/18 Combating intolerance, negative stereotyping and stigmatization of, and discrimination, incitement to violence and violence against, persons based on religion or belief. April 2011. http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/docs/16session/A.HRC.RES.16.18_en.pdf 18 even China, which was 2nd with a growth rate of 10.86 percent.
The new law – which eviscerates religious freedom – is designed to prevent people from leaving Hinduism (81percent) and Buddhism (9 percent) and was only included to appease belligerent religious nationalist elements (primarily Indian-backed Hindu nationalists).
That international outrage was virtually non-existent only proved that perceptions have changed, and that many who formerly supported UDHR Article 18 no longer do. International Crisis Group’s lengthy analysis of the new constitution made no mention of religious freedom. Unfortunately, ICG’s oversight was more the rule than the exception, amongst governments and NGOs.
Case Study Myanmar
Myanmar’s new Religious Conversion Law – passed in August 2015 – mandates that anyone wanting to change their religion must first apply to a board for a certificate of conversion. Furthermore, anybody applying to convert “with the intention of insulting or destroying a religion” could be jailed for up to two years. Anyone who “compels” others to convert through “undue influence or pressure” (all undefined) would be liable to one year in jail.
The Religious Conversion Law, which is clearly designed to stop people leaving Buddhism, is one of four laws packaged under the Race and Religion Protection Bill, introduced by the Ministry of Religious Affairs which, according to its website, is committed openly to the “purification, perpetuation, promotion and propagation of the Theravada Buddhist Sasana [religious doctrine]”. The Bill is the result of lobbying by the Buddhist nationalist monks of “Mabatha”, the Committee for the Protection of Nationality and Religion.
Denied freedom to convert in direct violation of UDHR Article 18, Buddhist women are also now constrained by the Buddhist Women’s Special Marriage law (one of the four laws in the Race and Religion Protection Bill) to marry a Buddhist man (in what is essentially nothing other than a Buddhist version of Islamic marriage law) in direct violation of UDHR Article 16.29
Again, the international outrage was virtually non-existent.
CONCLUSION
The principle of freedom of religion has been contested ever since the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) was drafted in 1948 . . . i.e. before the rise of religious nationalism, before the revival of fundamentalist Islam, and before the rise of neo-Marxism and cultural relativism in the West.
Today, UDHR Article 18 and the very concept of freedom of religion as a universal human right are being seriously challenged by forces that would like to see religious freedom made subject to situational and cultural considerations, as if the fundamental right to freedom of religion is no longer to be considered a universal human right.
29 UDHR Article 16 (1) Men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family. They are entitled to equal rights as to marriage, during marriage and at its dissolution. 19
Increasingly, the international response to the placing of limits on religious liberty is that of quiet acceptance, as if religious freedom should no longer include the right to express or change ones religion. What’s more, it is increasingly the case that religious expression that could potentially lead to the conversion of another person is being deemed an abuse of religious liberty, and even criminal. This is pure religious totalitarianism – the opposite of religious freedom.
In his famous and controversial 1978 address entitled “A World Split Apart”, exiled Russian dissident Alexander Solzhenitsyn lamented: “The Western world has lost its civic courage, both as a whole and separately, in each country, in each government, in each political party, and, of course, in the United Nations. Such a decline in courage is particularly noticeable among the ruling and intellectual elites . . .” 30
If freedom of religion is to be preserved and advanced according to the definition of UDHR Article 18, then Western leaders will need to find the conviction, strength and courage to stand firm in the midst this “perfect storm”, in the face of a rising tide of opposition, to defend and promote freedom of religion and belief as a universal human right, both at home and abroad.
Submission prepared by Elizabeth Kendal, International religious liberty analyst and CFF Director of Advocacy www.ElizabethKendal.com on behalf of Christian Faith and Freedom (CFF) Canberra President: Mr Hedley Grant Chapman Vice President: Mrs Karen Bos National Director: Mr Roy Barton
About the author
Elizabeth Kendal has 20-years experience in the field of religious liberty analysis and advocacy. Commencing work with the World Evangelical Alliance Religious Liberty Commission in July 1998, she then worked as Principal Researcher and Writer from January 2002 until April 2009 when she resigned to work independently. Elizabeth is an adjunct Research Fellow at the Arthur Jeffery Centre for the Study of Islam at Melbourne School of Theology, and the Director of Advocacy for Canberra-based Christian Faith and Freedom (CFF). In 2014, Wittenberg College-Seminary (Canada) awarded her an honorary doctorate. Elizabeth has also authored two books, Turn Back the Battle: Isaiah Speaks to Christians Today (Deror Books, Melbourne, Australia, Dec 2012) and After Saturday Comes Sunday: Understanding the Christian Crisis in the Middle East (Wipf and Stock, Eugene, OR, USA, June 2016).
30 Alexander I. Solzhenitsyn, A World Split Apart — Commencement Address Delivered At Harvard University, 8 June 1978. http://www.orthodoxytoday.org/articles/SolzhenitsynHarvard.php 20
Elizabeth is available to discuss any issues arising from this submission.