MUN BRIEFING PAPER

Faith State = Face Palm?

Hi, I’m Andrew Ratter and I will be one of your Secretaries-General and Chair of the Security Council at the upcoming MUN conference. I’ve been doing MUN for six years, and have visited Russia and Ireland with the school’s MUN group. I hope everyone is looking forward to the conference, and if you aren’t, well, I hope we’ll prove you wrong, and we’ll try to show you that during the course of the weekend.

The GA Debate for our Conference this year is Faith State = Face Palm?. Please make sure your Delegation comes having considered the Briefing Paper below – and preferably with a Resolution already written, especially if you want to be in the running for a Delegation Award at the end of the Conference.

Although the influence of faith in Western life is declining, that pattern is not mirrored across the globe. Many modern states, especially in the Middle East, have seen a reverse of this pattern, with increased participation in religious activities, and many modern states, even Western liberal democracies, maintain religiously-inspired laws.

Religiously-inspired laws remain in force in nearly every nation on Earth to a greater or lesser degree. Some are totalitarian in nature – Iran, for instance, has the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as its Supreme Leader, and all laws must pass through an Islamic “Guardian Council” – whilst others are either relics or traditions – the Monarch of the UK is also head of the Church of England, and in Ireland the law guarantees a “special position” for the Catholic Church, and the constitution says of God: “The state…shall hold his name in reverence and respect and honour religion.”

Obviously, these examples operate at different ends of a spectrum. But religious attitudes towards lawmaking present many problems. In free societies, it is considered offensive to many people, and in many areas, it is argued, the influence of articles of faith in politics is oppressive. Several Middle Eastern countries still prosecute people for blasphemy – Salman Rushdie was sentenced to death in absentia by the Iranian government. In Afghanistan, the crime of blasphemy is still punishable by death (even after the end of the Taliban). Nor is this a case of outdated laws never being repealed – in 2003 two journalists were sentenced to death. Secular critics, such as Richard Dawkins, described the law as “pure thought-crime.” Many other Muslim countries have similar statutes.

Nor are such attitudes limited to Islam. At the time of writing, a Bill is making it’s way through the Ugandan parliament that would punish “aggravated homosexuality” with death. Critics contend that the Bill is inspired by some Christian views of homosexuality. In the West, many laws with religious motivation are still on the Statute Book, such as laws banning suicide in the UK, which is derived from the Christian doctrine that killing oneself is killing one of God’s creations, and is thus wrong.

Some contend that it is unfair for laws to be derived from religion because religion is simply another worldview in the political sphere. Advocates of secularism say that basing laws around religion is unfair to those who do not subscribe to the religion around which the laws are based. Some contend, in the case of laws such as blasphemy and the Ugandan homosexuality ill, it represents tyranny of the religious majority. Many states advocate secularism, such as the USA, which has its 1st Amendment: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.” For secular

George Watson’s College MUN Conference 2012 MUN BRIEFING PAPER

states, the solution is to make religion and politics separate, and erect what Thomas Jefferson called “a wall of separation between church and state.” This secularism provides a non-religious basis for lawmaking – God is absent from the public sphere. Religious critics have sometimes pointed to the moral failure of “atheistic” systems of government such as Marxist-Leninism, Juche thought (the ideology of North Korea) and Maoism. A secular objection is that these ideologies were in themselves “political religion” – Christopher Hitchens quipped: “North Korea is the most religious nation on Earth.”

On the other hand many argue that it is the right of nations to determine what religion, if any, they intend to follow. Some have even argued that their beliefs should be exported elsewhere. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad argued that “Islamic logic, culture and discourse are superior above all other fields and theories”.

In the USA, various critics, including a former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, are calling for secularism to be ditched. The Chief Justice, William Rehnquist, said that “the wall of separation between church and state…should be frankly and explicitly abandoned.”

As a guide, here are some aspects you might wish to focus on in your Resolution which you should prepare for the debate:

Should states have the right to set their own religious standards?

Does religion still have a role in the world political sphere?

What system of morality should replace religion as a means of forming law?

Which system of government, i.e secular democracy, communism, should replace religion?

If religion does not have a role, then what does?

Come ready to take part – even if it’s scary speaking in front of 600+ Delegates. We won’t have a GA debate without you!

Useful Reading: http://www.economist.com/ http://www.guardian.co.uk/ http://www.secularism.org.uk/ http://www.atheists.org/ http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/ http://pewforum.org/Topics/Issues/Politics-and-Elections/

George Watson’s College MUN Conference 2012 MUN BRIEFING PAPER

For Country Profiles and lots of other useful information: http://www.nationsonline.org/oneworld/ http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/country_profiles/default.stm

For issues of current international debate: http://www.newint.org/ http://www.idebate.org/ http://www.amnesty.org/

George Watson’s College MUN Conference 2012