Islam and Democracy: Fear of the Modern World Read Online Free PDF

with its own perfume. The future had the color of the Moroccan sky, that unparalleled, extraordinary, and so persistent blue. Haguza became the code word for everything we didn’t know and that was frightening. Sometimes in the lively youth meetings of the Istiqlal (Independence) party, which drew hundreds of men and women from all corners of the medina, Ahmad would poke me in the ribs and say “Haguza ma c ana” ("Haguza is with us").
    The United Nations Charter is a little like Haguza: neither seen nor known, and resembling everything bizarre. It will remain like Haguza, until the day it leaves the briefcases of our diplomats and enters the public schools and the suqs. Until that day this venerable charter, like a kidnaped virgin, will be jealously guarded by those who have signed it.

THE WELL-GUARDED SECRET OF SAN FRANCISCO
    The United Nations Charter has the effect of law in the territory of the Muslim countries that are members of the United Nations and signatories of the charter. And what a body of law it is! It is impossible to imagine one more forceful, for it claims to be superior to all local laws, the ideal that will reform and transform them. It is the supreme model: a higher law than those of the states’ constitutions themselves. The preamble to the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights declares:
    Now, therefore, The General Assembly proclaims This Universal Declaration of Human Rights as a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations, to the end that every individual and every organ of society, keeping this Declaration constantly in mind, shall strive by teaching and education to promote respect for these rights and freedoms and by progressive measures, national and international, to secure their universal and effective recognition and observance, both among the peoples of Member States themselves and among the peoples of territories under their jurisdiction.
    The charter was signed in San Francisco on June 26, 1945. Several Muslim states were among the original members of the United Nations: Iran, Turkey, Lebanon, Egypt, Syria, and Saudi Arabia.
    The others hastily sent diplomats to add signatures on their behalf. Soon afterward the United Nations established conditions of admission for new members which obliged them to sign documents in which they recognized the charter as superior to their national constitutions. Since most Muslim states had just emerged from decades of colonial occupation, they were ready to do anything in order to sit side by side as partners with their ex-colonizers. They must have read the text of General Assembly Resolution 116 of November 21, 1947, which provides that
    any state which desires to become a Member of the United Nations shall submit an application to the Secretary-General. This application shall contain a declaration, made in a formal instrument, that it accepts the obligations contained in the Charter. ... If the application is approved, membership will become effective on the date on which the General Assembly takes its decision on the application.
    So it was that after World War II there appeared on Muslim territory regimes that were parliamentary democracies on paper and that introduced laws different from the Islamic rule of ta c a which these states had chosen to identify themselves with and from which ray (personal opinion) and reason were banished, especially the explosive Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which said in part:
    Everyone shall have the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion. This right shall include freedom to have or to adopt a religion or belief of his choice, either individually or in community with others and in public or private [emphasis added]. . . .
    The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the General Assembly on December 10, 1948, as “a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations,” should have initiated a debate about freedom of