4.7: Freedom of Religion, Freedom from Religion

Religious fervour can easily become grounds for human insecurity, but conflicting religious cultures do not necessarily generate such results. Akbar Ahmed (1999, pp. 181-184) looks at a number of issues relating to the experiences of the Muslim community in the Outer Hebrides, an archipelago off the north-west coast of Scotland where people still speak the Gaelic language, which has largely died out in the rest of Scotland. What occurs is an unusual meeting of two minority ethnic cultures: British Pakistani on the one hand and the Gaels of the Hebrides on the other. According to Ahmed, the Muslim community fitted in very well, respecting the important Hebridean custom of Sabbath observance (doing no work on Sundays), even though this is not part of the Muslim faith. This is a side of globalisation that is not always observed. Although this specific meeting of minority cultures is unusual, it is part of a pattern that is unremarkable. The lack of human insecurity experienced by the Gaels and the Muslims as a result of their interaction means that there is little to say about this aspect of globalisation. A rare example of a similarly high level of human security becoming internationally newsworthy occurred in 2016 in the British city of Leicester, and only achieved international recognition because of its association with a key component of British mass popular culture, soccer or Association Football; after the Leicester team won the English Premier league it became apparent that the racially diverse white and South Asian population of the city were harmoniously united in their support for their team (Williams & Peach, 2018, pp. 423-425). The first example would not even be discussed were it not for its surprising location and the second attracted attention because of its link to sport, but both are more representative of the experience of human security than more ‘newsworthy’ discussions of war, extreme poverty, or human rights violations could ever be.

It is important to establish that context before observing that some of the strongest criticisms of the human rights tradition – which has been extended in human security perspectives – has come from Islamic countries. In 1981, the Iranian representative at the United Nations argued that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) was based on a secular understanding of the Judeo-Christian tradition, and was thus incompatible with the core values of Muslim countries, and with the foundations of those values.

As a result of such concerns, the Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam was promulgated in 1990.^[2] It was a declaration by the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) which, at the time, consisted of 45 states (including Palestine, which is recognised as a state by the OIC). The declaration was presented in a form similar to the UDHR, but with notable differences in content. Unfortunately, these differences seem to reflect a weaker commitment to religious freedom, gender equality, and freedom of speech than the UDHR. For example:

• Islam is the religion of true unspoiled nature. It is prohibited to exercise any form of pressure on man or to exploit his poverty or ignorance in order to force him to change his religion to another religion or to atheism. (Article 10)
• Woman is equal to man in human dignity, and has her own rights to enjoy as well as duties to perform, and has her own civil entity and financial independence, and the right to retain her name and lineage. (Article 6a; added emphasis)
• Everyone shall have the right to express his opinion freely in such manner as would not be contrary to the principles of the Shari’ah. (Article 22a).

It is unfortunate that many people have taken this as evidence of a lack of commitment to human rights within Islam per se. Yet the Cairo Declaration was an instrument of state actors; that is to say, it is a political document, drafted, debated and signed by those who held political power. The contributions of Muslim civil society to discussions of human rights and human security have been extensive and diverse, in keeping with the Qur’anic challenge to Muslims and Christians to “vie with one another in doing good works” (The Qur’an 5, p. 48). Yet the contributions of Muslim civil society are often mistrusted and marginalised, which undermines the human security of Muslims worldwide. Mustapha Kamal Pasha puts it as follows, in a quotation which ties together several strands of this chapter:

A […] major problem in human security discourses belongs to its fixation on a ‘hierarchy of needs’ model and its latent economism pronounced in cataloguing various indices of insecurity. Alternatively, an appreciation of the inviolability of cultural identity to the sustenance of the human condition can help displace the hegemony of economism. Such appreciation need not rest on cultural relativism or essentialism, merely the indivisibility of social life forms. In the post 9/11 context, life-worlds placed under sustained political surveillance are not merely addenda to received indices of human insecurity. Rather, culturally fractured life-worlds direct inquiry towards processes and structures of power and their effects. (2007, p. 191)

Importantly, the Cairo Declaration asserts human rights that are not enshrined in the UDHR, and thus, potentially at least, contributes to the extension of human rights and human security. For example:

• In the event of the use of force and in case of armed conflict, it is not permissible to kill non-belligerents such as old men, women and children. The wounded and the sick shall have the right to medical treatment; and prisoners of war shall have the right to be fed, sheltered and clothed. It is prohibited to mutilate or dismember dead bodies. It is required to exchange prisoners of war and to arrange visits or reunions of families separated by circumstances of war. (Article 3a).
• Everyone shall have the right to live in a clean environment… . (Article 17a).
• Everyone shall have the right to live in security for himself, his religion, his dependents, his honour and his property…. A private residence is inviolable in all cases. It will not be entered without permission from its inhabitants or in any unlawful manner, nor shall it be demolished or confiscated and its dwellers evicted. (Article 18a, c).

To argue that these articles are reflective of Islam per se would be as unwarranted as making the same argument about the ones cited earlier. Yet, they do reflect a religious perspective on human rights and human security that is too influential to be ignored. Furthermore, freedom of religion is recognised as a human right in the UDHR, and this right “includes the right … to manifest [one’s] religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance” (Article 18). The right to manifest one’s religion in practice does not exclude the right to manifest it in political or cultural practice; although the right to abandon one’s religion has of course been problematic, as Abdullah Saeed and Hassan Saeed (2004) have noted. Freedom of religion is not confined to the private sphere, and to make it so would infringe on the human rights and human security of many people.

However, religion outside of the private sphere can also infringe on people’s human rights and human security. For example, the right to marry is guaranteed by the UDHR and other human rights declarations, including the Cairo Declaration. Yet this right is effectively denied to gay people in the vast majority of countries around the world, and attempts to legally extend it to gay people have met with substantial opposition, primarily but not exclusively from religious quarters. Such opposition to gay rights is seen as a lack of modernity, although more complex dynamics regarding the intersection between marriage rights, Muslim cultures and LGBTIQ politics need to be considered (Rahman, 2014). Homophobia and Islamophobia are both threats to human security. The denial of gay rights and the denial of religious rights are both denials of human rights, and undermine human security. Freedom of religion and freedom from religion, when they are practised in tandem, enhance human security. When either is practiced in isolation from the other, it threatens human security.