THE TANDEM PROJECT
UNITED NATIONS, HUMAN RIGHTS,
FREEDOM OF RELIGION OR BELIEF
COMMITTEE & DURBAN REVIEW
CONFERENCE
Available in other languages: click here if the language box does not display.
Issue: The Durban Review Conference searches for
the underlying causes of Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related
Forms of Intolerance. Here is a contribution that is different than what will
be heard from most experts to the Durban Preparatory Committee on 15-17 April,
2009 and Durban Review Conference the following week.
For: United Nations, Governments, Religions or Beliefs,
Academia, NGOs, Media, Civil Society
Review: Ernest Becker (1924-1974) won the
Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction for “The Denial of Death”. He
was a distinguished social theorist and a popular teacher of anthropology,
sociology, and social psychology. In his book, “Escape From
Evil,” published posthumously, Becker proposes that the natural and
inevitable urge to deny mortality and achieve a heroic self-image is the root
cause of human evil. Becker was a teacher of anthropology, sociology and
contemporary psychological thought at Simon Fraser University, British
Columbia, Canada.
The Durban Review Conference Preparatory Committee Third Substantive
Session will be held from 15-17 April, 2009 in
http://www.un.org/webcast/unhrc/index.asp
The UN Human Rights Council in its tenth regular
session 2-27 March, 2009 passed a Resolution on Combating Defamation of
Religion by a vote of 23 for; 11 against; 13 abstaining. It will be part of the
deliberations of the Durban Review Conference. Here is article on the
Resolution by the International Humanist and Ethical Union.
http://www.indexoncensorship.org/2009/03/26/the-slow-death-of-freedom-of-expression/print/
Surely one of the best
hopes for humankind is to embrace a culture in which religions and other
beliefs accept one another, in which wars and violence are not tolerated in the
name of an exclusive right to truth, in which children are raised to solve
conflicts with mediation, compassion and understanding.
Excerpts: Excerpts are presented under the Eight Articles of
the 1981 U.N. Declaration on the Elimination of all Forms of Intolerance and of
Discrimination Based on Religion or Belief. Examples of
Extracts are presented prior to an Issues Statement
for each Tandem Project Review.
4. 1 All States shall take
effective measures to prevent and eliminate discrimination on the grounds of religion
or belief in the recognition, exercise and enjoyment of human rights and
fundamental freedoms in all fields of civil, economic, political, social and
cultural life.
4.1.4: Social; 4.1.5: Cultural Life
Ernest
Becker, Escape from Evil: A Division of Macmillan Publishing, 1975.
And so religion overcomes the specific problems of
fear-stricken animals, while at the same time showing them what empirical
reality really is. If we were not fear-stricken animals who repressed awareness
of ourselves and our world, then we would live in peace and unafraid of death,
trusting to the Creator God and celebrating His creation. The ideal of
religious sainthood, like that of psychoanalysis, is thus the opening up of
perception: this is where religion and science meet.
Both religion and psychoanalysis show man his
basic creatureliness and attempt to pull the scales of his sublimations from
his eyes. Both religion and psychoanalysis have discovered the same source of
illusion: the fear of death which cripples life. Also religion has the same
difficult mission as Freud: to overcome the fear of self-knowledge.
Self-knowledge is the hardest human task because it risks revealing to the
person how his self-esteem was built: on the powers of others in order to deny
his own creatureliness and death.
We can talk for a century about what causes human
aggression; we can try to find the springs in animal instincts, or we can try
to find them in bottled-up hatreds due to frustration or in some kind of
miscarried experiences of early years, of poor child handling and training. All
these would be true, but still trivial because men kill out of joy, in the
experience of expansive transcendence over evil. This poses an immense problem
for social theory, a problem that we have utterly failed to be clear about. If
men kill out of heroic joy, in what direction do we program improvements in
human nature? What are we going to improve if men work evil out of the impulse
to righteousness and goodness?
Men’s fears are buried deeply by repression, which
gives to everyday life its tranquil façade; only occasionally does the
desperation show through, and only for some people. It is repression, then,
that great discovery of psychoanalysis that explains how well men can hide
their basic motivations even from themselves.
If we know that we ourselves hate because of the
same needs and urges to heroic victory over evil as those we hate, there is
perhaps no better way to begin to introduce milder justice into the affairs of
men. This is the great moral that Albert Camus drew from our demonic times,
when he expressed the moving hope that a day would come when each person would
proclaim in his own fashion the superiority of being wrong without killing
others than being right in the quiet of the charnel house.
When we phrase the problem in these terms, we can
see how immense it is and how far it extends beyond our traditional ways of
doing science. If you talk about heroics that cost mountains of human life, you
have found out why such heroics are practiced in a given social system: who is
scapegoating whom, what social classes are excluded from heroism, what there is
in the social structure that drives the society blindly to self-destructive
heroics, etc. Not only that, but you have to actually set up some kind of
liberating ideal, some kind of life-giving alternative to the thoughtless and
destructive heroism; you have to begin to scheme to give to man an opportunity
for heroic victory that is not a simple reflex of narcissistic scapegoating.
This is, after all, the dearest and grandest
feature of a democracy that it tries to keep these critical functions alive.
The problem has always been that the leader is the one who usually is the
grandest patriot, which means the one who embraces the ongoing system of death
denial with the heartiest hug, the hottest tears, and the least critical
stance.
Yet democracy does encroach on utopia a little
bit, because it already addresses itself to the problem of mystification by free
flow of criticism. We could carry utopian musing further and say that the gage
of a truly free society would be the extent to which it admitted its own
central fear of death and questioned its own system of heroic transcendence –
and this is precisely what democracy is doing much of the time. This is why
authoritarians always scoff at it: it seems ridiculously intent on discrediting
itself. The free flow of criticism, satire, art, and science is a continuous
attack on the cultural fiction – which is why totalitarians from Plato to Mao
have to control these things, as has long been known.
We have no way of knowing what gain will come out
of Freudian thought when it is finally assimilated in its tragic and true
meanings. Perhaps it will introduce just that minute measure of reason to
balance destruction.
ISSUE STATEMENT: There is no consensus whether goodness or
evil are intrinsic to human nature. As one author has said, “Many religious and
philosophical traditions claim that evil is an aberration that
results from the imperfect human condition. Sometimes, evil is attributed to
the existence of free will and human agency. Some argue that evil itself is
ultimately based in ignorance of truth (i.e. human value, sanctity, divinity).
A variety of Enlightenment thinkers have alleged the opposite, by suggesting
that evil is learned as a consequence of tyrannical social structures.”
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
Documents Attached:
Durban Review Conference Preparatory Committee
Defamation of Religion - Orwell & Freedom of Religion or Belief
The Right to Freedom of Opinion and Expression
STANDARDS: http://www.tandemproject.com/program/81_dec.htm
The Tandem Project: a non-governmental organization founded
in 1986 to build understanding, tolerance and respect for diversity, and to
prevent discrimination in matters relating to freedom of religion or belief.
The Tandem Project, a non-profit NGO, has sponsored multiple conferences,
curricula, reference materials and programs on Article 18 of the International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights – Everyone shall have the right to
freedom of thought, conscience and religion - and 1981 United Nations
Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Intolerance and Discrimination
Based on Religion or Belief.
The Tandem Project
initiative is the result of a co-founder representing the World Federation of
United Nations Associations at the United Nations Geneva Seminar, Encouragement of Understanding, Tolerance
and Respect in Matters Relating to Freedom of Religion or Belief,
called by the UN Secretariat in 1984 on ways to implement the 1981 UN
Declaration. In 1986, The Tandem Project organized the first NGO International
Conference on the 1981 UN Declaration.
The Tandem Project
Executive Director is: Michael M. Roan, mroan@tandemproject.com.
The Tandem Project is a UN NGO in
Special Consultative Status with the
Economic and Social Council of
the United Nations
Challenge: to reconcile international human rights
standards on freedom of religion or belief with the truth claims of religious
and non-religious beliefs.
United Nations Secretary
General Ban Ki Moon, at the Alliance of Civilizations Madrid Forum said; never
in our lifetime has there been a more desperate need for constructive and committed
dialogue, among individuals, among communities, among cultures, among and
between nations. Another writer in different setting said; the warning signs
are clear, unless we establish genuine dialogue within and among all kinds of
belief, ranging from religious fundamentalism to secular dogmatism, the
conflicts of the future will probably be even more deadly.
Did God create us or did
we create God? This question calls for inclusive and genuine dialogue,
discussion of taboos and clarity by persons of diverse beliefs. Inclusive and
genuine is dialogue between people of theistic, non-theistic and
atheistic beliefs, as well as the right not to profess any religion or belief.
These UN categories are embodied in international law to promote tolerance and
prevent discrimination based on religion or belief.
Inclusive and genuine
dialogue is essential as a first step in recognition of the inherent dignity,
equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family, and a
foundation for freedom, justice and peace in the world. Leaders of religious
and non-religious beliefs sanction the truth claims of their own traditions.
They are a key to raising awareness and acceptance of the value of holding
truth claims in tandem with human rights standards on freedom of religion or
belief.
_____________________________________________
Goal: To eliminate all forms of intolerance and
discrimination based on religion or belief.
To build understanding
and support for Article 18, International Covenant on Civil and Political
Rights –Everyone shall have the right to freedom of thought, conscience and
religion - and the 1981 UN Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of
Intolerance and Discrimination Based on Religion or Belief. Encourage the
United Nations, Governments, Religions or Beliefs, Academia, NGOs, Media and
Civil Society to use International Human Rights Standards on Freedom of
Religion or Belief as essential for long-term solutions
to conflicts in all matters relating to religion or belief.
Objectives:
1. Use International
Human Rights Standards on Freedom of Religion or Belief as a platform for
genuine dialogue on the core principles and values within and among nations,
all religions and other beliefs.
2. Adapt these human
rights standards to early childhood education, teaching children, from the very
beginning, that their own religion is one out of many and that it is a personal
choice for everyone to adhere to the religion or belief by which he or she
feels most inspired, or to adhere to no religion or belief at all.1
History: In 1968 the United Nations deferred work on an
International Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Religious
Intolerance, because of its apparent complexity and sensitivity. In the
twenty-first century, a dramatic increase of intolerance and discrimination on
grounds of religion or belief is motivating a worldwide search to find
solutions to these problems. This is a challenge calling for enhanced dialogue
by States and others; including consideration of an International Convention on
Freedom of Religion or Belief for protection of and accountability by all
religions or beliefs. The tensions in today’s world inspire a question such as:
Should the United Nations
adopt an International Convention on Freedom of Religion or Belief?
Response: Is it the appropriate moment to
reinitiate the drafting of a legally binding international convention on
freedom of religion or belief? Law making of this nature requires a minimum
consensus and an environment that appeals to reason rather than emotions. At
the same time we are on a learning curve as the various dimensions of the
Declaration are being explored. Many academics have produced voluminous books
on these questions but more ground has to be prepared before setting up of a UN
working group on drafting a convention. In my opinion, we should not try to
rush the elaboration of a Convention on Freedom of Religion or Belief,
especially not in times of high tensions and unpreparedness. - UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief,
Option: After forty years this may be the time,
however complex and sensitive, for the United Nations Human Rights Council to
appoint an Open-ended Working Group to draft a United Nations Convention on
Freedom of Religion or Belief. The mandate for an Open-ended Working Group
ought to assure nothing in a draft Convention will be construed as restricting
or derogating from any right defined in the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights, the International Covenants on Human Rights, and the 1981 UN
Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Intolerance and of
Discrimination Based on Religion or Belief.
Separation of Religion or Belief
and State
Concept: Separation of Religion or Belief and State - SOROBAS. The First Preamble to the 1948 United Nations
Universal Declaration of Human Rights reads; “Whereas
recognition of the inherent
dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human
family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world. This concept
suggests States recalling their history, culture and constitution adopt fair
and equal human rights protection for all religions or beliefs as described in
General Comment 22 on Article 18, International Covenant on Civil and Political
Rights, UN Human Rights Committee,
Article
18: protects theistic, non-theistic and atheistic beliefs, as well as the right not
to profess any religion or belief.
The terms belief and religion are to be broadly construed. Article 18 is not
limited in its application to traditional religions or to religions and beliefs
with international characteristics or practices analogous to those of traditional
religions. The Committee therefore views with concern any tendency to
discriminate against any religion or belief for any reasons, including the fact
that they are newly established, or represent religious minorities that may be
the subject of hostility by a predominant religious community.
Article
18: permits
restrictions to manifest a religion or belief only if such limitations are
prescribed by law and necessary to protect public safety, order, health or
morals, or the fundamental rights and freedoms of others.
Dialogue: International Human Rights Standards on
Freedom or Religion or Belief are international law and universal codes of
conduct for peaceful cooperation, respectful competition and resolution of conflicts.
The standards are a platform for genuine dialogue on core principles and values
within and among nations, all religions and other beliefs.
Education: Ambassador
1981 U.N. Declaration on
Freedom of Religion or Belief
5.2: Every child shall enjoy the right to have access
to education in the matter of religion or belief in accordance with the wishes
of his parents, and shall not be compelled to receive teaching on religion or
belief against the wishes of his parents, the best interests of the child being
the guiding principle.” With International Human Rights safeguards, early
childhood education is the best time to begin to build tolerance, understanding
and respect for freedom of religion or belief.
5.3: The child shall be protected from any form of
discrimination on the grounds of religion or belief. He shall be brought up in
a spirit of understanding, tolerance, and friendship among peoples, peace and
universal brotherhood, respect for the freedom of religion or belief of others
and in full consciousness that his energy and talents should be devoted to the
service of his fellow men.