MLK Would Not Be Proud of Amnesty Int'l

Thursday, 06. 25. 2009  –  by Irshad

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As a Muslim reformer, I routinely receive heart-wrenching emails from fellow Muslims whose basic human rights are being violated — not by “outsiders” but by members of their own communities. Just go to my blog and you’ll read emails, with names attached, attesting to this sad reality.

Equally saddening is that self-professed human rights activists in the West often play the purity game, suggesting that you can’t comment if don’t represent. Their point: Anyone living in the West can’t legitimately expose oppressive practices in cultures elsewhere.

Would they say the same to Muslims in the traditional Islamic world who expose human rights abuses at Gitmo or Abu Ghraib? Of course not.

Nor should they. Human rights, being human, are above the politics of identity. Or should be. As Martin Luther King pointed out in his Letter from a Birmingham Jail, “Never again can we afford to live with narrow, parochial ‘outside agitator’ idea.”

But it seems that Elise Aurbach, Iran specialist for Amnesty International USA, can more than live with the narrow and parochial. She practices it in her baffling post about The Stoning of Soraya M, a gorgeously produced indie flick that’s coming out in America today (and being distributed in the Middle East soon). The film depicts a young Iranian mother who’s framed by her husband and stoned to death by her village.

Tellingly, Amnesty itself released a report last year that described stonings as “grotesque and unacceptable”. In its press release about the report, Amnesty called on “the Iranian authorities to abolish death by stoning and impose an immediate moratorium on this horrific practice, specifically designed to increase the suffering of victims.”

In her remarkably contradictory review of The Stoning of Soraya M — a review in which she acknowledges the report — Auberbach emphasizes that “Iranians don’t need people from outside Iran telling them what is good for them…”

Really? Then why did her own organization dare to tell Iranian authorities what to do?

And why did Amnesty feature The Stoning of Soraya M at its film festival only two days ago?

Above all, why did Amnesty invite Cyrus Nowrasteh, the Iranian-American director of Soraya, to introduce this film at their festival? Is it because he’s Iranian? If so, then what makes him an “outsider” to Auerbach?

Of course, he’s American too. In which case, isn’t Auerbach’s employer — the London-based Amnesty — complicit in promoting interference by outsiders?

Within its own ranks, Amnesty International needs an intellectually honest debate about how to realize its motto, “Defending Human Rights Worldwide.” Personally, I can attest that more than a few Amnesty activists worry about the scourge of moral and cultural relativism in their midst. That’s the single biggest concern confided to me when I presented at Amnesty’s 2006 biennial conference in Mexico City. Delegates disclosed that the organization has no clear message about honor-based crimes, including stoning, because nobody wants to be deemed a bigot. As if defending human rights worldwide has ever been a matter of politeness.

It’s 2009 and apparently, Amnesty has not resolved its dilemma. Auerbach condemns a movie that spotlights an Iranian heroine who tries to stop the stoning; a Muslim who realizes her faith by speaking truth to power about the need for human dignity.

And yet, according to Auerbach, hapless audience dupes will respond with “disgust and revulsion at Iranians themselves, who are portrayed as primitive and bloodthirsty savages.” Thus, “we” — idiot Westerners who can’t be trusted to reach independent conclusions — “still have to wait” for a “thoughtful” film that about executions in Iran.

I hope we don’t have to wait for thoughtful members of Amnesty International to speak truth to power in their organization. I know that dissidents exist. Whether they’ll exercise their basic human right to freedom of conscience — that I don’t know. Moral courage is always more difficult than self-censorship.




25 responses to “MLK Would Not Be Proud of Amnesty Int'l”

  1. Marshall Pollock says:
    June 30th, 2009 at 9:25 am

    Irshad you are right on again. Like many pseudo-rights NGO's Amnesty International in its pious, self-interested way, is quick to condemn anyone else who dares to comment on a human rights issue that they in their misguided way have arrogated to themselves. This "not invented here" attitude to human rights is both self-serving and counter-productive. Greenpeace used to do the same when whales are involved. With Amnesty it's "people". To try to "own and control an idea" is to destroy it. If Amnesty International can't stand the heat generated by others in the human rights kitchen, they ought to switch to whales.

  2. Bob Mack says:
    June 30th, 2009 at 9:38 am

    Irshad,

    Thank you for being you. By that I mean that we need individuals like you to teach us about moral courage and human dignity. Your life has reflected both, and your willingness to literally put your life on the line to save your faith is inspirational.As someoe who has followed your career and your mission, I am heartened that you have established this project.

    Stoning anyone is wrong no matter what culture practices it. Amnesty International's Elise Aurbach should know that her moral relativistic approach is foolish and dangerous. If she doesn't, then she shouldn't be where she is. You called her out on it as all people of deceny should.

    Keep up the good work. The world needs your courage, your passion, and your principles.

    Bob Mack

  3. laura says:
    June 30th, 2009 at 10:22 am

    Ishrad, i am your fan…for a reason!!!.. you are amazing! keep doing what you are doing! regarding the film; i look forward to seeing and drawing my own conclusions about its quality. regardless, any film that is brave enough to tackle such a topic is worthy of respect.
    to the films critics, Elise Aurbachi,I say this… 'why is it ok for Irianians/ or middle east to critizie the west.. but the west isnt supposed to notice gross human rights violations there? seems hypocritical!! i welcome anyone who wants to uncover unethical practices here in the west!!! BRING IT ON!! i am a human being and i dont care about the imaginary lines dividing countries or states. what happens to my neighbor affects me. whether that neighbor is down the road, or around the world. they are all my sisters, they are all my brothers. rock on Ishrad!

  4. Mike Kriskey says:
    June 30th, 2009 at 11:22 am

    The AV Club reviewed this movie and gave it a D+. Not, I think, for its artistic merits:

    "Say what you will about The Stoning Of Soraya M.: Here’s a movie that definitely delivers on its title. In fact, the title speaks perfectly to the film’s blunt, ham-handed, morally unambiguous treatment of injustice in the wake of the ’79 Islamic Revolution in Iran. It takes zero political courage to speak out against the obvious barbarism of public stonings or the oppressive patriarchy of sharia law, but the film whips out the megaphone anyway, eager to extrapolate the martyrdom of an innocent woman into a broader condemnation of the Muslim world. As directed by first-timer Cyrus Nowrasteh, who wrote the leaden script with his wife, Betsy Giffen Nowrasteh, The Stoning Of Soraya M. has a neocon’s sense of good and evil, which could politely be called “moral clarity,” but is more accurately described as narrow, tone-deaf, and thoroughly banal."

    http://www.avclub.com/articles/the-stoning-of-soraya-m,29671/

    I took issue with the reviewer's tone in the comments, and soon many others did too. It's amazing that this was necessary, and how firmly entrenched cultural relativism has become.

    Irshad, I'm going to post the e-mail you sent out this morning on my blog.

  5. ian stewart says:
    June 30th, 2009 at 11:27 am

    all the power to civil society! up with intellignece and gentleness! on with creativity and resourcefulness! here's to peace and co-operation in a ever smaller world. thk u irshad.

  6. Mehdi Rifai says:
    June 30th, 2009 at 11:49 am

    Hi Irshad,

    I'm very excited to see the movie and make my own opinion, which is why I'd like to interject. It seems that the movie is generating reviews only on the extreme side of things, and as usual in the Middle East and with Islamic issues, extrapolating a middle ground seems the best way at guessing the truth. I agree with you that Elise Aurbach contradicts herself several times within the article, and it seems very plausible and likely that more stonings than she reports in the article occur, especially in rural areas where things are not recorded, and where people don't usually feel the need to wait for an official or religious ruling.

    What Aurbach says that attracts my interest, though, is the number of activists within Iran that stand against stoning and who have, officially at least, instated a moratorium on the practice. Also worth pointing out is what she says about the timeline of the movie. How much emphasis is put on when this movie is based on? If so, then isn't there an onus on the movie's producers of fair representation to the development of the issue?

    To turn it around a bit again, I think it seems a bit prejudicial on Aurbach's part to assume that just because a woman is from a rural area means that she is uneducated and incapable. I can't speak for Iran, but some of the most educated here in Syria come from the villages, because education is a method for elevation in the class structure. The mannerisms also are quite possible, as from personal experience, many of these same women coach themselves in the art of the "femmes de salon" for the same reasons as they seek an education. To imply that someone from the country has the education and the manners of cattle (a bit extreme a metaphor, for sure, and not what Aurbach says, but not too much of a departure) seems a worse act than a non-Iranian pointing out an Iranian transgression against human rights.

    Well, there is my reviews of your reviews. You mentioned it's being distributed in the Middle East soon. When, and in what format?

    Irshad Manji Reply:
    July 6th, 2009 at 11:28 pm

    @Mehdi Rifai, Great comments, Mehdi. I don't know the details of where and when The Stoning is being released in the Middle East, but will endeavor to find out. Once we can confirm this (and other distribution markets), we'll post the info on moralcourage.com. Please come back for continuous information.

  7. Serena says:
    June 30th, 2009 at 2:59 pm

    Wow – great post. I had no idea there was such a double standard at Amnesty International.

  8. tom says:
    June 30th, 2009 at 5:20 pm

    from the tone of some of the comments here, it seems that something has slipped through the cracks.

    it is not "stoning" as such, that is a violation of women's rights – a more "humane" form of lynching wouldn't make it any more palatable. killing women for imaginary (or real) sexual indiscretions, for example, reflects a dangerously defective set of moral values, where a woman's life is devalued.

    the basic issue is one of equality; we in the west accept the equality of men and women as a given, whereas their basic inequality is clearly set out in the koran and just as universally accepted in the moslem world – as it is written, a woman is worth half as much as a man.

    until we sort out this very crucial difference, we cannot hope to agree on what women's human rights are, let alone how to protect them.

    Irshad Manji Reply:
    July 6th, 2009 at 11:39 pm

    @tom, Hi Tom — speaking as a reform-minded Muslim, I can assure you that many of the Quran's passages affirm the equality of women and men in the eyes of God. Take, for example, 3:195, which states that God rewards "any worker among you, be you male or female — you are equal to one another."

    Now, if you've read chapter 2 of my book, The Trouble with Islam Today, you'll know that I acknowledge many retrograde passages too. I'm not interested in sanitizing any reality; only in getting to the heart of the problem and then figuring out non-violent ways to fix matters.

    Bottom line: It's not the Quran that poses the big problem here; it's Muslims who continually *choose* to downplay the verses about women's inherent equality to men.

    That's why I love the truth that The Stoning of Soraya M addresses: a faithful Muslim named Zahra lives up to the Quran's progressive passages, including those about the need for self-criticism and introspection (eg. "God does not change the condition of a people until they change what is in themselves," 13:11).

    If more — many more — Muslims emulated Zahra's example, not only would human rights be in better shape, but Muslims would also begin to salvage Islam's tarnished name.

  9. George Rutkay says:
    June 30th, 2009 at 6:38 pm

    I've always maintained that religion is man-made and TRIBAL in nature. It's customs, codes, everything. Any religion.

    The Creator is universal and isn't man-made, isn't tribal.

    People would do well to struggle to follow the universal and ignore the tribal.

    Change is but a synapse away, if only people would awaken their sluggish brains and throw the blinders off.

    peace,
    geo

    Cathy Reply:
    July 1st, 2009 at 9:21 am

    @George Rutkay, This is probably one of the most intelligent responses made here! Thank you for saying it so plainly and truthfully!

    Irshad Manji Reply:
    July 6th, 2009 at 11:40 pm

    @George Rutkay, I agree with Cathy. Thanks Geo!

    Janet Reply:
    July 26th, 2009 at 10:50 am

    @George Rutkay, Well said. As I've often commented, we already have one universal truth that's really all we need to follow and that's what many call the Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. If everyone actually followed this rule, I think the world would be in a much better place.

  10. Zoya says:
    July 1st, 2009 at 1:34 am

    Amnesty International is a bunch of self-righteous hypocrites who have stopped caring about the actual problem of human rights violations a long time ago. Very sad, indeed!

  11. Bowman says:
    July 1st, 2009 at 2:55 am

    I too was more than a little shocked by Elise Aurbach's post because among other things, she got her facts wrong and made some extremely offensive implications. She claimed that all three of the people stoned to death since the 2002 moratorium on stoning were men when that's false, two were men but one was a woman. Moreover despite the fact that she implies it's extended to men more than women, according to her own organization's report the overwhelming majority of people killed by stoning have been women and of the eleven people currently awaiting execution by stoning, nine are women. Moreover, there's nothing in the report to support her claim that most women stoned to death were convicted of killing their husbands as well as adultry. Just the opposite in fact.

  12. Carol Murray says:
    July 1st, 2009 at 8:11 am

    Stoning is to be condemed as an sin to the stoner. Whoever has no sin cast the first stone.

  13. John C. Zimmerman says:
    July 1st, 2009 at 6:24 pm

    This movie has already received a good deal of attention among those who follow these matters. I have seen some criticism of the commentary surrounding this movie. The critics have claimed that the commentators have stated that stoning has nothing to do with Islam. Anyone familiar with this matter knows that stoning was prescribed by Muhammad, as stated in the Sahih Bukhari hadiths, and that there is good evidence to show that it was supposed to be one of the verses in the Quran, though it appears to have been omitted because it was either overlooked or lost when the Quran was being compiled. Many Islamic scholars are not willing to go against the sunna of the Prophet, and this is why the practice survives to this day. It should be kept in mind that the well – known "moderate" Swiss Islamic writer Tariq Ramadan was only willing to call for a moratorium on stoning.(See Caroline Fourest's "Brother Tariq: The Doublespeak of Tariq Ramadan)Denouncing the practice outright could have been viewed as criticsm of the Prophet, something few Muslims are willing to do.

    This is not the only sunna cited by extremists to justifiy their actions. In an article just published in the journal "Terrorism and Political Violence", (Vol.21,no.3, page 533)the well – known Al Qaeda jihadist ideologue Abu Musab al Suri justifies assassination of "enemies" of Islam based on Muhammad's ordering of the killing of the Arabian poetess Asma Bint Marwan.

    Of course, there are other views on these matters, and fortunately, the practice of stoning has been abandoned in most of the Muslim world , while the vast majority of Muslims reject terrorism. Nevertheless, it is important to understand these practices do not arise in a vacuum and can be traced to religious justifications.

  14. Sarit Catz says:
    July 2nd, 2009 at 6:55 pm

    I saw the film today and while, as a writer/producer myself, I might take issue with some of the filmmaker's choices, no one can dispute the gripping and disturbing nature of the subject matter.

    The "moral relativism" approach is in truth morally bankrupt. It is not okay to stone women to death for imagined or real adultery. It is not okay to stab women for being raped. It is not okay to shoot women for wearing short sleeves. Any culture that accepts such practices is barbaric. If that is politically incorrect, so be it.

  15. NeonGalleon says:
    July 5th, 2009 at 10:13 am

    On and on it goes. It is just overwelming. The outrageous and the outraged, the outraged against the outraged and the outrageous against the outrageous. As astudent of history and it is just so sad to see the one prevailing reoccuring theme. Inhumanity and cruelty repeating itself in a world that sadly lacks the one most critical natural resource…EMPATHY. As we develop newer and more effective means of discemination without it we are hoplessly doomed.

    Irshad Manji Reply:
    July 6th, 2009 at 11:45 pm

    @NeonGalleon, Hi NeonGallo — I sincerely appreciate your call for empathy (indeed, I've been a vocal advocate of it in many of my writings). But should human rights activists show empathy for human rights abusers? If so, how do you empathize without letting abusers off the hook for the choices that they make? Addressing this question intelligently could unlock the solution (or, at least, *a* solution) to effective activism. Awaiting your reply…

  16. KonstantinMiller says:
    July 6th, 2009 at 3:30 pm

    Hello, can you please post some more information on this topic? I would like to read more.

    Janice Reply:
    July 6th, 2009 at 4:05 pm

    @KonstantinMiller, Can you be more specific about what you want information about? I would be happy to post some things, however be sure to check out the website, which has a lot of information about stoning, human rights, etc.

    Irshad Manji Reply:
    July 6th, 2009 at 11:49 pm

    @KonstantinMiller, Hey Konstanin — this website already offers plenty more information about the issue (be it stoning, honor killings, or human rights in general). See everything in the "Learn" section on our homepage. You can start with this link:

    http://irshadmanji.com/moralcourageproject/2009/06/issue-fact-sheet/

  17. Shahriar says:
    July 13th, 2009 at 1:57 pm

    Thank you. I'm glad someone wrote an article close the my heart in the frustration Elise Aurbach's article, and moreover the entire Amnesty International paradigm causes.

    It seems that collecting signatures and donations only provides jobs to Amnesty and pacifies real change, while the people of Iran (in this case) continue to suffer grotesque punishment, and the innocent bystanders become further demoralized (or possibly invigorated to revolt).

    Tools like Amnesty were quite loudly demonizing and ultimately undermining the Shah of Iran before the '79 revolution. He had opened doors to Evin prison and Iran COMPLIED with all recommendations. But they still continued with the media attack.

    As a result, Iran has fallen into the dark ages, with uncountable number of executions (killing) of people who are merely political prisoners (not hard core criminals or murderers), yet not a peep out of Amnesty or media.

    And there are stories like these that industrious people create. Not only has the movie brought Soraya's story to light, but the pomp of Amnesty has illuminated the fact that we, the people, must act beyond the vessels of Amnesty.

    Thanks for your true contribution.

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