Dining with the Devil - “dialogue” with a persecutor
I was cheered to read this forthright article in FrontPageMagazine.com today. Faith McDonnell, the director of Religious Liberty Programs at the Institute on Religion & Democracy in Washington DC, points out the breathtaking contradiction (not to say hypocrisy) underlying the support that a group of churches is giving to President Ahmadinejad of Iran by holding an invitation-only iftar dinner for him in a prestigious New York hotel.
It is very well known that Iran persecutes Bahá’ís, Christians, Jews and Muslims. The Iranian parliament is soon to pass a new penal code which will make apostasy an offence that will attract a mandatory death sentence, and there is no doubt that this law will be used against Bahá’ís and others the Iranian authorities and religious leaders want to get rid of.
“Dialogue” with a persecutor
So, asks Faith McDonnell, how is it that the American Friends Service Committee, the Mennonite Central Committee, the Quaker United Nations Office, Religions for Peace, and the World Council of Churches – United Nations Liaison Office can bring themselves to dine and “dialogue” with the perpetrator of these persecutions, the leader of a country in which religious freedom is off the menu?
She concludes:
Perhaps it would be worth it to hold your nose and dine with the devil if it meant an opportunity to speak out about Iran’s repression and persecution, to be a voice for those who are suffering, and to demand that Islam offer reciprocity for the freedom of religion and decency of treatment that Muslims have received from Christians, Jews, and Baha’is. With Iran on the verge of a new level of repression, and religious minorities in Iran facing a new level of siege because of the proposed apostasy penal code, an American Christian leader is needed to speak with courage and forthrightness over a dinner plate.
They should speak truth to power
Courageous non-Bahá’í Iranians, such as Nobel Prize-winning lawyer Shirin Ebadi, are risking their reputations and even their lives to speak out for the Bahá’ís (see the Bahá’í International Community’s statement on Iran’s disinformation campaign against Mrs Ebadi here). How come these New York “diners with the devil” are not prepared to speak truth to power and to tell Ahmadinejad that Iran’s denial of freedom of thought, conscience and religion to its citizens is utterly unacceptable?
They are shaming themselves, they are shaming those they claim to lead, and they are undermining the efforts of human rights defenders - particularly those who campaign for the much denied human right of religious freedom
Technorati Tags: Baha’i, Bahai, Iran, apostasy, persecution, human rights, religious freedom, Christians, Muslims, Jews, Ahmadinejad
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3 comments
I don’t understand the purpose of these religious groups. Probably they think that by inviting President Ahmadinejad to dinner they are being tolerant and modern; but what they really show is their political cowardice, lack of common sense, and subservience towards a person that has never produce any relevant political or intellectual work.
You’ve hit the nail on the head, Marco. It is political cowardice, dressed as peace-making. You may remember that the EU was pursuing a human rights “dialogue” with Iran for a time. At first the British officials we talked to were very optimistic about the outcome and we were told we had to give the dialogue a chance to work. As the months passed, we saw the officials becoming increasingly despondent about the dialogue as they realized that the Iranians were running rings around them. Eventually the dialogue collapsed.
I’m not against dialogue, but you have to choose your dialogue partners - and they must be trustworthy, committed to dialogue and prepared to change.
Mr Ahmadinejad meets none of these conditions.
[...] Barney Regular readers will recall that I cried “shame” in this post at the “dialogue” dinner that some of the churches were holding for Iran’s [...]
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