Recently, I came across
a report entitled "Religion and the Human Rights Movement" published by
Human Rights Watch.
The authors, Jean-Paul Marthoz and Joseph Saunders, warn that we're facing what a French political scientist calls "God's Revenge," the revival of dogmatic and conservative beliefs inside and outside mainstream religions.
As a result, human rights ranging from reproductive freedom to freedom of expression find themselves on the endangered list in many countries. Even worse, religion--often in combination with ethnic identity--is at the root of terrorism and armed conflicts in many countries around the world.
How did this happen? According to Marthoz and Sanders:
The reasons for this religious comeback are manifold. It expresses both renewed individual quests for meaning in a secularized, materialistic world and a more collective search for identity in a world engaged in the uncertainties of globalization in diversity.
In many countries, religion and the state are merging. And, when that happens, human rights suffer. Some examples:
- The rollback of rights of women and religious minorities in increasingly fundamentalist Pakistan.
- Egypt has made "reservations" to--in other words, opted out of--international treaties obligating it to protect women's rights.
- Twelve states in northern Nigeria have extended Shari'a to their criminal code. Punishments now include flogging, amputations, public stonings.
- The Phillippine government, under pressure from the Catholic Church, has emphasized abstinence over sex education and condoms--despite the threat of HIV from unsafe sex.
And here at home, the Bush Administration has fallen in bed with some of the worst regimes. At UN conferences on population issues and women's rights, it has sided with such human rights abusers as Iran, Sudan, and Saudi Arabia.
The authors point out that religious groups were behind many human-rights movements of the past, such as the campaign against slavery. They also hold out hope that secular and religious groups can work together, citing, for instance, their opposition to hate crimes and discrimination against Muslims after the September 11 attacks.
But, increasingly, religious beliefs are eating away at human rights--especially those relating to sexuality and reproduction. Marthoz and Saunders warn that we cannot stand by and let that happen:
When private religious morality imposes itself on society and threatens to change public policy in a way detrimental to rights, however, the human rights movement should speak out and draw the line.
Being a pessimist by nature, I'm afraid we have entered an Age of Disenlightenment, similar to the 1930s, when Fascist and Communist regimes threatened democracy elsewhere. The authoritarianism of the 21st century will come from a different source, but the result could be the same.