June 29, 2005 ☼ Foreign Affairs
This is an archived blog post from The Acorn.
Its headquarters are temporarily located in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, ‘pending the liberation of Jerusalem, its permanent headquarters’. It represents one-fifth of total mankind. Despite one of its most vocal member’s stand on no new centres of privilege, it wants a permanent seat on the UN Security Council — on religious grounds.
Foreign ministers of the Organization of the Islamic Conference opened a meeting here on Tuesday with a call for a Muslim permanent seat on the UN Security Council.
OIC Secretary-General Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu urged a greater role for Muslim countries in world affairs and demanded a ‘permanent representation for the Islamic world on the UN Security Council’.
“The Islamic world, which represents one-fifth of total mankind, cannot remain excluded from the activities of the Security Council which assumes a fundamental role in keeping security and peace in the world,†he said. [Dawn]One of the wilder proposals surrounding the quest for a ‘Muslim’ seat was Ishtiaq Ahmed’s — he suggested that the Muslim world should use India to effect a back-door entry into the UNSC.
Given its own internal contradictions, the OIC’s proposal is not likely to amount to much. Its main argument — that it represents such a big fraction of the world’s people — is quite hollow. By that token, the International Cricket Council and FIFA, the world’s soccer federation deserve permanent seats too.
Much of the debate around the UN’s composition and role is well deserved. But the question of religious representation is one debate it could do without.
Related Link: From The Curry Man comes this report of a proposed Islamic Free Trade Zone
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