- Puneet Madan on the inaugural Human Rights Coalition Against Radical Islam Rally in New York on May 3, 2009:
We are a multi-lingual, multi-cultural, multi-religious, multi-ethnic group that have gathered in Times Square, New York, today (May 3, 2009) under the Human Rights Coalition Against Radical Islam (HRCARI) banner to reaffirm the most basic of principles that our ancestors stood for when, over six decades ago, they established the United Nations, the cornerstone of a hoped-for global democracy. In doing so, they hoped to ensure that never again would humankind face the persecution it suffered during the tragedies of the mid-20th century. The establishment of the United Nations was to be the beginning of a new era in which people of different religion, cultures, castes, and color would together create a new global society, a humanistic society, finally overcoming the fascism and imperialism of the times past.
HRCARI reaffirms the most basic principles human rights: freedom of speech, freedom of religion, the right to vote, and the assurance that all human beings are equal, regardless of his social, cultural, gender, racial, sexuality or religious status.
For many in our world, democracy is considered the essence of human freedom. However, for others, the term “democracy” has come to imply only the right to vote. This is exemplified in the many Islamic countries that hold elections, even while exhibiting nary a trace of freedom. The most famous recent example of elections without the "essence of democracy" include the 2006 election of Hamas in the Palestinian Territories. The reality is that freedom, as a concept, has been defined straight out of existence. While most people in the world define freedom and human rights according to the universalistic notions set forth in the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UNUDHR), and other documents such as the United States’ Declaration of Independence, radical Muslims have defined “freedom” to mean the freedom they enjoy to exploit human suffering and dignity, a "freedom", they believe, is granted them by their age-old religious scripture. They are, in short, demanding that the democratic, freedom-loving world be tolerant to their intolerance.
In the 1930s, when Jews were forced to wear arm bands in Nazi Germany, the world ignored their plight. One of the excuses for ignoring Jewish suffering during the Holocaust was a perceived need to be "sensitive" to the plight of Nazi Germany. It is still an open question why and how the world ignored and appeased the Nazi threat for as long as it did, until action was finally taken. But it is clear that by ignoring the Nazi threat, the world permitted a massive human tragedy, the Holocaust, to happen. The United Nations was founded in the wake of that tragedy in order to prevent another Holocaust.
Ironically the same story repeated itself in 1999, when the Taliban forced Afghan Hindus and Sikhs to wear orange armbands. They also were responsible for the genocide of the Hazara Muslims in Northern Afghanistan. Let loose, the Taliban grew into a global threat by 2001, and we are still living under the shadow of that threat. Today, the media and politicians are attempting to claim there is a “moderate Taliban.” The term “moderate Taliban” is an oxymoron in itself. Once again we are making deals and compromising the very definition of the “universal human dignity” in order to be “sensitive” towards the demands of perpetrators of genocide. Read more here...
Source: Islam Watch
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