Theme: One International Relations or Many? Multiple Worlds, Multiple Crises
Wednesday 18 – Saturday 21 September 2013
Warsaw, Poland
Organised by the ECPR Standing Group on International Relations and EISA in cooperation with the Institute of International Relations, University of Warsaw and the Polish Association for International Studies.
This panel shows general and/or case studies between International Relations and Islam.
Chair: Prof. Dr. Julien Pelissier (University of Tehran, Iran)*
Discussant: Prof. Dr. Naveed Sheikh (Keele University, UK)
*In case Prof. Dr. Pelissier may not be able to attend, Dr. Filippo Dionigi will be the new chair.
Paper Presenters:
Human
Rights, the Arab Revolutions and the Problem of Cultural Incommensurability
Dr. Stefan Borg (Swedish Institute for International
Affairs, Sweden)
A fair amount of the official statements from
governments, media coverage, as well as policy analysis undertaken by
think-tanks in the West, have tended to perceive the Arab Revolutions as
manifestations of long repressed desires for human rights and individual
dignity. The - rather unproblematic- remedy for those localities then become
Western-style liberal democracies and free market economies. Various critical
observers have been skeptical of such interpretive dispositions, and tended to
view them as appropriations of a Liberal Reason which respects no epistemic or
ethical boundaries. The paper seeks to clarify what is at stake in those starkly
different positions. No doubt, when observers interpret the Arab Revolutions in
a vocabulary of human rights, democracy, and secularism derived from the
Western experience of secular modernity, this may obscure the ontotheological
roots of such notions themselves. It is far from clear that the language of
human rights is easily translatable to cultural settings rooted in Islamic
cosmologies. However, rather than lapsing into a facile relativism, what I
would like to do in this paper, is to explore the possibilities of
inter-cultural communication that is attentive to the inherent power/knowledge
nexus, but at the same time seeks communicative openings, and even
commonalities in how contested signifiers such as human rights are understood.
Depiction
of Prophet Muhammad and the Right to Freedom of Expression
Dr. Mahmoud Hegazy Bassal (Faculty of Law, Helwan
University, Cairo, Egypt)
The right to freedom of expression as stated in Article
19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights(UDHR) and the International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights(ICCPR), which is subject to limitations
to be determined by law, as stated in Article 29 of the UDHR and Article 19 of
ICCPR. In practice questions were raised concerning the right to freedom of
expression, namely: Does the depiction of Prophet Muhammad, in the west,
constitute an abuse of the right to freedom of expression, in international
Human Rights Law and Islamic Law “Sharia”? And if so, did the concerned states
fulfill their international obligations with this regard? On the other side,
was Muslims’ reaction Consistent with the provisions of Islamic law and
international law? The answer of the above mentioned questions will be the
subject matter of a paper that will try to shed light on the depiction of Prophet
Muhammad in the west in accordance to International Human Rights Law and Sharia
Law.
Languages
of Justice: Islam, Human Rights, and the International Promotion of the Rule of
Law in Bangladesh
Tobias Berger (Berlin Graduate School for Transnational
Studies, Germany)
Over the past decade, international efforts of
strengthening and promoting the Rule of Law have increasingly tried to reform
informal dispute resolution mechanisms, called shalish are informal legal
mechanisms in Bangladesh. Similar to Indian panchayats, these village courts
negotiate and rule in all kinds of conflicts, ranging from petty disputes to
violent crimes. In the normative evaluation of shalish by international donor
agencies a peculiar dichotomy emerges: on the one hand, shalish is seen as a
‘local’ and ‘authentic’ alternative to the alien and corrupt state and its
justice system, which is incapable of delivering justice to the poor and
marginalised. On the other hand, shalish is also seen as a regressive
institution, perpetuating patriarchy and being the obstacle to women’s right in
rural Bangladesh. Whereas in the first case, the notion of shalish is
conceptually linked to human rights, the rule of law, and democracy, in the
second case, it is portrayed as a manifestation of Islamic fundamentalism.
Thus, at the international level, ‘good governance’ is constituted as a secular
moral order that is defined against Islam. After having reconstructed this
secular development discourse, my paper is going to show how this juxtaposition
of Islam and Human Rights dissolves on grassroots levels in Bangladesh, where
NGO staff (often on the payrolls of international donor agencies), translate
this dichotomy into a contestation over who has the right to interpret Islamic
principles themselves. In these contestations, the notion of ‘religion’ as
antithesis to the moral order of ‘good governance’ that emanates from Western
donors disappears entirely.
Islamophobia:
Implications on Muslim World
Zahid Latif (M.Phil Research Scholar, Department of
International Relations, University of Peshawar, Pakistan)
International relations though not a new field for the
Muslim world holds added significance and it has been struggling for reordering
the world particularly in the 21st century. Relations between communities,
nations, religions are being redefined in the present century, in particular
after the incident of 9/11. The racist tendencies and Islamophobia challenges
the exercise of fundamental human rights and freedoms particularly in Europe.
In eliminating such discrimination, many states of the world still experience
new and rising waves of biasness, hate, alienation and racist violence. Unipolarism, abuse of power, military and
nuclear deterrence and control over the world resources are the hot issues of
the present day inside the nations of the world. The need for the mutual
understanding and tolerance among varying people and religions of the world has
increased in the present age, shrinking distances and looming dangers. Nowadays
questions have been raised about Islam and its compatibility with other
religions. Today globalization, faster communication, weapons of mass
destruction, war against terrorism etc. have highly influenced the religions.
Islam believes in tolerance, peaceful coexistence, respect of humanity and, all
other religions and their followers and having a role model of a civilized
society. The perception of most of the European IR scholars about Islam is
unfortunately not clear and after 9/11 the misperception has further increased.
On the other hand, a large number of Muslim scholars have ignored the essential
role of modern IR scholars in the society and human development. Unfortunately,
a part of Western media broadcasts negative images of Islam and Muslims. All
this provides some useful grounds for racist discrimination and Islamophobia in
the West. In addition, majority of European governments do not track the record
of anti-Muslim incidents via their official complaint system. This study
examines the rise of anti-Muslim and anti-Islamic racism in Western countries.
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