Eleanor Roosevelt holding the Universal Declaration of Human Rights 



To all my readers then, I want to now propose a project in which every interested individual can share. The composing of a global moral code that is based on courage, wisdom, freedom, and love will have to be done democratically in order to stay consistent with its founding principles of love and wisdom.

Send me comments. I will publish everything that is rationally argued, even if it ridicules my whole argument. I have what is idiomatically called a "thick skin". Or if you don't like leaving a comment in my comments sections then send me an email. Compose the comment you want to be shown on my blog on your word processing program first and then copy it and send it as an attachment to an email. In the email itself, you can send me thoughts that you may not want to be shown to the public, and I give you my word that I will keep those thoughts confidential. My email address for this blog is <drwendell49@gmail.com> . 

I think it is reasonable to begin trying to draw up a global moral code with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was first drafted by a Canadian law scholar named John Humphrey. It was then modified and extended by a committee chaired by the former US First Lady, Eleanor Roosevelt. The committee included members from 18 different UN member states, among them Rene Cassin from France, Charles Malik from Lebanon, P.C. Chang from China, and Hansa Mehta from India. 

The UDHR was adopted by a vote in the UN General Assembly in 1948. Abstentions included the USSR, Saudi Arabia, and (apartheid) South Africa, which is an interesting group to say the least. I have long said "interesting" is an interesting word. 

But to propose a topic for the next few days, I ask that you mentally chew on the position taken by the Saudis at that time. They claimed the the UDHR was not acceptable because it violated Sharia Law. The American Anthropological Association at the same time objected to the document on the grounds that it did not recognize cultural relativism in general and that it, more specifically, did not recognize that: "1. The individual realizes his personality through his culture, hence respect for individual differences entails a respect for cultural differences, 2. Respect for differences between cultures is validated by the scientific fact that no technique of qualitatively evaluating cultures has been discovered., and 3. Standards and values are relative to the culture from which they derive so that any attempt to formulate postulates that grow out of the beliefs or moral codes of one culture must to that extent detract from the applicability of any Declaration of Human Rights to mankind as a whole." (from the Wikipedia entry on the UNDR). 
  
If you have been following the argument in my blog, you will be aware that I disagree strongly with the AAA on especially their second point. We can see evidence that beliefs and values lead to patterns of behavior among whole populations and that some of those patterns of behavior are more likely to favor the continued survival of the nation and of our species on into the future. 

There are many good things in Islam, the most salient being its emphasis on the oneness of God ("God has no partners.") which, I believe, is pushing us all in the direction of our having not so much one conception of the sacred for us all, but far more importantly one system of values and one system of laws for us all. But I cannot accept that this means I must be a Muslim to be a good person. And I also cannot accept that Sharia is the final word on how humans should live together. I wish for myself and therefore I wish to extend to all others, the right to decide matters of religion for myself. In fact, as long as they are not trying to force me to think as they think, speak as they speak, and worship as they worship, I am comfortable with them believing and worshiping in whatever way works for them. I would also add the proviso that a nation has the right to say that all of its children must be educated up to at least a basic level at which they can function as citizens of a democracy and that children must attend a public, secular school or an alternative one which gives children the main skills of literacy and which is open to inspection by government inspectors on a regular basis.

In short, girls must get to go to school, to college, if they show the ability and inclination, and on into jobs with access as unfettered as that granted to boys. 







Most fundamentally of all, people who once professed to be Muslims, and who subsequently decided that they wanted to leave that religion, are not guilty of some capital crime and are not to be hunted down and killed. Salman Rushdie can show all of the Muslims, all of the Christians, all of the Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, etc. his bare bottom and invite them to kiss it if he wants to. As long as he is offering his novels and his opinions in an open market of ideas and forcing them on no one, he has that right.






The point is that moral realism tells us that stifling dissent and segregating our girls are simply counter-productive policies in the long haul. Whatever gains a nation might enjoy in the way of greater social cohesion are more than outweighed by the simple fact that such a society is losing talent. Over the long haul, nations that circumscribe the rights of women and girls are making a bad move. If they closet away half their human resources right from birth, and then further stifle some of their most creative minds - which artists usually are - then in the competition that goes on between nations endlessly in history, they are going to lose. Simple reason says this is a struggle in which repressive states go into the fight with one hand tied behind their backs. The policy of executing apostates is weakening Islam, not strengthening it. 

For me anyway, it's that simple. It's a matter of survival. Do they want to live with at least some of their beliefs and practices intact or do they choose to die out entirely? Most Muslims, even devout ones, I believe, know this. They see that some of the Islamic beliefs and mores of the past are due for a complete overhaul, and they are embarking on that project. Every religion that has made it into today's world is going to have to do similar things if it wants to survive.  

But someone needs to say it out loud: Sharia is obsolete. Major parts of it are going to have to be re-written if it is to survive at all.    

What do you think?