Revamping the OIC
Good intentions
will not revive the OIC. Good actions
will. The real architect and moving
spirit behind the OIC was King Faisal
of Saudi Arabia. He gave the organization
teeth when an oil embargo was imposed
on the West in the immediate wake of
the October 1973 Ramadan war. It was
Faisal, too, who masterminded the hosting
of the historic 1974 Islamic Summit
at Lahore where the PLO was declared
as the sole legitimate representative
of Palestinian people.
The oil embargo shook the West to its
core and Faisal was chosen by Time magazine
as Man of the Year. In June 1974, President
Nixon visited Faisal in Saudi Arabia
where he promised Faisal evenhandedness
in US policies in the Middle East. This
was personally told to me by the then
US Ambassador to Saudi Arabia, James
Akins, who enjoyed King Faisal’s
trust and who participated in the discussions
between the two leaders. James Akins
– who currently lives in retirement
in Maryland – later fell afoul
of Henry Kissinger, the then US Secretary
of State.
In August 1974, Nixon resigned the US
Presidency and in March 1975, King Faisal
was assassinated. With Faisal’s
demise, the OIC became ‘Oh I See’.
Treading on the beaten track is beyond
the scope of this article. Suffice it
to say that it is simply wrong and inequitable
that the world’s largest and fastest
growing religion should become a pincushion
and an international scapegoat in the
global arena. The Muslim world is effectively
disenfranchised where it matters.
There are three stumbling blocks on
the path of revival. One is the mostly
irrational fear of the imagined consequences
of causing displeasure and incurring
the wrath of powerful vested interests.
The second is how to loosen the stultifying
stranglehold of the moneyed Muslim elites.
There is yet another impediment. Historically,
Muslim governing elites have been in
the forefront of moneymaking ‘development’
but have remained backbenchers in intellectual
and moral development. That partly explains
the proliferation of cunning schemers
and the paucity of serious thinkers.
The focus on and fixation with the idea
of making lots of money quickly poses
a threat to Muslim empowerment in the
battle of ideas.
The issue is not to appease or to displease
but to do right and to rectify wrong.
The presence of a dysfunctional organization
when there is a compelling need for
an effective organization is inherently
de-stabilizing and gives rise to frustrated
zealotry. The focus of the OIC should
be on protecting and promoting Muslim
interests and dignity and not to be
an abettor to aggression. In other words,
the OIC should provide Muslim solutions
to Muslim problems.
British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw,
during his address in Lahore of February
2005, said that the pivotal challenge
of the 21st century would be Islam’s
relations with the Western world. He
was right on target. It is no longer
question of what the Muslim world could
do, should do, or might do. It is now
a question of what must be done.
The response should encompass the following
five elements:
• Renewal of the founding ethos
of solidarity of the OIC, emphasizing
issues such as conflict resolution,
human rights, democracy, and good governance;
• Setting-up of a revolving Islamic
Fund to subsidize and effectively address
intellectual and developmental activity
in key sectors of the Muslim world;
• Setting-up of an equivalent
of an Islamic NATO to respond to contingencies
within the Muslim world; this would
parallel initiatives by the European
Union in establishing the European Military
Force deployed in Bosnia and Herzegovina,
and by the African Union for a standalone
force to contend with contingencies
within Africa;
• Establishing an Islamic veto
in a restructured UN Security Council
through the presence of a major Muslim
country such as Indonesia; and, finally,
• Establishing an Islamic think-tank
to serve as a hub of thinking, scholarship,
research and communication and a nursery
of thinkers to defend and project Muslim
causes around the world. The above cannot
be realistically pursued without first
establishing a world-caliber think-tank
under the aegis of a rejuvenated Islamic
Conference.
There is a fundamental need to raise
Muslim presence in the thinking professions,
which form the core of power-centers
of the Western world. While, in the
West, there are now many Muslim doctors,
businessmen, engineers and computer
experts, few Muslims have elected to
join the fields of law, journalism,
and academia. Filling the resulting
void are non-Muslim voices – with
their own agendas – that speak
on Pakistan and Islam and continually
shape world opinion.
An OIC think-tank can develop, promote,
and sustain intellectual activity and
can stimulate research, analysis, position
papers, and creation of a speakers’
bureau. It can take on the challenge
of combating disinformation about Islam
and engage and interact with leading
Western academics sympathetic to the
Muslim viewpoint. A think-tank can go
a long way in offsetting the existing
imbalance in depicting the world of
Islam in a fair and dispassionate manner.
The challenge is not only lack of information
but of disinformation. That is why the
causes of Kashmir, Palestine and Chechnya
are framed in the context of terrorism
rather than denial of basic human freedoms
and the oppression of innocents. A viable,
functional, think-tank will make us
move forward rather than being perpetually
on the defensive and on the back-foot.
