Globalization,
Multi-lateralism and the Islamic World
The
Organization of the Islamic Conference and Globalization
The
OIC is a trans-regional governmental organization comprising states,
which define themselves as Islamic states. It was established in
1972 when the Third Ministerial Meeting adopted its Charter after a
limited secretariat was established in Jeddah in 1970. The OIC’s
organizational structure comprises, summit meetings (every three
years and extra-ordinary), ministerial meetings (annual and
extra-ordinary, and the secretariat, in addition to an elaborate
network of subsidiary institutions such as the Islamic Development
Bank). Today, the total membership of the OIC is 56 member states;
most of them are Afro-Asian states (5).
For
almost twenty year (1972-1991), the OIC functioned mainly under the
global Cold War system coupled with the emerging trend toward
interdependence. By the end of the 1980s, the global environment of
the OIC witnessed drastic changes in the processes and the
structures of the global system. The Soviet Union was disintegrated
into its constituent republics, the global bipolar system
disappeared and was replaced by a uni-polar system dominated by a
political coalition of advanced industrial power led by the United
States, the Europeans moved closer toward unity, and Asian economic
power became more visible. New countries (such as the Central Asian
and Caucasian republics) emerged, and some countries disappeared
(such as Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia). All of these changes
resulted in the dominance or the emergence of a new global set of
issues such as the issues of democratization, international
terrorism, the peaceful resolution of conflicts such as the
Arab-Israeli conflict, relations among civilizations.
The
OIC confronted the task of responding to these changes. Some
multi-lateral institutions, such as the Warsaw Pact, proved unable
to adjust to these changes and collapsed. However, the OIC was able
to survive the changes, respond to them, and device new strategies
to deal with them. One could detect three major adjustment responses
adopted by the OIC to cope with the global changes, namely, (6)
(I)
Responses at the level of membership:
The
OIC accepted as member states the new states, which identified
themselves as Islamic states, such as the newly independent Central
Asian republics, Albania, and Azerbaijan. Although such expansion of
membership has not upgraded the efficiency of the OIC, it has
maintained its image as an institution capable of attracting new
members because it offers some benefits to them,
(II)
Responses at the level of issues:
Perusal
of the literature of the summit and ministerial meetings held since
the Sixth summit held in Dakar in 1991 shows that the OIC
acknowledged the rise of as set of new issues and began to develop
an “Islamic” perspective on these issues, i.e. to contribute to
the production of new knowledge relevant to the new issues raised by
the globalization process. The most important new issues, which
attracted the attention of the OIC, were the issues of terrorism,
human rights, and dialogue among civilizations, environmental
protection, the security of small non-nuclear states, establishing
an Islamic common market, food security, etc. We will focus on the
first three issues as instances of the new issues in which the OIC
developed an interest and devised plans in the post-Cold War era.
1.The
issue of terrorism:
The
question of terrorism and counter-terrorism dominated global
politics in the post-Cold War era. Islam was more or less associated
with terrorism by virtue of the resort of some Islamic groups to
violent tactics. The OIC did not develop an apologetic approach, but
rather condemned terrorism in all its forms, asserted the commitment
of its member states to the Code of Conduct on Combating
International terrorism, devised mechanism to combat terrorism, but
called as well for a clear distinction between terrorism and
legitimate use of force by national liberation movements .The 26th
ministerial Conference of the OIC held in Burkina Faso in Jun-July
1999 adopted “The Treaty of the OIC to Combat International
Terrorism.” The Treaty is an elaborate document of 42 articles
which outline the views, commitments, and mechanism of the OIC as
far as the issue of terrorism is concerned.
2.The
issue of human rights:
The
issue of what constitutes human rights became one of the major
issues in the post-Cold War era. Western countries stove to
universalize the perception of human rights, and use it to judge the
status of human rights in Islamic countries. Such perception
contained elements incompatible with Islam. Consequently, the OIC
made an effort to define the Islamic perception of human rights, and
identify its commonalties and differences with the Western
perception. This was manifested when the 19th Ministerial meeting of
the OIC held in Cairo in 1990 issue the “Cairo Declaration on
Human Rights in Islam.” The Declaration contains 25 articles
outlining what are the main human rights in Islam. The Declaration
asserted that man is born free and nobody ahs the right to subdue or
exploit him and that submission is only to God (Article 10/A), all
people are equal before Shari`ah (Article 19/A), and forbade
imperialism and asserted the rights of peoples to struggle against
it (Artcil10/B). The OIC also issued the Declaration on the Rights
of Children in Islam. It is interesting to notice that this
Declaration emphasized that member states are also committed to the
goals articulated by the UN Declaration on the Rights of the Child,
the Declaration on Survival, Protection, and Development of the
Child, and the Action Plan issued by the UN Summit on Children held
in September 1990. Further, in 1993, the OIC participated in Vienna
Conference on Human Rights, in which it presented the Islamic view
of this question.
3.The
issue of the dialogue among civilizations:
The
theme op relations among civilizations came to the forefront of the
global system in the post Cold War era as a result of the Clash of
Civilizations thesis articulated by Huntington, and the debate
triggered by it on the relation between Islam and the West. It was
obvious that certain ultra-conservative groups in the West are
trying to victimize the Islamic world by posing it the new threat to
the West after the collapse of Communism. The OIC responded by
presenting a proposal on Dialogue among Civilizations, specially the
Islamic and Western civilizations, and issuing the Tehran
Declaration in 1997. The Eighth Summit held in Tehran issued a
Declaration, which emphasized on the need for dialogue among
civilizations, and the Islamic perception of the issues of such
dialogue. Further, the OIC initiated a civilization dialogue with
the European Union (EU). In this dialogue, Egypt, and Iran represent
the OIC, and Greece and Italy represent the EU.
(III)
Responses at the level of benefiting from economic globalization
The
OIC established new institutions to benefit from the opportunities,
which may be extracted from the process of economic globalization.
For example, an Informatics Commission was established headed by
Pakistan with a view of training new generation ion the OIC member
states on this new technology. An informatics center was inaugurated
in Syria supported by the OIC, and a digital library s established
containing almost 6000 books. This library is available at the cite www.comcomstecs,org.pk.com(11)
(7). The Islamic
Bank of Development, one the subsidiary organs of the OIC, has
recently allocated US$150 million to support the competitive
exporting capabilities of the member states (8).
Despite
these significant adaptations, the OIC has not been able to emerge
as a truly Islamic multi-lateral Islamic institution. The OIC’s
record in the resolution of disputes among its member states has
been dismal. In fact, the decision of the 5th Islamic summit held in
Kuwait in 1987 to establish the Islamic Court of Justice is yet to
be implemented. The OIC has not been able to develop a multi-lateral
security system, or to engage into the global debates on security
issues. The attempts to re-structure the secretariat to develop it
into n efficient executive body capable of facilitating the
implementation of the resolution, and monitoring global crises have
failed. In general, the OIC responses to globalization has been
mostly on the side of attempting to give the globalization language
an Islamic content, but not to reject or challenge its strategies.
The OIC member states failed to adopt a common stand on issues
created by the new global hegemony. Although most of them viewed
these issues as unjust, they complied with them. Perhaps, the 1992
Security Council’s sanctions against Libya is a prime example.
Obviously,
the OIC has kept itself in harmony with the global changes and
developed new mechanisms to deal with them through the re-definition
of its agenda, re-conceptualization of the issues in its old agenda,
and development of interests in new ones. However, the OIC still has
a long way to go to cope effectively with the global changes. The
main challenges of the OIC are its limited financial capabilities
compared with the tasks of coping with the global changes, the
limitedness of its executive body, the weakness of its mandate on
crucial issues such as inter-state conflict resolution, and
collective security, and the lack of a sanctions system against
member states who violate the Charter. The OIC needs to upgrade the
performance of the secretariat, change the Charter in the direction
of establishing a voting system and a set of sanctions, change its
conflict resolution paradigm in the direction of asserting its
mandate in resolving all types of dispute between member states, and
establishing the Islamic court of Justice (9).
Mohammad
El-Sayed Selim is a Professor
of Political Science, Director of the Center for Asian
studies, Faculty of Economics and Political Science, Cairo
University, Giza, Egypt.
E-mail: mohammedselim@hotmail.com
