Missiology for Arabs
Arab Vision is the owner of a webzine for missiological thinking in the Arab World, called St Francis Magazine. You may want to go there regularly for the great articles that we publish. This magazine is a project that we share with Interserve.
Friends misbehaving!
In a statement on Monday, the White House said it was "deeply concerned" about Egypt's recent human rights record, citing the crack down on media personnel and the closing down of a human rights group. "These latest decisions appear to contradict the Egyptian government's stated commitment to expand democratic rights," the statement said.
Last week, the US State Department's annual report on religious freedom also said that conditions in Egypt had become worse. Predictably, Cairo rejected the report's findings.
In many parts of the Arab World, cases of human rights abuse and lack of freedom of speech are unfortunately the norm and not the exception. So we are glad they are coming under the media spotlight and the international community's awareness.
But, we have two concerns.
First of all, there is the dichotomy of the White House calling countries like Egypt and Saudi Arabia 'friends' and 'allies', while acknowledging that their human rights record is bleak and unacceptable. We know politics and strategic significance tend to override other factors, but we urge the White House to show more consistency when it comes to choosing its friends and the criteria for making those choices.
Secondly, public criticism of a government puts its ruler in a very difficult position, because any steps taken to improve the situation would be automatically interpreted as giving in to the demands of the USA. And once again, it gets side-tracked into a game of politics.
The 'telling off' and demand for improvement are more likely to bear fruit if communicated privately, but even that is not likely to make a real impact unless it promises serious consequences - like, the withdrawal of the 'friend' status - should the government refuse to comply. Whether the White House is concerned enough about this matter to go to that extend is a question of politics again!
Johnny Pierre
25 September 2007
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