Chemical Weapons

A seminar concerning the effects of air pollution on those injured by chemical weapons was held, this week, in Tehran. Many war veterans and civilians who had been seriously injured during the war had attended. As I entered the seminar hall, loud and incessant coughs could be heard, continuing throughout the session. During the war, between 1980 and 1988, Saddam employed scores of various chemical weapons against both civilian and military targets; enjoying the active support of Western powers and the indifference of international bodies responsible for world peace and security. The tragedy and massacre of Halabje and Sardasht are evident examples of genocide in contemporary times.
Medical scholars spoke on the various long term complications of sulfur mustard, one of the commonly employed gases, on respiratory, skin, eye and immune systems. Those afflicted usually suffer from severe respiratory illneses throughout their life. Government authorities lectured the audience on the importance of combatting air pollution and honoring the war veterans. I noted in my speech that public officials should provide a report of their work indicating what they have achieved . I reported on the status of the environment committee established in the Tehran City Council and particularly what has been done to abate air pollution in Tehran. I was also very careful to mention that the government had failed to fulfill its legal commitments, had dissolved relevant working groups and had not taken proper steps to address the matter during the past four years.
A group of young men who had been injured in the city of Sardasht when they were very young, performed a Kurdish dance at the end of the ceremony. When one of them went up to the podium to describe how he suffered from the wounds and injuries of the sulfur mustard gas employed in Sardasht, when he was only five, many people in the audience wept.

As I spoke with many of the chemical victims, I was thinking about certain European governments that were accomplices in providing Saddam with chemical weapons and their tacit support for his policy of attacking residential areas . Have those countries been held accountable for their actions or have they escaped justice to date?
I have been working with the Sardasht Cohort Study Group on the immune parameters of injured citizens of Sardasht, about two decades after the attack. I will link some of our research articles which have been recently published in this field.

Geneva Workshop on Religion and Politics

I am now in Geneva. I arrived in the afternoon after losing a connection from Amsterdam to Geneva due to the delay that we had in Tehran. It took me more than 12 hours to get here. I am attending an international workshop on Religion and Politics held jointly by the International Institute for Dialogue Among Civilizations, The Oslo Center for Peace and Human Rights and The Club of Madrid. That is the Center led by President Khatami, the Oslo Center led by Prime Minister Bondevik (Norway ) and the Club of former world leaders.

This is an initiative aimed at understanding the interplay between religion and politics in the West and Islamic societies. Issues dealing with secularism and democracy, political Islam, the importance of appreciating diversity will be raised tommorow, during the four sessions we will have.

We had an introductory session tonight and President Khatami and Mr Bondevik spoke while others had the chance to introduce themselves, Mr. Jospin the former French Prime Minister as well as the former Bosnian Prime Minister, many academicians and scholars and religious leaders were also there. I think we will have a unique opportunity tommorow to listen to some interesting views on these issues.

I have been asked to moderate the second panel on religion and democracy. This seems to be the "crunch issue", referring to the term used to underscore the major contentious issues in international negotiations. Can religion and democracy come to terms ? Can the Islamic state come to undertake the basic provisions of political freedoms, civil liberties and at the same time ensure an ethical and balance approach in governance? Well we have to wait until tommorow to see what is going to be said.

Fitna and the Vatican

As a seventh or eighth grader, I was trying to challenge my history teacher who was telling the class that Islam had spread in its early years from the Arabian Peninsula with the force of the sword. I attended Iranzamin, an international school in Tehran, our lecturers were American or European and most of our textbooks, including the history book our teacher was referring to, was American.

The textbook said exactly the same thing; that Islam had spread not due to the belief and conversion of people who had got the reviving message and were persecuted by their rulers and tyrants, but by force of the sword. A commonplace evident distortion of history by Christian historians, reflects the policy of denial that was practiced for a long time.

That history book was full of references to the merits of the Roman Civilization and excessive references to the services that European civilization had rendered to humanity and of course the American civilization. Very little, if any, mention was made of the great services that Islamic scholars, scientists, artists and leaders had provided. That was back in 1974.

Today, there is more understanding and recognition of the Islamic civilization in many dimensions, there are many sincere attempts on behalf of Christian authorities and scholars to appreciate the role of Islamic culture in the scientific, technological, social and political advancement of the human civilization.

Yet, there still are malevolent attempts to incite religious hatred and to depict a distorted image of Islam for the world. There seems to be a well orchestrated ongoing effort to portray Islam as a religion of violence, hatred and revenge. The film "Fitna" by Dutch far-right MP Geert Wilders, which features images of attacks in New York and Madrid intertwined with recitations from the Holy Quran, has provoked widespread condemnation.

I saw the film on the internet last night. It is very unfortunate that under the disguise of freedom of speech, which is a highly valued principle, a European politician would go to the extremes of insulting a divine religion known to be the fastest growing religion on earth.

The coincidence of the news given by Monsignor Vittorio Formenti, the compiler of the Annuario Pontificio, the Vatican yearbook is striking. He said "For the first time in history, we are no longer at the top: Muslims have overtaken us." He added that figures for 2006 showed that Catholics accounted for 17.4 per cent of the world population while Muslims accounted for 19.2 per cent.

Asked for an explanation Monsignor Formenti observed that "While Muslim families, as is well known, continue to make a lot of children, Christian ones on the contrary tend to have fewer and fewer". He said the figure for the Muslim global population was derived from data submitted to the United Nations by Muslim countries. He did not mention the high number of converts particularly in European countries.

I think there is an ongoing effort to create tensions leading to a collision course between Muslim and Christian societies who have been living together in peace for centuries. Muslims in Europe are emerging as a reality that has to be dealt with in a just and dignified manner. Up to now they have been generally excluded from the political and economic processes of their societies. Contrary to Iran, where religious minorities have a quota in the Parliament, Muslims lack any political representation in many European countries although they have strong minorities. These populations are mostly peaceful, law abiding and hardworking citizens.

The Fitna is a test for the values of democracy, tolerance and respect for diversity of opinions that Europeans claim to cherish and promote.