Organized Irrelevance

“Arabs never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.” – Abba Eban, former Israeli foreign minister.

Though Eban directed his irony to the Palestinians, this quote would be better applied to the Muslim world. It has been said, time and again, by countless analysts, thinkers, activists and scholars – and it will be said once more: The Muslim Nation (the Ummah) stands at a crucial moment in history, and will stop at nothing to deny itself the chance to benefit from it.

The United States is steadily withdrawing into an imperialist isolation; irrespective of the long-term danger this strategy poses to American power and prosperity, for the short-term, America is convincingly in command of the world. China and India continue to push forward, each attempting to out-bid the other to become the world’s next superpower.

Europe is undergoing a transformation, from many Fortresses Europe into one Fortress European Union – the inevitability of integration indicated by the drive to form a common European foreign policy and the adoption of a common currency. Even Africa is getting into the game, launching a difficult but ambitious initiative in the form of the African Union.

So whither the global Ummah in all this? The people that were united, not on the basis of nationality but on the supremacy of their common values, centuries ago, are now on the opposite extreme. The Ummah is stuck with the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), a weak inter-governmental entity marred by a distinctly unimpressive record.

Following the 1969 arson attack on the Dome of the Rock, fifteen Muslim nations called an Islamic Conference to discuss ways of enhancing solidarity in the face of an obviously superior Israel. Within a few years, the meeting was institutionalized as the high-sounding “Organization of the Islamic Conference”. This OIC then chose, for its headquarters, the city of Jeddah, “pending the liberation of Jerusalem” – a liberation one cannot fathom the OIC taking part in.

As the years went by, more and more Muslim states (and some that only have significant Muslim minorities) signed on and became members of the OIC, a privilege with few actual benefits, other than access to the Islamic Development Bank, blessed as it is with Saudi petrodollars.

Though a significant component of the OIC’s raison d’etre was the protection of Jerusalem – good job, there – the OIC has mostly been a complete non-factor in the conflict. While Russia, the EU, the United States and the United Nations form “the Quartet,” and several Arab states play roles of varying importance in the Mid-east, the OIC has all the relevance of a backwater village on the wrong side of the world, increasingly marginalized by its own ceaseless barrage of powerless resolutions. And the situation is only getting worse.

Now thirty-two years since its establishment, the OIC is foundering. Its annual budget is a paltry $12 million, and that despite being the second largest inter-governmental organization in the world, with 57 member states (only the UN is larger). The average contribution of each state comes to only $210,000; notwithstanding the triviality of this sum, a number of states have recently refused to pay up. For the sake of comparison, the Organization of the Francophonie (French-speaking countries) has a budget that runs into the hundreds of millions of dollars. That much for a linguistic and cultural grouping of 51 countries, not at all an inter-governmental group with ambitions of “political unity.”

At this year’s Islamic Conference of Foreign Ministers (ICFM) in Khartoum, The Sudan, the OIC finally succeeded in crossing the thin line that separates tragedy from comedy. At the conclusion of the ICFM, the OIC released a final communiqué, a full account of the resolutions agreed upon by the foreign ministers in attendance. A brief sampling highlights the extent to which the OIC has left reality and found itself elsewhere (perhaps in 1966).

1. Under Item 14: “The Conference hailed with great pride the steadfastness of the Palestinian people and its valiant uprising in the face of the Israeli occupation forces, so as to gain its legitimate rights.” …For which I am sure the Palestinians are immensely thankful.

2. Under Item 59: “The Conference took cognizance of Oman’s proposal to replace the terms ‘Muslim minorities and communities,’ when referring to Muslims in non-OIC member countries, with the term ‘Muslims in,’ followed by the name of their country of residence. The Conference requested the General Secretariat to continue studying the proposal in collaboration with Oman and submit the results to the Senior Officials Meeting Preparatory to the Thirtieth Session of the ICFM.”

It is sheer naïveté to expect non-democratic, opportunistic and often brutal regimes to contribute effectively to a strong, global organization. The problem is not that the OIC is broken, but rather, that it cannot be anything but that. Dependent on the whims of its member-states, the majority of which are of an ineptitude and cruelty too difficult to effectively render into words, and dismissing the possibility of the use of force, it seems the OIC was designed with ineffectiveness in mind.

As three decades have passed since the emergence of the OIC, it should be evident, by now, that there is a need for something new – the Ummah is practically begging for it. Enough of long-winded resolutions, opulent conferences and the insecurities that necessitate titles such as “Your Excellency” – titles contradictory to Islamic principles of egalitarianism, serving as further evidence for why the Muslim world’s “elite” remain so out of touch. An organization (or a country, or person, for that matter) is a failure not if it does not reach its goals, but rather if it refuses to recognize the severity of the problems it is faced with.

Progress will only be achieved when we Muslims find the courage to assess our endeavors and reject those that have failed; furthermore, such assessment must be done with full respect to the nature of the situation the Ummah is in. In the case of the OIC, this means considering that political unity is a goal best put off for now. Grouping fifty-seven disparate Muslim countries, at the political level, is ludicrous in our present condition. Before we can imagine Muslim unity on a political level, we must first work to change our status on the social, cultural and economic fronts, through a strategy of empowering and improving local communities. Societies are not changed from the top-down, but from the bottom-up, and those that make this mistake are dooming their cause and the values they hold.

There is not in this any implicit or explicit approval of secularism, but only recognition of Islam as a religion that is meant to be practiced in the here and now (and now is not 1966). That tree is strongest that bends with the wind; to work outside of the scope of political power, rather than declaring war on governments that are more than capable of crushing any and all dissent, is a wise short-term strategy for our goals: improving our practice of religion, individually and socially, while also avoiding the evils of extremism and intolerance.

The successor to the OIC must focus on realistic goals, which means promoting inter-cultural exchange, educational, scientific, economic and tourism cooperation. All these endeavors shall bind the Ummah together on the practical, day-to-day level and promote, amongst citizens of the different Muslim states, a consciousness of the benefits of cooperation.

The changes in the OIC should produce an involved and public organization, which is more accessible to Muslims and does not distance itself through the use of political exclusion (since most of the member states of the OIC deny popular participation in government, how can a grouping of such governments ever offer meaningful public involvement?). The OIC should become decentralized, and concentrate different departments on specific regions of the Muslim world, as at this point, we lack the resources and the capacity to handle grouping the entire Muslim world together, all at once.

By promoting cooperation in specific areas, we can also tackle problems specific to that region. While the development of oil and gas resources, and links to the outside world, as well as the establishment of national identity, are significant to Central Asia, they do not have the same relevance for citizens of East Africa, who have different problems and different concerns. By thus sectoring off the Muslim world, more attention can be devoted to regional issues and more progress will be made. Furthermore, should such progress increase sufficiently, more unity can be established between those sectors, allowing for a gradual process pointing in the direction of eventual Islamic unity. A worthy goal, but a long-term one, for now.

Endeavors to bring Muslims together in such a decentralized, non-political organization are not pipe dreams. There exist a multitude of exciting new economic vehicles, such as public-private partnerships, that can further ventures which will not arouse the opposition of governments and which will further bring together peoples of the Ummah. Since Iran is the home of an indigenous automobile industry, why not further concentrate efforts on promoting sales of Iranian cars in the immediate Persian Gulf area? Since Pakistan is renowned in the Muslim world for its scientific and computer expertise, but lacks resources such as oil, why not promote oil for IT cooperation in the Central Asian region, which will establish genuine cooperation and also ease the wounds of regional power politics over the fate of Afghanistan?

Should we wish to be more ambitious, we can only turn on our (satellite-equipped) televisions and click to Al-Jazeera. In a matter of a few years, a single channel has changed the understanding and consciousness of the Arab world, and done more to promote Arab unity, than anything else has in the past twenty years. Why not focus our energies on producing channels similar to Al-Jazeera, in different languages? Why not beam down educated, forward-looking and honest programs on Islam, in languages that have been deprived of Islamic literature for various reasons (Albanian, Turkic languages, etc.)? If the OIC can spend $12 million on (list accomplishments here…), then the Muslim world can create the capital necessary for beneficial programming, which will no doubt draw in advertisers and quickly spread into other languages.

To take advantage of such ideas and opportunities, Muslim groups within the Muslim world must focus on strategies that work with populations and that avoid antagonizing governments: Most governments will not turn down a chance to improve their economic situation, nor will they avoid any chance to improve their “Islamic credentials.”

Since our friendly Muslim dictators are all too conscious of Iran and the late 1970’s, why not use their insecurities to our advantage? Not all battles are fought with weapons, nor should they be.

It is high time that we, the peoples of the Muslim Ummah, push for a true Organization of Islamic Cooperation, focusing on tangible goals: raising literacy, building schools, wells and roads, improving the status of women, increasing opportunities for higher education, promoting inter-Islamic tourism, trade and cultural cooperation, strengthening the Islamic family, supporting Muslim values, ethics and economic practices and so forth. Unity will only be established amongst those that understand the necessity of such unity, and the great sacrifices it entails.

The choice is, as always, our own.