While at the Inter-Parliamentary Union meeting, it was obvious you can't push 'freedom' on a country
28 May 2007
Margaret Thatcher was elected Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland. She was a very forceful character and made a great public impact. It is reported that by the mid nineteen eighties psychiatrists assessing patients with mental illness stopped asking them their names and asked instead for the Prime Minister's name. If the patient did not know it, it was obvious he or she was a serious case.
A friend of mine concerned about her mother's memory brought her to see her G.P.. In order to assess if the elderly lady had cognitive decline the G.P. asked her who was the President of the United States of America. She replied that he was a very foolish man who had got all of us into the most appalling trouble by his invasion of Iraq and that we were certainly unlikely to get out of this mess in her time. The G.P. told my friend she agreed with the mother and that she was just fine.
After attending the Inter Parliamentary Union meeting in Bali recently I feel most of the world agrees with the mother and no-one seemed to be able to really see how we will get out of the mess in anyone's time.
The Inter parliamentary Union is an organisation for the back benchers of parliaments. It has existed for nearly one hundred and twenty years. For many years it met once yearly, but more recently it meets twice annually, once 'out foreign' and the smaller winter meeting in the Geneva headquarters.
The topics for discussion this year were climate change, terrorism, democracy and human rights. Bali is a mainly Hindu island, but Indonesia is, of course, a huge Muslim country. As the host country, Indonesian parliamentarians chaired and organised many sessions.
Members of the United States of America's Congress and Senate have not attended for over fifteen years, having got fed up with criticism. This year the members of the Knesset in Israel did not come, fearing lack of security. Australian attendees had special armed guards, being naturally nervous after the bombings in Bali in which many Australians died. I'm not sure why we Europeans were considered safe or expendable, but certainly we and the Canadians (though hard to distinguish I'd have thought from Australians) were told to shift for ourselves.
The conference was extremely well organised and our hosts gave us a good time with dinners and entertainment but there was a rage within the hearts of many of those there which was palpable. These were, in general, parliamentarians from Muslim countries who told us they were fed up with being pushed around by the west, and one would have to agree there was good reason why many of them felt this way.
We all sat in alphabetical order, so Ireland was beside Iran because Iraq was not present. When the meeting took place in Beijing abut ten years ago Iraq was there and the organisers decided to modify the alphabet a bit and put Ireland between Iran and Iraq - blessed are the peace makers!
President George W. Bush and his aide de camp, Prime Minister Tony Blair, seem to have had an idea that globalisation would mean all the countries of the world would become, or want to become, like the USA and/or the UK. They are sadly wrong. Their democracy does not fit into the model of the legislators of many countries at the meeting and it certainly does not come out of the barrel of a gun.
We started the meeting with a call for the withdrawal of the occupying forces in Iraq from the host country to prolonged applause. We ended with the same appeal even more enthusiastically endorsed.
I was mainly at the Committee on Democracy and Human Rights. Country after country from the Muslim world pointed out that while they had respect for western democracies the western model might not be the one best suited to them. For example, the Egyptians said the cultural, social and religious niceties of each country had to be considered. Respect for diversity is needed and the fact that countries differ does not give any other country the right to interfere with their internal organisation. The Pakistanis pointed, too, to the need for an international respect for diversity, that there is a mosaic of countries in the world and we should be able to co-exist peacefully. They pointed out that Iraq, Afghanistan and Chechnya had been invaded by western powerful countries, who would be next? The Iranians said tolerance between countries was the best guarantee of international peace and that invasions by powerful countries were unhelpful. The Jordanians urged respect for people in the broadest sense of the word and pointed out that the principles of Islam do not encourage terrorism. Bahrain supported this and said God guarantees the dignity of man, while interestingly pointing out that the wellbeing of the tribe rather than the individual is the priority. Also, that the civil rights of each nation are as important as civil rights of individuals. Many who contributed to the debate alluded to the lack of civil rights of Palestinian children.
While many of those from European parliaments spoke, I was particularly taken by the words of an Italian parliamentarian. He said we in the west should not fear a bit of self criticism, fear being the first adversary of democracy. He urged dialogue and for all our sakes I hope he is heeded.
Finally, as the days were going by I got chatting to the Mullah on my left, the Italian being on my right. I told him I had been to Tehran years ago, on behalf of the Irish Red Cross after the first Gulf War. 'And' he said, 'what do you call the first Gulf War?' 'Well,' I said, 'the war in the early 1990s when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait and in return there was a U.S. led invasion of Iraq.' And what, he asked, did I call the war where Saddam Hussein, supported by the west, invaded Iran and fought a bloody battle there for ten years? He then told me he would not be surprised if there was a nuclear strike on Iran and the way things are progressing, or not progressing, in the Middle East it was not possible to contradict him. We are in a dreadful mess there. The 'arrogance' of the western nations was mentioned now and then. One Arab interpreter asked me if we in Europe couldn't do a bit more. We'll have to, because the situation as Michael Bell, the Canadian who has just resigned from supervising reconstruction in Iraq said, the situation is 'dire, dire'.
Senator Mary Henry, MD
