A criminal act of arson was committed in Al-Aqsa Mosque, the third holiest place of worship in Islam on 21 August 1969. The fire destroyed part of the old wooden roof and 800-year-old-pulpit. In response to this heinous crime of occupying Zionist forces in Jerusalem, 25 heads of state and governments of Muslim countries met in a summit on 25 September 1969 at Rabat, the Moroccan capital. The summit was followed by the First Islamic Conference of Foreign Ministers held in Jeddah in March 1970. The founding members, which included Palestine, unanimously decided to establish the headquarter of the organization in Saudi Arabia. The decision was enthusiastically supported by the entire Muslim world as King Faisal, the most courageous ruler in the history of modern Saudi Arabia, was a highly respected person. He was also extremely sympathetic to the causes of the Ummah. As a result, the Kingdom, under his rule, enjoyed the mantle of Islamic leadership. Tunku Abdul Rahman, the former prime minister of Malaysia was selected as the first Secretary General of OIC. The level of expectation about the new organization in the Islamic world can be understood from the fact that a former Prime Minister accepted the post of the Secretary General of OIC.
The OIC was formally established in May 1971 in Jeddah with 20 major objectives according to its charter. The first objective says, “To enhance and consolidate the bonds of fraternity and solidarity among the Member States”. Unfortunately, the Islamic world is even more divided now than at the time of founding the organization nearly five decades ago, although the number of member states has increased to 57. Jerusalem not only remains occupied but today also, the official capital of Israel. At this point, reference to objective number 8 of the OIC charter is also necessary. It says, “To support and empower the Palestine people to exercise their right to self-determination and establish their sovereign State with Ai-Quds Al-Sharif as its capital, while safeguarding its historic character as well as Holy places therein.”
Ironically, some of the member states of the OIC are now strategic friends of the Zionist entity and support President Trump in his blatant attempt to put the seal of perpetual subjugation on the people of Palestine. The present position of these OIC states directly contradicts the objective of the OIC as quoted above. Most of the GCC member states now publicly advocate for legalizing the Israeli occupation of Palestine. The role of the OIC in the persecution of Muslims in other parts of the world is also highly controversial. Some examples are cited here in support of my argument.
A massacre of Ulemas and madrasah students was committed by the present Islamophobic and fascist regime of Sheikh Hasina in the capital of Bangladesh on the night of 5 May 2013. The then Secretary General of the OIC was visiting Bangladesh at that time. The respect and importance of the OIC has gone down even in the Islamic world to such pitiable levels that the repressive government of Bangladesh did not hesitate to commit the crime against humanity only a few hours before the arrival of the Secretary General on the morning of 6 May. The alleged crime of the ulemas was to protest against the obscene caricature and insult of our Prophet (peace be upon Him) by the government sponsored atheist group.
The Secretary General passed a busy day meeting with the despotic Prime Minister and other high officials while the brutal police force of the fascist regime was washing the blood of the innocent victims of massacre from the main road of Motijheel, the commercial district in Dhaka. It is not conceivable that the OIC Secretary General was not informed about the tragedy and remained unaware during the entire period of his two-day official visit. In fact, Begum Khaleda Zia, the then leader of the opposition informed him about the massacre when he called on her in the evening of 6 May. Unfortunately, neither the Secretary General nor OIC issued any condemnation for the massacre of the Alems and religious students.
Kashmiri Muslims have been fighting for the right of self-determination against Indian occupation forces since 1947. Their sufferings are similar to those of Palestinians. Nearly 700,000 Indian troops are engaged in brutal atrocities against less than 10 million Kashmiris. The valley is internationally known as the most militarized zone in the whole world. Helpless Kashmiri Muslim men, women and children are subjected to the worst possible persecution every day. The present ultra nationalist and rabidly anti-Muslim ruling party in India has relegated the status of minority Muslims in India to even lower than the lowest caste Hindus, considered untouchables according to Brahmanic tradition. The Muslims are regularly lynched by the Hindu vigilante groups with the connivance of Indian police on the allegation for keeping beef in their possession.
Thousands of Muslims are killed every year in communal riots in various places in India. After the demolition of the Babri Mosque in 1992, a few thousand Indian Muslims were killed in Mumbai, Delhi, UP, Gujarat and other Indian states in a single country-wide coordinated riot. The massacre was not any less horrific than Srebrenica.
Prime Minister Modi, the chief architect of Muslim the pogrom in India, laid the foundation stone last week, on 5 August, to officially commence the construction of the Ram temple on the very razed site of the Babri Mosque. Not only has the OIC remained silent on the issue of the most brutal persecution of a minority community in the 21st century world, member states like the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Oman and Bahrain have conferred highest civilian awards to Modi, aka ‘butcher of Gujarat’ for his direct role as Chief Minister in the massacre of Muslims during the 2002 Gujarat riot.
Modi remained blacklisted by the US administration for his crimes until he became Prime Minister in 2014. Apparently, the lure of approximately US$2 trillion Indian domestic market for the leaders of these Arab countries is stronger than their feeling for the Ummah. Among the leaders in the Islamic world, only President Erdogan of Turkey and former Prime Minister of Malaysia, Dr. Mahathir have strongly criticized the extremist Hindu persecution of minority Indian Muslims. Other than that, Prime Minister Imran Khan of Pakistan has done the same. Iran has also condemned the atrocities with a softer tone, possibly because of its special economic relationship with India.
For nearly six months, the OIC has been dilly-dallying in calling a foreign minister level meeting to discuss the situation of Kashmir and Indian Muslims. The OIC has shown similar weaknesses in condemning the persecution of minority Uyghur Muslims in Northwest China. The organization also failed to condemn the death of former President Morsi of Egypt in custody on 17 June 2019 and the continuation of persecution of religious Muslims by the dictatorial and pro-Israeli regime of President Sisi.
The OIC changed its official name to Organization of the Islamic Cooperation, while it was formerly known as the Organization of the Islamic Conference since 2011. However, replacing the word “conference with “cooperation” has not necessarily resulted in achieving enhanced cooperation among the member states. The organization’s claim of being the “collective voice” of the Islamic world sounds rather hollow. After half a century of its existence, the OIC leadership should accept the failure to protect the interests of the Muslim world.
At the end of the First World War, the League of Nations (LON) was established in 1920 as the first global organization with stated goals to maintain world peace and prevent war. Critics used to ridicule it as the “League of Victors” and the onset of the Second World War nakedly demonstrated the failure of the LON. A new global organization under the name the United Nations was founded in 1945 even before the League of Nations was buried. The LON eventually ceased to exist in 1946. In the case of the OIC, it is now imperative for the leaders of the Islamic nations to decide whether to meaningfully reform the OIC to make it relevant and effective or to allow dissolution of this moribund institution to start afresh. The golden jubilee might be the perfect occasion to take the long overdue bold decision.
*Mahmudur Rahman is a renowned author and editor of a national daily in Bangladesh. He has written more than ten books and is a regular contributor to various distinguished journals. He is a former energy advisor to the government of Bangladesh. He is also the foremost voice against the current autocratic regime in Bangladesh.
