Chapter 21 -
Humans Have Rights on Paper, but Apparently Not in Real Life

December 10th was another World Human Rights Day. As known, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was prepared based on the principle that "all human beings are born free and equal" was accepted on December 10th, 1948 by the United Nations General Assembly.

The declaration aimed to prevent the repeat of disasters such as the WWI and WWII, during which millions of innocent people lost their lives, and to establish a mechanism that would stop authoritarian leaders determined to attain their political interests and agendas at all costs. It intended to stop those leaders that might regard any means, including violence, as acceptable in achieving or pursuing their inhuman agendas.

However, despite the 67 years that have passed since then, things seem to have developed in the opposite direction. Many countries of the world saw peaking human rights' violations, while Middle East became scene to some of the worst violations of human rights ever recorded. Human Rights activists are reporting inhumane practices in these countries almost on a daily basis.

In particular eleven countries are scenes to the worst cases of human rights violations ever and are frequently mentioned in reports. These countries, ranked beginning from the worst are Nigeria, Yemen, Myanmar, North Korea, Iraq, Afghanistan, Somali, Pakistan, Congo Democratic Republic, Sudan and Syria.

These reports draw particular attention to the fact that the civilian deaths in these regions usually occur due to random use of rockets, barrel bombs, ballistic missiles and other weapons in residential areas. The report explains that tens of thousands of innocent civilians have died or become permanently disabled in the last two years due to such attacks on civil areas. More alarmingly, this number is increasing every single day.

Refugees are entrusted by God. People, without being noticed, should adopt a manner which makes them feel comfortable and provide them opportunities, without subjecting these people to any condition or term.

Why are the reports on human rights violations not successful?

Syria is one of these countries where civilian deaths are incredibly high, and more disturbingly, these attacks are happening before the eyes of the whole world.

In Syria, a battlefield consisting of conflicting interests and goals, more than 300 thousand people have lost their lives, in one of the cruelest and the most ruthless wars of all times. 7 million people had to leave their homes, 4 million of those have had to seek refuge in foreign countries and 14 million people became dependent on humanitarian aid in their own country. For the already downtrodden Syrians that have been forced to migrate, the Mediterranean Sea has turned into a sea of death and became a gravesite to thousands that drowned in its waters.

The US Senate has drawn up a 6000-page report on torture and war crimes carried out by CIA. According to the report, the disproportionate use of force, mistreatment of black population by security forces especially in recent years, made the US one of the offenders in human rights.

China's situation hasn't changed much over the last couple of years, and the disappearances at the hands of the military and security forces, unsolved murders, torture and extrajudicial execution continued especially in the East Turkestan region.

The same report also pointed to human rights' violations in Egypt which can be considered a country with an alarming humanitarian crisis in our modern day as well as historically. It is known that these violations are continuing at full speed. Thousands of people have lost their lives in Egypt after the military coup of July 3rd 2013. Arbitrary arrests of dissidents, extended periods of detention and cases of torture are still underway without showing any signs of slowing down any time soon.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on December 10th 1948. Eleanor Roosevelt referred to this declaration as the "international Magna Carta for all men everywhere."

The deplorable state of the Rohingya, who has been subjected to terrifying cruelty, pressure and discriminative practices for decades is also covered in this report. The report makes it clear that the systematic persecution against 140,000 Rohingya Muslims still continues at full speed. Currently about one million Rohingya in Maungdaw and Buthidaung townships by the Bangladesh border continue to face restrictions on movement, employment, and religious practice.

Furthermore, the year, 2015 saw shocking mistreatment of, refugees by various European countries -reminiscent of the time of Hitler- and raised questions about the sincerity of the West that is claiming to be the pioneer of Human Rights and democracy. More alarmingly, France has made an official request to the Council of Europe, to suspend their obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights because of the country's "state of emergency" in the wake of November 13th attacks in Paris.

The hatred, fights and wars in the world should immediately be terminated

Crimes against humanity, of which only a small portion are listed above, are getting more common and more disturbing in different parts of the world. Today, millions of people have to live without homes, without food, without proper access to healthcare and other basic necessities, due to the negligence, indifference, apathy, cruel practices and sanctions.

As a matter of fact, in terms of total resources and economic wealth, our world can easily accommodate the entire world's population. Yet, selfishness, material ambitions, conflicts of interests, lack of love, compassion and kindness is causing the sufferings of millions of innocent people.

It is critical that the UN, the author of the Convention on Human Rights, should watch over these people and ensure that their rights are protected, especially during these days. It is unacceptable that the UN settles with remarks of condemnation when violence against civilians are reaching historical levels. There are even arguments that the UN has now became a rather symbolic institution, mostly focused on legislating the interests of a few powerful states. The world expects great things from this important institution. It is never too late to once again assume the mission of protecting human rights as an urgent and corrective step.

Our world needs a brand new system of love, compassion and peace. Let's take this opportunity to once again rise up and work for a world worthy of human dignity, for a world of peace, love and happiness; for a world of justice and perfected human rights.

My people! If you believe in God, then put your trust in Him, if you are Muslims. (Surah Yunus, 84)

The Reason for Tyranny is that Muslims are Unprotected

Today Muslims suffer from attacks, rape, forced migration or massacres in Iraq, Syria, Libya, Egypt, Afghanistan and several other parts of the world. A significant number of those who are forced to migrate lose their life while traveling. The image of little, innocent children who they were forced to migrate and drowned in the Aegean Sea is still fresh on our minds. No faithful Muslim can stand seeing such an image. No one can turn away as if none of these events concerns him. Every Muslim is responsible for saying 'Stop' to the course of these events. First and foremost, it is obligatory for us Muslims to protect each other and be united against tyranny as commanded by God in the Qur'an:

"And why should you not struggle in the cause of God and of those who, being weak, are ill-treated (and oppressed)?- Men, women, and children, whose cry is: "Our Lord, take us out of this city whose inhabitants are wrongdoers! Give us a protector from You! Give us a helper from You!'? " (Qur'an, 4:75)

If we pay attention, we see that the whole world reacts to the murder of even one person in an European city. However, the massacre of millions of Muslims causes no reaction but heavy silence in the world. Muslims are considered worthless by the majority of the world. Even more interest and affection is shown to animals than Muslims in some parts of the world. So who is responsible for this situation? Why does no one say "Stop" to what happens while this tyranny keeps on growing?

The responsible and reason for all this should first be looked for among Muslims. While God tells that tyranny can only end by being 'united', the majority of Muslims ignore this command. Some of them consider no other Muslim community on the right track. Even some others see each other as enemies. Therefore, they can never unite in real terms. For example, several mosques in Europe are under the control of different groups. That is why a Muslim cannot go to any mosque he wants to. They have to go to the mosque that belongs to their own Muslim community. Even this ugly truth clearly shows why Muslims have been disunited with each other and why they have been left weak and powerless for centuries. Most importantly separation of Muslims not only displeases God, but also results in pain and unfruitfulness. In the Qur'an, God tells how disunity of believers will result negatively as follows:

"And those who disbelieved are allies of one another. If you do not do so, there will be sedition on earth and great corruption." (Qur'an, 8:73)

The Muslim world of 1.5 billion people and end of disputes

Leaving aside unity, today the biggest enemy of Muslims is again some Muslim communities in several parts of the world. Considering the number of Muslims massacred in the world, we see that it is Muslims who kill 90% of Muslims. When we observe the main areas of crisis and war in the world today, we note again that they are Muslim lands and those who mercilessly fight each other are Muslim communities.

Around 1.5 billion Muslims live in the world. Muslim countries have large economies and military capacities. If Muslims cast aside the controversies between them and unite, they will constitute the biggest power of the world financially and spiritually. It would be such a power that there would be no Muslim who is starving, thirsty and needy in the world if this power was used. As required by the ethics of the Qur'an, Muslims would lend a helping hand not only to Muslims but also to all people from any belief or view all over the world. All pain and grievance of humanity would be solved with this unity.

To reach such a beautiful conclusion, Muslims should first pray and unite as an obligation regardless of sects and dispositions or without feeling any kind of superiority. All the sufferings have shown so far that the pain will increase and more terrifying results will emerge if this process lasts longer. Of course, the blame will be put on the Muslims who are indifferent to this call and cope with the disputes between each other.

The priority is unity

All Muslims who abstain from such a big responsibility both in this world and in the afterlife should give up the claim of 'superiority' and 'greatness'. Then, they must see the wrong side of opposing Muslims. They should take a decision to follow the orders of God and abstain from conflictual views that will disrupt unity and solidarity. Today the priority is 'unity'. This is a clear order of God to Muslims. Therefore, no obstacle can stand before this. The world is now ruined. Millions of Muslim people suffer from tyranny. Imagine a house is burning. No one tries to save the table or chair in the house first. First and foremost they try to rescue the people inside. While there is now such a tyranny in the world, Muslims' number-one responsibility should be to make efforts to form this unity before all the other issues.

There is no doubt that the following question will first come to your minds: "Yes, but how will Muslims unite?" This will not be definitely an official, nonfunctional unity. Indeed, such unities have already been tried and these organizations could not go beyond a show off. For instance, the Shiite and Sunni have recently performed the prayer with their own separate imams according to their sects in a conference of unity held in Iran. Therefore, they clearly showed their disagreement even when they came together for a so-called unity.

Muslims can only come together in an environment away from formality and full of sincerity and love. In this case, the only way to form a Muslim unity is to allow them to choose an impartial, fair Muslim spiritual leader so that Muslims of all segments can have full faith in his words, sincerity, foresight, love, fellowship and knowledge. There will never be a unity unless there is head. That person will be the head of Muslim unity. In this way, Muslims will not be unprotected; they will value this person to whom they are connected at heart and will do what he will say willingly.

What would happen if Muslims had a spiritual leader?

Let's enumerate certain privileged issues that come to mind first:

◉ Muslims would easily solve the problems between each other without fighting or resorting to violence and by consulting the leader that they loved and respected even though they had different opinions.

◉ There would be an environment full of love; all Muslims would be integrated and live in security and peace. Therefore, a big potential would emerge in every field in Muslim world; science, art and economy would develop at full speed and there would be an environment of abundance and welfare.

◉ Muslims would build better relations with Christian and Jewish communities since the quality, modernity, love, compassion and good manners would increase.

◉ No one would be able to abuse the rights of Muslims like in the past when they were seen unprotected in the world. In such a case, they know that Muslims would defend themselves by way of law and rights and they would face a great power in firm relations with each other.

◉ Foreign shadow state elements cannot breed the bad blood of separation and war among the Muslims in unity. Any unrest would be stopped by the spiritual leader of Muslims. Therefore, war traders would be prevented from feeding on Muslims' blood.

◉ As we frequently see in examples, Muslims cannot be massacred by putting the blame of any crime committed in the world on Muslims. Since Muslims would be tied to the apron strings of their leader who absolutely opposes to crime and violence as the ethics of the Qur'an require. Therefore, no provocation can be successful.

Now we can answer the question: "Is it possible?" Of course, it is. Since this is an obligation of God and a great service which God heralds to ensure permanent safety and peace when achieved.