Last week in Kapil’s Khichadi I brought to your attention a very important matter relating to ‘Freedom of Religion or Belief’ (FoRB) initiative that has been championed by Lord Ahmad (Prime Minister’s Special Representative on Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict and Minister of State for South and Central Asia, North Africa, United Nations and the Commonwealth) and Fiona Bruce MP (appointed as the Prime Minister's Special Envoy for Freedom of Religion or Belief) representing the Government.
I have had tremendous positive feedback from politicians here and abroad, from leading figures from our community here and abroad, and of course also the standard abuse from the extremists whose game of conversion has been exposed.
I mentioned in the article that many politicians and national governments do everything in their power to avoid the elephant in the room. The elephant that I have identified being faiths that promote violent conversions of ‘Kaffirs’, and those faiths that consider me a ‘heathen’ and being allowed to use their might and power to ‘harvest’ my soul for their one true God?
The charter of FoRB states, ‘FoRB is not just the freedom to hold personal thoughts and convictions, but also being able to express them individually or with others, publicly or in private’. It includes the freedom to:
subscribe to different schools of thought within a religion
change one’s religion or beliefs, including to leave or abandon religions
hold non-religious beliefs
The nations that have signed up to this cause so far are Albania, Australia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Greece, Israel, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, The Netherlands, Norway, Poland, The Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Switzerland, Ukraine, United Kingdom and United States of America.
As far as I can make out, not one Islamic nation has signed up to this charter. However, at the conference we witnessed several Islamic speakers who said all the right things to appease the western narrative. Not one speaker asked the question, ‘Why is there not even one Islamic nation that has signed this charter?’
It leads me to ask that awkward question, what about my human rights? As a Hindu (though this applies equally to Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists, and others) why is it that the international community are willing to allow certain faiths (namely Christianity and Islam) a free pass to do whatever they want in the name of their God? Why is it that one will classify me as a ‘heathen’ and will do their utmost to convert me to their faith, by force, by corruption or by deception? And why is it that the other can call me a ‘Kaffir’ and use the ‘word of god’, to forcefully convert me, kill me, rape our women, enslave us for their entertainment and take over our territory? In both cases, they will do their best to destroy my faith, my culture and my very identity by extinguishing my heritage. I ask openly, why my human rights are not protected. Why is it that when I speak up that the wrath of the abusers descends on me to silence me?
If those who wish to see real and truthful expression of ‘Freedom of Religion or Belief’, then I say to them all, is it not time you first tackled this elephant in the room? If you deny the root cause, what chance do you have of ever securing justice for the victims and bringing about peace?
The world today is full of promises on paper. Often the very people who champion these are the very perpetrators of atrocities. If FoRB is to be real – then I stand ready to assist, as long as my voice is not silenced by bureaucratic rhetoric and platitudes. Will our new Prime Minister make a call to me? Only time will tell I guess.
