The State Department has released the blacklist of religious freedom violators established by the Bush administration. It is the same list as in 2006, and it’s questionable whether the new department really analyzed the current situation before releasing the names of eight countries. Burma, Eritrea, Iran, North Korea, China, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and Uzbekistan are listed as “countries of particular concern.” The results of being listed can include sanctions. The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom pushed the State Department to get the list published and claims that listing a country will help U.S. public diplomacy efforts to improve the human rights records of violators. I thought after eight years the rhetoric of blacklisting was shown to be ineffective.  In either case, the fact that the State Department is still blacklisting exactly the same countries shows just how little policy has actually changed.

This past week Pope Benedict XVI took his first trip to Africa, and yesterday, he celebrated a mass for 1 million in Angola. There were three major headlines from the Pope’s trip to Cameroon and Angola. The first was the controversial statement about condoms and how they do little to help fight AIDS. The second was a stampede on his last day in Africa (Saturday) that killed two young women. Finally, the Pope made various comments about violence to the Muslim minority in Cameroon. These stories have been reflected on by the media, and some writers have come to the conclusion that the mishaps of the trip to Africa have left the impression that the Pope’s public relations department is very weak. Richard Owen has written that “the abiding impression, however, is once again of a Vatican public relations operation left trying – belatedly – to explain or even correct the Pope.” PR is a particular concern after the infamous comments in 2006 about Islam that enraged the Muslim world.

Moreover, once again, a Leader for the Christian world is telling Muslims how to view life and religion. Specifically, the Pope met with 22 representatives of Cameroon’s Muslim minority and told them that there is “no incompatibility between faith and reason.” Reason and how it plays a part in faith is one of the main differences between Islam and Christianity. It is hard to imagine a Christian leader lecturing Muslims effectively on Reason. Either way, much of the Pope’s visit to Africa was overshadowed by the comments made about condoms and how they were not a solution to fighting AIDS. The solution to the disease apparently lies in “spiritual and human awakening.” Women’s rights were also a topic for the Pope, but without fail, he mentioned the evils of abortion for African women.

The Pope is scheduled to visit a mosque next month in Jordan.

This past week, the UN Human Rights Council heard the report of Asma Jahangir, the Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief. Jahangir provided several findings about world-wide discrimination based on religion or belief and its impact on the enjoyment of rights. While looking at the adverse impact of religious discrimination, “it was noted that discrimination based on religion or belief often emanated from deliberate state policies.” There were two major elements to state action mentioned in the report. The first is the law of a state, which defines religious freedoms and establishes the rights of minorities. The second element is the obligation of a state to act when there is in practice a limit or restriction on freedom of expression – but specifically in cases when responding or addressing “the phenomenon of advocacy of religious hatred.”

The emphasis in the report and subsequent “interactive dialogue” between states on inter-religious dialogue, education, and public awareness showed the importance of state action to prevent religious hatred and discrimination. The importance of the state, therefore, led to recommendations from the Rapporteur that states take protective measures for vulnerable population groups. For example, Israel was mentioned in the report for its failure to consistently respect liberty of movement and access to places of worship for Palestinian Muslims and Christians. Their ability to access places of worship have been limited (even if for security reasons) by the harsh system of permits, visas, checkpoints, and the Barrier. With respect to state laws, the Rapporteur specifically pointed out “the negative impact of laws on religious conversion in several states.” Communal and mob violence can also be encouraged by state actions and laws.

This week, an unusual opinion piece appeared on the Wall Street Journal online. Tawfik Hamid wrote, “Islam Should Prove It’s a Religion of Peace.” Looking back over the past few months, I have noticed that a common theme in articles about religion is “proof.” Specifically, the question is: Who is responsible for proving facts about a particular religion? When and what do Muslims, for example, have to prove about their own beliefs? Hamid argues that Muslims are responsible for the negative perceptions of Islam because they have failed to produce sufficient counter images. This puts all ownership of proof on the holder of the religious belief. Therefore, regardless of any differences from one Muslim believer to the other, all are equally at fault if there is a negative world image of Islam because each Muslim is obliged to prove their peaceful disposition.

Hamid’s specific suggestion is that the Muslim world must immediately produce a religious text that argues against violence. However, the catch is that the book must be widely accepted by the entire religious community, otherwise, it will only be one of many books about how Islam is peaceful. If the circular reasoning is not apparent, it is because there is also a presumption that all Muslims currently follow one or two texts that do espouse violence and hatred. This overemphasis on textual and written influence over Muslim thinking is strange. The way that some extremist Muslims “teach hatred and violence” is less by text and more by acts and spoken words. Nevertheless, Hamid’s response to the Dutch filmmaker, Geert Wilder’s movie Fitna, is that Islamic scholars must produce a new Sharia book. It is hard to imagine that a book will effectively combat the training camps for militants with so-called Islamist agendas. The end result for Hamid is that all extremist verbal rhetoric against Islam is acceptable until “a book” can be published that will be accepted and adopted by 100% of Muslims everywhere.

According to Fareed Zakaria, the answer to the above question is a resounding No. Zakaria’s main argument is that if we try to fully understand the phenomenon of Islamic radicalism, there will be a clearer picture that not all Islamists are potential terrorists. The article in Newsweek, “Learning to Live with Radical Islam,” focuses on why “radical Islam has gained a powerful foothold in the Muslim imagination.” The instruction is that the U.S. and the West – to avoid an increasingly painful war between civilizations – should try to better understand various local Muslim contexts and specifically how Islamists with local agendas are different from global terrorist networks such as Al Qaeda.

Zakaria directly argues that “not all Islamists advocate global jihad” and that the past years of the Bush administration were characterized by an unwillingness to differentiate between local militants with national political ambitions for development and extremists, who were aiming for violence and terror at the global scale. Zakaria argues in his standard straightforward manner: “In the Bush administration’s original view, all Islamist groups were one and the same.” These arguments are particularly timely because they have significant potential to assist in the ongoing struggle in Afghanistan. For this reason, Zakaria makes the point that “no Afghan Taliban has participated at any significant level in a global terrorist attack.” He also cites the stat that 90% of the people referred to as Taliban are tribal fighters or Pashtun nationalists.

Gross generalizations about Islam also apply to Shi’a rule in Iran. Absurd rhetoric places Taliban fighters, the Iranian regime, and Al Qaeda all in one large pot of Radical Islamists. Based on the last years of strategy from the Bush administration, Zakaria correctly states that “we have an instant, violent reaction to anyone who sounds like an Islamic bigot.” Nevertheless, there are signs that the new Obama White House is going to take a more nuanced and sophisticated strategy based on the Alliance of Civilizations.