Author: Ophelia Benson

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) begins with a preamble, the first clause of which says

Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world…

The Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam (CDHRI) also begins with a preamble; its first clause is quite different:

Reaffirming the civilizing and historical role of the Islamic Ummah which God made the best nation that has given mankind a universal and well-balanced civilization in which harmony is established between this life and the hereafter and knowledge is combined with faith; and the role that this Ummah should play to guide a humanity confused by competing trends and ideologies and to provide solutions to the chronic problems of this materialistic civilization…

We are in different worlds already. The UDHR, because it is universal and because the universality is the whole point, does not carve up the human family into nations or religions, while the CDHRI does exactly that from the very beginning. The UDHR starts with the rights of all human beings, the CDHRI starts with the superiority of the Islamic Ummah. In short the CDHRI subverts the entire purpose of the UDHR in its very first words.

The UDHR preamble’s second clause makes clear why the universality and equality of rights are so important and why the invocation of the superiority of a particular community is so sharply – so pointedly, even wickedly – at odds with the purpose of the UDHR.

Whereas disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind…

The UDHR was drawn up in the aftermath of World War II and the Nazi genocide. The human rights in question had to be universal in order to address ‘barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind’; if the human rights are particular then we’re right back where we started, committing barbarous acts against people who are not members of ‘the best nation.’ So with the CDHRI we’re right back where we started.

And then there’s Prince Charles’s surprise colleague.

Captured war crimes suspect Radovan Karadzic was living in Serbia’s capital Belgrade and practising alternative medicine, Serb officials say. He was sporting a long white beard…

Good good; glad he looked the part. And so appropriate…’alternative medicine’ – yes that’s one of those ironic euphemisms that murdering bastards go in for, isn’t it, like Sonderbehandlung. Killing people wholesale is special handling all right, and it’s also alternative medicine, very alternative indeed. Very droll, Rado.

“He was involved with alternative medicine, earning his money from practising alternative medicine… he was working in a private practice.”…He even gave public lectures and was a regular contributor to Healthy Life magazine, editor Goran Kojic said.

Okay that’s carrying irony a little too far. There is such a thing as good taste.

Let’s see – fish? Check. Barrel? Check. Shooter? Check.

But what else can I do?

Diners have been flocking to a restaurant in northern Nigeria to see pieces of meat which the owner says are inscribed with the name of Allah. What looks like the Arabic word for God and the name of the prophet Muhammad were discovered in pieces of beef by a diner in Birnin Kebbi. He was about to eat it, when he suddenly noticed the words in the gristle, the restaurant owner said.

Ah, in the gristle – that’s a nice touch. I remember gristle from my childhood – I was always spitting it out, and having to be instructed in the polite way to remove gristle from the mouth and leave it daintily on the edge of the plate. Funny that Allah chose the gristle instead of the nice chewable meat. Maybe it was a precaution against being accidentally or blasphemously eaten. Imagine the horror if some apostate or kafir in Birnin Kebbi spotted the name and just went ‘Ha, Allah’s name, yum yum,’ and gobbled it down with some horseradish. Thinks of everything, that Allah. Well, everything except a slightly more exciting or in the public eye place to do his gristle-signing.

The meat was boiled and then fried before being served, owner Kabiru Haliru told newspaper Weekly Trust. “When the writings were discovered there were some Islamic scholars who come and eat here and they all commented that it was a sign to show that Islam is the only true religion for mankind,” he said.

Ah yes, quite right too. Of course it was! Because what else would Allah do to give a sign to show that Islam is the only true religion for mankind? Write his name in letters of fire across the night sky, high enough and large enough for a whole hemisphere to read? Send his only begotten daughter to be tortured to death? Dictate another really boring book about camels and finance? Pick up the Chrysler building and move it to Ponca City Oklahoma? Issue the 11th commandment, forbidding people to wear their baseball caps backward? Of course not. The only sensible way to give a sign to show that Islam is the only true religion for mankind is to write your name and your prophet’s name on three pieces of meat the gristle thereof in the kitchen of a restaurant in Birnin Kebbi, Nigeria.

A vet told the newspaper the words “defied scientific explanation”. “Supposing only one piece of meat was found then it would be suspicious, but given the circumstances there is no explanation,” Dr Yakubu Dominic said.

Absolutely. You have only to look at the accompanying illustration to see that. There are some random bumps in the meat; that defies scientific explanation all right. I’m thinking of converting. The apostasy thing is a bit of a discourager though; I do like being allowed to change my mind about things.

(It’s thoughtful of the BBC to provide a list of other inexplicable signings and sightings. Message from Allah in tomato; thief steals Nun Bun; miracle chapati. Hours of fun for the whole family.)