*** HANA SADIK EL-GALLAL: Islam and the West. The Limits of Freedom of Religion. Peter Lang (1 Moosstrasse, Postfach 350, CH-2542 Pieterlen. Tel: (41-32) 3761717 - fax: 3761727 - Email: info@peterlang.com - Internet: http://www.peterlang.com ). "Worlds of Islam / Welten des Islams / Mondes de l'Islam" series, No. 4. 2014, 340 pp. €70.40. ISBN 978-3-0343-0578-5.
This is a book that is bound to upset a lot of people and sometimes even get their hackles up. Nonetheless, it is very interesting insofar as it helps us to see how perceptions and ideas about major principles such as freedom of religion and belief can be extremely different according to the cultural environment in which a person has grown up. Although certain viewpoints in this book may appear irritating or incongruous, and even sometimes irrelevant, other articles, on the contrary, encourage the European or western reader to confront his vision of the world with those that are different and it subsequently provides food for thought while discarding any attempts at Manichaeism.
When she chose to tackle the theme of religious intolerance, Hanna Sadik el-Gallal was aware that she was walking on dangerous ground. On the other hand, it was impossible that she knew when writing her book, the proportions to which Islamic fundamentalism would become such a nightmare, even in her own country, Libya. As a lecturer in International Law at the University of Benghazi where she is also head of the Cultural Committee at the Faculty of Law, was she right to open her introduction in this book by denouncing the widespread Islamophobia in the West, regret that Islam is becoming increasingly labelled as a violent religion responsible for terrorism in the world and the violation of human rights, if she had known about the abominable acts that were being prepared by the jihadists of the Islamic State and Boko Haram? Would she have taken this approach if she had known about the recruitment of jihadists in Europe? If she had known, the approach adopted in her book would undoubtedly have been more cautious and more nuanced. That said, was she wrong to point out at the same time that the Islamic world cannot be held responsible for the hateful acts committed by a handful of extremists? Judging by the evidence, she was not and it is patently obvious that certain political forces are attempting to exclude Islam and Muslims from the new political and intellectual identity in European countries and even further afield.
All the ideas expressed by Hana Sadik el-Gallal, a member of the Libyan National Council for Human Rights and president of the Libyan Centre For the Development of Human Rights, seek to define the principles of tolerance and convictions for coexisting rather than fighting among themselves and to guarantee the scrupulous respect of human rights. This is both an excellent and extremely broad programme but its implementation is not going to be easy because the ideas defended by this intellectual from a Muslim country clearly illustrates the distance that sometimes separates the two sides of the Mediterranean and, more largely, the West from the Muslim world. In the first part of the book, it is from a legal perspective that she analyses minority rights, freedom of thought, conscience and religion. This leads her to point out, not without a good number of reasons, the fact that the proliferation of laws, such as national security laws, anti-terrorist measures and registration demands targeting or setting limits on certain religious communities in different parts of the world, have the potential of paralysing religious freedom, which would consequently be a significant threat to peace in the world. This observation is plausible, even though the final part of the sentence appears superfluous. In the second part of the book, the author tackles the issue of religious freedom for Muslims in the West and questions relating to banning the veil in France, the war on terrorism unleashed in the US and the lessons that can be drawn from the controversy resulting from the cartoons in Denmark. The conclusion drawn is that there has been a reaffirmation through the resurgence of feelings of national identity purporting to the superiority of the West and the inferiority of other cultures, particularly Muslim cultures. The fact that secularism and dogmatic atheism can also be harbingers of intolerance is also illustrated. In an effort to change this situation, Hana Sadik el-Gallal suggests that the Muslim communities in the West use the weapon of human rights, as the Afro Americans and the victims of apartheid have done before them. Nonetheless, she argues that it would be much more credible if the same combat were waged in the Muslim world, particularly in Arab countries. She doesn't hold her punches when she deals with these countries and the way in which they behave to their minorities and respect for human rights. Saudi Arabia and Egypt are not spared in her assessment. She does, however, create a certain doubt among European readers when she arrives at her general conclusion that considering human rights as an intrinsically secular moral doctrine discriminates against the freedom of religion, which she believes ultimately leads to a dead end. She therefore suggests that the right road to follow would be to give these right a Muslim colouring in countries where Islam is prevalent or present. It is not certain that this idea is going to go down very well but ultimately it all helps to establish dialogue on this question.
Michel Theys
*** FRANCOIS GUESNET, GWEN JONES (Editors): Antisemitism in an Era of Transition. Continuities and Impact in Post-Communist Poland and Hungary. Peter Lang (see address attached). 2014, 301 pp. €55.95. ISBN 978-3-631-64629-8.
To what extent does anti-Semitism, which previously prospered in Central and Eastern Europe, still remain a reality in this region of the world? In what way has the post-communist transition influenced the societal impact of anti-Semitism in countries that, in addition to Russia, are now part of European Union? The authors of this publication appear to bring a number or scientific responses to these questions and a number of others. Unfortunately, the answers display a situation that is far from pleasant, indeed, extremely worrying. They analyse specific situations that have characterised Poland and Hungary throughout the last century up until the present day, such as the role of the Catholic Church and authoritarian political leaders, Jewish support for Marxism and the Communist regimes. They look at the impact that is still present in images from what we would have wished to be a bygone past. These are some of the angles from which the experts writing this book illustrate the specific trajectories of these two countries. The book's editors explain that there are many examples that demonstrate, “ a reconnection with pre-war political movements and ideologies, for which anti-Semitism, was a central rallying factor and indeed, helped shape policy”. This factor is still influencing the political direction in which things are moving. Subsequently, the authors also highlight the employment, once again, of decidedly anti-Semitic sloganeering in the ideas and action carried out by the Jobbik movement in Hungary, where the Roma have now become the Jews of today and where the “doublespeak” of the Fidesz government in Budapest has played a very negative role on the Internet in the propagation of “anti-Semitic folklore”. Another preconceived idea is also demolished, according to which anti-Semitism disappeared during the Communist era. The book as a whole provides a very comprehensive, edifying although a somewhat worrying insight into this phenomenon.
(MT)
*** NIKOS MOUDOUROS, MICHALIS MICHAIL (Editors): La nouvelle hégémonie turque. Les dimensions de l'Islam politique. Editions Papazisi (2 Nikitara, GR-10678 Athens. Tel: (30-210) 3822496 - fax: 3809020 - Email: papazisi@otenet.gr -Internet: http://www.papazisi.gr ). 2014, 376 pp. €22.37. ISBN 978-960-02-2981-3.
Although the decades of the Cold War shaped Turkey's role and the changes or lack of change inside the country, the beginning of the 21st-century is revealing something very different: a new Turkey is appearing both domestically and in the country's foreign policy. Previously, the secular state was closely connected to the West, particularly in military and economic terms. The Turkey of today now appears to want to become an autonomous powerful political and economic actor at an international level. According to Nikos Moudouros, an academic from the Department of Turkish Studies and the Middle East at the University of Cyprus and adviser to the former president of the Cypriot Republic, Demetris Christofias on Turkish questions, and Michalis Michail, professor of international relations at the University of Nicosia, the Islamic nature of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) in power has created a new dynamic at an ideological and political level. The goal of this collectively written book is to analyse the current situation in Turkey and its relations with the rest of the world from the end of the Second World War to the increasing power and current electoral domination by the AKP. The book is divided into three thematic sections: the first part focuses on Turkey's position in the relationship between East and West; the second looks at the action taken by the AKP over the past decade, with the authors attempting to highlight the theoretical framework underpinning the changes that occur during this period; the third part provides an expert examination on aspects of Turkish foreign policy since the arrival in power of the party led by President Erdogan.
(AKa)
*** Südosteuropa Mitteilungen. Südosteuropa-Gesellschaft (49 Widenmayerstrasse, D-80538 Munich. Tel: (49-89) 212154-0 - fax: 2289469 - Email: info@sogde.org - Internet: http://www.sodge.org ). January 2014, 120 pp. €12. €60.
This edition of Südosteuropa includes four articles on Turkey and one on Bosnia-Herzegovina. In the article on Turkey, Cemal Karakas and Hussein Avni Karslioglu tackle the issue of foreign policy, with the former examining the principles on which Turkish foreign policy is based, as well as its implementation. The second article focuses on the European question. In his analysis of the domestic Turkish situation, the article by Gülistan Gürbey highlights the limitations to the democratisation process begun by the AKP (Karakas also provides a critical view on this subject) while putting forward a number of clear demands in this connection. Südosteuropa also looks at economic and social questions: whilst recognising the progress made in the area of social insurance, Alpay Hekimler presents a critical balance sheet regarding the situation of workers in contemporary Turkey and underlines inequality between men and women in the workplace, the importance of the informal economy as a factor for the fragility and lack of workers and employees' organisation when defending their respective interests. In the context of the economy in Bosnia Herzegovina, Franz-Lothar Altmann looks at the weak points twenty years after the Dayton agreements and highlights some of the recent events involving the riots in this country. The second part of the journal looks at a number of substantial news releases (Berichte in German) to a significant number of countries Southeast Europe and looks at some of the economic and social regressions resulting from the crisis in the European Union and the situation regarding the media in many of these countries.
(GLe)
*** SUSANNE PECH: Außenpolitisch motivierte Sanktionen der EU. Peter Lang (see address attached). "Schriften und Materialen zum öffentlichen Recht" series. 2013, 389 pp. €76.95. ISBN 978-3-631-64175-0.
In her thesis, Susanne Pech examines the opportunities existing in the European Union to sanction violations of human rights or fundamental democratic principles committed in non-EU countries or by certain organisations. Part of the publication focuses on the definition of the concept of sanctions and the author provides an exhaustive description of them, as well as the reasons for these sanctions and their legal grounds in international and European law. She then provides a detailed analysis of the sanctions that have effectively been implemented by the Union. This part of the book looks at the countries and organisations that could be subject to the sanctions, as well as the sanctions applied on a case-by-case basis and the reasons for them. She also looks at the question of terrorism and the consequences of violating the sanctions by companies or institutions. An examination of their legal foundations in European and national law, particularly in Germany, is also provided.
(Gle)
*** The Federalist Debate. Papers on Federalism in Europe and the World. Einstein Center for International Studies (26 via Schina, I-10144 Torino. Tel/fax: (+39-011) 4732843 -: info@centroeinstein.it email - Internet: http://www.federalist-debate.org ). 2014, No. 2, 64 pp. Annual subscription: €15, $18.
In addition to the usual contributions on one or other aspect of the federalist battle in Europe and the world, this edition of the Federalist Debate contains a particular focus on the Ukrainian crisis. Therefore, the “Debate without Borders” section also focuses on the difficult and potentially explosive dossier. The editorial by Lucio Levi sets the tone and its title is unambiguous, “Stop the Dismantling of Ukraine”. The president of the Italian Section of the Union of European Federalists calls on the Union to clearly say where the borders are and where the enlargement process will end. He points out that, “in Slavic languages, Ukraine means border” and that is where, “Europe's border is located”. He also makes a reference in this connection to the suggestion made by Henri Kissinger and Zbigniew Brzezinski that Kiev should opt for the Finnish model from the last century, which is neither anti-European or anti-Russian and the editor of this publication concludes that, “instead of applying the traditional axiom of ' here or there' from the era of nationalism, why not adopt that of ' here and there' from the federalist model?”
(MT)
*** Revue de droit monégasque (Palais de justice de Monaco, B. P. 513, MC 98015 Monaco cedex. (Tel: (377) 98984241). 2014, 130 pp. €30.
This special edition of the Monaco legal review (Revue de droit monégasque) provides an account of the colloquy organised in the principality last November, “ Contrasting Perspectives on the Two Decades of Applying United Nations Convention on Children's Rights in the North and South of the Mediterranean”.
(MT)