Current opinion :

The Islamic Conference: Reform and representation

The Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) is currently gearing up for the 33rd session of the Islamic Conference of Foreign Ministers, which is to be held in the Azerbaijani capital, Baku, on June 19-21, on the theme of “Rights, Freedoms and Harmony”.

The OIC is composed of three main bodies: the Summit of Heads of State and Government (normally held every three years), the annual Conference of Foreign Ministers and the General Secretariat.

Top issues for this month’s meeting include the Palestinian issue, Islamic financial and economic funds, Iraq, the Iranian nuclear program and conditions in Afghanistan, Sudan, Kashmir and others. Decisions are also likely to be taken on combating Islamophobia, initiating dialogue with the European Union (EU) and the implementation of long-term plans for improving relations among member countries.

The 57 members of the OIC famously make up the largest international organisation after the UN, to which the Conference has a permanent delegation, has more member states. The Organisation also has nine observer states, including Russia and the Turkish Cypriot State. In spite – or perhaps because – of this numerical strength, the OIC is often regarded as no more than a talking shop – a collection of states, many of them small and new, which are quite different in socio-economic, political and even religious terms, and which in some cases harbour rivalries over regional leadership or territory.

Set up in Rabat in 1969, in reaction to the attack on the Al-Aqsa Mosque, the OIC went on to hold its fırst Conference of Foreign Ministers in Jeddah in 1970. It appointed its Secretary General and chose Jeddah as ıts headquarters. Two years later, the Charter of the Organisation was adopted, the purpose of which is to strengthen solidarity and cooperation among Islamic States in the political, economic, cultural, scientific and social fields.

Since then, the OIC has not only increased the number of its members but but also expanded its fields of interest to include areas like culture and sports. Politics and economics have been the central issues, however. In this context, the OIC can claim limited success if any in terms of supporting the Palestinian people to regain their national rights and return to their homeland.

The Organisation’s many standing committees include the Standing Committee on Economic and Trade Cooperation (COMCEC), chaired by the President of the Republic of Turkey. There are also subsidiary organs, specialised institutions and affiliated institutions. For all these organisational efforts, the OIC has also made only modest progress towards its aim of increasing its cooperation among member countries, whether in a bipolar or a monopolar world.

All OIC member states also belong to various other organisations – from the African Union to ASEAN; NATO to the Non-Aligned Conference – and some have joined together in narrower but more focused unions such as the Arab League, the Gulf Cooperation Council or the D-8 group.

Agenda for change

To sum up, the OIC has for three decades served as a broad-based platform for promoting solidarity, dialogue and cooperation among member countries, but has fallen short of rallying its members around a common vision, assuming a cohesive stance regarding issues which are of concern to its member states. Arguably, it has failed to pay enough attention to what has been happening outside its domain. All this has narrowed down the room for manoevre of the organisation in the light of rapid regional and international developments.

Nevertheless, the mere agenda of this month’s meeting sufficiently underlines the relevance of the OIC at a time when the Muslim world is faced with grave challenges in political, security, economic and other areas. Most of its members would agree that the OIC can be an important vehicle to assist the member countries in overcoming these menaces.

The need for reform and revival of the OIC have become all the more urgent in view of dramatic changes in the international political spectrum, particularly in the aftermath of September 11 and the continued marginalization of the OIC in influencing and setting the international agenda, spreading the sense of Islamophobia, and associating Islam with terrorism, extremism and violence. In such  circumstances, the OIC, like every institution, felt obliged to redefine its role, rhetoric, function and effectiveness in meeting the expectations of its member states as well as the requirements of the international community.

In an attempt to explore ways and means of increasing the Organisation’s effectiveness, member countries set up the Commission of Eminent Persons in 2004 to prepare a strategy and action plan to promote democracy, civil society, political participation and respect for human rights.

As part of these joint efforts, two basic reference documents on reform were unanimously adopted by the member countries in 2005: a “Ten-Year Programme of Action” and the “Recommendations of OIC Commission of Eminent Persons”.

The Turkish role

As far as Turkey’s relations with the Organisation are concerned, the OIC has been one of the important aspects of Turkey’s multi-dimensional foreign policy. Turkey’s interest and involvement in the OIC activities gained fresh momentum with the election of Professor Ekmeleddin Ihsanoğlu as the Secretary-General at the 31st Conference of Foreıgn Mınısters in Istanbul, in June 2004, in the first ever freely conducted election in OIC history. With this Conference, Turkey also assumed the rotating presidency until July 2005, and actively supported the initiatives of Secretary General Ihsanoğlu for a widely accepted reform package.

Another breakthrough of the Istanbul Conference was the adoption of the Resolution on the Situation in Cyprus which enabled “the Turkish Muslim People of Cyprus” to participate in the OIC under the name of “Turkish Cypriot State” as envisaged by the UN Secretary General’s comprehensive settlement plan. At its 32nd meeting in Sana in June 2005, the Conference of Foreign Ministers implemented the decision of the 31st Conference and urged member states to remove the political, economic and cultural isolation of the Turkish Cypriots with a view to supporting the rightful cause of the Turkish Cypriots who constitute an integral part of the Islamic World.

The betterment of the situation of the Turkish Muslim Minority in Western Thrace, in Greece has also been on the agenda of the OIC for years. The OIC has taken dozens of resolutions to this effect to safeguard the basic rights of the Turkish minority emanating from bilateral and multilateral treaties to which Greece is a party.

New observers?

Naturally, Turkey is not the only OIC member to seek support for its national causes. The dispute between Pakistan and India over Jammu and Kashmir has been perhaps the most prominent case in point. This issue has also been among the factors standing in the way of India’s interest – as a country with one of the world’s largest Muslim populations – in obtaining membership status at the OIC. As in the case of Cyprus, however, the extent to which OIC members have prioritised this issue in fora other than the OIC and in their bilateral relations with other countries is open to question. Certainly, the impact of OIC positions on the situation on the ground is hard to detect. In other words, the OIC has been ignorable.

In addition to India, the Philippines and South Africa are among the countries seeking involvement in the OIC in view of their Muslim populations – in their case as observers. By cooperating with the OIC, the Philippines may be able to win the moral high ground vis-à-vis its own “Muslim rebels” on Mindanao. That remains to be seen – the OIC is still working on ground rules for such participation.

The OIC is, however, about to take a decision to permit non-government organisations to participate in its deliberations as observers. A growing number of NGOs are understood to have sought observer status.

This development can be seen as a small step towards a return to the OIC’s roots. In the 1920s and 1930s, most Islamic states were concentrating on state building, and others had not yet become independent. All the multilateral Muslim cooperation projects of that era were conducted on a non-governmental basis, as in the case of the General Islamic Conference held in Al-Quds in 1931 and the Islamic Congress held in Geneva in 1935, at which representatives of various Islamic communities living in Europe were present. Only after World War II did inter-Islamic cooperation start to become an issue for states.

Draft OIC rules concerning NGOs would, however, require the groups to be recognised in their home countries and to get permission from their respective governments to join. NGOs submitting requests to join the OIC as observers would be required to have in their founding documents the same goals expressed by the OIC. NGOs would also have to be committed to activities and services benefiting the Muslim Ummah.

Moving centre-stage

As for the proposed reforms of the OIC associated with Professor Ihsanoglu, these may include a new charter which moves on from “apartheid” and “colonialism” to “human rights” and “democracy”. Even the name of the OIC is potentially open to debate (The word “Islamic” will, of course, remain). Transparency, greater involvement as a partner in the international arena, including dialogue with other international and regional organisations, a role in conflict resolution, cultural dialogue with the West and with the rest of the world, fighting disease and coordinating disaster relief – all could be on the agenda.

All this could well involve a trade-off, with the OIC acquiring wider influence and greater external recognition, but in return for adopting aims very similar to those of every other organisation. However, the special relevance of the OIC today surely strems from its potential to act as a voice for Muslims everywhere concerned about injustices, prejudices, misconceptions and “clash of civilisations” ideology. Accordingly, as it seeks more influence by moving closer to the centre of the world stage, the OIC will have to be careful not to become even more marginal to the issues in the minds of 1.4m ordinary Muslims.

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The OIC System :

1. The Islamic Summit

2. The Islamic Conference of Foreign Ministers

3. The Permanent Secretariat (Jeddah)

4. Standing Committees

--Al-Quds Committee.

--Standing Committee on Information and Cultural Affairs (COMIAC).

--Standing Committee on Economic and Trade Cooperation (COMCEC).

--Standing Committee on Scientific and Technological Cooperation (COMSTECH).

--Islamic Committee for Economic, Cultural and Social Affairs.

--Permanent Finance Committee.

--Financial Control Organ.

5. Subsidiary Organs

--Statistical, Economic, Social Research and Training Centre for Islamic Countries (Ankara)

--Research Centre for Islamic History, Art and Culture (IRCICA), (Istanbul)

--Islamic University of Technology (Dhaka)

--Islamic Centre for the Development of Trade (Casablanca)

--Islamic Fiqh Adacemy (Jeddah)

--Executive Bureau of the Islamic Solidarity Fund (Jeddah)

--Islamic Unversity of Niger (Niamey)

--Islamic University of Uganda (Mbale)

6. Specialised Institutions

--Islamic Development Bank (IDB) (Jeddah)

--Islamic Edcucational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (ISESCO) (Rabat)

--Islamic States Broadcasting Organisation (ISBO)

--International Islamic News Agency (IINA) (Jeddah)

7. Affiliated institutions

--Islamic Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ICCI) (Karachi)

--Organisation of Islamic Capitals and Cities (OICC) (Jeddah)

--Sports Federation of Islamic Solidarity Games (Riyadh)

--Islamic Committee of the International Crescent (Benghazi)

--Islamic Shipowners Association (ISA) (Jeddah)

--World Federation of International Arab-Islamic Schools (Jeddah)

--International Association of Islamic Banks (IAIB) (Jeddah)

( DIPLOMAT  -  June 2006  -  Ankara )