World Humanist Congress in Mexico

By Norman Taylor

Attending the World Humanist Congress in Mexico City in November provided an opportunity to hear immensely well-informed speakers from 26 countries, including world figures such as Pakistani writer Taslima Nasrin, forced to flee her country by religious persecution. Wole Soyinka, Nobel laureate for literature and Nigerian human rights activist, sent his apologies; the congress coincided with the first anniversary of the murder of his close friend Ken Saro Wiwa by the Nigerian government.

The conference, conducted in English and Spanish, with simultaneous translation between them, was jointly sponsored by the International Humanist and Ethical Union and the International Academy of Humanism.

Dr Parviz Khazai, a former Iranian ambassador, described fundamentalism as totalitarianism and religious fascism, especially in terms of Islamic fundamentalism's treatment of women. He also referred to anti-Arab Jewish fundamentalism and the mass suicide preachers of Christian fundamentalism.

It was alarming to learn from Dr Khazai that "anti-democracy, anti-peace and anti-woman forces are joining ranks and are forming a terrifying and very violent phenomenon ... They are getting more and more united, and the petrodollars of the Tehran regime are providing them with the necessary credits."

Khazai's paper also noted: "Jewish fundamentalism is trying its level best to render service to and complete the nasty job of their brother fundamentalists within the Islamic groups. Rabin was gunned down by a Jewish fundamentalist. According to reliable intelligence sources in the region, the brotherhood of Islamic and Jewish fundamentalism is making a clandestine joint venture against the peace process in the Middle East."

Another Iranian activist, Fariba Hachtroudi, pointed out that Iranian women have lost virtually all their civil and individual rights. She added that minorities (Zoroastrians, Christians, Jews) are executed wholesale or blacklisted and fiercely repressed.

An Iranian married woman cannot work without the written permission of her husband. More than half of all fields of study are closed to women. The veil is mandatory in all public places for women, regardless of citizenship or religion. Women are segregated from men in public offices schools, universities, even on buses, where they must sit in the rear.

Iranian men are allowed to have an unlimited number of "temporary wives". They can terminate the marriage at any time, while the woman may not do so under any circumstances. After 1979, the legal age for females to marry was reduced from 18 to 13, and later to nine.

"A New Global Ethics" was the title of a paper presented by Lars Gunnar Lingas, PhD, secretary general of the Norwegian Humanist Association since 1993, in the session "Sharing values for a shared future".

The comprehensiveness of the congress is illustrated by its five plenary sessions: 1. Challenges of the cyber-age; 2. The impact of the informedia revolution on the developing world; 3. The threat of intolerance: countering religious extremism and ethnic rivalries; 4. Empowerment and sustainable development; 5. Towards a new global consciousness.

Spread over the four days were nine concurrent sessions on topics such as human rights, the ethical challenges of bio-technologies and education in the cyber-age.

Readers interested in learning more about humanism may want to order the book Modern Humanism: Living Without Religion for $10 from the Humanist Society of SA, GPO Box 177, Adelaide 5001.

From GLW issue 267