Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-03-12-Speech-2-130"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20020312.7.2-130"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:spokenAs | |
| lpv:translated text |
".
Mr President, I would firstly like to welcome the fact that this House has accepted the proposal to produce a report on this issue, ‘Women and fundamentalism’, thereby allowing us to confront this serious problem and to hold this debate and the subsequent vote despite the difficulties involved and the current pressures. On behalf of the hundreds of millions of human beings whose rights are denied or restricted as a result of fundamentalist pressure, I would like to thank the European Parliament.
Mr President, we are facing a violation of human rights on an immense scale. Just in the case of women and at the present time, we can identify hundreds of the millions of people whose rights and freedoms are being restricted, violated and denied them.
As a result of the time limits laid down in the Rules of Procedure, I have not been able to dwell on the death sentence by stoning imposed on Safiya Husseini, in Nigeria, nor on the Iranian women who are publicly flogged, nor those women, photographs of whose lynching I have seen, nor did I arrive in time to prevent the execution by stoning of Maryam Ayoubi last year. Despite the fact that the Iranian authorities had replied to the Commission that it had not stoned women for three years, the UN and Amnesty International have stated that that execution took place.
Therefore, Mr President, I would like this report to be just a first step, followed by other specific parliamentary proposals, which will demonstrate, in each country and case by case, what a human life is worth in the European Union.
Today the European Union must defend the universality of human rights in a globalised world in which fundamentalists represent serious threats to freedoms, human rights and peace. This report offers useful proposals which will help to combat them.
The first of them, Mr President, is that we must not allow religious fundamentalism to become a taboo subject, since problems are not solved by ignoring them or covering them up, but by being aware of them and confronting them.
Secondly, fundamentalism cannot be combated by means of fundamentalism under another guise; the history of humanity is awash with disasters of that type. On the contrary, fundamentalism is reduced by promoting and exercising democratic freedoms, promoting the emancipation of women, pluralism and ideological and cultural diversity, the promotion of openness and the acceptance of differences and social and economic well-being.
Mr President, one of the key elements which has proved to assist in the fight against fundamentalism is modernity, in a plural and multicultural sense. There can be no social modernity without human modernity. The desire to modernise a society while denying women democracy ends in failure; hence our condemnation of partial modernisation processes on the part of leaders of States which want only to modernise economic and technology aspects, while maintaining the basic principles of obsolete patriarchal societies in tact.
Women are currently the main bringers of social modernity. However, Mr President, there is no single model for the emancipated woman. Women’s identity must be personal and individual, differing in terms of religion, tradition and culture. Stereotypes, dress, values, lifestyles and behaviour must be a question of personal free choice.
Mr President, another of the key elements for preserving society from fundamentalism is secularisation or the separation of public affairs, which belong in the political sphere, from religious beliefs and convictions, which must be free and respected and which belong in the private individual sphere.
The space occupied by religion in a social and political whole must involve a very broad range of possibilities.
Mr President, the accusations being levelled against this report are unfair. It distinguishes and differentiates between fundamentalism and the normal practice of religion in a clear and respectful way, despite the fact that during the eras of certain religions in the past such a distinction has not existed."@en1
|
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples