I wrote this article in Arabic before in the context of the right of the Muslim woman to wear Hijab or not to wear it, but I feel the need to write about Self Determination in English to be able to express some ideas I might find difficulty or lack the courage to express in my native language.
In Politics the principle of self-determination, often seen as a moral and legal right, is that every nation is entitled to a sovereign territorial state, but in my opinion, the more important moral and legal right is the right of the individual for Self Determination.
An Issue that is always overlooked by the International Society and the United Nations.
The Third World Nations particularly those of the Middle East are always making fuzz about their rights as nations to have Self Determination, but they never consider the right of their individual citizens to enjoy Self Determination, which is the most basic human right.
In such states, the Religion is usually the excuse used to deprive the individual of his basic right of self determination.
The human civilization had achieved what people are enjoying now all over the world except in few states, because the philosophers, politicians and even the church in the west had reached the conviction, after centuries of senseless wars waged because of religion, that religion is in fact a principle of self determination on the individual level.
It is now taken for granted all over the world that freedom of religion is a basic human right, and that the state or the society has no right whatsoever to interfere with religious convictions of the individual. It is almost now a sort of a consensus except in the Muslim World that the individual has the right to choose his religion, to be a Christian, a Buddhist or a scientologist like Tom Cruz or even to be an Atheist.
In fact Individual Self-determination is evolving to be a macro-theory of human motivation concerned with the development and functioning of personality within social contexts. It is based on the assumption that people are active organisms, with innate tendencies toward psychological growth and development, who strive to master ongoing challenges and to integrate their experiences into a coherent sense of self. (www.psych.rochester.edu/SDT/theory.html)
This theory clearly indicates that the normal and productive individual must enjoy Self Determination and that a normal and Healthy Society should support the individual to choose for himself.
In fact the lack of individual Self Determination is behind the problems the Middle East is suffering from and behind the Terrorism the whole World is suffering from.
All the Terrorist movements in the Middle East thrive on religious ideas that denies Self Determination and these ideas are encouraged by Dictator Governments in the region because such i