It looks like sanity may prevail, at least in a legal sense, in the case of Abdul Rahman, the Afghani apostate who has been facing a possible death sentence for having converted from Islam to Christianity. Lo and behold, the Afghan legal system, which had been displaying irrational exuberance at the prospect of snuffing out Rahman’s life, has, as of this writing, reportedly dropped the charges because of “lack of evidence.”
That’s funny. Rahman had freely admitted that he converted to Christianity and he refused to revert back to Islam when given the chance. So what’s with the “lack of evidence?”
What more likely happened was that Afghan president Hamid Karzai got religion, so to speak, and took seriously the message that was coming from leaders of outraged Western countries: If we’re going to send our soldiers to fight and die for your fledgling democracy, then you damn well better not be executing people for becoming Christians.
Rahman actually converted many years ago while he was working for a Christian aid agency in either Germany or Pakistan, depending on which account you believe. The only reason it lately became an issue was because his wife filed a complaint in a child custody dispute, accusing him of rejecting Islam.
To the Western mind such a religious conversion is anything but a colossal offense. But in Afghanistan, a backwater of Islamic fanaticism, ignorance and intolerance, even without the Taliban running things, minds perceive things differently. To the locals in this country that is 99.9% Muslim, Rahman is the heavy in “Apostasy Now.”
No one’s going to argue that Afghanistan isn’t currently better off than it was under the Taliban when women had fewer rights than dogs and the local soccer stadium was used mainly as a mass execution site. Most of that insanity, at least as it was practiced officially, appears to be history. But there are still issues.
Like the Afghan constitution, for instance, which is chock full of Sharia law and requires that all Muslims avoid rejecting Islam, or else. It’s the 800-pound gorilla in the living room of Afghan democracy and it raises a rather fundamental question: How can you have a democracy and at the same time have a justice system that demands a guy be whacked for choosing a different religion than the majority? The concept is even more oxymoronic than, say, “deafening silence,” which, by the way, was about all we heard on this issue from the usual apologists for the “religion of peace.”
Article comments
1 - Samuel James
brilliant piece Greg
You are absolutley on the mark about the centrality of religious freedom in the Middle East. This is, perhaps, W's great shortsight. Churches can burn in Alabama with no bloodbath or chaos. But a Mosque goes down in Iraq? Fatality overload. I'm still not sure the President sees this
2 - Joseph Melendrez
Excellent opinion piece on the insanity the situation. Islam comes off as a very weak religion. They submit themselves to vast mind-control, i.e. praying in public five times a day. But they negate God's gift of reason so that is completely useless to these people.
3 - gracefulboomer
Great article. Thank you. Right on the mark with this posting.
The phrase 'Taliban Lite' was used by Paul Marshall writing in NRO on November 7, 2003, who accurately and eerily predicted just such a case as the recent attempted prosecution of Abdul Rahman for apostasy, among other continuing horrors.
'Taliban Lite' - National Review Online
Lest We Forget- the United States helped the new Afghan government write the constitution that allowed that poor Christian guy to be tried for converting to Christianity from Islam. The United States accepted Sharia law for the Afghan constitution. We were there every step of the way in the writing of it.
The United States installed the government of Afghan, we promoted the Loya Jerga.
Hamid Karzai is our guy. He is our hand-picked guy.
The United States did not insist that civil law be separated from Islamic law ..... so we are reaping what we sowed.
It was foretold at the time of the writing of the Afghan constitution that apostasy convictions would occur and that the U.N.'s Universal Declaration of Human Rights would not prevent this type of persecution.
Signing the Universal Declaration of Human Rights hasn't stopped any beheadings in any other Islamic republic. Or the trials .
We knew long before this case came to trial that this would happen... and the Bushies did nothing then when it would have mattered.
Rumsfield likes to compare Japan and Germany to Afghanistan and Iraq- he is a fool- the United States made it illegal after the war for their ideologies to continue- Japan glowed and Germany burned before they were defeated and were willing to turn away from their beliefs and accept a reformation of their societies and civil law.
As long as the United States continues to allow and even (in this case where we had control) encourage Muslims to institute Sharia Law - without breaking out and declaring the civil component of constitutional law to be the deciding factor this crap will continue.
And our children will have to deal with this... unlike Germany and Japan -our government then completely took care of the problem, paid for it in blood and money and did not pass the problem on to future generations.
What I can not understand is how Condi Rice, and Bush can say they are 'surprised' or 'disappointed or 'concerned' or 'displeased' with the Afghans. How can they feign such ignorance? They were there every step of the way...
How can we be in a 'war' in two places and bleed, and fight, and die and approve of the same practices which got us there in the first place?
I mean they are the same bunch that helped the Afghans write the damn constitution that allowed this poor Christian man to be put on trial in the first place.