| GREG-STRANGE.COM |
"If you haven't found something strange during the
day, it hasn't been much of a day." -- John A. Wheeler
day, it hasn't been much of a day." -- John A. Wheeler
PROVIDING SUBSTANTIVE COMMENTARY ON THE
PEOPLE, POLITICS, EVENTS AND ABSURDITIES OF
OUR TIME. SERVED UP WITH ACERBIC WIT, YOU
SHOULD FIND IT QUITE SATISFYING.
PEOPLE, POLITICS, EVENTS AND ABSURDITIES OF
OUR TIME. SERVED UP WITH ACERBIC WIT, YOU
SHOULD FIND IT QUITE SATISFYING.
Apostasy Now!
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.”
Of course, even if Rahman gets off the legal hook, that doesn’
t mean there won’t be fatwas galore coming down from
righteously outraged clerics anxious to rid the country, not to
mention this terrestrial sphere, of the offensive apostate. And
so far, none of his fellow countrymen have been cutting
Rahman a whole lot of slack.
For instance, Afghanistan's attorney general had said
Rahman should be hanged and jail employee Hosnia
Wafayosofi told the Chicago Tribune that "we will cut him into
little pieces." Senior Muslim clerics also threw in their two
cents worth and declared that Rahman should be killed
regardless of whether a court decides to free him.
Wow! So much for hearts and minds. And there’s plenty
more where that came from as indicated by this further
sampling of remarks from various clerics:
“Rejecting Islam is insulting God. We will not allow God to
be humiliated. This man must die.” (This was from Abdul
Raoulf, by the way, who was jailed three times for opposing the
Taliban before it was ousted and is considered a “moderate.”)
“Cut off his head! We will call on the people to pull him into
pieces so there’s nothing left.”
“The government is scared of the international community.
But the people will kill him if he is freed.”
“If he is allowed to live in the West, then others will claim to
be Christian so they can too. We must set an example . . . He
must be hanged.”
“We are a small country and we welcome the help the
outside world is giving us. But please don’t interfere in this
issue. We are Muslims and these are our beliefs. This is much
more important to us than all the aid the world has given us.”
Talk about misplaced priorities. The list of unabashedly
medieval quotes could go on all day, but take another look at
that last quote. “We are Muslims and these are our beliefs.”
In other words, being Muslim is an excuse to believe any
harebrained claptrap one likes. And this particular
harebrained claptrap is the idea that anyone who converts
from Islam to another religion deserves to be killed. But that’s
what Muslims believe, so the West just has to deal with it,
right?
Wrong. Not any more. In the new parlance, that would be
referred to as pre-9/11 thinking. The old paradigm of
tolerating Middle Eastern oppressiveness and backwardness
for the sake of political stability got obliterated on Sept. 11
when we learned that Afghanistan had become world
headquarters for Apocalyptic Terrorism, Inc., whose mission
statement was to bring down the West.
The new paradigm is that the West is going to have a say in
what goes on “over there,” even if it’s a far-flung Nowheresville
like Afghanistan, because unfortunately, even primitive
backward people now have the potential to wreck havoc upon
civilization. Two things make that possible: access to Western
technology and an utterly irrational disregard for innocent
human life on a monumental scale.
Abdul Rahman is just one man and what happens to him
may not make much difference in the grand scheme of things,
but there is an uncompromisable principle about religious
freedom that the West has to at least make some noise about.
As for more practical reasons for raising a stink, as long as
conditions exist such that there are whole countries full of
people who think that killing religious converts is not only
okay, but necessary, none of us are safe because those are the
fever swamps that breed the terrorists that end up targeting us.
If Afghans are insulted by Western interference in their
internal religious affairs, too bad. The West doesn’t much like
the idea that for all its trouble, treasure and blood expended in
Afghanistan, it could still end up with Taliban-lite.
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.”
Of course, even if Rahman gets off the legal hook, that doesn’
t mean there won’t be fatwas galore coming down from
righteously outraged clerics anxious to rid the country, not to
mention this terrestrial sphere, of the offensive apostate. And
so far, none of his fellow countrymen have been cutting
Rahman a whole lot of slack.
For instance, Afghanistan's attorney general had said
Rahman should be hanged and jail employee Hosnia
Wafayosofi told the Chicago Tribune that "we will cut him into
little pieces." Senior Muslim clerics also threw in their two
cents worth and declared that Rahman should be killed
regardless of whether a court decides to free him.
Wow! So much for hearts and minds. And there’s plenty
more where that came from as indicated by this further
sampling of remarks from various clerics:
“Rejecting Islam is insulting God. We will not allow God to
be humiliated. This man must die.” (This was from Abdul
Raoulf, by the way, who was jailed three times for opposing the
Taliban before it was ousted and is considered a “moderate.”)
“Cut off his head! We will call on the people to pull him into
pieces so there’s nothing left.”
“The government is scared of the international community.
But the people will kill him if he is freed.”
“If he is allowed to live in the West, then others will claim to
be Christian so they can too. We must set an example . . . He
must be hanged.”
“We are a small country and we welcome the help the
outside world is giving us. But please don’t interfere in this
issue. We are Muslims and these are our beliefs. This is much
more important to us than all the aid the world has given us.”
Talk about misplaced priorities. The list of unabashedly
medieval quotes could go on all day, but take another look at
that last quote. “We are Muslims and these are our beliefs.”
In other words, being Muslim is an excuse to believe any
harebrained claptrap one likes. And this particular
harebrained claptrap is the idea that anyone who converts
from Islam to another religion deserves to be killed. But that’s
what Muslims believe, so the West just has to deal with it,
right?
Wrong. Not any more. In the new parlance, that would be
referred to as pre-9/11 thinking. The old paradigm of
tolerating Middle Eastern oppressiveness and backwardness
for the sake of political stability got obliterated on Sept. 11
when we learned that Afghanistan had become world
headquarters for Apocalyptic Terrorism, Inc., whose mission
statement was to bring down the West.
The new paradigm is that the West is going to have a say in
what goes on “over there,” even if it’s a far-flung Nowheresville
like Afghanistan, because unfortunately, even primitive
backward people now have the potential to wreck havoc upon
civilization. Two things make that possible: access to Western
technology and an utterly irrational disregard for innocent
human life on a monumental scale.
Abdul Rahman is just one man and what happens to him
may not make much difference in the grand scheme of things,
but there is an uncompromisable principle about religious
freedom that the West has to at least make some noise about.
As for more practical reasons for raising a stink, as long as
conditions exist such that there are whole countries full of
people who think that killing religious converts is not only
okay, but necessary, none of us are safe because those are the
fever swamps that breed the terrorists that end up targeting us.
If Afghans are insulted by Western interference in their
internal religious affairs, too bad. The West doesn’t much like
the idea that for all its trouble, treasure and blood expended in
Afghanistan, it could still end up with Taliban-lite.