I must concede that I was pessimistic regarding the outcome of the Abdul Rahman apostasy case. The row over the Muslim-turned-Christian saw international pressure brought down upon the head of Hamid Karzai, the President of Afghanistan. A difficult job; he is wedged between the expectations of Afghanistan’s overseas backers and the desires of a relatively conservative Muslim society – the same fractured society who the oft-described “mayor of Kabul” needs to establish authority over if the Afghani nation-building project is to be successful.
I rather suspected that the latter imperative would win out and Abdul Rahman would face a barbaric and outrageous death at the hands of Islamic zealots. This fate may well befall him if he is allowed to leave the relative security of a solitary confinement cell. However, for the time being it now appears likely that he will be freed. If this is the case, it is indeed wonderful news. It means that someone, somewhere has almost certainly had their arm twisted, and the most likely culprit hails from the executive office of Afghanistan. This could represent a weakening of Sharia’s weighty influence on the legal system in Afghanistan. Government meddling in the courts is rightfully deplored by friends of inalienable human rights, rule of law, due process and the separation of powers. It is a reflection of just how bad things are in Afghanistan when covert government intervention in the legal system represents a step forward. Regardless, this is an event to inspire a glimmer of optimism.
I thought sure America was going to lay the head of Abdul Rahman upon the alter of freedom.
I thought sure America was going to lay the head of Abdul Rahman upon the alter of freedom.
I thought sure America was going to lay the head of Abdul Rahman upon the alter of freedom.
He said it three times, so it must be true.
This is indeed an interesting development. We’ll just have to see if it is just going to be the exception that proves the rule, or if mentalities, especially those in high positions, over there are willing to change.
Let’s hope this is true. I would imagine that most decent Muslims would have been appalled had this man been executed for apostasy because I reckon it would have greatly ratcheted up the fear and suspicion that many people have about Muslims.
I spent a weekend with a few friends some time ago and they are the sort of liberal, Guardianish folk that you would normally expect nothing else but the usual multi-culti perspective. And yet what they said about Islam would curl the pages of this blog.
If sanity is breaking out, then all I can say is faster please!
I’d just like to go off-topic for a moment to congratulate Perry. The front page of Samizdata is now so big that it is unable to be processed by the Blazer browser on my Palm. This breaks the (unnecessary) javascript of course and means I can’t read the comments. The avantgo version linked from “Samizdata for PDAs” is, of course, displays godawfulfully in comparison.
I guess it’s time to write a little page which takes the RSS feed and turns it into a page of sensible proportions (probably a good idea even without the brokenness). In the meantime, here’s to Perry for doing his little bit to make the web awkward to use.
Looks like the “Print Version” (which for some reason contains hyperlinks – Where can I buy one of those printers?) may fulfil my needs.
The first two items in the preamble of the Afghan Constitution read
1. With firm faith in God Almighty and relying on his mercy, and believing in the Sacred religion of Islam,
2. Observingther United Nations Charter and respecting the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,
Some Afghan’s obviously decided that the Mercy part of number one, combined with number two outweighed the sacred part of number one.
Who knows things just may be evolving in a positive direction. To which the BBC will reply “How the Hell did that happen?”
Karzai comes through again with the goods, although I suspect his security detail will now triple. Still, he realises that without the coalition, his body would be probably ripped apart in the street.
I have absolutely no sympathy to the argument that we must be respectful of inferior, backward cultures and societies : especially those that mean us harm. I am pleased that someone in the US administration draws a line when the savages start to assert themselves. These ‘clerics’ are medieval throwbacks, hardly worth our time. They are on the losing side of a battle against modern secularism. They should be told in no uncertain terms that things have changed – permanently – and that continuance of their extremism will lead to the mosque being locked up and/or demolished, and they deported. We do not waste blood and treasure to cater to barbarians.
The Afghans that do exist with half a brain (it seems to me that the most impressive are the women) will hopefully take this as a message that freedom of thought, religion and expression will be protected in their new country.
Thanks to George Bush’s failed foreign policy, now we have to deal with the strictures of Sharia Law in Afghanistan, the rise of Hamas and the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) which the Neocons have brought to power…
Um, Clive, AFAIKR, the Taliban were imposing Sharia law long before shrub got into office, so try to be realistic. And, btw, YOU don’t have to deal with the strictures of sharia law in afghanistan unless you are there.
Hamas was destined to topple the PLO, just as native islamic faith has toppled almost every other KGB inspired left-leaning nationalist government in the region.
And if you didn’t realize that getting the terrorists to attack US troops in Iraq, rather than civilian Americans here in the US, was Bush’s original plan, well, now you know. Here in the US, we deal with mosquitos a lot. Don’t know how it is over on your side of the pond, but we have these big electric zappers which are the only effective way of killing them other than chemical or nuclear warfare. The trick is, you don’t put your bug zapper next to your patio, you put it on the far corner of your yard, because all the bugs in the region will be attracted to its black light and the CO2 emitted by the crisping of other bugs. That way, the bugs all to OVER THERE to get zapped, and do not loiter around your patio bothering your dinner guests….
I disagree with your optimism. It appears that he is only being released on the grounds that he’s to insane to be held responsilbe for his crime. This completely fails to address the actual conflict, just avoids it in this case.
So future Abdul Rahmans are only safe to the extent that they can gin up massive international outrage to save them. Most of them will likely be executed in quiet anonymity.
I’m inclined to side with the more pessimistic side of the argument (at least, as much as I could read with this strange new font colour).
When their courts no longer take these kinds of cases and they start living up to their Constitution, then I’ll celebrate. In the meantime, I’m simply waiting for the next poor sod who decides the Religion of Peace is not for him.
Looks like the annoying font is gone now. Cool.
The decision to release Rahman is political pragmatism, which at the least is a distinct improvement over the Taliban regime, which simply would have hung or beheaded the poor bastard without caring much what anybody thought about it.
If the final judgement is that he is too mentally disturbed to be held liable for apostasy, and we can get him safely out of the country, then the Afghan government has a face saving way out, and we have a satisfactory result without disrupting an important relationship.
Let’s keep in mind that a friendly Afghanistan sits on the border of a potentially unfriendly Pakistan, home of the madrasses which gave birth to the Taliban, home, most likely, of the remnants of the al Queda leadership and their sympathizers, home of the (now defunct) Khan nuclear info and technology mart, and home to some unknown number of nukes.
It would be a serious case of cutting our nose off to spite our face if we insisted on some result in this affair that would entail a disruption of the working relationship that we have developed with the new Afghan government.
It always amazes me that some people demand a level of wonderfullness from any state or group we are allied with, but never make similar demands of anybody else. For all of the Afghans’ warts and birthmarks, it’s still a much prettier date to dance with than the gruesomely horrid monstrosity it replaced.
For all the perfectionists in the crowd, go picket the Burmese or the N Koreans or somebody that is on the other side to begin with. Getting all indignant about the flaws in an important new partner, while ignoring the real snakes in the swamp, makes me wonder about the true motives and intentions behind all the huffing and puffing.
Veryretired,
Agree absolutely. While it is distressing to know that there will be more Abdul Rahmans to come, allowing the Muslim clerics to save face by declaring him and future cases mentally unfit and turning them over to us would be the best possible course to be hoped for.
I believe, even more than in my comments of a few weeks ago, that Turkey is essentially the same as Pakistan in that it is a superficial ally while fundamentally in opposition to everything non-Islamic.
A determined and persistent, yet pragmatic and face saving approach should be applied to all ‘friendly’ governments of essentially hostile populations including also Pakistan, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, UAE, Saudi Arabia and Turkey.
It is a comprehensively hostile part of the world and two things are called for. Realistic expectations in the face of mathematical realities. And a better awareness of what Islam really is and does. This case gives us the opportunity for both.
Iraq is a different situation now, and I think we may have let too many opportunities slip by. Our mistake there was to break from compelling a constitution, which succeeded in Germany and Japan, and instead compel democracy. I think this is a consequence of having leaders who do not understand what our own government’s history and structure is.
No, can’t agree. Not a good result.
This case wasn’t thrown out because it was obnoxious, repulsive and barbaric, but simply on a technicality.
Instead of making it clear that no acceptable code of law could allow for this the possibility of future cases remains
Hrm. I’m not sure, Chris. It sounds like a hurriedly invented justification to me. Do we have any evidence, bar the statements of some Sharia judge, that this guy is actually insane? Or not from Afghanistan? No, I think that assuming the judge is simply following due process is being a little credulous. Remember that a large number of Afghanis are conservative Muslims and probably support the murder of apostates. Fudging the issue by manipulating a judge into dropping the case on a technicality is probably the only option available to a government holding such limited authority. It’s political expediency. Not ideal, but better than the alternative. That is, it’s a good thing that the government has sufficient authority to twist the arm of a broken legal system. It gives rise to the possibility that the powers that be may one day try to reform the beast.
More to the point. What were NATO doing by setting up a theocracy in the first place? There is a place for religion, just not in constitutions drawn up in the 21st Century.
James,
I have to say this through gritted teeth, but yeah, you are probably right. If the Afghani Constitution lasts I don’t think this issue will be fixed, but it may be ignored.
The real world can be pretty messy for us firm believers in principle.
The thing which makes me think this is a total crock is the doubt as to this poor sod’s nationality. If the guy is German surely it says so on various bits of paper in Berlin. Organised lot the Krauts, big on paper-work and keeping files. If this guy is declared “insane” is that going to be much better for him? Is he gonna be able to see his kids (how this all started)? Apparently there was 100s of people protesting and offering to off the bugger personally in Mazar-e-Sharif. What’s the odds on Norwich Union extending his life insurance?
Afghanistan has been a hellhole since the dawn of time, we can’t expect them to mend their ways now. The problem with the War on Terror is that it involves invading the most appalingly places, which you then end up stuck with.
Chris Harper,
You comment at 10:10 sums up my feelings pretty exactly. The simple arithmetic is that these people want what they got and have the means and environment to keep it.
I’ve had to qualify my missionary zeal for individualism and accept that these people do not accept reality the reality I live in. When so many people hold such an energetically anti-rational life philosophy there is no middle ground, no opportunity for reason and no room for our principles in their world.
We must take them at the word and respond accordingly. Their life philosophy is so antithetical to anything we can comprehend in the west that we have been hesitant to believe they really mean what they say or that they really believe their religion. This is the mistake that has gotten us this deeply into the mess so far.
We, who believe in the concept of rational thought, must treat those that don’t believe in it as we would anything else that is incapable of thinking. Whether things that lack reason do so by nature or by their own choice is of little difference to the actions we must take regarding them.
In the larger question of the world wide conflict with aggressive Islamic fascism, or demand for theocracy, if you prefer, it is becoming more and more worrisome to me that we are approaching a fork in the road. (I’m just relieved it’s not the Slausen cutoff).
On one path lies the possibility that Islam can undergo a type of reformation that will allow it to exist in the real world as a religion, and a culture, without the imperative that it control everyone’s life in every respect, especially politically.
I admit that this would be a complex and excruciating process, violent and gruesome in many respects. It will depend on the emergence of a school of thought, or theology, led by a figure who has somehow divined the need for a combination of Luther’s critique, and Ghandi’s moral example. Luther, of course, was persecuted, as were his followers, and Ghandi was assassinated, as was his major disciple, Dr. King.
Therefore, I would expect, as in the trials and martyrdoms of the early Christian church, that this teacher would have only a set period to make his case before he would be subjected to assassination. (I assume a man because of the extreme anti-feminine nature of current Islam)
Over at Belmont Club, there is a regular commenter who is obviously Ba’Hai, and who constantly refers to the founder of that movement as the answer to this problem. But the reformer I am hoping to see must not claim any divinity, but explicitly act and teach as a common man, in order not to poison the message with complaints of delusional blasphemy, althought that charge will most certainly be made.
If, over the course of some reasonable time, the movement founded by the reformer can gain acceptance of increasing numbers of ordinary Muslims, and the representative governments and more open socieites we have tried to establish can survive long enough to allow a message other than the militancy of the closed madrassian societies which now predominate, perhaps there is a chance for a formulation of Islam which is not dependent upon repression, violence, and conquest.
I am using as a suggestive group of models for this possibility the experiences of the early Christian church, which was, after all, persecuted initially as an heresy of Judaism, the revelations which have regularly allowed the Mormon church to modify its message in order to adapt to changing circumstances, and the utterly incomprehensible fact that such people as this needed reformer have walked among us, and accomplished great things, even though no sane person would ever have believed it before it actually happened right before their eyes.
The alternative is a nightmare of surpassing violence and death on a scale unknown even during the century of slaughter just passed.
If the extremists and their political and financial supporters can bring about an attack of sufficient deadliness and horrific result, the response from the US and its allies will be the extermination of Islam as a religion and a people.
I have no illusions about the capacity of my fellow citizens to answer the sword with the sword, and if mushroom clouds appear above our cities, or plagues appear in our midst, the factory workers, garage mechanics, and other ordinary joes who brought you Dresden, Hiroshima, Agent Orange, and the Japanese relocation camps, will grimly bring about the end of Islam as anything but a memory.
But that memory will bring a century of nightmarish guilt and recrimination, only a century if we were lucky, and this I cannot wish upon the people and country that I love with all my heart and soul.
If you pray, then pray with me. If you can dream, then dream with me. If you can still find it in yourself to hope, then hope with me.
I do not wish to see armageddon before my eyes, or in my sleep.
It must be galling for the Afghans that their Minister for justice has the unfortunate name of … Sarwar Danish.
Nick M,
Your mistake is in assuming that Afghanistan exists in the 21st century. It hasn’t even made it into the 20th century yet, or the Enlightenment, even.
Asking a bunch of uneducated primitive pathan tribesmen to rationally respect freedom of religion is like asking, say, a christian conservative (or left luddite) to rationally respect the right to cryonic preservation, or mind uploading…. or any other transhuman/posthuman technological breakthrough.
Your tolerating their right to exist is not reciprocated, because none of the three groups is willing to put peaceful coexistence ahead of their theology.