Of Afghanistan, strong horses and gift horses: killing Abdul Rahman for the crime of apostasy from Islam
In Afghanistan, they’ve heard the one about the strong horse, but not the one about the gift horse, at least when it comes to those who have given them freedom and released them from the yoke of the Taliban and bin-Laden-type sharia (via AP):
On Monday, hundreds of clerics, students and others chanting “Death to Christians!” marched through the northern Afghan city of Mazar-e-Sharif to protest the court decision Sunday to dismiss the case. Several Muslim clerics threatened to incite Afghans to kill Rahman if he is freed, saying that he is clearly guilty of apostasy and deserves to die. “Abdul Rahman must be killed. Islam demands it,” said senior Cleric Faiez Mohammed, from the nearby northern city of Kunduz. “The Christian foreigners occupying Afghanistan are attacking our religion.”
Perhaps they heard that the saying “never look a gift horse in the mouth” was coined by the Christian, Saint Jerome.
UPDATE
It was in America’s interests to get rid of the Taliban. It was in America’s interests to get rid of Saddam and a sanctions regime that was failing. It is in America’s interests to promote democracy, capitalism and Western legal structures as steps to help those stuck in primitive, pre-modern conditions construct modern civil societies. But it is a mistake to expect gratitude, or even shared assumptions about values, as we have said, and as Australia’s experience demonstrates, via MM:
Afghanistan’s ambassador in Canberra has chastised the Prime Minister, John Howard, for saying it was unacceptable for Australian soldiers to put their lives on the line for a country that persecuted Christians….Mr Anwarzai said that while Mr Blair and Mr Howard were entitled to their opinions, the death sentence for apostasy was in accordance with Islamic law.
“It seems to me that these are two separate issues and should not be mixed,” Mr Anwarzai said. “We appreciate the assistance and help of the friendly countries … but we should not forget that this is a common cause that we are fighting for … and we would appreciate very much if this assistance could not be linked to anything else.”
We get reasonably straight talk from the people on the other side, like this ambassador. We should be straight too about our multi-generational task and its problems and contradictions, and cut the pablum and euphemisms.