March 26, 2006

Rahman Safe for Now

Abdul Rahman will not face charges for converting to Christianity, but he is still not safe. He could be charged later when prosecutors get more evidence, or more likely, someone angry at Rahman's apostasy will kill him.

I am disappointed with the Bush administration's tepid reactions to Rahman's plight. Condi Rice saying we need "to be respectful of Afghan sovereignty" continued that tip-toeing.

Afghan president Hamid Karzai found a way not to alienate the West. This is better than the Taliban who would have killed Rahman days ago. The problem we have is there isn't a model of an Islamic state that practices religious freedom. Turkey is the closest, but they do that by trying hard to keep religion out of state affairs. Even today, the strong military watches the civilian government to make sure they don't go astray from Ataturk's idea of a land of the Turks rather than an Islamic state. (Note that Turkey doesn't call itself the Islamic Republic of Turkey.)

Changing culture and religious attitudes is a slow and painful process. What can't be done is for allied forces to threaten to leave Afghanistan if it doesn't respect religious freedom. Most Afghans would sooner see foreign troops leave and deal with warlords and Islamist terrorists than have the West dictate to them how they should practice Islam. Also, we don't want Afghanistan to again become a homebase for Islamist terrorist. A possibility for more tolerance is for moderate Muslim Afghans who currently live in the West to return to their homeland. These moderates know from experience that Muslims can live side-by-side with Christians, Jews, atheists, etc.

Another possibility is for Muslims to stop looking on the dynastic pride they have in Muslim history and deeply examining the eras when Christians, Jews, and Muslims all lived peacefully together under Muslim rule. Instead of moaning the demise of dar al-Islam to dar al-Harb historic lessons can be found to adjust Islam to the modern world.

Afghanistan will have to change because there are more Christians converts there than just Abdul Rahman:

The middle-aged man, who cannot be named for fear of reprisals, embraced Christianity 20 years ago. Unlike Rahman, who converted while working for a charity in Pakistan, where there is a Christian minority numbering several million, he has never left Afghanistan.

"We have churches here in Kabul and all the cities of the country, and links to Christians abroad," he said. "There have always been Christians in this country. Some families have been Christian for generations, but most have been converted in recent years."

The Christian interviewed said Afghan Christians "don't get trouble from ordinary people, but being afraid of being identified shows the pull of "extremist religious groups" who "will try to kill or kidnap us, to mount grenade attacks."

"Afghan Court Drops Case Against Christian"

"Abdul Rahman to Be Released"

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