Taliban redivivus?
Georgia10 at DKos drew attention to a hopeful story on CNN that the Afghan government is working to release Abdul Rahman, a Muslim who converted to Christianity, rather than executing him.
Yet CNN posts another story in which four Afghani Muslim clerics (3 Sunni, one Shiite) all call for the execution in the face of the government's perceived reluctance, and at least one calls for lynching if Rahman is released.
I don't know, I am a pretty liberal Christian: I am not proud of a lot of things we have done, and I think we need to resist judging Muslims or Islam by some set of standards that we barely manage to pay lip service to ourselves. I am reluctantly content to accept legal restrictions in Muslim countries against Christian proselytizing/evangelising. But this seems beyond the pale to me.
If the man is executed for this reason, I think that our military and financial aid to Afghanistan needs to cease the next day. Am I missing something? Has anybody seen what American Muslim leaders are saying about this?
Yet CNN posts another story in which four Afghani Muslim clerics (3 Sunni, one Shiite) all call for the execution in the face of the government's perceived reluctance, and at least one calls for lynching if Rahman is released.
I don't know, I am a pretty liberal Christian: I am not proud of a lot of things we have done, and I think we need to resist judging Muslims or Islam by some set of standards that we barely manage to pay lip service to ourselves. I am reluctantly content to accept legal restrictions in Muslim countries against Christian proselytizing/evangelising. But this seems beyond the pale to me.
If the man is executed for this reason, I think that our military and financial aid to Afghanistan needs to cease the next day. Am I missing something? Has anybody seen what American Muslim leaders are saying about this?
posted by ChiTom | 4:20 PM
2 Comments:
I think I'm with you on this, Chitom. It might be one thing if we were not involved in giving aid to the Afghans, but it's a whole different thing when we're actually sponsoring this type of activity through our financial support of the country.
My way of looking at this is to refer to the UN Convention on Human Rights. Sure, it was the creature of Western powers, but it protects everyone everywhere in the world against official religious persecution. You have to start somewhere. If it's cultural imperialism, tough! It's the UN. If extremists in those countries don't like it, change it.
Post a Comment
<< Home