The major media is continuing to pick up the Abdul Rahman story, with the latest being this piece from the Washington Post about what the case means for the future of Afghanistan:
An Afghan Muslim man who converted to Christianity now seems unlikely to be tried or executed for the crime of rejecting Islam, thus heading off a rapidly escalating confrontation between the Kabul government and its Western military and financial backers.
But the case of Abdul Rahman, officials and experts said, has highlighted a raging struggle in Afghanistan over the role of Islam in the law and public policy. It has also exposed a wide gap in values between the conservative Muslim country and the international community that has helped defend and rebuild it as a post-war democracy.
(….)
[L]egal experts and human rights advocates said that the Rahman case exposes the deep and unresolved contradictions in Afghanistan’s new constitution, and the difficulty of building a modern judiciary system that incorporates both Islamic legal principles and internationally enshrined individual rights.
“This case goes right to the heart of the contradictions in the constitution. Is Afghanistan a democracy that respects human rights and international norms, or is it an Islamic country with an extremely conservative judiciary?” said Alex Their, a rule of law adviser at the U.S. Institute of Peace in Washington. “This is a critical moment for Afghanistan, and the issues being raised will have an important impact on its ability to become a stable democracy.”
If nothing else, this case would seem to prove that, in and of itself, democratic institutions are not enough to create a functioning civil society. Without an underlying ethical system that accepts the ideas of classical liberalism such as tolerance, freedom of expression, and freedom of religion, the fact that people can vote for their leaders is, essentially, meaningless.
Previous Post:
Bush Speaks Out, Softly, On Abdul Rahman
Of Course, He’s Insane
Time To Take A Stand
And These Are the People We Helped Liberate ?
Technorati Tags: Afghanistan, Taliban,Religious Freedom, Abdul Rahman
