Writing in the Orange County Register, Mark Steyn writes about the Abdul Rahman case and asks whether the West is willing to stand up for its ideals.
Fate conspires to remind us what this war is really about: civilizational confidence. And so history repeats itself: first the farce of the Danish cartoons, and now the tragedy – a man on trial for his life in post-Taliban Afghanistan because he has committed the crime of converting to Christianity.
The cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad were deeply offensive to Muslims, and so thousands protested around the world in the usual restrained manner – rioting, torching, killing, etc.
The impending execution of Abdul Rahman for embracing Christianity is, of course, offensive to Westerners, and so around the world we reacted equally violently by issuing blood-curdling threats like that made by State Department spokesman Sean McCormack: “Freedom of worship is an important element of any democracy,” he said. “And these are issues as Afghan democracy matures that they are going to have to deal with increasingly.”
Contrast that with the truly blood curdling threats made by leading Afghan clerics calling for Rahman’s head on a pike.
As always, we come back to the words of Osama bin Laden: “When people see a strong horse and a weak horse, by nature they will like the strong horse.” That’s really the only issue: The Islamists know our side have tanks and planes, but they have will and faith, and they reckon in a long struggle that’s the better bet. Most prominent Western leaders sound way too eager to climb into the weak-horse suit and audition to play the rear end.
So the question becomes, how willing are Western nations to stand behind the beliefs that they espouse when faced with barbarism ? Unfortunately, the recent controversy over the Mohammed cartoons, combined with the sometimes lukewarm reaction from Western leaders in this case, cause one to doubt if anyone’s willing to fight and die for anything anymore.
I can understand why the president and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice would rather deal with this through back channels, private assurances from their Afghan counterparts, etc. But the public rhetoric is critical, too. At some point we have to face down a culture in which not only the mob in the street but the highest judges and academics talk like crazies. Abdul Rahman embodies the question at the heart of this struggle: If Islam is a religion one can only convert to, not from, then in the long run it is a threat to every free person on the planet.
And that stands in direct contradiction to the President’s assertion that Islam, even as practiced in the Middle East is a “religion of peace.”
As Steyn points out, the West has faced situations like this before:
In a more culturally confident age, the British in India were faced with the practice of “suttee” – the tradition of burning widows on the funeral pyres of their husbands. Gen. Sir Charles Napier was impeccably multicultural:
“You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: When men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks, and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours.”
India today is better off without suttee. If we shrink from the logic of that, then in Afghanistan and many places far closer to home the implications are, as the Prince of Wales would say, “ghastly.”
Of course, most “enlightened” Westerners would say that the British were imperialists imposing their culture on another people. The fact that India is better off now than it was before British troops first came apparently doesn’t matter to them.
Similar thoughts at Wizbang:
The death sentence of Mr. Rahman is the actions of a religion of cowardice. It symbolizes their utter terror at losing control, and their sense of inferiority to other faiths. They see no other way to maintain their dominance over their followers but at the point of the sword. They fear that they cannot win through appeals to reason, or spirituality, or human kindness — only force will keep the flock in line.
And it is a grave insult to every other faith in the world. It is saying to them that Islam is the only true faith, and those who reject it are ignorant, evil, or insane. And once people have been “exposed” to Islam, the ignorant excuse is no longer acceptable. It is a declaration of theological war.
The question I have is whether the West will answer the call.
H/T: Michelle Malkin
Previous Post:
Abdul Rahman And The Religion Of Peace
Abdul Rahman And The Nature Of Islam
Condi Steps Up
Free Abdul Rahman
A Fight For The Future
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
