[Mb-civic] Testing the West's values in Afghanistan

[Harold Sifton]

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 Testing the West's values in Afghanistan

This is an interesting article

Later HS



 Jim Reed has worked as a researcher, writer, producer, director, reporter and news anchor for CTV, TVO and CBC. He has travelled widely and has freelanced for The Associated Press, The New York Times, The Globe and Mail and other news organizations.



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There is a disingenuous aura surrounding the outrage now being voiced by Westerners over the trial and possible execution of an Afghan convert to Christianity. The anger being expressed by Western churches and governments smacks of the worst sort of hypocrisy. Otherwise intelligent individuals and supposedly plugged-in governments are professing amazement, surprise, astonishment, shock and any number of other emotional reactions to behaviour they have known about and tolerated for a very long time. 

Stephen Harper says that the Afghan President Hamid Karzai assured him by telephone that Abdul Rahman would not be executed. That assurance may have been given, but it's meaningless unless Karzai can influence the Afghan judiciary. The problem in this particular case is that there's no provision in the Afghan constitution to allow a pardon for "insulting God." 

This case highlights the past cynical views of Western leaders with respect to traditions and cultures that are radically different from our own. It also shows just how naïve, and even ignorant, Mr. Harper and others are about the politics and culture of other nations, particularly Afghanistan. 

For years – no, for decades – American, Canadian and European diplomats have been briefed in detail by their governments on the variety of customs, rituals and practices approved of, accepted or tolerated by governments in other parts of the world, including in the Muslim world. 

The Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs, the U.S. State Department, the British Foreign Office – all these arms of "civilized" Western governments have been fully apprised of the extremes of the Sharia law, for example. They have been made keenly aware of barbaric practices by a number of different governments. But over the years, they have all turned a blind eye. 

North American and European governments have accepted for generations a wide variety of customs, rituals and practices, that "Christian" nations have supposedly outgrown and discarded. (Although it's not so long ago that black citizens in the southern United States were lynched and apparently even today, Americans and other westerners engage in the practice of coercive interrogation and torture, when it comes to "defending" our own way of life). 

We have not only accepted that countries and governments approve and implement inhuman laws and punishments, we have instructed our diplomatic representatives not to bring them up with their host governments – or at least not to challenge them too strongly. These include such allies as Saudi Arabia, Arab states such as Yemen, African countries like Mauritania and many many others, including India and Pakistan. 

When human-rights organizations have called on our Western governments to censure or sanction the offending nations for gross violations of human rights, the Canadians, Americans, British and others have ignored the criticisms. They have quite simply swept the entire question of unacceptable customs and local laws under the rug. 

These outrageous but accepted practices have included the amputation of hands for theft, the stoning to death of women over allegations of prostitution and adultery and the beheading of men and women for certain crimes, including some which are sex-related. They have included the burning of young women alive, the gang raping of others and numerous styles of punishment carried out in other countries with official approval or tolerance. 

The present case in Afghanistan is just one which has caught the attention of the Western media, churches and governments because it involves something familiar. A man is being threatened with execution because he changed religions. It has become a cause célèbre because the Afghan man converted to Christianity. But the convert's trial and punishment are allowed – mandated even – under the Afghan Constitution, a document that was drafted under the watchful eyes of Western officials and implemented with the full knowledge of the Americans, Canadians and Europeans. 

The anger now being expressed in the West rings hollow. 

A case like this was bound to surface sooner or later and there will be more in the future. On the one hand, it's evidence that we are in over our heads in dealing with a tribal culture, which we have vowed to defend but do not understand or fully accept. On the other hand, the groundswell of protest rising in Western countries says to the Afghan people that the West does not respect their beliefs. 

Abdul Rahman may escape execution because of the outcry, but only because the courts will likely rule that he is "insane" and unfit for trial. 

The nations of the West are caught on the horns of a self-made dilemma. Our governments have said we're in Afghanistan to defend a fledgling government, to fight terrorism and to build a nation. 

The trial and possible execution of a man, whose crime was to choose to practice another religion, will be a severe test for Canada and other Western nations – now too deeply involved in Afghanistan to pull out. 
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