The other war

With each passing week, the huge disparity between the East and West becomes more apparent. \nOf course, I am largely referring to Western democracies and the Islamic Middle East. The biggest news of the past few months was the Danish cartoon controversy, but every now and then new stories pop up that make the difference more and more evident. \nThe new story I refer to concerns Abdul Rahman, who is awaiting trial for converting from Islam to Christianity, a crime for which the local police in his country arrested him. Under his country's constitution, he can receive the death penalty for being an apostate. His country is \nAfghanistan. \nYou remember Afghanistan, right? That's the country we invaded directly after Sept. 11, 2001. It was a military action almost universally endorsed (even by Michael Moore!). The number of critics of the war in Iraq might swell each day, but Afghanistan was supposed to be our success. It was supposed to be the country we ripped from the Taliban and gave to moderate Muslims such as President Hamid Karzai. \nBut now, we are seeing the effects of the supposedly moderate voices that crafted a constitution based on Sharia law. In its typical deadpan fashion, CNN reports, "Rahman's case illustrates a split over the interpretation of the Afghan constitution, which calls for religious freedom while stating that Muslims who reject Islam can be executed." \nYeah, I can see how some people might view that as a "split." \nI could try to express indignation, but I will instead defer to California Rep. Tom Lantos, the ranking democrat on the House International Relations Committee. He wrote a letter to Karzai asking him to intervene and stated, "In a country where soldiers from all faiths, including Christianity, are dying in defense of your government, I find it outrageous that Mr. Rahman is being prosecuted and \nfacing the death penalty for converting to Christianity."\nMy point of bringing this up is not to ridicule, mock, or cast Islam as incompatible or incapable of handling democracy. Rather, I have always felt and continue to believe that democracy can work anywhere. But this is a deep issue. Does the voice of moderate Islam truly believe that in a country populated almost entirely by Muslims, those who defect to another religion can be persecuted, or even executed? The key word in that sentence is "moderate." Because the constitution was drafted by Afghanistan's new government, we can't just cast this story aside as the isolated incident of extremists who don't represent the "true" voice of Islam.\nIf this really is the voice of the moderates, what are we to make of these deep-seeded differences between the East and the West? How can we reconcile trying to import (or impose) democracy, republicanism, pluralism, and all those other "Western-isms" into a place where you can be executed for deciding to change your religion?\nRahman has told reporters, "They want to sentence me to death, and I accept it."\nHe should never have to.