[Vision2020] Western hypocrisy

[Ralph Nielsen]

JIM REED:
Testing the West's values in Afghanistan
CBC News Viewpoint | March 24, 2006 | More from Jim Reed



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.


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.