Sherry Chandler » 2006 » March » 28
from Juan Cole at Informed Comment:
The Afghan authorities have released Abdul Rahman, a convert from Islam to Christianity who was facing a death sentence for apostacy. Apparently the grounds for the release were procedural– questions linger about the man’s mental health, and there are gaps in the prosecution’s evidence.
That this travesty is being ended is a great good thing. But it is unfortunate that it is being ended on these narrow grounds. The next convert will face the same charges.
The episode underlines the falsehood of the Bush administration’s empty boast that it is spreading democracy in the Middle East and that “50 million” persons have been liberated. In fact, Bush has been spreading Muslim fundamentalism….
The doctrine that apostacy deserves the death penalty comes out of medieval Islamic canon law rather than from the Quran itself. …
The Quran is forthright that the wages of unbelief and idolatry in this life are damnation in the next. But it does not permit coercion of the conscience in this life.
This excellent post deserves your full attention. It is best never to make sweeping assumptions about a culture or a religion.
This post was written by sherry
The Other Voices International Project has been working for two years now to bring together a cyberanthology that erases the boundaries of nations, ethnicities, religions, cultures, and age to bring you some of the world’s best poetry. It is their way of fighting the paranoia and polarization that has grown in our world since 2001. They describe themselves thus:
The Other Voices International Project is made up of a small dedicated staff whose desire is to bring you the best poetry possible from around the world in the form of a cyber-anthology. As the project grows so does our belief that the bottom line for this project is the poets and their voices as they look upon the world and attempt to find some way for us to meet and understand the consequences of what it means to be human…
I am pleased to announce that I have a small collection of poems, October Grass, up at that site now. Some of you will recognize a few of them.
After you’ve read my poems, I urge you to look around and read some others. The anthology has brought together a wonderful collection of poets, writing in English, from around the world. Read their bios, too. I am proud to be included in this list.
This post was written by sherry
