Where are the protests?

Maybe they’re just not getting covered by our admittedly lame American news. Maybe the voices of the quiet minority are simply being drowned out by a few boisterous troublemakers. The fact is I don’t know what the reaction has been in the greater Muslim world to Abdul Rahman. His story, if you haven’t heard it, reeks of the dark ages. Mr. Rahman is an Afghan who committed the crime (yes, crime) of converting from Islam to Christianity. Clerics – clerics - are calling for his death. The only permissible defense against such an act short of renouncing the conversion is to plea insanity, because of course, only an insane man would choose any creed besides Islam. It all sounds remarkably like the Spanish Inquisition or the Salem witch trials.

To the Afghan government’s credit, the case was dropped amidst heavy pressure from the west. The decisions of a government put in power by the west, however, are not at issue here. The public reaction of Muslims around the world is, and I would like to know: Just where are all the protests?

Ever since 9/11 I have been told over and over that Islam is a peaceful religion. That the vast majority of Muslims around the world are decent folk not fundamentally different from me, or from anyone. I have believed it. Why shouldn’t I? But if a cartoon published on another continent is enough to enrage the moderate Muslim majority and provoke them to take to the streets in mass protest, why has this not? If Islam really is a peaceful religion, how can such violent intolerance on the part of respected and powerful clerics be accepted?

It can’t. If it turns out that I am mistaken because of poor news coverage and there has been a substantial backlash, then my respect for mainstream Islam will grow. But if the impression I have received so far is true and mainstream Muslims in the Middle East and elsewhere are by and large apathetic about Rahman’s case, or worse – agree with the prosecution, then I will be forced to reevaluate my belief that it is radical fundamentalists who are the problem, rather than Islam itself.

Of course, there is an alternate explanation: that protests in the Middle East over that Dutch cartoon actually had nothing to do with religion and everything to do with western meddling in eastern lands. That the cartoon was simply the straw that broke the camel’s back, and that this clash between east and west is more about economics and culture than religion. I can buy that. That would excuse Muslims from reacting with equal vigor to reprehensible actions on the part of Islamic clerics. But if indeed the religious aspect of this cultural clash is simply a thinly veiled excuse, then the jihad and any other faith-based arguments used in the Islamic world against the west lose whatever legitimacy they may have had.

Either way, it’s time for the voices of moderation to be heard. Where are they?

Tags: religion