Rahmatullah Hashemi was at one point the Taliban’s chief spokesman in Afghanistan. The New York Times Magazine and Chip Brown did a feature on him in late Frebruary 2006, primarily because he is now attending Yale. Yes, you read that correctly.
To read the entire fascinating article, go here:
One phrase Hashemi uttered in the article literally stopped and forced me to re-read it: “…you have to be reasonable to live in America: he said. “Everything here is based on reason. Even the essays you write for class. Back home you have to talk about religion and culture, and you can win any argument if you bring up the Islamic argument. You can’t reason against religion. But you cannot change Afghanistan overnight. You can’t bring the Enlightenment overnight.”
Wow. Out of the mouths of babes…
Substitute ‘Christian fundamentalist’ for ‘Islamic’ in the above. Better yet, use ‘American Taliban.’
As for “…You can’t reason against religion…,” well, the wonderful thing is we still have the opportunity to try and do so in our country but for too many, such discourse is similar to speaking to and hearing the Afghanistan Taliban.
Regarding The Enlightenment, it may take many, many years (if at all) before such thinking comes to fruition in Afghanistan. On the flip side and depending on your thinking, The Unenlightment may have already arrived, is still developing or is being headed off here in our country.
