Anti-Climacus

LINK: Good news from the Sudan, to go alongside the rumblings from Iran.

"About half the leaders of the resistance groups represented seem to be Arabic speakers and about half English speakers. A majority represents various Sudanese African tribes, and either Christianity or native religions of nature, but a large minority, represents Muslim rebels from different geographical regions, races and social classes. The Muslims are outspoken and emphatic in their disdain for the abuses of the good name of Islam perpetrated by the government in Khartoum. "Our problem is not religion," one after another insists, "but a politicalization of religion, an abuse of religion. They are not true Muslims!"

"But how do you argue," another says, a former professor who came home from a Western country to become a brigadier in the field, "when they quote a text from the Koran on amputation according to sharia law, and ask if you believe in that text? We accept the Koran. We are Muslims. But we do not accept an eleventh-century interpretation of Islam. We are twenty-first century people. We are Muslims, in a country with eleven different major tendencies among Muslims, and we are accustomed to tolerance of one another."

The delegates follow and understand my exposition of John Locke's secular argument for natural rights. "We are with you, we are in favor of human rights, we are with the West on these points ? with the world on these points, the Universal Declaration. But we are not secular. We are spiritual. We are religious. We want tolerance. How should we think about this, and how should we argue, and what arrangement should we propose?"

We want "separation," others clarify, but we understand that everything a Muslim does is done for and with Allah, and we don't want to lose the religious feeling about life. The Christians and those of natural religions nod."