Caesar, God and all that

Not that I'm Tiberius Caesar's debt-collector or anything, but... haven't we robbed him enough? Foreign Minister Tonio Borg doesn't seem to think so. He told diplomacy students at a Euromed conference that "Europe must learn to accept an Islamic element to governments in North Africa", and "what mattered most was not the religious underpinnings of a government, but rather its respect for human rights, democracy and the rule of law."

Coming from Tonio Borg, this is immensely revealing. It tells us that our Foreign Minister does not see any mutually incompatibility between a government's 'religious underpinnings' and its respect for "democracy, human rights and the rule of law."

And this in turn speaks volumes about his own behaviour in the last 10 years.

Let's start with the obvious. Countries whose governments (and, as inevitably follows, whose laws) are 'underpinned by religion' are not exactly the best guarantors of 'human rights, democracy and the rule of law' in the world. One straightforward example materialised in Afghanistan a few years ago... and Afghanistan is not even a 'theocracy' in the strictest sense of the word.

In 2006, Abdul Rahman was threatened with the death sentence for converting from Islam to Christianity, and - after much global controversy - was eventually given asylum in Italy. One leading Muslim cleric at the time insisted: "Afghanistan does not have any obligation under international laws. The prophet says, when somebody changes religion, he must be killed."

Consider for a moment the implications:

The Universal Charter of Human Rights allows for freedom of worship, freedom of association and freedom of expression (let's close an eye at the issue of 'right to life' in the context of capital punishment)... and all three were denied outright to Abdul Rahman.

Democracy is built on the central fulcrum of equality; and how can equality even enter the equation, where people of different religions (or no religion at all) are stripped not only of their democratic rights... but also of their lives?

As for rule of law... well, which law are we talking about here? Clearly not 'international law', because Afghanistan's religious authorities simply don't feel bound by it. This leaves 'the law of the prophet'... and the same religious authorities who consider themselves 'above' international law, now argue that their own laws should automatically bind everybody else... in some cases (Salman Rushdie's fatwa being a classic example) even ignoring national jurisdictions.

So if, as Tonio Borg tells us, 'democracy, human rights and the rule of law' are what matter the most, then the Abdul Rahman case alone shows that the Islamification of North Africa really is a serious cause for concern. But you don't have to go all the way to Afghanistan for that. Nothing quite so dramatic ever takes place in Malta, granted; but the danger of getting your 'Gods and Caesars' all mixed up were evidenced here too, in last year's divorce referendum (and elsewhere).

The architects of the 'Kristu Iva, Divorzju Le' campaign even took the trouble to sum it all up for us... and in just four words, too! They made the referendum a straight choice between the law of religion on one hand, and the law of the State (which acknowledges the same rights to all its citizens, regardless of creed) on the other.  

And that's another way of saying: sorry, folks, but you can't have both.

On one thing, however, Tonio Borg does have a point. Europe certainly shouldn't be losing sleep over Islamic fundamentalism in North Africa.  It's the fundamentalism within some of its own member states they should really be worrying about...