Politically Useless Stories

The Afghan Christian convert about to be put on capital trial for apostasy is a classic example of a politically useless story. Coverage of foreign affairs in the US is usually driven by domestic political interests: in order for a foreign affairs story to have "legs," some important group or faction needs to find the issue useful for prosecuting an agenda or hammering its domestic enemies.

Just looked at on the surface, this particular story has everything you would want for purposes of political melodrama and symbolism. A man may be put to death simply for his Christian beliefs, not deported or jailed, but killed . He stands firm in his faith, refuses to recant despite facing potential martyrdom. Isn't this a wonderful story/drama? A single individual up against tyranny of the worst sort, a courtroom showdown of good versus evil. Why doesn't this get Natallee Hollaway / Terri Shiavo -style coverage? Because it's politically useless--radically so, in fact.

Left-leaning groups find such behavior unpleasant to contemplate. Oppressed peoples oppressing others. Although embarrassing to Bush, the whole story just seems to play into the hands of anti-Islamic bigotry. The latter is so revolting that it's best not to risk bringing up the issue.

Right-leaning groups don't want to face what this story says about the transformative power of US military might: not that transformative. Afghanistan is supposed to be our big success story in Bush's grand narrative of liberating 50 million people, This is what kind of government our Christian president and overwhelmingly Christian military has empowered there? The constitution states that no law can contradict Islam, and under sharia death is the punishment for converting to Christianity (and apostasy generally). So much for freedom, the secret yearning of all hearts everywhere.

So as of now the story here is relegated to the backburner: little commentary on either right or left, no excitement. A couple of dutiful editorials, but that's about it.

Meanwhile, the story is enormously useful in Afghanistan itself. It's a great way for domestic opponents to embarras Karzai and make him appear a puppet of western governments. Prominent clerics there are calling for mob action against the poor man--"tear him to pieces"--if the government finds some way to free him as "mentally incompetent."

OK, so this depressing set of thoughts is my first ever blog post. Sorry! (I don't know whether I'll like doing this as much as being part of the peanut gallery in comments, but I'll give it a try.)