Road to freedom: Afghanistan reaches a major crossroad

Aside from the obvious political ramifications, both local and international, the case of Abdul Rahman, the Afghani currently in jail for converting from Islam to Christianity in the 1990s, presents an interesting look into a moment of early American history and success. J. Alexander Thier, an Afghan specialist at the US Institute of Peace has this revealing comment,

This case goes right to the heart of the contradictions in the constitution. Is Afghanistan a democracy that respects human rights and international norms, or is it an Islamic country with an extremely conservative judiciary? The issues being raised will have an important impact on Afghanistan's ability to become a stable democracy.

Indeed.

Will Afghanistan survive such a telling cultural threat to its emerging democracy? It took America four score and seven years to come to grips with the compromises it made between slavery and freedom in the 1780s.