DESPITE reassuring noises from a Sudanese official, it is not
much comfort to know that you are not going to be flogged and then
hanged for another two years. There is talk that the sentence
pronounced on Meriam Yahya Ibrahim is likely to be commuted; but,
again, she has few reasons to celebrate, having been forcibly
separated from her husband, the father of her 18-month son and the
child she is carrying, soon to be born in prison. There is little
wonder that members of the public and politicians around the world
have protested about Mrs Ibrahim's treatment. The absurd brutality
of apostasy laws in Sudan and elsewhere in the Islamic world,
however latent, have been pointed up by the particulars of Mrs
Ibrahim's case: she was brought up in a household headed by her
Christian mother, but because her absent father was a Muslim, she
is deemed to have abandoned her faith for another. And her marriage
has been annulled, since a Muslim, which the court has concluded
she is, cannot marry a Christian.
Accusing somebody of apostasy is, in the main, a political act,
despite the terminology used. The charges laid against Mrs Ibrahim
serve the triple purpose of subduing the Christian minority in
Sudan, reinforcing the ideological border with the country's new
neighbour, the mainly Christian South Sudan, and demonstrating to
the government's critics that it can give the radical Islamists a
run for their money. When in economic difficulty, it is a standard
move for a government to create a distraction. Even better if it
can be seen to be standing firm against hostile forces outside the
country. Religion is one of the key adhesives in a society, and its
enforcement is common when political tensions rise. The victory of
the BJP in the Indian elections last week has prompted expressions
of disquiet among religious minorities, in case the seeds of
religious fanaticism seen over the border in Pakistan find fertile
ground under a Hindu nationalist government. Such developments are
not unknown in the West. In England, the perceived military threat
from the Pope and his allies in the 16th century cast a long shadow
over Roman Catholics in this country, though the physical threat
was later commuted to disenfranchisement.
There is one aspect of this process, however, that remains a
religious matter. Apostasy is the politicisation of doubt. A
society must reach - and maintain - a degree of stability and
maturity before it can tolerate radical religious dissent. The
Early Church discovered this quickly, and Jews down the ages have
known this only too well. Rejecting a religion by adopting another
makes a public act of the doubts that are usually dealt with in
private. The judicial sentencing of Mrs Ibrahim stands at the end
of a process that begins with the mishandling of doctrinal
disagreement, something of which no faith group, Christianity
included, is innocent.
