The other night we wandered onto the topic of “freedom” in my conversation class. It was quite interesting to listen to them talk about it. The first thing they told me was that they are quite a bit freer in Yemen then in many Arabic countries. I hadn’t really thought about it, but it’s true. Compared to KSA, Syria, Egypt, and many others, Yemen is pretty free in political terms. There are many tribal/sociatal norms that limit people, but you are (mostly) free to talk about the government here.
I then asked them about that old chestnut about the tradeoff between freedom and stability. I don’t really believe that that a real tradeoff, but it’s good for getting people talking. All of them agreed that freedom was a far better thing than any sort of security or stability…
Wow, what a bunch of libertarians! I was quite surprised, but gratified. That night, the thought occurred to me, “Wait a minute, what about those Danish cartoons about the prophet Mohammed (PBUH)?” Clearly the response to those showed a real intolerance to freedom of speech. I brought them up in the next class and sure enough, the entire class said, “Oh, freedom is important, but there needs to be limits…” Like what? Well, like being able to say anything bad about any prophet or God, the inability to switch from Islam to something else, and of course any real criticism of Islam. So much for those libertarians…
I have to come up with a way of asking people why they care. To me, feeling that someone that blasphemes needs to be killed shows a real lack of faith. Surely, if that person has committed an awful sin, they will be punished by God, no? Why the need to exact punishment right now?
Anyway, I am being pleasantly surprised and predictably disappointed by them. I just hope that they learn as much from me as I’m learning from them.