Two comments on the arrest of Christians in Afghanistan (August 2001):

1. I asked a Muslim taxi-driver in Fiji whether the mosque we were passing was where he prayed. ‘Oh no’, he said, ‘If I went there they’d kill me’. ‘Are you serious?’ I asked ‘Very serious,’ he said. ‘Why?’ ‘Well there are three groups of Muslims in Fiji, Sunni, Shi’ite (and I forget the third)… I belong to a different group than the one worshipping at that mosque, and they hate us…’

2. I can’t judge whether or to what extent those Christians were proselytizing in Afghanistan. One thing I’ve learned through travel to similar places (eg. Ceaucesu’s Romania in the 1980s) is that as a foreigner you take your cue from the local Christians… They suffer the most of course when we visitors mess with totalitarian regimes…

Rowland Croucher