The price of free speech

"Do not give your children moral and religious instruction unless you are quite sure they will not take it too seriously."
Bernard Shaw

I've already written this quote in Citações, poesias &... but I read something today which prompted me to use it again. As I said, education is a complicated matter. Children usually are trained, from the very early years, to obey, to respect older people and rules (although we could start another discussion as to what "respect" actually means) and mainly to accept what these older people teach and absolutely not to question. This is specially true in regions where education is almost non-existent, where most people are illiterate and where ancient tradition rules.

As in most Muslim countries (and here I am, again walking on dangerous ground).

I'm not a feminist in the true sense of the word. I've never taken attitude to try and change prejudice against women - maybe because I've never felt it myself. However, if there's something that deeply irritates me (to the point of making me break a relationship) is disrespect for women and women's rights.

And this point takes me to the article I read today at The Independent's site. A 23 year old student of journalism in a university in the north of Afghanistan was sentenced to death because he downloaded and distributed to teachers and fellow students an article "from a Farsi website which stated that Muslim fundamentalists who claimed the Koran justified the oppression of women had misrepresented the views of the prophet Mohamed."

It's bad enough the way they treat women, even after the Taliban. Now they want to kill a boy who dared to question. That's his only crime.

At the bottom of the article, there's a link for a petition to the Foreign Office in the UK urging them to demand that the boy's life be spared. Should we Brazilians do the same and have our brave president sending the same demand? I doubt. Better join forces with the British. I did.