The remains of an Israeli bus destroyed in a terrorist attack has been on display in Norway. First in Oslo last Saturday, and then in Bergen, to bring attention to the first of several meetings about terrorism and anti-semitism which was held on Monday. The rest will be held in Hamar tomorrow, but without the bus. The Hamar meetings have chosen a much less confrontational line than the Bergen meeting, and will be as neutral as you can be and still condemn terrorism.

It's funny how powerful a symbol like this can be, the remains of a terrorist attack that killed 19 people in Jerusalem in 2001. In both Oslo and Bergen, pro-Palestinians showed up to argue or protest .. against what? An object, not a work of art or propaganda. Can a bombed bus and the pictures of its victims lie to you? Does it tell you something that isn't true? Everyone agrees that Israeli buses are being bombed fairly often, and that this was one of them. So why object to the display?

Because the pro-Palestinian cause depends on competition for sympathy. The Palestinians suffer more (which is true), therefore they are morally superior (which isn't true). To display a destroyed Israeli bus like this, to force attention on Israeli suffering and fear, is to aim an attack at the core of that argument. It forces pro-Palestinians to defend the superior amount of suffering on their side, as blogger Lars Ruben Hirsch discovered when he went to see the bus in Oslo:

To Norwegian Palestine supporters in their late 20's came over to me, and the most outspoken said that if one had filled Youngstorget with Palestinians killed by the Israelies, then there'd be something for me to take pictues of. When I pointed out how absurd and pointless it is to compete over the number of people killed, and explained that the point of the bus was to direct attention to the fact that also Israelis suffer under this conflict, he told me that they ought to have brought a Palestinian refugee camp (!) to display next to the bus, "so we could stand here side by side". I told him that this was an attempt to aim focus at victims who don't get much attention by the media in Norway. "And now we do stand here side by side, with you protesting with Palestinian flags". But no, he wouldn't listen. He told me that this was an unfair attempt to focus on one party at the expense of the other.

Without superior suffering, the pro-Palestinian case falls apart, which leads to the conclusion that anything that points to Israeli suffering is a defense of Israeli actions. Condemnation of terrorism does not depend on any such thing. Terrorism is wrong and inexcusable, even if you're the weaker party, even if you suffer more, and even if the other side is brutal. It's wrong because of the suffering it creates, but not because it creates more suffering than the methods of the other side.

You can see more pictures at Lars Ruben's site (scroll down a bit) - but note the banner up in the background. That's the headquarters of the Norwegian Federation of Trade Unions (LO), who in response to the bus put up a banner that says "occupation creates terror - not peace". Even up there, in a building, the mere presence of a bombed Israeli bus on Youngstorget demands a reply. It's that powerful.

There were larger protests in Bergen, where blog reader Kevin McDonnell took a valiant stand and faced down the leader of the far-left party RV, Torstein Dahle. After a long debate where he tried to bring attention to things Norwegians rarely know about the Middle East conflict, people came up to him and asked, "Why don't the media tell us these things?" Good question, and to make people ask that question is a victory in itself. Again, there's a power here in merely telling the truth, whether by placing an object in the city center that you can't ignore, which screams out to you by its very existence something that is both undeniably true and feels like a punch in the face, or by pointing out facts the pro-Palestinians who dominate the media find it best to ignore.

Kevin also held a wonderful speech at the meeting afterwards. It's a bit long, so I've posted it on a separate page - but here are few excerpts:

It’s become virtually a matter of faith that Americans have a simplistic view of the world. We are said to lack nuance… which is apparently a very important principle… though I have yet to see a definition of it that holds for more than a fleeting and usually convenient moment. I am often struck by the irony that those who make these statements as though they are truisms, are also almost always those who loudly profess to be advocates of diversity, and tolerance. It seems odd does it not that such blatant stereotypes… the kind that make it so easy to disregard those so labeled, would be employed by those who speak so glowingly of diversity and tolerance. ..

Why… I used to ask myself in the time I have lived here, is it so clearly the case that any issues that have to do with America or Israel, inspire a knee-jerk set of canned responses that could be lifted from virtually any newspaper. Until it occurred to me quite suddenly, that these were responses that could be lifted… from virtually EVERY newspaper. ..

Its my personal observation that if I am speaking of the state of the world with anyone who describes themself as a free thinker, I am likely about to engage in a discussion with the most narrowly focused and glazed eyed myopia one will find anywhere. It seems that the “feeling” one derives from being inarguably superior has become far more important than the actuality … of seeking to see things as they are and deciding for oneself. ..

State Terrorism is the artful expression of our day. But I have this to say to Norwegians who feel self-righteous indignation at the acts of the IDF. It is your money that finances the Palestinian Authority, and your acquiescence to what it does with that money that permits Palestinian society to be indoctrinated in the kind of naked hatred and death cultism that always produces such people.

Read the rest here. You can also read a handout they used at the bus display.

The main meeting will be in Hamar tomorrow. I doubt it will punch anyone in the face - and that's deliberate. This is not an attempt to masquerade the real motives behind the event, as the local newspaper in Hamar has charged, but a reflection of the much larger number of people involved - politicians from most major parties, for instance. The "real" message is exactly as stated - to condemn the use of terrorism - no matter what additional beliefs some people involved may hold. We'll see how it goes.

One of the world's strictest anti-smoking laws came into force in Norway this week. Inspired by similar laws in Ireland, New York and California, all smoking in pubs and restaurants is now banned. It would be an exaggeration to say that there's dancing and celebration in the streets, but the reception is warm. The intention is to protect employees and guests against lung cancer, heart problems and other dreadful diseases, and who'd be against that? 54% of people asked in a poll support the ban, (including 40% of smokers), against 28% who oppose it.

81% believes that passive smoking in the work place increases the risk of cancer and other diseases. Well, that's the question. Does it?

I don't have a personal stake in this. I don't smoke. Even if I wanted to, and I don't, my apartment lease explicitly forbids me from doing it at home. I do have a political bias here, though: I'm skeptical to the idea that government should protect people from their own bad habits. But if passive smoking is dangerous, a ban would be justified. We know that smoking is very dangerous to yourself - so it's not farfetched to guess that there could be comparable risks to bystanders. No whining about government nannies can ever justify a non-beneficial habit that makes people around you mortally ill.

But I don't like bad laws based on bad science, and there is at least enough disagreement about the effect of passive smoking to ask questions about the evidence. So I did some research. Let's start with the opposition. Here's a good site which claims to tell the facts about second hand smoke. The author, Dave Hitt, takes time to explain the basics of epidemiology - the branch of medicine that uses statistics to calculate health risks - and that's a plus in my book. No government anti-tobacco campaign have ever bothered to explain to me how it knows what it claims to know, only that it knows. Whatever you think of second hand smoking, I hope I'm not alone in being hesitant about taking the government on trust about what's good or bad for me.

The site continues with a detailed look at two reports on second hand smoking. The first was made by the US Environmental Protection Agency in 1993, and is referred to by almost every anti-smoking report or website I've been able to find. According to Dave Hitt it was based on very dodgy science:

In 1993 the EPA issued a report which claimed that Environmental Tobacco Smoke (ETS) caused 3,000 deaths per year. .. The EPA announced the results of the study before it was finished. .. The first step in a meta analysis is identifying all of the relevant studies. The EPA located 33 studies that compared ETS exposure to lung cancer rates. The EPA selected 31 of the 33 studies. Later they rejected one of their chosen studies, bringing the total to 30. ..

In 1995 The Congressional Research Service (CRS) released a review of the EPA report. .. The CRS pointed out that "from a group of 30 studies. . six found a statistically significant (but small) effect, 24 found no statistically significant effect and six of the 24 found a passive smoking effect opposite to the expected relationship." ..

The EPA based their numbers on a meta analysis of just 11 studies. The analysis showed no increase in risk at the 95% confidence level. Even after excluding most of the studies, the EPA couldn't come up with 3,000 deaths, but they had already announced the results. So they doubled their margin of error. Let me repeat that, because it may seem hard to believe: After failing to achieve their pre-announced results by ignoring half of the data, they doubled their margin of error! ..

After juggling the numbers, The EPA came up with an RR (Relative Risk) of ETS causing lung cancer 1.19. .. A RR of less than 2.0 is usually written off as and insignificant result, most likely to be due to error or bias. An RR of 3.0 or higher is considered desirable. .. In review: The EPA ignored nearly two-thirds of the data. The EPA then doubled their margin of error to come up with their desired results. Even with all this manipulation, the numbers are still far too low to be considered statistically significant.

A lot of research has been done into passive smoking since 1993, but the EPA report played an important role in giving attention to the issue, and the fact that it is still referred to by anti-tobacco activists is a disturbing sign. This does not prove that all other research on second hand smoking is bogus, but what does it tell us about the scientific standards of anti-smokers that they refer to a report where the sources were cherry picked and the confidence interval increased to get the right numbers?

Also interesting is the claim that relative risks of less than 2.0 are generally considered meaningless in epidemiological research. That is, unless there's more than a 100% increase in risk associated with a substance, the result is too unreliable to take seriously. I'm not an epidemiologist. I don't know if that's true, and if this limit is based on sound science. But if it is, it doesn't matter how the EPA's relative risk for lung cancer of 1.19 (+19%) was calculated - it's still too small to be meaningful. (The EPA's response to critics is here. While it answers many of the accusations, it curiously ignores the risk ratio argument.)

You can also read about this 1998 WHO study which didn't use dodgy statistics, and which found no a significant relationship between passive smoking and lung cancer.

Fine. So much for the opposition. For all I know, Dave Hitt is a crank, and himself a cherry picker of reports that are either obviously bogus or agree with his own point of view, ignoring a mountain of sound research on the dangers of passive smoking.

I don't have time and I'm not qualified to read all the research on passive smoking that is available out there. But if anyone has an incentive to collect evidence on the dangers of second hand smoking, it is the Norwegian health authorities. So I went to their tobacco information website. They offer three links: A report by the Health & Tobacco authorities in Ireland which summarizes the scientific consensus on passive smoking, a report from the International Agency for Research on Cancer, and the website of the British Medical Association. Here's what they have to say:

Epidemological studies have shown that ETS has effects on health similar to those seen from active smoking albeit at lower levels, namely (a) an increased risk of lung cancer (possibly increased by 20-30%), (b) an increased risk of heart disease (estimated at 25-30%), (c) an increased risk of stroke (possibly as high as 82%), (d) a reduction in birth weight of infants born to mothers exposed to ETS and (e) an increased frequency of chronic respiratory symptoms such as cough, phlegm production, shortness of breath and chest colds.
- http://www.otc.ie/article.asp?article=29

The excess risk [of lung cancer] is of the order of 20% for women and 30% for men and remains after controlling for some potential sources of bias and confounding. The excess risk increases with increasing exposure. Furthermore, other published meta-analyses of lung cancer in never-smokers exposed to secondhand tobacco smoke at the workplace have found a statistically significant increase in risk of 12–19%. .. Epidemiological studies have demonstrated that exposure to secondhand tobacco smoke is causally associated with coronary heart disease. From the available meta-analyses, it has been estimated that involuntary smoking increases the risk of an acute coronary heart disease event by 25–35%.
- http://www-cie.iarc.fr/htdocs/monogr..

In adults, second-hand smoke increases the risk of lung cancer by some 20-30 per cent and the risk of coronary heart disease by 25-35 per cent.
- http://www.bma.org.uk/ap.nsf/Content/Smokefree

Notice a pattern here? 1) There is broad agreement that passive smoking increases the risk of lung cancer and heart disease by about 30%. Many other diseases are mentioned, but these are among the few numbers mentioned. (What "possibly as high as 82%" means is beyond me, but it's only mentioned on the first site.) 2) 30% is much lower than the 100% (2.0) increase in risk supposedly demanded by epidemiological research, and thus a meaningless increase in risk.

What is going on here? I'm not a scientist, or an epidemiologist. For all I know the 2.0 limit is arbitrary, irrational, obsolete, or has been made irrelevant by the methods used in these particular reports. I really don't have a stake here, I want to know the truth. If you know that it is bogus to demand a 100+% increase in risk before you take a epidemiological result seriously, let me know.

And then there's this, from the Irish report, surveying (and rejecting) other ways than smoking bans to solve the passive smoking problem:

Air cleaning is similarly problematic. Of proposed new technology, displacement ventilation is viewed as having the potential for a 90% reduction in ETS levels but even this would still leave exposure levels 1500 to 2500 times the acceptable risk level for hazardous air pollutants.

So there may be technology available that would reduce exposure by 90%, and .. this was rejected? Because it doesn't catch the final 10%? The connection between passive smoking and health problems appears small enough as it is. At one tenth the amount, what would be left? This is unproven technology, but why hasn't this option been explored, why is it so quickly dismissed? Why didn't we wait a few years, see if it works, then decide whether to ban all public smoking, or force all pubs and restaurants to update their ventilation systems?

I'm not saying that second hand smoking is harmless - I'm not qualified. But if it is true that a 30% increase in health risk is meaningless, if it is true that anti-tobacco activists and politicians apply lax standards to the research they quote, it is a reasonable conclusion that Norway's smoking ban is based on bogus science.

And then we have to ask why. Why do that? Why lower your scientific standards, why ignore non-ban solutions? The reason is clear: Fighting passive smoking is an effective way to fight smoking. It raises the incentive for people to quit, which is good for their health. If you can't smoke anywhere else but at home, and if you're made to feel guilty for inflicting health problems on your family and friends, that's a pretty strong argument for giving up smoking entirely. If that is the intention, I have no doubt that it will work.

And so we're back at whining about the nanny state. Which is appropriate - when the government lies to you so it can protect you from a habit that harms noone but yourself. There's no excuse for that.

There are other arguments for a ban on smoking in public places: Many non-smokers don't like it when people smoke around them. It smells bad, and the smell sticks to your clothes. Some are allergic to it. But there's a reason no government has tried to sell a public smoking ban on politeness and allergy - it's not enough. Without a health risk, without the anger and the guilt, there's no ban. With that health risk, I would - and everyone else should - support it.

So, which is it? Bogus or good science?

Did you know that most Norwegians were against the war in Iraq, are critical to the United States, and are uncomfortable about our involvment in Iraq? Wow, me neither! George W. Bush has obviously based his foreign policy on an inaccurate perception of Norwegian opinion. Something must be done:

The Socialist Left Party intends to place an ad in the Washington Post to explain that Norwegians don't support the Norwegian military involvment in Iraq. .. Today the party starts accepting contributions to buy advertising space in the American newspaper Washington Post. .. - The intention is to send a strong message to the Bondevik administration. To make the outside world aware of how the majority of Norwegians feel about this would matter a lot to the debate back home, says a central party source.

Wtf? How do they imagine the chain of events here? Bush opens the WP, learns to his great amazement that there are people in Europe who don't like what he's doing in Iraq, and picks up the phone to the PM's office in Oslo: "Is this true, Kjell Magne?" "I'm afraid it is, Mr President." Once his terrible secret is out, Bondevik will have no other option but to pull our forces out of Iraq several days before the already scheduled evacuation later this month. Eh.

Vårt Land estimes that the ad will cost $175 000. Not that they'll get it - surely even Socialist Left voters won't fall for this, but imagine what that money could do as humanitarian aid to Iraq. Or anywhere.

Here's a PDF of the ad they want to place, from the campaign website. It's addressed to the "Honorable George W. Bush":

Relations between our two peoples have always been characterized by peace and mutual respect. As friends we have a duty to be honest and fortright with each other. We feel that we have an obligation to tell you what the Norwegian public thinks.

We firmly believe that the quest for peace in Iraq is best led by the United Nations and a democratically-elected Iraqi government.

We implore you to keep in mind the lives - American, Allied and Iraq - at stake in this conflict. We urge you to seek peaceful paths in your efforts to counter terrorism.

Fighting terrorism is too important to be done by waging war.

Impressed, my honorable American readers? Convinced of your evil ways? Maybe not, but show these socialists some sympathy. As far as they know, views like these are normally censored and unavailable to the American public. They're trying to help you. Perhaps you should return the favor, and tell them a few things about what the American people thinks of Norway and the war on terror. Politely, of course. Remember that pro-American views are generally unavailable to the Norwegian public. They're not evil, just ignorant.

Probably not. Maher Arar is a dual Canadian/Syrian citizen who was arrested at an American airport on his way to Canada in 2002, under suspicion of being an al-Qaeda member. After a brief detention he was deported to Syria, where he claims he was severely tortured and interrogated for a year, on behalf of the United States. He raised a fuss in Canada when he returned last November - you can read his own account of what happened - and the Canadians have launched an inquiry into their own role in the case.

Sad story, strong accusations. Few or no warblogs ever wrote about it.

Yeah, I know, the blogosphere is huge. But I checked in November, and I've checked now - almost every mention of Arar's accusation that I can find is in that section of the blogosphere which is inclined to be critical towards Bush and his foreign policy, and almost none in that section which is inclined to support him. Not even to discredit Arar's story.

Why is that? The one explanation we can dismiss at once is that the accusations are so obviously nonsensical that they're not even worth our attention. There's nothing a blogger loves more than to chew on obvious nonsense. There's even an opportunity to mock Canadians here.

Inconvenience is surely a factor. The accusation reflects badly on American methods in the war on terror: Suspects being deliberately sent abroad to be interrogated with cruder methods than are available back home. Torture by proxy. Very inconvenient, even hypocritical in the case of Syria, and anyone who's favorable to Bush will naturally hope that this story is untrue. But that can't be the whole of it - an inconvenient but unquestionably true story would still force attention on itself. Abu Ghraib did, (but might not, had there been no images.)

The problem with this story is the uncertainty. Some parts of it are clearly true - Arar was arrested in the US, he was deported to Syria and imprisoned, and now he's back. He claims he was tortured, which is plausible. But there's no hard proof that the US deliberately sent Maher Arar to Syria to be interrogated. That lack of proof warrants skepticism. But when you hear something you're not fully convinced by, there are two forms of skepticism to choose from: One is to keep quiet about what you've heard, until there's enough evidence to convince you that it's true. The other is to repeat it with a disclaimer, to say "I don't know if this is true but I suppose it should be considered". Can any of us deny that we prefer to keep quiet about what we hope is false, and repeat with a question mark what we hope is true?

The lack of hard proof makes the decision arbitrary, one of preference, and that appears to be what has happened here. No agenda, just the combined inclinations towards extra skepticism of claims we don't like. The result: Ignorance and lack of debate of a potentially important issue - the use of barbaric governments to do our dirty work in the war on terror.

And that is important. Most of us will agree, I hope, that it is wrong to treat people this way - or that, if it is right to use physical torture on suspected terrorists, it should be done honestly and openly. No sending people off in the dark, no deniable covert transfers to third world torture chambers. Honestly, or not at all. And preferably not at all.

So, is it true? Have the Americans and the Canadians used Syria to interrogate al-Qaeda suspects on their behalf, knowing that they would be tortured? I don't know, but there's certainly enough here to raise a flag, to consider it, and discuss. The most thorough and scrupulous coverage of the Arar case has been made by Katherine R. at the Obsidian Wings blog. Go read it, as well as Arar's original account, then answer three questions: Could this be true? If true, is it right? If it's not right, what consequences should that have for the use of the "trust me, I know what I'm doing" principle in the war on terror?

Or just tear it all apart, warblog style, if you think that is appropriate. (When I mentioned this case in a previous post, one reader responded that Arar's story is far too detailed to be true. That's worth considering too.) But don't ignore it.

[I linked earlier to a reply to her critics by stand-up and lift-up comedian Shabana Rehman, who was roundly condemned of rudeness and Islamophobia after violating the personal space of our dear Mullah Krekar. I've asked for permission to translate it in full - it's too good to excerpt. Here it is. She also requested that I translate a speech she held at the Bergen International Festival this month. See below. Enjoy. -bs]

A Jihad of Laughter

By Shabana Rehman
A reply to critics.

Rarely have I seen such underestimation of freethinkers and of freedom loving Muslims as that accomplished by some critics of my mullah-lift. I've had many good laughs since the lifting took place on Smuget, and, to my great joy, the symbolicism of the event is spreading like a wind of freedom over the world. I hope it reaches the madrasas, and all other dark corners where people are held as slaves by authorities who by their titles, religious or not, rule with the aid of superstition, fear and prejudice.

Most of the critics can be found where feminism meets anti-racism. They supply some of the most misguided anti-racist analysis of all time. [Social anthropologist] Unni Wikan feels sorry for Krekar. Did you hear what his family had to say afterwards, Unni? Krekar's wife said: "It was the wrong time and place." In other words: It wouldn't have been so bad in a different setting. Krekar's brother went from wanting to sue and demonize me, over of a joke about the infallibility of mosques, to saying that he himself wants to be lifted, and that he "supports Shaban's struggle for women". Wikan, you underestimate the Krekar family so much that I suggest you either do some urban field studies or go into retirement.

An imam is bound by duty to protect the honor of all imams. This is a respect based on title and age, not on having a good heart or a rational and free intellect. That is why the World Islamic Mission [a mosque in Oslo] have come out in defense of a mullah who's more a political than a religious Islamist. For the first time in history they have chosen to shut out a named woman. They have no second thoughts about strangling freedom of speech, diversity or an open and critical debate. Is this what [religious historian] Torkel Brekke and [teacher of journalism] Nazneen Khan calls a peaceful multiethnic society? Do you really believe that just because your anti-racist dialogue depends on women keeping their mouths shut, 30 years of silence about the struggle of immigrant women must continue? Because that is the silence it rests upon!

In Sweden, men put up posters where they condemn liberated Kurdish women, and call them whores who should be beaten up. In Copenhagen a fundamentalist group recently handed out flyers that called for the murder of Jews. This week, there were more than 1000 people present at a fundamentalist Islamic hate meeting arranged by the same group. In England, the mullahs seek to gain power over Muslim youth by inciting them to violence. Muslims must struggle against this upgrowth of anti-human, anti-freedom fascism, Muslims who are free from the coercion of their community. That is why it's so blind of left-populists when they choose to despise precisely these people, and to violate their integrity by denouncing them as token immigrants.

My dear critics, who act more like drunken bar flies than alert democratic citizens, I ask you: What is so wrong about lifting a mullah, joyfully and without prejudice? A playful test that made Krekar forget his role as a patriarch for a few tenths of a second? Did we lose something when I performed that test? No, but he was shown something of value. Something he was ready for, even though it made him angry. He asked for it himself by taking those steps to a bar scene on Smuget, joking around while trying to sell his fundamentalist message. It was the right time and place to demonstrate the strength of a woman who owns her own freedom. Why should I treat Krekar any differently? Because he is different, or because I am? Isn't that an extremely racist, sexist and discriminating interpretation of a small lifting?

And all you who praise or criticize me for having become a good Norwegian girl! Neither the Taliban nor human rights are Norwegian inventions. I am proud of living in a free country, but I see myself neither as Norwegian nor Pakistani. I live in both cultures. You who ask if Muslims can't stomach Norwegian humor: Where do you have it from that this is "Norwegian" humor? The Norwegian humorist establishment has officially done little else but whine and say: She's only an immigrant comedian. And our esteemed intellectuals, who supposedly were to analyze this, think as if we live in South Africa in the 50's. I know Norwegian immigrant culture very well. I know what roles immigrants play for each other, for tradition, for religion and for the majority. And I refuse to play the suffocating role of the "immigrant" woman, or the "integrated" woman. I refuse to pick sides. That is why I don't aim my project towards one particular group, I aim it towards moving borders in those places where inter-human freedoms and communication is restricted. I do not accept ghettoes, cultural prisons or mullahs who put away their religion long enough to promote a book, but return to it as if it were a cannon they can shoot with the moment someone challenge their masculine role, or undress the authority of their fearsome personalities.

Multiethnicity can not exist without freedom. Too many have failed to realize this. Freedom to believe, dress, marry and live with the one you want. That requires struggle. A struggle against dogmas, violence, narrow upbringings, sexual apartheid, envy, pettiness, censorship and discrimination. A struggle against self-satisfied and ethnocentric producers of academic knowledge. This means a fully open society, where the truth about the causes of fascism and chauvinism is stripped naked. This condescension towards my sex because I lifted a man was first delivered by Krekar himself - and then by a number of people exposing their own intellectual hypocrisy.

This isn't political correctness, an old-fashioned and idiotic buzzword used by among others Norwegian comedians to appear cool while they wipe themselves with yet another toilet paper substitute. It is left-populist arrogance against coloured intellectuals, artists and freethinkers, used by a number of pompous men and women on the left to maintain their power of terminology over those who they choose to pity. The consequence: Another generation grows up speaking poor Norwegian, and bow their heads to false prophets, whether they go by the titles of imams or anti-racists.

To all minorities in this country, I say this: Screw them. Don't accept that your freedoms get wrapped away in a colourful and diverse ghettoship. You are not cocoanuts. You will not turn white on the inside. You are red of blood like any other human. Remember that and teach your children. Freedom is not a Norwegian invention, never, ever accept that anyone tries to remove your skin colour, your identity, your leanings or your brain just because you worship freedom.

Mullah Krekar has used his freedom to make his debut. Now the work begins on the difficult second book.