Niks is groters as die liefde nie? Dink weer.

Onvoorstelbaar, dink ‘n mens, by die lees van onderstaande artikel in vandag se koerant waarin twee jongmense se liefdesverhaal vertel word. Dit illustreer die dwingende mag van kultuur op mense en gemeenskappe. Families van twee mense in dieselfde land wat met mekaar wil trou omdat hulle mekaar lief het, wil hulle summier daaroor doodmaak.

In die tagtigerjare het die Moederkerk op Stellenbosch ‘n kommissie op die been gebring wat onderhoude met lidmate van die N.G. Gemeente sou voer oor hul siening van die kerk se houding teenoor apartheid. Dit het gekom direk nadat die Algemene Sinode ‘n verslag aanvaar het waarin apartheid indirek nog goedgepraat is – tot groot ontsteltenis van baie mense in die kerk. Daar was so ‘n tiental persone op hierdie kommissie, meestel dosente in teologie en bybelkunde. Die verslag aan die kerkraad sou later na die Wes-Kaapse Sinode gestuur word en is uiteindelik ‘n paar jaar later in uitgebreide vorm deur die Algemene Sinode aanvaar. Dit het bekend geword as die verslag wat apartheid verwerp het.

Ek onthou nog, soos gister, hoe ek tydens ‘n kommissie-vergadering vir een van die invloedrykste professore aan die Universiteit wat gevra het om voor die kommissie te getuig, gevra het waarom hy toe, na al die jare, begin twyfel het oor apartheid. My vraag was gekies, omdat ek geweet het watter rol hy gespeel het in die konsolidering en beskerming van die sisteem en die kultuur van rasse-diskriminasie. Soos ek hom en ander van die magtige figure van destyds leer ken het, was hulle ferm aan die kant van die maghebbers van destyds.

Sy antwoord aan my was dat dit die ontugwet was wat hom sy bedenkinge oor apartheid laat kry het. Daar is, het hy verduidelik, net een maatstaf vir die huwelik, en dit is die liefde. Niemand mag twee mense verbied om met mekaar te trou omdat hulle nie dieselfde kleur het nie. Ek onthou hoe emosioneel en bykans driftig hy daaroor gepraat het. Hy het baie gemaak van: Wie God saamgevoeg het, mag niemand skei nie.

Die ontugwet was toe ‘n pilaar in beton van die apartheidstruktuur. Niemand van een ras kon met ‘n persoon van ‘n ander ras trou nie. Om daaroor bedenkinge uit te spreek, was wesenlik.

Ek onthou nog, na al die jare, hierdie heftigheid van die invloedryke professor in filosofie teen die ontugwet, maar veral sy beklemtoning dat die liefde die enigste maatstaf vir ‘n huwelik is.

Toe ek die onderstaande berig oor ‘n ander soort apartheid in Afghanistan lees, kom daardie gebeurtenis weer by my op. Maar die berig is ook veral ontroerend oor die naïewe, spontane liefde wat daarin geteken word tussen twee jong kinders. As ‘n mens die berig lees, is die ruwe, gewelddadige reaksie van hul familie onpeilbaar in sy boosheid. Die stil foto van die jongman in die jeugtronk, met sy rug na die kamera (sien hierbo), terwyl hy alleen sit in die kamer, nog stukkend geslaan na die aanranding op hom, spook by mens.

Die artikel is ‘n illustrasie van die ystergreep van kultuur op mense se lewens. In Afghanistan is dit dalk sleg omdat dit gewelddadige steniging as deel van sanksies insluit teen mense wat kulturele konvensies bevraagteken. Maar ‘n mens moenie te gou vinger wys nie. Oral in die wêreld, ook in die kerk, praat kultuur dikwels ‘n laaste woord. Dink maar net aan die ontugwet…. En daar is vandag nog, ook by ons, baie kulturele konvensies wat mense verontmenslik.

Juis in die lig hiervan was dit vir my ‘n hoogtepunt by die lees van die artikel om te sien dat ook geestelikes gehelp keer het dat die paartjie doodgemaak word. Ook in ‘n land soos Afghanistan, in die mees primitiewe omgewing, skiet die vonk van spiritualiteit soms helder in die oog.

Hier is die berig:

Lynsey Addario for The New York Times

HERAT, Afghanistan — The two teenagers met inside an ice cream factory through darting glances before roll call, murmured hellos as supervisors looked away and, finally, a phone number folded up and tossed discreetly onto the workroom floor.

It was the beginning of an Afghan love story that flouted dominant traditions of arranged marriages and close family scrutiny, a romance between two teenagers of different ethnicities that tested a village’s tolerance for more modern whims of the heart. The results were delivered with brutal speed.

This month, a group of men spotted the couple riding together in a car, yanked them into the road and began to interrogate the boy and girl. Why were they together? What right had they? An angry crowd of 300 surged around them, calling them adulterers and demanding that they be stoned to death or hanged.

When security forces swooped in and rescued the couple, the mob’s anger exploded. They overwhelmed the local police, set fire to cars and stormed a police station six miles from the center of Herat, raising questions about the strength of law in a corner of western Afghanistan and in one of the first cities that has made the formal transition to Afghan-led security.

The riot, which lasted for hours, ended with one man dead, a police station charred and the two teenagers, Halima Mohammedi and her boyfriend, Rafi Mohammed, confined to juvenile prison. Officially, their fates lie in the hands of an unsteady legal system. But they face harsher judgments of family and community.

Ms. Mohammedi’s uncle visited her in jail to say she had shamed the family, and promised that they would kill her once she was released. Her father, an illiterate laborer who works in Iran, sorrowfully concurred. He cried during two visits to the jail, saying almost nothing to his daughter. Blood, he said, was perhaps the only way out.

“What we would ask is that the government should kill both of them,” said the father, Kher Mohammed.

The teenagers, embarrassed to talk about love, said plainly that they were ready for death. But they were baffled by why they should have to be killed.

Mr. Mohammed, who is 17, said: “I feel so bad. I just pray that God gives this girl back to me. I’m ready to lose my life. I just want her safe release.”

Ms. Mohammedi, who believes she is 17, said: “We are all human. God created us from one dirt. Why can we not marry each other, or love each other?”

The case has resonated in Herat, in part because it stirred memories of a brutal stoning ordered by the Taliban last summer in northern Afghanistan.

A young couple in Kunduz was stoned to death by scores of people — including family members — after they eloped. The stoning marked a brutal application of Shariah law, captured on a video recording released online months later. Afghan officials promised to investigate after an international outcry, but no one has faced criminal charges.

The immediate response to the violence in Herat was heartening by comparison. Top clerics declined to condemn the couple. Police officers risked their lives to pull the two teenagers to safety and deposit them into the legal system, rather than the hands of angry relatives. And the police reported that five or six girls had fled the city with their boyfriends and fiancés in the weeks after the riot.

After discussing the case, the provincial council decided that Mr. Mohammed and Ms. Mohammedi deserved the government’s protection because neither was engaged, and because each said they wanted to get married.

“They are not criminals, even if they have committed sexual activities,” said Abdul Zahir, the council’s leader.

But so far, their words have not freed either of the teenagers or lent them any long-term security.

Ms. Mohammedi was initially taken to the only women’s shelter in this province of more than 1.5 million people, but the police transferred her quickly to the city’s juvenile detention center, a sun-washed building where about 40 girls and 40 boys sleep in separate dormitories. The police said they had referred the teenagers’ cases to prosecutors.

“From their point of view, she committed a crime,” said Suraya Pakzad, director of Voices of Women Organization, a rights group that provided Ms. Mohammedi with a bed for one night.

The girl's father, Kher Mohammed, with his head in his hand, wants the government to kill her and her boyfriend.

Ms. Pakzad said most of the women and girls in the shelters of western Afghanistan had fled forced or abusive marriages, or had been ostracized from their communities for dating young men without their families’ approval. Male relatives often punish such transgressions with beatings or death.

But in separate interviews at the juvenile jail, Ms. Mohammedi and Mr. Mohammed said they had not worried about such things.

He did not think about the rage that would erupt if a young Tajik man picked up a Hazara girl in a neighborhood dominated by conservative Hazaras, members of one of Afghanistan’s many ethnic minorities. “It’s the heart,” Mr. Mohammed said. “When you love somebody, you don’t ask who she is or what she is. You just go for it.”

They had much in common. His father was dead, as was her mother. They described each other as quiet and polite, both a little shy. They liked the same sappy songs that float over from Iran.

After six years of primary school, Ms. Mohammedi had wanted to study English and take computer classes, but she said her family told her it was a waste of time, and sent her to work at the ice cream factory, for $95 a month.

There, at least, they found each other. Mr. Mohammed spent a month stealing hellos before Ms. Mohammedi tossed her phone number at his feet.

The couple talked on the phone most nights, even though her stepmother disapproved. After a year, they decided they were fed up with hiding their relationship. They would meet, go to the courthouse and get married. Mr. Mohammed persuaded an older cousin to take him to the village of Jabrail, where she was waiting in the town square.

They had not driven 30 feet when a yellow Toyota Corolla blocked their path and angry men jumped out. Ms. Mohammedi was not hurt in the melee that followed, but the crowd beat up the cousin and pummeled Mr. Mohammed until he collapsed.

“We knew they would kill us,” she said.

They now spend the days at opposite ends of the same juvenile jail, out of each other’s sight. Mr. Mohammed nurses the wounds still visible in his swollen face and blood-laced eyes, and Ms. Mohammedi has been going to classes and learning to tailor clothes.

Both say they want to be together, but there are complications. Family members of the man killed in the riot sent word to Ms. Mohammedi that she bears the blame for his death. But they offered her an out: Marry one of their other sons, and her debt would be paid.