The Question: The U.S. starts to choose a president this week. If you could send the candidates one message, what would it be?

The record of the Bush administration must have shown that however powerful the U.S. may be, it cannot shape the world in its own image. Nor can it treat the rest of the world with the callousness and conceit displayed during these last few years. As the uncontested and uncontestable absolute supremacy of the West over the last few centuries is gradually waning, and as technologies empower the weak as well, a sense of equilibrium will be needed in world affairs. The U.S. may still be the most important country in the world and many things just cannot be done without its commitment, cooperation or consent. But neither can the United States accomplish its policy goals without taking into account the genuine and legitimate interests, perceptions and preferences of other parties. In other words, it can do nothing without earning their consent.

It would have to create the conditions for peaceful inclusion of rising powers into the world system. Managing the world order through leadership rather than dictating rules and codes of behavior and questioning the kind of globalization that the Americans preferred are the priorities of the new era. And of course a little dose of humility, even if it is just of the make-believe kind, would go a long way toward re-ingratiating the United States to the world public. You have got a lot of repair work to do. Good luck.

If we must go by what is in the book, then there is really only one rape scene that is consequential and it has nothing to do with the Taliban. Hassan is raped by the neighborhood thug Assef, who later becomes a Taliban official and does the same thing with many boys, including Hassan’s son. The scene in the book is as much about Amir’s cowardice/jealousy/betrayal as it is about the rape itself.

Such incidents are not uncommon in all societies, not just Muslim ones. This is certainly not a particularly distinct Afghan pattern of behavior. The record is obviously mixed on how Afghans relate to homosexuality. It is a stain on one’s name in certain parts of Afghanistan and in some contexts – but just read Asne Seierstad’s book The Bookseller of Kabul and you’ll find that in certain parts of Afghanistan the boy lover is an institutionalized fact, with its own rituals and codes of behavior.

There is nothing surprising about the filmmakers’ underpayment of the actors, though it is obviously unacceptable and draws into question the standards of ethical behavior for the producers. Neither is their insensitivity to the consequences of filming the scene surprising (but then one must wonder why there was no outcry against the book’s author, since it is he who has produced the scene in his book). Insensitivity does not necessarily have to be because of malice, either.

But then again, the reaction points to a major problem that we will continue to face in the coming years and maybe the coming decades. The West has such diminished moral capital in the rest of the world these days that everything will be seen as part of a campaign to defame the non-Western – with particularly violent reactions in the Muslim world, which believes it is under mortal attack. Therefore anything that emanates from the West is condemned. The walls of cultural particularism are raised for bad reasons perhaps, but with some justification.

How do you then square this circle without falling into the trap of moral relativism? I honestly don’t know.