Kampala — If the world is not mad, the English need to find another meaning of madness besides delusion, dementia, derangement, insanity, lunacy, absurdity, idiocy or foolishness.

When Thomas Hardy penned his novel Far From the Madding Crowd, he certainly had no idea about how insane the world could get in our times. Hardy, in his 74-year-old grave, must now be wishing he were here to write about our kind of madness, which is far from what his English village of Weatherbury had to offer.

The developments in Africa alone (and this, by the way, is just one of the world's five continents) are a tale of a globe gone crazy.

Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe (we might have to find another title for him since most of the international community no longer recognises him as the legitimate leader of Zimbabwe) has led us to question his state of mind after he ordered white farmers to vacate their farms - and exposed his own black people to famine.

Here in Uganda, LRA leader Joseph Kony has been mercilessly maiming and killing people, mostly Acholi, in northern Uganda for the last 15 years. Just as Ugandans, including those in the north, decided that enough was enough and began contemplating turning a listening ear to his agenda, Kony threw the nation into confusion by declaring that he has been fighting to get the Acholi recognised as Ugandans.

This week brought yet more disheartening news, this time about the absurdity of the Sharia law, when a Nigerian Sharia Appeal Court in Katsina State confirmed the death sentence by stoning, earlier passed on Amina Lawal for having a child out of wedlock. The court ruled that 30-year-old Amina be executed once her child is weaned. The execution will entail burying her up to the waist and stoning her until she is dead.

Governments, media, human rights activists and organisations, politicians as well as individuals the world over have expressed immense outrage at this barbaric development, and are trying to come up with ways of saving Amina's life.

But the problem is not just about Amina. Hardly a year ago in October 2001, 35-year old Safiyah Hussaini was condemned to death, by stoning, for allegedly committing adultery. Her life was only saved by a few loopholes in the case - she was acquitted on technical grounds by an appeal court.

So, all the international outcry against the sentence would have come to naught had the judge not been wise - or kind - enough to rule that the adultery provisions of the Sharia code could not be used against Safiyah as she must have committed "the adultery" before the introduction of the code in Sokoto State.

Women's rights activists have also been criticised for not quickly condemning Monday's court ruling. True, women, particularly those from poor backgrounds, are the worst victims of inhumane and discriminatory penalties introduced by regional laws in the states of northern Nigeria, but this is more than a crime against women. It is a problem we should view from a wider perspective, not just with gender lenses. Today it's Amina, tomorrow it will be someone else - a man, perhaps.

Thus, the worldwide anger should not end with Amina's eventual acquittal (we all hope she will be acquitted). The real problem is that the Sharia law has remained conservative, and mostly barbaric, despite the fact that religion and the law are as dynamic as society itself.

Religion and law are supposed to guide society and to enable human beings to live in harmony. Therefore, when these two respected institutions instead connive to bring about injustice and violation of human rights, we might as well say they work to bring insanity in society.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights recognises the sanctity of human life. While we might have different laws for different countries or societies, as citizens of the world, we should, at least, uphold life. This is why utmost pressure must be put on Nigeria and other countries that subscribe to Sharia-based penal codes to apply those laws in full respect of international human rights standards.

At a time when countries are calling for the abolition of the death penalty and granting amnesty (painfully, though) to architects of the Rwanda genocide, perpetrators of the ethnic cleansing in Kosovo and convicted murderers, it is difficult to justify punishments such as public flogging, stoning or amputation even for the flimsiest of mistakes.

Arguments that the extreme cruel nature of the Sharia law is aimed at creating a flawless society don't hold a drop of water. One Mohammed Tafida from Nigeria reasoned on BBC's Network Africa website that Nigeria has one of the highest crime rates in the world "simply because we put morality into the dustbin and embrace western way of life."

Give me a break! When Idi Amin was beheading political rivals, he was not embracing the western way of life! Even the late General Sani Abacha of the very Nigeria did not refer to any western legal systems when butchering his people.

The rot in Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Congo or any other country in Africa and the world cannot be blamed on the lack of Sharia law. Who, for instance, has that law punished for corruption in Nigeria, one of the world's most corrupt nations? The victims of the Sharia law in nearly all cases have nothing to do with the crimes of autocratic dictatorships. Like Dileep Wijeratne in the UK said on the BBC website, such laws, left the way they are, are breeding grounds for civil unrest, political extremism and even terrorism.

Amina's case should open a global crusade against repressive laws in whatever form they appear and in whatever country they are practiced, especially when they seek to punish the helpless and voiceless. Short of this, our world will only degenerate into a lunatic bin.

*The author is a lecturer at the Department of Mass Communication, Makerere University