The last couple of weeks have been tough, on a personal level and otherwise. Then again, you'd be hard pressed to recall a week that did not include a major global incident. For me, it's been a roller-coaster ride through a fourth year engineering project - the details of which I'm sure you're all very interested in, but that's a topic for another day - India's shocking performance at the World Cup of Hockey, India's shocking collapse at the hands of Australia (I'm starting to see a theme here), the Malegaon bomb blasts, Steve Irwin's death, Manchester United's loss to Arsenal and of course, the Pope's comments about Islam.
Who can seriously say they didn't see this coming? In a hyper-sensitive world where cartoons can cause an international incident, it's no surprise that zealots everywhere have taken offence to a mere quotation from a centuries-old text. The statement in question reads "Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached". An inflammatory comment no doubt, and worthy of a verbal backlash...had it not been written circa 1391. As far as delayed reactions go, this one's right up there, and if I remember clearly, Christian-Muslim relations in that era were strained at best. Reading the transcript, it seems pretty clear that the Pope merely quoted a conversation between an emperor and a learned scholar, and in no way implied those feelings were his own. I'm not a fan of the papacy, in fact I am opposed to the idea of anyone having the power to dictate other people's personal choices, but in this case the Pope appears to be in the right. According to my understanding of the speech, the passage discussing Muhammad uses him merely as a device to further explain the central theme of the speech - that of faith and reason. Whether Muhammad preached religion through violence or otherwise is entirely beside the point.
Of course, logic never stopped anyone before. For the sake of brevity, or sensationalism, or both, the news media quoted select passages of the speech and blew it all out of proportion. The Pope was now a bigoted enemy of Islam, a symbol for all that was wrong with the arrogant West. He may be all that and more - after all he's the head of an organisation that strongly opposes stem cell research, artificial contraception and a woman's right to abort her baby, not to mention their aggressive conversion drives - but the views of the church in this case are irrelevant. What he said in no way implies that he himself agrees with the emperor regarding Muhammad's contribution to religion - in fact he describes his words as "astoundingly harsh" in the German translation of the speech - but that he believes acts of violence go against the will of God. It was this point that formed the crux of the speech, not the part criticising Muhammad, which brings me to my next point.
Why is it taboo to criticise a man whose teachings you may not believe? Of course, public figures such as religious heads and politicians must choose their words carefully, lest they be misconstrued and used against them, or worse still, against others. This does not, however, mean that they should be denied the right to free speech. If anything, a civilised discourse on religious matters is exactly what is needed to resolve issues between communities. Moreover, it strikes me as slightly ironic that Jesus (or rather, Christianity) is more ridiculed in the Western world than Muhammad. Of course, there are still protests from the religious right when this happens, but not to the extent seen with the Muhammad cartoons or the Pope's comments. There does appear to be one standard for Islamic sensitivities regarding Muhammad and another for other religions, when all religions and public figures should be open to respect and ridicule in equal amounts.
By raising violent protests, "vowing war against the worshippers of the cross" and refusing to accept even the slightest criticism of the Prophet, certain groups are only hurting their own cause, furthering the false stereotype of the fanatical Muslim when the more sensible option would be to react calmly and logically. This applies to members of all religions, including Christians, Jews, Hindus, Sikhs, etc. Mind you, I'm sure most Muslims couldn't care less about the Pope's speech, and this is yet another instance of religious and political leaders using the incident to further their own means.
God has so far refused to comment on this matter, possibly due to exhaustion after sweetening water in a polluted lake and drinking copious amounts of milk.
Who can seriously say they didn't see this coming? In a hyper-sensitive world where cartoons can cause an international incident, it's no surprise that zealots everywhere have taken offence to a mere quotation from a centuries-old text. The statement in question reads "Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached". An inflammatory comment no doubt, and worthy of a verbal backlash...had it not been written circa 1391. As far as delayed reactions go, this one's right up there, and if I remember clearly, Christian-Muslim relations in that era were strained at best. Reading the transcript, it seems pretty clear that the Pope merely quoted a conversation between an emperor and a learned scholar, and in no way implied those feelings were his own. I'm not a fan of the papacy, in fact I am opposed to the idea of anyone having the power to dictate other people's personal choices, but in this case the Pope appears to be in the right. According to my understanding of the speech, the passage discussing Muhammad uses him merely as a device to further explain the central theme of the speech - that of faith and reason. Whether Muhammad preached religion through violence or otherwise is entirely beside the point.
Of course, logic never stopped anyone before. For the sake of brevity, or sensationalism, or both, the news media quoted select passages of the speech and blew it all out of proportion. The Pope was now a bigoted enemy of Islam, a symbol for all that was wrong with the arrogant West. He may be all that and more - after all he's the head of an organisation that strongly opposes stem cell research, artificial contraception and a woman's right to abort her baby, not to mention their aggressive conversion drives - but the views of the church in this case are irrelevant. What he said in no way implies that he himself agrees with the emperor regarding Muhammad's contribution to religion - in fact he describes his words as "astoundingly harsh" in the German translation of the speech - but that he believes acts of violence go against the will of God. It was this point that formed the crux of the speech, not the part criticising Muhammad, which brings me to my next point.
Why is it taboo to criticise a man whose teachings you may not believe? Of course, public figures such as religious heads and politicians must choose their words carefully, lest they be misconstrued and used against them, or worse still, against others. This does not, however, mean that they should be denied the right to free speech. If anything, a civilised discourse on religious matters is exactly what is needed to resolve issues between communities. Moreover, it strikes me as slightly ironic that Jesus (or rather, Christianity) is more ridiculed in the Western world than Muhammad. Of course, there are still protests from the religious right when this happens, but not to the extent seen with the Muhammad cartoons or the Pope's comments. There does appear to be one standard for Islamic sensitivities regarding Muhammad and another for other religions, when all religions and public figures should be open to respect and ridicule in equal amounts.
By raising violent protests, "vowing war against the worshippers of the cross" and refusing to accept even the slightest criticism of the Prophet, certain groups are only hurting their own cause, furthering the false stereotype of the fanatical Muslim when the more sensible option would be to react calmly and logically. This applies to members of all religions, including Christians, Jews, Hindus, Sikhs, etc. Mind you, I'm sure most Muslims couldn't care less about the Pope's speech, and this is yet another instance of religious and political leaders using the incident to further their own means.
God has so far refused to comment on this matter, possibly due to exhaustion after sweetening water in a polluted lake and drinking copious amounts of milk.
3 comments:
HAhaha...good to see the posts back man!!!
yeah you didnt post for ages !
Cheers guys :-). I was totally swamped with work at university and had absolutely no time to keep it updated. Luckily my project is almost over and I'll just have 3 papers to deal with, so I should be posting fairly often now. Nice to know I have regular readers :-)
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