September 18, 2006

It never ceases to amaze me. You frequent readers know I’ve said this before, and I’ll keep on saying it because it keeps on getting proven true. Very often, when an accusation is made, the one(s) being accused will prove those accusations correct while trying to disprove those accusations. Last time I said this, I was referring to Hysteric Fundamentalists © who prove their marginalistic and just plain crazy views while trying to prove they’re not marginalistic and just plain crazy. Typically this happens shortly after they run out of logical arguments against the accusation. Well now we see it again, this time well outside the Christian sector.

You all, I’m sure, have heard about some comments the Pope made in an academic lecture last week - how he quoted an ancient text that fingered the fact that violence seems to be the leading edge of Muslim missionary efforts. If you took the time to read the whole speech, you would have realized that the quote in question took a very small part of the larger speech. Of course Muslims took offense to this, just like they took offense at the political cartoons depecting Mohammed with a bomb in his turban, etc. Interestingly enough, if you read some of the comments from Muslim-controlled countries, you’ll find out the following:

1. We don’t actually know what he said,
2. but whatever he said, we think it’s offensive.
3. He should apologize, but we won’t accept it.

To greatly simplify things, let’s say the Pope came right out and said that violence and Islam go hand in hand (which isn’t what he said). For about two days there were folks getting up using the Koran to disprove that misstatement (at least the parts of the Koran that disproved it; what they did with the parts that do prove that misstatement is a mystery). Seeing that no one was believing it, they went and endorsed violence as the only way to correct this problem. And they apparently think that this makes perfect sense.

Read the Google headlines - there are fears of violence, violent protests, and calls for more violence in the wake of this misunderstanding. “Orthodox Islam isn’t violent, and if you don’t believe it we’ll just kill you!” Am I the only one that thinks this is nuts?

Did Ratzinger come out and say that pure Islam is violent? No, not really. He quoted someone else who did as an illustration. But he might as well have said that, for all flurry it caused. And he probably would have been right, too. Because whenever someone is ashamed about something, and that something gets fingered in a very public way, the typical reaction is not a calm, reasoned response. It’s usually an explosive tirade designed to deflect public attention away from that something. But when that something happens to be explosive in and of itself, there aren’t many other ways to turn. In the end, Islam will live by the sword. It’s been that way historically, and no amount of attention-deflecting can hide the fact that, in the four or five thousand years since Ishmael came and went, his descendants have been and will continue to be violent in their beliefs. Let’s stop pretending all these radical Muslims are really peaceful folks who are willing to live and let live. If anything, the events of this past week prove otherwise.