09-23-2006, 01:25 AM
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>The great divide </b>
Udayan Namboodiri
<b>The Pope, by issuing a historic apology, has tapped a groundswell of rage. Many Christians are reading the irrational outburst following his Regensburg address in the language of the 14th century Byzantine emperor whom the Pontiff quoted. They wonder whether the time has come to stand up to the blackmail of fundamentalists which is harming the cause of ordinary Muslims and, of course, global peace </b>
On Sunday, September 17, Pope Benedict XVI became the first Pontiff in the history of the Roman Catholic Church to appear on the balcony of his residence at Castel Gandolfo outside Rome to apologise in person. He admitted to causing hurt to the feelings of Muslims in his September 12 speech. It should be noted that when his predecessor, John Paul II, had, on March 12, 2000, issued a sweeping apology for all the sins committed in the name of Christ in two millennia - Inquisition, abatement of Holocaust, violence, persecutions, blunder, et al - it was described as the "most audacious initiative ever".
Without prejudice to the merits or demerits of the case against him, we have to admit that this is a Pope with a personable style. After his Regensburg address, a man who has been riled before as "God's Rottweiler" and "Panzer Pope" seemed to be deserving of the image of aggressive Pontiff in the Inquisition mode which his detractors in the Liberal-Jihad-Peacenik triumvirate had fitted out for him. Though no media house risked taking out a survey on what people, including Muslims, really thought of his remarks, he had, by an almost universal, broad-brush judgement, inaugurated the "clash of civilisations". Yet, when the same man appeared practically in sackcloth and ashes, cries of "not enough" rang out. Even now, close to a week since that historic sorry, many in the Islamic world seem intent upon keeping the issue alive.
Muslims in Turkey, Iraq and the Palestinian territories demanded that Pope Benedict make a clear apology for his remarks on Islam, instead of simply saying only that he was "deeply sorry". Elements in the Turkish Government wanted to know whether he was retracting out of fear or conviction. From his cell in jail, Mehmet Ali Agca, the Turk who tried to shoot Pope John Paul II in 1981, wrote to the Holy See to cancel the Pope's November visit because his life may be in risk. A nun was shot dead in Somalia. Threats were issued to Church figures and the Al Qaeda also jumped into the fray necessitating the doubling of the security around the Pontiff. In Iran and Indonesia, many wanted him to practically grovel. In India too, there were demonstrations in Delhi's Jama Masjid, followed by the usual solemnising in the secular media. In Mogadishu, an influential cleric called Sheikh Abubakar Hassan Malinto reportedly urged his followers to "hunt and kill whoever offends our Prophets Mohammad on the spot".
It seems what got the goat of the Islamists and their friends is the element of fear which underwrote the Papal apology. Only fear and nothing more. As the supreme head of the Roman Catholic Church whose spiritual authority also extends over the rest of the Christian world, he may have been genuinely worried over the fate of innocent men, women and children whose lives hinged on his making that apology. Those on the other side of the divide would have liked him to withdraw the entire speech - text, sub-text, context and all - but he didn't. Soon, the Western media, or at least the more distinguished elements within it, came out in his support. Lord Carey, the former Archbishop of Cantebury, defended the Pope making an "extraordinary effective and lucid speech". In a way he wrapped up the feelings of the non-Islamic world in the post-9/11 era when he said: "We are living in dangerous and potentially cataclysmic times. There will be no significant material and economic progress until the Muslim mind is allowed to challenge the status quo of Muslim conventions and event heir most cherished shibboleths."
Many felt that the Pope had caved in to bigotry. The media in the West began to reflect a gradual realisation that not one of the Islamic clerics or Left-Secular giants who swear so often that Islam is a tolerant religion, bothered to apologise for the poor nun who got shot. For that matter, wrote an influential Australian columnist in The Daily Telegraph, Sydney: "Given the outrageous and bloody responses to the Danish cartoons last February and the lethal and destructive outbreak of hysteria across the Islamic world triggered by the scholarly address on the nature of God delivered by the Pope last Tuesday, which has not been condemned by anyone of any significance in the Australian Muslim community, it is hard to imagine..."
This Saturday Special's main article by Father Dominic Immanuel is the first by a figure in the Indian Catholic Church to resonate with the global concern of an end to scholarly insights, to the power of dialogue. The Other Voice, by academician Nehaluddin, is a lash against the Pope for forgetting about the sins of Christianity. Over and above the debate one thing is clear. The Pope has unwittingly given Islamic fundamentalists, and by extension global Left-Liberal clusters, a gift. And the gift is this: They wanted an end to debate and dialogue, continuous victimhood as sufferers of a siege. Now they have a kind-sized opportunity to ratchet up their rhetoric.
Henceforth it's gong to be: "See, that is what we face - insult above injury in the form of Iraq and Palestine".
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Udayan Namboodiri
<b>The Pope, by issuing a historic apology, has tapped a groundswell of rage. Many Christians are reading the irrational outburst following his Regensburg address in the language of the 14th century Byzantine emperor whom the Pontiff quoted. They wonder whether the time has come to stand up to the blackmail of fundamentalists which is harming the cause of ordinary Muslims and, of course, global peace </b>
On Sunday, September 17, Pope Benedict XVI became the first Pontiff in the history of the Roman Catholic Church to appear on the balcony of his residence at Castel Gandolfo outside Rome to apologise in person. He admitted to causing hurt to the feelings of Muslims in his September 12 speech. It should be noted that when his predecessor, John Paul II, had, on March 12, 2000, issued a sweeping apology for all the sins committed in the name of Christ in two millennia - Inquisition, abatement of Holocaust, violence, persecutions, blunder, et al - it was described as the "most audacious initiative ever".
Without prejudice to the merits or demerits of the case against him, we have to admit that this is a Pope with a personable style. After his Regensburg address, a man who has been riled before as "God's Rottweiler" and "Panzer Pope" seemed to be deserving of the image of aggressive Pontiff in the Inquisition mode which his detractors in the Liberal-Jihad-Peacenik triumvirate had fitted out for him. Though no media house risked taking out a survey on what people, including Muslims, really thought of his remarks, he had, by an almost universal, broad-brush judgement, inaugurated the "clash of civilisations". Yet, when the same man appeared practically in sackcloth and ashes, cries of "not enough" rang out. Even now, close to a week since that historic sorry, many in the Islamic world seem intent upon keeping the issue alive.
Muslims in Turkey, Iraq and the Palestinian territories demanded that Pope Benedict make a clear apology for his remarks on Islam, instead of simply saying only that he was "deeply sorry". Elements in the Turkish Government wanted to know whether he was retracting out of fear or conviction. From his cell in jail, Mehmet Ali Agca, the Turk who tried to shoot Pope John Paul II in 1981, wrote to the Holy See to cancel the Pope's November visit because his life may be in risk. A nun was shot dead in Somalia. Threats were issued to Church figures and the Al Qaeda also jumped into the fray necessitating the doubling of the security around the Pontiff. In Iran and Indonesia, many wanted him to practically grovel. In India too, there were demonstrations in Delhi's Jama Masjid, followed by the usual solemnising in the secular media. In Mogadishu, an influential cleric called Sheikh Abubakar Hassan Malinto reportedly urged his followers to "hunt and kill whoever offends our Prophets Mohammad on the spot".
It seems what got the goat of the Islamists and their friends is the element of fear which underwrote the Papal apology. Only fear and nothing more. As the supreme head of the Roman Catholic Church whose spiritual authority also extends over the rest of the Christian world, he may have been genuinely worried over the fate of innocent men, women and children whose lives hinged on his making that apology. Those on the other side of the divide would have liked him to withdraw the entire speech - text, sub-text, context and all - but he didn't. Soon, the Western media, or at least the more distinguished elements within it, came out in his support. Lord Carey, the former Archbishop of Cantebury, defended the Pope making an "extraordinary effective and lucid speech". In a way he wrapped up the feelings of the non-Islamic world in the post-9/11 era when he said: "We are living in dangerous and potentially cataclysmic times. There will be no significant material and economic progress until the Muslim mind is allowed to challenge the status quo of Muslim conventions and event heir most cherished shibboleths."
Many felt that the Pope had caved in to bigotry. The media in the West began to reflect a gradual realisation that not one of the Islamic clerics or Left-Secular giants who swear so often that Islam is a tolerant religion, bothered to apologise for the poor nun who got shot. For that matter, wrote an influential Australian columnist in The Daily Telegraph, Sydney: "Given the outrageous and bloody responses to the Danish cartoons last February and the lethal and destructive outbreak of hysteria across the Islamic world triggered by the scholarly address on the nature of God delivered by the Pope last Tuesday, which has not been condemned by anyone of any significance in the Australian Muslim community, it is hard to imagine..."
This Saturday Special's main article by Father Dominic Immanuel is the first by a figure in the Indian Catholic Church to resonate with the global concern of an end to scholarly insights, to the power of dialogue. The Other Voice, by academician Nehaluddin, is a lash against the Pope for forgetting about the sins of Christianity. Over and above the debate one thing is clear. The Pope has unwittingly given Islamic fundamentalists, and by extension global Left-Liberal clusters, a gift. And the gift is this: They wanted an end to debate and dialogue, continuous victimhood as sufferers of a siege. Now they have a kind-sized opportunity to ratchet up their rhetoric.
Henceforth it's gong to be: "See, that is what we face - insult above injury in the form of Iraq and Palestine".
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