Holy shit!
Posted on Sep 18 2006 | Tagged as: Words, Politics, The Stupid, Media, Religion
It’s been a good couple of weeks for religious nuttery.
Last week, Brian Whitaker wrote this article on Comment is Free, about Hadi Saeed al-Mutif, a chap who has been in prison for the last 13-14 years in Saudi Arabia (sentence commuted to life imprisonment from the original punishment: death) for making a (weak) joke about Muhammed’s penis.
I was gobsmacked. I was even more surprised to find this comment, suggesting that the poor sod got off lightly because “insulting God is the worst thing in the world”.
I’m reminded of what Mark Twain wrote in Letters From The Earth:
He says, naïvely, outspokenly, and without suggestion of embarrassment: “I the Lord thy God am a jealous God.”
You see, it is only another way of saying, “I the Lord thy God am a small God; a small God, and fretful about small things.”
And who’d worship an entity so petty?
I’ll bet the Pope’s glad he doesn’t live in Saudi Arabia. He hasn’t properly apologised for his lecture in which he questioned the Islamic concept of holy war that has offended Muslims worldwide. Nor should he. You can’t apologise for causing offence, as offence isn’t caused; it is taken. It is a reaction that the offended choose to have. It is in the eye of the beholder. Demanding an apology is like sticking your hand in a fire and then blaming the person that lit it for burning you.
It’s a very silly reaction. If the Pope’s quote from Byzantine Emperor Manuel II, that Muhammed ‘brought nothing new except that which was evil and inhuman’ is factually inaccurate, then why get so upset? Why not simply seek to correct the Pope’s mistake, or agree to disagree? (Or respond with a tu autem: as Manners wrote last year, with all the blood the church has on its hands it’s hard to see how the Pope keeps his dress so white.)
Astonishingly, I find myself agreeing with a former Archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey, who said “Muslims, as well as Christians, must learn to enter into dialogue without crying ‘foul’.” Yes indeed.
[ADDEDNDUM: Just as it probably wasn’t a good idea to react to cartoons satirising a violent interpretation of Islam by behaving violently, it also isn’t a good idea for Muslims to react to claims that their religion’s founder was a bit violent by firebombing churches and shooting nuns.]
on 18 Sep 2006 at 10:22 pm 1 Charissa said …
I bet he spent his time inside wishing just a little bit that his joke had actually been funny. What a waste.
on 19 Sep 2006 at 12:35 pm 2 Matt said …
Edd’s been indulging in some interesting discourse on Islam dot com. With his permission I’ll find the threads and link to them here in another comment at some point–illuminative, really.
It’s just upsetting that everyone’s so insecure about everything.
on 20 Sep 2006 at 10:58 am 3 Christopher White said …
That’d be interesting Matt, yeah. There’s been some absolute tripe about the whole business on CIF. Specifically, this by Madeleine Bunting, in which she actually says it’s the Pope’s fault that that Somali nun got shot; and this from Karen Armstrong - “We cannot afford to maintain these ancient prejudices against Islam”, ie “don’t offend the muslims or they’ll gitcha”.
Frank Fisher’s comment (”did he pull the fucking trigger?”) was deleted from the former, and one of mine from the latter. I was quite harsh: I called her a moron for writing “…the Danish cartoonists, who published the offensive caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad last February…” when they were first published in September - if she can’t even get that right there’s very little reason to take her seriously.
on 21 Sep 2006 at 10:09 pm 4 Gary said …
Would you still do Madeline Bunting though, even if you do think she’s a moron.
When I heard the news about the Pope I just rolled my eyes and thought here we go again. QED, innit?
on 22 Sep 2006 at 2:36 pm 5 Christopher White said …
Yeah, she’s something of a milf.
on 25 Oct 2006 at 2:51 pm 6 christopherwhite.info » said …
[…] Despite my previous comments, by which I still stand, perhaps it’s small wonder that Muslims felt/feel victimised by cartoons of Mohammed, the veil debate and the Pope’s remarks when we live in world so shy of not only causing offence but also simple debate. […]