Before you can discuss the manifest seriousness of the latest controversy
involving the pope, you have to acknowledge its hilarity. Pope Benedict XVI,
in an austere philosophical address, invoked Byzantine emperor Manuel II
Paleologus, the 14th century ruler who offered a harsh assessment of Islam.
While the Koran says, "There is no compulsion in religion," Manuel couldn't
help but notice that Muslims were setting up more franchises in his
neighborhood than Starbucks - and they weren't doing so by selling the best
darn Mocha Frappuccinos on his side of the Bosphorus Straits.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new," Manuel complained
sometime around the siege of Byzantium, "and there you will find things
only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith
he preached." Why Pope Benedict quoted Manuel is hotly debated. But one
explicit reason was to enunciate the Church's opposition to using faith to
justify violence or intolerance.
And this is where the hilarity comes in. A Pakistani Foreign Ministry
spokeswoman responded: "Anyone who describes Islam as a religion as
intolerant encourages violence."
During Friday prayers in Iran, a senior cleric changed his usual script to
denounce the pope, but the crowd of worshippers hadn't seen the memo, so
they chanted back the usual refrain: "Death to America! Death to Israel!"
In Turkey, protestors demanded that the Justice Ministry arrest the pope
when he visits there this fall and prosecute him for insulting Islam.
And just this week, clerics in Gaza reportedly suggested that the pope
convert to Islam to save his own life.
But let us not dare suggest that even a whiff of intolerance can be detected
in the Islamic world. If you say otherwise, I will cut off your head.
It may be amusing to note how so many Muslims are eager to confirm a
stereotype in the process of denouncing that very stereotype, but it's not
so funny when they put their jihad where the mouth is. Churches were
attacked in the West Bank and a nun in Somalia was murdered, allegedly in
reaction to the pope's comments. Al-Qaida's franchise in Iraq announced "We
shall break the cross and spill the wine. ... God will (help) Muslims to
conquer Rome. ... (May) God enable us to slit their throats."
But this isn't primarily about al-Qaida or even the war on terror. Note that
the parliaments and governments of Islamic nations - our allies in the war
on terror - have been at the forefront of the anti-pope backlash.
The many learned disquisitions on the pope's speech notwithstanding, this
isn't about theology either. After all, no serious person can take lectures
on religious tolerance from the Muslim world very seriously. Spare me tales
of Jewish accommodation in the 15th century. Today, throughout the Muslim
world, Jew-hatred and Christian-bashing are commonplace, state-sanctioned
and fashionable.
No, this is about us. The best book for illuminating what's going on in the
Muslim "street" isn't some weighty treatise on Islam; it's a short little
tract called "White Guilt" by Shelby Steele. The book isn't even about
Islam. Steele focuses on white liberals and the black radicals who've been
gaming them ever since the 1960s. Whites, he argues, have internalized their
own demonization. Deep down they fear that maybe they are imperialistic,
racist bastards, and they are desperate to prove otherwise. In America,
black radicals figured this out a while ago and have been dunning liberal
whites ever since.
The West is caught in a similarly dysfunctional cycle of extortion and
intimidation with Islam, but on a grander and far more violent scale.
Whether it's the pope's comments or some Danish cartoons, self-appointed
spokesmen for the Islamic street say, "You have offended a billion Muslims,"
which really means, "There are so many of us, you should watch out." And if
you didn't get the message, just look around for the burning embassies and
murdered infidels. They're not hard to find.
In response, the West apologizes and apologizes. Radical Muslims, who are
not stupid, take note and become emboldened by these displays of weakness
and capitulation. And the next time, they demand two pounds of flesh.
Meanwhile, the entire global conversation starts from the assumption that
the West is doing something wrong by tolerating freedom of speech, among
other things.
This week, French President Jacques Chirac explained that everyone in the
West must avoid everything that sparks tensions. In other words, we must
forever be held hostage by the tactical outrage of a global mob. There's
nothing funny about that. |