The impossible has happened - the BN has lost its two-thirds majority for the first time since 1969, and the Opposition controls 5 states and all Parliamentary seats for the Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur (which is not a State).
The DAP, PAS and Keadilan will, operating as a loose coalition, form the State Governments of Penang, Kedah, Perak, and Selangor. In addition, PAS will rule Kelantan with a much stronger majority than it obtained in the last election in 2004.
As President Musharraf discovered much to his dismay when he decided to Kill All the Lawyers - figuratively speaking - Abdullah Badawi's BN has realised, too late, what happens in any functioning society which wants to maintain at least a semblance of democracy: when you find yourself trying to put down (well, at least ignore or denigrate) street protests mounted by lawyers, you are at the deep end of the pool and will drown in the next election.
A tip for politicians in future elections: be careful how you treat the professional class. You start dumping them in jail, it's a good leading indicator that you will fare poorly at the next (honest) polls.
For a better idea of what I'm talking about, go here and here.
And of course, Mr Shakespeare's famous line about Killing All the Lawyers, which when read in context was actually a Major Compliment to the Legal Profession, can be found here (Act IV, Scene 2, Henry VI Part 2).
One compliment to the ruling party though; the Malaysian elections were by and large, free and fair, and allegations and fears of rigging were basically unfounded, going by all currently available evidence.
Unfortunately, as Musharraf discovered in Pakistan, if you rig the vote you lose the elections no matter what the official outcome may be, and if you don't rig the vote then you lose the elections fair and square - either way, you lose.
Like I said, don't put the lawyers down, or you are looking at losing the next polls.
Now, some will say the BN hasn't actually lost the polls, at least not in the way that Musharraf was wiped out in Pakistan. Musharraf wasn't actually up for election; his party lost big and lost all control of Pakistan whereas Badawi WAS up for election, and the BN managed to retain all of East Malaysia and the southern and eastern regions of Peninsular Malaysia. But I say the BN very obviously lost in the sense that despite having gerrymandered election seats over many years in its favour, lopsided media coverage, the devotion of massive resources to a PR campaign, and the detention without trial of its most extreme recent critics (Manoharan & company, of HINDRAF), the BN received an absolute whopping in states it had considered reasonably safe - Selangor, Perak, Kedah - and in the capital, Kuala Lumpur, previously divided between Opposition and BN but as of yesterday TOTALLY Opposition (bar 1 seat). AND the BN lost Penang, was wiped out in Kelantan, AND lost its 2/3 majority - the holy grail of Opposition politicians. The Barisan Nasional has NEVER been beaten so badly since Independence. In Malaysian terms, it counts as a certain defeat.
For the first time in all recorded history, we have 5 Opposition Menteris Besar - one each from Keadilan and the DAP, and 3 from PAS. My congratulations to them all. I just hope they don't waste the chance to Just Change It!
and, for good measure: MAKKAL SHAKTI!!!
- Lawman -
LawMan's Dogs
Killer Beasts Doing Breakfast
Showing posts with label Islamic. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Islamic. Show all posts
Sunday, March 09, 2008
Saturday, December 02, 2006
TODAY'S EDITORIAL
November 29, 2006
Defenders of the six outraged imams removed from a Minneapolis flight last week want people to think that airline officials overreacted by removing them from the plane -- that all the imams were doing was trying to pray. But listen to what they did. It wasn't just praying.
The imams left their assigned seats shortly before takeoff in violation of the rules -- and then formed the same seating pattern that al Qaeda uses to test in-flight security. They switched "to a pattern associated with the September 11 terrorist attacks and also found in probes of U.S. security since the attacks -- two in the front row first-class, two in the middle of the plane on the exit aisle and two in the rear of the cabin," Audrey Hudson reported in yesterday's editions of The Washington Times. In the course of this episode they prayed loudly -- this is the part the imams are now focusing on -- shouting in voices that even the gate agents outside the plane heard. But the praying isn't the issue.
The provocative seat-switching is. Now, there's a chance that it wasn't a deliberately provocative act. There's also a chance that pigs might fly, or that beer might fall from the heavens. We've never heard of a Muslim religious tenet that requires worshippers to occupy the entry and exit routes of an airliner. That's because there isn't any.
Was this an orchestrated ploy to intimidate airlines -- to exploit American civil-rights law? We can't peer inside the hearts and minds of these six men. But considering the details unearthed this week, that's where the evidence points.
To hear these imams' defenders, you would think that the freedom to pray is the issue. Here's Mohammed Abu Hannoud of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the country's largest Islamic advocacy group: "I think we should be smart enough to distinguish between peaceful Muslims and terrorists."
The imams should be smart enough -- we certainly think that they are smart enough -- to know that if they engage in seating maneuvers that mimic al Qaeda's, they will be under immediate suspicion and will be removed from the airplane.
There is no civil right to disobey airline seating rules, occupy the exits and entries of an airplane and shout loudly. Not for Muslims or Christians or anyone else.
OK OK I know : infringement of copyright here. Material reproduced without any permission whatsoever from the Washington Times. Lack of a profit (or a profit motive) and clear attribution are not a carte blanche to infringe. But I just couldn't resist. If you want to, visit the Washington Times yourself for more.
LMT
November 29, 2006
Defenders of the six outraged imams removed from a Minneapolis flight last week want people to think that airline officials overreacted by removing them from the plane -- that all the imams were doing was trying to pray. But listen to what they did. It wasn't just praying.
The imams left their assigned seats shortly before takeoff in violation of the rules -- and then formed the same seating pattern that al Qaeda uses to test in-flight security. They switched "to a pattern associated with the September 11 terrorist attacks and also found in probes of U.S. security since the attacks -- two in the front row first-class, two in the middle of the plane on the exit aisle and two in the rear of the cabin," Audrey Hudson reported in yesterday's editions of The Washington Times. In the course of this episode they prayed loudly -- this is the part the imams are now focusing on -- shouting in voices that even the gate agents outside the plane heard. But the praying isn't the issue.
The provocative seat-switching is. Now, there's a chance that it wasn't a deliberately provocative act. There's also a chance that pigs might fly, or that beer might fall from the heavens. We've never heard of a Muslim religious tenet that requires worshippers to occupy the entry and exit routes of an airliner. That's because there isn't any.
Was this an orchestrated ploy to intimidate airlines -- to exploit American civil-rights law? We can't peer inside the hearts and minds of these six men. But considering the details unearthed this week, that's where the evidence points.
To hear these imams' defenders, you would think that the freedom to pray is the issue. Here's Mohammed Abu Hannoud of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the country's largest Islamic advocacy group: "I think we should be smart enough to distinguish between peaceful Muslims and terrorists."
The imams should be smart enough -- we certainly think that they are smart enough -- to know that if they engage in seating maneuvers that mimic al Qaeda's, they will be under immediate suspicion and will be removed from the airplane.
There is no civil right to disobey airline seating rules, occupy the exits and entries of an airplane and shout loudly. Not for Muslims or Christians or anyone else.
OK OK I know : infringement of copyright here. Material reproduced without any permission whatsoever from the Washington Times. Lack of a profit (or a profit motive) and clear attribution are not a carte blanche to infringe. But I just couldn't resist. If you want to, visit the Washington Times yourself for more.
LMT
Thursday, November 30, 2006
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20061121/ts_nm/religion_iran_azerbaijan_dc_1
This is the reason for my extreme displeasure. Whatever happened to Islam being a religion of peace and tolerance? The clerics - the ones who (one would hope) would be the best equipped to reply in a rational manner - word for word, point for point, intellectual to intellectual, concept to concept, fact for fact - have instead called for death.
All this fellow did, like Salman Rushdie, was to write. He did not kill or incite anyone to kill anyone, Muslim or otherwise. But his detractors haven't bothered to meet him on the battleground of ideas; instead, they have decided that he should be silenced with extreme prejudice.
This makes me wonder: perhaps they want him killed because their own ideas are intellectually and morally bankrupt, perhaps his views are more valid than theirs, and they know that they cannot prove otherwise. Therefore their reaction is to kill him, so as to preserve their own monopoly on spiritual knowledge and prevent any better view from gaining the upper hand. A sort of "If you can't beat him, then kill him" approach.
I wonder when they'll issue a fatwa against me?
LMT
This is the reason for my extreme displeasure. Whatever happened to Islam being a religion of peace and tolerance? The clerics - the ones who (one would hope) would be the best equipped to reply in a rational manner - word for word, point for point, intellectual to intellectual, concept to concept, fact for fact - have instead called for death.
All this fellow did, like Salman Rushdie, was to write. He did not kill or incite anyone to kill anyone, Muslim or otherwise. But his detractors haven't bothered to meet him on the battleground of ideas; instead, they have decided that he should be silenced with extreme prejudice.
This makes me wonder: perhaps they want him killed because their own ideas are intellectually and morally bankrupt, perhaps his views are more valid than theirs, and they know that they cannot prove otherwise. Therefore their reaction is to kill him, so as to preserve their own monopoly on spiritual knowledge and prevent any better view from gaining the upper hand. A sort of "If you can't beat him, then kill him" approach.
I wonder when they'll issue a fatwa against me?
LMT
Wednesday, November 29, 2006
The Pope's Visit to Turkey
Pope Benedict XVI is visiting Turkey. Today. Or, well, yesterday, since it is already 1am local time.
This is going to be interesting to watch.
The Pope will fight for the rights of religious minorities in Muslim countries.
He will confront Muslim thinkers about that arm of their religion that genuinely believes that violence against non-believers (and of course, for this particular arm the category of "non-believers" is very wide) is sanctioned by God.
He may attempt a closer relationship (a reconciliation?) between the Greek and Latin Churches, a schism which predates the Protestant Reformation.
I for one am happy to see a Pope who doesn't mince his words, doesn't toe the politically correct line, and who says what needs to be said.
Where fighting for minority rights is concerned, he is not advocating some fresh Crusade, nor does he support religious bigotry. Instead, he is simply being honest about the experience that Christians and other non-Muslims have living in modern-day Muslim-majority countries (we are not talking history here, just modern-day reality). He is asking the Muslim majority-countries for the kind of treatment towards their non-Muslim minorities that Muslims in the minority in the secular West have received and come to take for granted, nay, demand, from their host governments. He is not afraid to annoy and offend, he is only concerned to speak the truth. That's the way it should be.
Where violence by Muslims who explicitly justify their actions by reference to their God is concerned, the Pope, I hope, will be asking some very hard questions of the "Ulama" (term used very loosely here) who wrote that letter explaining the Islamic position to him after he made his now famous (or notorious, of course, depending on your point of view) speech at Regensburg. Why is it that such a significant number of Muslims - perhaps a majority of the total "Umah" in some countries - do NOT behave as might be expected if, as the Muslim scholars claimed, Islam is essentially a peaceful and tolerant religion? Why did these Muslims - followers of a peace-loving religion, it is claimed - feel entitled to commit murder, arson, and vandalism in the name of protecting the "dignity" of their religion, when all that the Pope did was to make a speech in a faraway land where a majority of the population are no longer really Christian, nor anti-Muslim? Did Christians burn their mosques, kill their women and children, destroy their livelihoods on the basis and as a consequence of the Regensburg address?
And finally - on the issue of reconciliation with the Greeks - it is good that the various denominations are finding common ground, as there are bigger fish to fry. It is time for Christians of all stripes, pre- and post- Reformation, to unite and confront the Islamic extremist - both the out-in-the-open Al Qaeda/Taliban variety and the more insidious "quiet Islamist" attempting to slowly drive currently secular countries such as Malaysia into becoming "Islamic" kingdoms or republics. It is time to "fight the good fight" - the Christian JIHAD - by which I mean "STRUGGLE, NOT WAR" which may be "NON-VIOLENT as well as violent" - yep, I can borrow from the Muslim lexicon as well as anyone - to show that non-Muslims are not, for the sake of political correctness, going to back down in the face of increasingly arrogant and unreasonable demands from their Muslim compatriots.
LMT
This is going to be interesting to watch.
The Pope will fight for the rights of religious minorities in Muslim countries.
He will confront Muslim thinkers about that arm of their religion that genuinely believes that violence against non-believers (and of course, for this particular arm the category of "non-believers" is very wide) is sanctioned by God.
He may attempt a closer relationship (a reconciliation?) between the Greek and Latin Churches, a schism which predates the Protestant Reformation.
I for one am happy to see a Pope who doesn't mince his words, doesn't toe the politically correct line, and who says what needs to be said.
Where fighting for minority rights is concerned, he is not advocating some fresh Crusade, nor does he support religious bigotry. Instead, he is simply being honest about the experience that Christians and other non-Muslims have living in modern-day Muslim-majority countries (we are not talking history here, just modern-day reality). He is asking the Muslim majority-countries for the kind of treatment towards their non-Muslim minorities that Muslims in the minority in the secular West have received and come to take for granted, nay, demand, from their host governments. He is not afraid to annoy and offend, he is only concerned to speak the truth. That's the way it should be.
Where violence by Muslims who explicitly justify their actions by reference to their God is concerned, the Pope, I hope, will be asking some very hard questions of the "Ulama" (term used very loosely here) who wrote that letter explaining the Islamic position to him after he made his now famous (or notorious, of course, depending on your point of view) speech at Regensburg. Why is it that such a significant number of Muslims - perhaps a majority of the total "Umah" in some countries - do NOT behave as might be expected if, as the Muslim scholars claimed, Islam is essentially a peaceful and tolerant religion? Why did these Muslims - followers of a peace-loving religion, it is claimed - feel entitled to commit murder, arson, and vandalism in the name of protecting the "dignity" of their religion, when all that the Pope did was to make a speech in a faraway land where a majority of the population are no longer really Christian, nor anti-Muslim? Did Christians burn their mosques, kill their women and children, destroy their livelihoods on the basis and as a consequence of the Regensburg address?
And finally - on the issue of reconciliation with the Greeks - it is good that the various denominations are finding common ground, as there are bigger fish to fry. It is time for Christians of all stripes, pre- and post- Reformation, to unite and confront the Islamic extremist - both the out-in-the-open Al Qaeda/Taliban variety and the more insidious "quiet Islamist" attempting to slowly drive currently secular countries such as Malaysia into becoming "Islamic" kingdoms or republics. It is time to "fight the good fight" - the Christian JIHAD - by which I mean "STRUGGLE, NOT WAR" which may be "NON-VIOLENT as well as violent" - yep, I can borrow from the Muslim lexicon as well as anyone - to show that non-Muslims are not, for the sake of political correctness, going to back down in the face of increasingly arrogant and unreasonable demands from their Muslim compatriots.
LMT
Tuesday, November 14, 2006
Kidnap of 150 at Baghdad institution
http://f332.mail.yahoo.com/dc/launch?.rand=fneqh61op28e6
http://article.wn.com/view/2006/10/01/Gunmen_Kidnap_26_Workers_in_Baghdad_s/
This must be the saddest thing. Academics - who could be more harmless? And yet, this war is all about ideas. The ideas of an unenlightened, Dark Ages mentality attempting to return the entire Arab and Muslim (including sizable non-Muslim population - but since they are something less than human it's ok to ignore them) world to some mythical Golden Age that never existed, against the ideas of modern day 20th Century nations (including sizable - yes, very sizable - non-Anglo-Saxon, non-Caucasian populations. I don't see your average ethnic Tamil, Japanese or Chinese looking very "Whitey", do you?
Removal from the human gene pool in a violent, permanent and highly prejudicial manner appears now to be the only practical solution for the kidnappers and their ilk, once caught. We can hope for neuron-synapse-brain-wave-altering technology, but the current state of the art in this area just isn't there yet.
LMT.
http://article.wn.com/view/2006/10/01/Gunmen_Kidnap_26_Workers_in_Baghdad_s/
This must be the saddest thing. Academics - who could be more harmless? And yet, this war is all about ideas. The ideas of an unenlightened, Dark Ages mentality attempting to return the entire Arab and Muslim (including sizable non-Muslim population - but since they are something less than human it's ok to ignore them) world to some mythical Golden Age that never existed, against the ideas of modern day 20th Century nations (including sizable - yes, very sizable - non-Anglo-Saxon, non-Caucasian populations. I don't see your average ethnic Tamil, Japanese or Chinese looking very "Whitey", do you?
Removal from the human gene pool in a violent, permanent and highly prejudicial manner appears now to be the only practical solution for the kidnappers and their ilk, once caught. We can hope for neuron-synapse-brain-wave-altering technology, but the current state of the art in this area just isn't there yet.
LMT.
Wednesday, September 20, 2006
Pope must NOT apologize, Part II
So the intimidation, violence, and other forms of suppression of freedom of speech, life and liberty, continue. Such are conditions in majority Muslim communities for minority Christians. Sadly. Many Muslims are simply NOT interested in what the Pope actually said. They will read it their way no matter what is said or done. There is nothing we can do about it. We just stick to our line, and whether or not they choose to use their God-given brains to receive it is really entirely up to them.
Lawman.
Note: my own comments and asterisks added to the following:-
Catholic Palestinians downplay Muslim attacks on Christian churches
By Judith Sudilovsky
9/19/2006
Catholic News Service
JERUSALEM (CNS) – Christian Palestinians tried to downplay the significance of Muslim attacks on seven Christian churches in the West Bank and Gaza in protest of Pope Benedict XVI's remarks on Islam in Germany.
Just after the Sept. 16 shooting attack on St. John the Baptist Church in Nablus, West Bank, Melkite Father Youssef Saadeh, the parish priest, told a journalist Christians were no longer safe and would not be able to live in Nablus if the situation continued. The church's door was set afire in the attack.
However, in a Sept. 18 telephone interview, Father Saadeh made light of the situation, saying things were quiet, although it was impossible to know what would happen.
Father Saadeh skirted a question about fear that the attacks had instilled in the Christian community and instead pointed out that Muslim religious leaders and municipal leaders had visited Christian churches to signify solidarity.
No arrest had been made in connection with the attacks aimed at four Nablus churches, he said.
"Now we want to be strong and quiet," said Father Saadeh. "We don't know how it will be in the future, but like all people Muslims and Christians hope (the problems) are finished here."
His daughter, Rita Saadeh, who was at the church during the incident, was shaken up by the attacks and spoke out more strongly.
"When we saw the fire and smoke at the door we were afraid. The inside of the church is wood and we didn't have the key. We had no way to put out the fire," Saadeh, 33, said in a telephone interview. She described how the gunmen tried to kick down the door and ignited it with gasoline, then shot bullets into the church as she and her brother watched in terror.
She said she was not sure whether the violence had ended.
*** She added that the Muslim reaction was "very wrong" and carried out without having knowledge of what the pope actually said. ***
In an address Sept. 12 to scholars in Regensburg, Germany, Pope Benedict quoted a medieval text, a historical criticism of Islam, which he later said did not reflect his personal opinion.
*** "Why if the pope ... says this ... must we pay? We are angry at what has happened here. It is not clear until now what the pope said. He was comparing knowledge and faith in religion," she said. "If (Muslims) say anything about the church we don't do anything (to them.) They also say we are terrorists, but we never react in the same way." ***
She said she was more relaxed two days after the attack and was able to go to work, where Muslim colleagues tried to put her at ease and reassure her.
Meanwhile, Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh condemned the attacks.
Church officials were careful in their wording about the incidents, and no official condemnation was issued against the attackers.
Christians make up less than 2 percent of the population of about 3 million in the Palestinian territories and generally talk of unity and brotherhood. However, privately some Christians complain about tensions between the two groups.
A group of Muslims also meant to attack Holy Family Catholic Church in Nablus, said the parish priest, Father Jalil Awwad, but mistook a nearby door as the church's entrance and threw firebombs at it instead. (o my goodness, these guys can't even pick the correct door to attack. Talk about dumb and dumber...)
Anglican and Greek Orthodox churches in Nablus also were attacked, as were Greek Orthodox churches in Gaza, and Tulkarm and Tubas in the West Bank. No attacks on churches were reported in Israel.
"It is not scary, they didn't hurt anybody; they did only damage to material things," said Father Awwad. "Nobody agrees with these actions, not even Muslims."
He said there has been more security around churches following the attacks.
Latin-rite Patriarch Michel Sabbah of Jerusalem, accompanied by Lutheran and Anglican bishops, attended a prayer service at a Nablus Anglican church Sept. 17.
In a Sept. 15 statement, the patriarch said Pope Benedict used the quote by Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Paleologus to "explore the question of faith and the mind."
The pope's remarks were only partially quoted, Patriarch Sabbah added, and whoever brought the remarks to the attention of the Arabic press may have had the intention of bringing strife between the Muslim and Christian communities.
"Our reaction (to the comments) must be according to the concepts of the lecture (which) was only about faith and mind and not about Islam," he said.
In the statement Patriarch Sabbah expressed hope that the recent shock waves through Islamic communities would serve as a catalyst to put Christian-Muslim dialogue on a new track and would lead to greater understanding on both sides.
Father Majdi al-Siryani, director of the patriarchate schools, said area Christians were "not frightened ... even if a couple of incidents happened here or there."
"There are bad people and good people," he said. "The bad people are a very small minority. When we talk to our people we are not happy about it, and the large majority of Palestinian Muslims and Christians are not happy with what was said (or with) what the reaction has been."
"I know this is not what the pope meant. When he commits a mistake we (forgive) him. He is a human being after all. It happened but he was humble enough to apologize," said Father al-Siryani. "He won't be a politician. He will be a Christian and we will find a way to mend it."
He said several processions honoring Mary in largely Muslim villages Sept. 16-17 were not disturbed.
- - -
Copyright (c) 2006 Catholic News Service/U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops
Member of Catholic Press Association
Lawman.
Note: my own comments and asterisks added to the following:-
Catholic Palestinians downplay Muslim attacks on Christian churches
By Judith Sudilovsky
9/19/2006
Catholic News Service
JERUSALEM (CNS) – Christian Palestinians tried to downplay the significance of Muslim attacks on seven Christian churches in the West Bank and Gaza in protest of Pope Benedict XVI's remarks on Islam in Germany.
Just after the Sept. 16 shooting attack on St. John the Baptist Church in Nablus, West Bank, Melkite Father Youssef Saadeh, the parish priest, told a journalist Christians were no longer safe and would not be able to live in Nablus if the situation continued. The church's door was set afire in the attack.
However, in a Sept. 18 telephone interview, Father Saadeh made light of the situation, saying things were quiet, although it was impossible to know what would happen.
Father Saadeh skirted a question about fear that the attacks had instilled in the Christian community and instead pointed out that Muslim religious leaders and municipal leaders had visited Christian churches to signify solidarity.
No arrest had been made in connection with the attacks aimed at four Nablus churches, he said.
"Now we want to be strong and quiet," said Father Saadeh. "We don't know how it will be in the future, but like all people Muslims and Christians hope (the problems) are finished here."
His daughter, Rita Saadeh, who was at the church during the incident, was shaken up by the attacks and spoke out more strongly.
"When we saw the fire and smoke at the door we were afraid. The inside of the church is wood and we didn't have the key. We had no way to put out the fire," Saadeh, 33, said in a telephone interview. She described how the gunmen tried to kick down the door and ignited it with gasoline, then shot bullets into the church as she and her brother watched in terror.
She said she was not sure whether the violence had ended.
*** She added that the Muslim reaction was "very wrong" and carried out without having knowledge of what the pope actually said. ***
In an address Sept. 12 to scholars in Regensburg, Germany, Pope Benedict quoted a medieval text, a historical criticism of Islam, which he later said did not reflect his personal opinion.
*** "Why if the pope ... says this ... must we pay? We are angry at what has happened here. It is not clear until now what the pope said. He was comparing knowledge and faith in religion," she said. "If (Muslims) say anything about the church we don't do anything (to them.) They also say we are terrorists, but we never react in the same way." ***
She said she was more relaxed two days after the attack and was able to go to work, where Muslim colleagues tried to put her at ease and reassure her.
Meanwhile, Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh condemned the attacks.
Church officials were careful in their wording about the incidents, and no official condemnation was issued against the attackers.
Christians make up less than 2 percent of the population of about 3 million in the Palestinian territories and generally talk of unity and brotherhood. However, privately some Christians complain about tensions between the two groups.
A group of Muslims also meant to attack Holy Family Catholic Church in Nablus, said the parish priest, Father Jalil Awwad, but mistook a nearby door as the church's entrance and threw firebombs at it instead. (o my goodness, these guys can't even pick the correct door to attack. Talk about dumb and dumber...)
Anglican and Greek Orthodox churches in Nablus also were attacked, as were Greek Orthodox churches in Gaza, and Tulkarm and Tubas in the West Bank. No attacks on churches were reported in Israel.
"It is not scary, they didn't hurt anybody; they did only damage to material things," said Father Awwad. "Nobody agrees with these actions, not even Muslims."
He said there has been more security around churches following the attacks.
Latin-rite Patriarch Michel Sabbah of Jerusalem, accompanied by Lutheran and Anglican bishops, attended a prayer service at a Nablus Anglican church Sept. 17.
In a Sept. 15 statement, the patriarch said Pope Benedict used the quote by Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Paleologus to "explore the question of faith and the mind."
The pope's remarks were only partially quoted, Patriarch Sabbah added, and whoever brought the remarks to the attention of the Arabic press may have had the intention of bringing strife between the Muslim and Christian communities.
"Our reaction (to the comments) must be according to the concepts of the lecture (which) was only about faith and mind and not about Islam," he said.
In the statement Patriarch Sabbah expressed hope that the recent shock waves through Islamic communities would serve as a catalyst to put Christian-Muslim dialogue on a new track and would lead to greater understanding on both sides.
Father Majdi al-Siryani, director of the patriarchate schools, said area Christians were "not frightened ... even if a couple of incidents happened here or there."
"There are bad people and good people," he said. "The bad people are a very small minority. When we talk to our people we are not happy about it, and the large majority of Palestinian Muslims and Christians are not happy with what was said (or with) what the reaction has been."
"I know this is not what the pope meant. When he commits a mistake we (forgive) him. He is a human being after all. It happened but he was humble enough to apologize," said Father al-Siryani. "He won't be a politician. He will be a Christian and we will find a way to mend it."
He said several processions honoring Mary in largely Muslim villages Sept. 16-17 were not disturbed.
- - -
Copyright (c) 2006 Catholic News Service/U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops
Member of Catholic Press Association
Saturday, September 16, 2006
The Pope should NOT apologize for his remarks
There has apparently been a chorus of criticism of the Pope over what many in the popular press - especially the Middle-Eastern Islamic popular press - have been saying are "anti-Islamic" remarks.
The Pope should not apologize.
The reason is very simple indeed: his remarks have been totally taken out of context and mis-interpreted. And, going by the manner in which the out-of-context misinterpretations have been consistently performed especially in Islamic countries, quite deliberately so.
The Islamists have twisted the Pope's speech for their own ends; they WANT a "clash of (religious) civilizations" to develop; they WANT inter-religious strife and violence on the planet; and they KNOW that they will win in either one of two ways: if they can force an apology for what are essentially unprovocative remarks, they demonstrate their power to force unreasonable concessions from those who do not agree with them, and reduce their enemies' credibility; alternatively, they can hope to increase their standing as defenders of their faith against "aggressive", "unrepentant" infidels, where their more moderate colleagues have kept quiet and refused to respond to "provocation".
Since either way the Pope gains no ground, he should not apologize. He should simply clarify what he said, and repeat that clarification ad infinitum. Violence, subtle persecution, discrimination, and propaganda warfare against Christians in countries with majority Muslim populations is endemic. It has not disappeared and will not disappear until the Second Coming. The Islamists would have used something - anything - else, as an excuse to keep the anti-Christian bigotry burning even if the Pope had never made his speech.
It will not be a coincidence that the Islamists will always try to make comparisons between the spread of Islam by the sword and the spread of Christianity by the sword.
What the Islamists don't want to emphasize is that they picked up the sciences, much of their technology and some of their art from pagans and infidels. Essentially, a backward tribe in the desert conquered and appropriated Byzantine architecture as their own (that's why the domes and minarets look so similar in Moscow, Constantinople and Mecca); inherited the Greeks' knowledge of the sciences and mathematics - these fields of knowledge were not introduced to the world by Islam, but preserved and in some respects improved upon for the use of future generations - and failed to invent much that can be claimed as entirely their own that is of relevance to daily survival in the modern world.
Christian missionaries, at least, brought disease-fighting medicine and surgical techniques to the Third World, albeit on the back of what was admittedly much White Man's Burden racist prejudice. The Renaissance, the Enlightenment, basically all of the great social and scientific revolutions leading to the betterment of human society over the last 4 centuries - were Judeo-Christian, Euro- and North American-centric, not Islamic, in origin. These revolutions gave all of us residents of the modern world, Christian and non-Christian alike, such basic amenities as quick, motorized public transport and telecommunications, to name just 2 modern-day innovations that owe their existence to the very largely Christian, or at any rate non-Muslim, West. Now - this is going to sound inflammatory - but what has Islam given us modern-day Christians in return? I don't mean to bash, but it's time to stop making unfair comparisons. Christians took the Da Vinci Code reasonably well; it's time Muslims learnt to engage in rational debate and propaganda (as opposed to actual) warfare. It would do the world a whole lot of good.
END
The Pope should not apologize.
The reason is very simple indeed: his remarks have been totally taken out of context and mis-interpreted. And, going by the manner in which the out-of-context misinterpretations have been consistently performed especially in Islamic countries, quite deliberately so.
The Islamists have twisted the Pope's speech for their own ends; they WANT a "clash of (religious) civilizations" to develop; they WANT inter-religious strife and violence on the planet; and they KNOW that they will win in either one of two ways: if they can force an apology for what are essentially unprovocative remarks, they demonstrate their power to force unreasonable concessions from those who do not agree with them, and reduce their enemies' credibility; alternatively, they can hope to increase their standing as defenders of their faith against "aggressive", "unrepentant" infidels, where their more moderate colleagues have kept quiet and refused to respond to "provocation".
Since either way the Pope gains no ground, he should not apologize. He should simply clarify what he said, and repeat that clarification ad infinitum. Violence, subtle persecution, discrimination, and propaganda warfare against Christians in countries with majority Muslim populations is endemic. It has not disappeared and will not disappear until the Second Coming. The Islamists would have used something - anything - else, as an excuse to keep the anti-Christian bigotry burning even if the Pope had never made his speech.
It will not be a coincidence that the Islamists will always try to make comparisons between the spread of Islam by the sword and the spread of Christianity by the sword.
What the Islamists don't want to emphasize is that they picked up the sciences, much of their technology and some of their art from pagans and infidels. Essentially, a backward tribe in the desert conquered and appropriated Byzantine architecture as their own (that's why the domes and minarets look so similar in Moscow, Constantinople and Mecca); inherited the Greeks' knowledge of the sciences and mathematics - these fields of knowledge were not introduced to the world by Islam, but preserved and in some respects improved upon for the use of future generations - and failed to invent much that can be claimed as entirely their own that is of relevance to daily survival in the modern world.
Christian missionaries, at least, brought disease-fighting medicine and surgical techniques to the Third World, albeit on the back of what was admittedly much White Man's Burden racist prejudice. The Renaissance, the Enlightenment, basically all of the great social and scientific revolutions leading to the betterment of human society over the last 4 centuries - were Judeo-Christian, Euro- and North American-centric, not Islamic, in origin. These revolutions gave all of us residents of the modern world, Christian and non-Christian alike, such basic amenities as quick, motorized public transport and telecommunications, to name just 2 modern-day innovations that owe their existence to the very largely Christian, or at any rate non-Muslim, West. Now - this is going to sound inflammatory - but what has Islam given us modern-day Christians in return? I don't mean to bash, but it's time to stop making unfair comparisons. Christians took the Da Vinci Code reasonably well; it's time Muslims learnt to engage in rational debate and propaganda (as opposed to actual) warfare. It would do the world a whole lot of good.
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