Never Enough

The Pope Apologises And Whaddya Know?
The Islam world isn't exactly buying it.

The Mujahedeen Shura Council, an umbrella organisation of Sunni Arab extremist groups that includes al-Qaida in Iraq, issued a statement on a web forum vowing to continue its holy war against the West. The authenticity of the statement could not be independently verified.

The group said Muslims would be victorious and addressed the pope as “the worshipper of the cross” saying “you and the West are doomed as you can see from the defeat in Iraq, Afghanistan, Chechnya and elsewhere... We will break up the cross, spill the liquor and impose head tax, then the only thing acceptable is a conversion (to Islam) or (killed by) the sword.”

Islam forbids drinking alcohol and requires non-Muslims to pay a head tax to safeguard their lives if conquered by Muslims. They are exempt if they convert to Islam.

In Indian-controlled Kashmir, meanwhile, shops, businesses and schools shut down in response to a strike call by the head of a hard-line Muslim separatist leader to denounce Benedict. For the third day running, people burned tires and shouted “Down with the Pope.”

Protests also broke out in Iraq, where angry demonstrators burned an effigy of the pope in Basra, and in Indonesia, where more than 100 people rallied in front of the heavily guarded Vatican Embassy in Jakarta.

Angry reactions also persisted in other corners of the Muslim world, where many demanded more of an apology than Sunday’s statement of regret.

“Muslims have all this while felt oppressed, and the statement by the Pope saying he is sorry about the angry reaction is inadequate to calm the anger,” Malaysian foreign minister Syed Hamid Albar said.

In the Middle East, where Muslims threw firebombs at seven churches in the West Bank and Gaza Strip over the weekend, Christian leaders posted guards outside some churches.

“We are afraid,” said Sonia Kobatazi, a Christian Lebanese, after Mass at the Maronite Christian St George Cathedral in Beirut, Lebanon, where a dozen policemen carrying automatic weapons stood guard.

Catholic bishops who met in Istanbul yesterday decided the Pope’s visit to Turkey in November should go ahead.

George Marovic, spokesman for the Vatican in Turkey, said the trip was expected to be held as planned and the bishops had discussed details of a religious ceremony the pontiff is to lead in Istanbul.

A chorus of voices in Turkey has been calling for Pope Benedict XVI to cancel his visit — his first to a Muslim country as pontiff –—if he does not apologise for his remarks, which have been interpreted as derogatory to Islam.

State minister Mehmet Aydin, who oversees religious affairs in Turkey, said that he expected Turkish authorities to cancel the pope’s visit if Benedict did not offer a full apology.

“We are expecting the authorities to unilaterally cancel this visit. The Pope’s coming to Turkey isn’t going to foment the uniting of civilisations, but a clash of civilisations,” Mr Aydin said.

This is the problem with 'apologies'. EVERYBODY screaming for a apology says, "that's not good enough" when they finally get one. One wonders why anybody should ever apologise, and I mean, ever.
My advice to future generations: If the juggernaut of history runs you over, deal with it. We can't all be Brad Pitt and bang Angelina Jolie AND Jennifer Aniston.

Militants Choose To Behave Militantly
I don't know how else to describe this totally pedestrian response by people with guns and motivation.

Al-Qaeda militants in Iraq have vowed war on "worshippers of the cross" and protesters burned a papal effigy over Pope Benedict's comments on Islam, while Western churchmen and statesmen are trying to calm passions.

Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei joined a chorus of Muslim criticism of the head of the world's 1.1 billion Roman Catholics, calling the pope's remarks "the latest chain of the crusade against Islam started by America's Bush."

In New York, US President George W Bush said the pope was sincere in his apology.

The Pontiff said on Sunday he was deeply sorry that Muslims had been offended by his use of a medieval quotation on Islam and holy war. But he stopped short of retracting a speech seen as portraying Islam as a religion tainted by violence.

While some Muslims were mollified by his explanation for the speech made in Germany last week, others remained furious.

"We tell the worshipper of the cross (the pope) that you and the West will be defeated, as is the case in Iraq, Afghanistan, Chechnya," said a web statement by the Mujahideen Shura Council, an umbrella group led by Iraq's branch of al-Qaeda.

"We shall break the cross and spill the wine," said the statement, posted on Sunday on an internet site often used by al-Qaeda and other militant groups.

In Iraq's southern city of Basra, up to 150 demonstrators chanted slogans and burned a white effigy of the pope.

"No to aggression!," "We gagged the pope!," they chanted in front of the governor's office in the Shi'ite city.

In Egypt, a parliamentary committee called for the expulsion of the Vatican envoy if the pope did not apologise and in Kuwait Muslim clerics said his Sunday address "does not amount to an apology because he said Muslims had misunderstood his speech."

"He must declare frankly he made a mistake and must pledge not to repeat such false accusations against Islam," they said.

Criticisms were also made by Muslims in the United States, China, Indonesia, and by Chechen and Azeri Muslims.

It's amazing (and yet amazingly predictable) how thin-skinned and wronged-upon the Muslim world likes to be. This offense, that comment, this insult, that slight. You would think they were collectively a humourless, unempathic, overly-proud-for-so-little achivement sort of angry, fat guys with beards and guns. They may not be - they might be gaunt for all I care - but that's how they're behaving. :)

It's been hard to find a copy of the actual speech, but here it is.
The offending bit reads like this:

In the seventh conversation ("diálesis" -- controversy) edited by professor Khoury, the emperor touches on the theme of the jihad (holy war). The emperor must have known that sura 2:256 reads: "There is no compulsion in religion." It is one of the suras of the early period, when Mohammed was still powerless and under [threat]. But naturally the emperor also knew the instructions, developed later and recorded in the Koran, concerning holy war.

Without descending to details, such as the difference in treatment accorded to those who have the "Book" and the "infidels," he turns to his interlocutor somewhat brusquely with the central question on the relationship between religion and violence in general, in these words: "Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached."

The emperor goes on to explain in detail the reasons why spreading the faith through violence is something unreasonable. Violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul. "God is not pleased by blood, and not acting reasonably ("syn logo") is contrary to God's nature. Faith is born of the soul, not the body. Whoever would lead someone to faith needs the ability to speak well and to reason properly, without violence and threats.... To convince a reasonable soul, one does not need a strong arm, or weapons of any kind, or any other means of threatening a person with death...."

The decisive statement in this argument against violent conversion is this: Not to act in accordance with reason is contrary to God's nature. The editor, Theodore Khoury, observes: For the emperor, as a Byzantine shaped by Greek philosophy, this statement is self-evident. But for Muslim teaching, God is absolutely transcendent. His will is not bound up with any of our categories, even that of rationality. Here Khoury quotes a work of the noted French Islamist R. Arnaldez, who points out that Ibn Hazn went so far as to state that God is not bound even by his own word, and that nothing would oblige him to reveal the truth to us. Were it God's will, we would even have to practice idolatry.

As far as understanding of God and thus the concrete practice of religion is concerned, we find ourselves faced with a dilemma which nowadays challenges us directly. Is the conviction that acting unreasonably contradicts God's nature merely a Greek idea, or is it always and intrinsically true?

Umm. Surprised? I am.
I am not a Christian, let alone a Catholic but I am having immense difficulty construing a masssive insult to the Muslim world from this section. He's talking about ideas in history and it's explicitly clear they are not his views, let alone views he is holding right now as the Pope.

I'd be curious to know how exactly incriminating this is, theologically speaking, and whether these angry Muslims have actually read the damn thing before they mouth off these threats. My guess is, not at all, and that lowers my estimation of them as men.

As for the Pope, you also sort of wonder if this is the time to mention that adage about offering the other cheek and all that, given that the Holy See is nominally Christian and all that. Showus some of that Christian style.