It is wrong for Muslims to see all christians as the “west”. The Orthodox Christian Byzantine empire had come to some form of accomodation with the Arab empires (and was often in conflict with the Catholic “west”). The current Pope was unhappy with George Bush and Tony Blair (and some other politicians in the EU), over their support for Israeli aggression in Lebanon. For a number of British newspapers which had stood right behind the Foreign Office over Lebanon and Afghanistan the controversy over the Pope’s remarks has given them an opportunity. They too have attacked the Pope in a political move to “win” Muslim opinion and thus deflect Islamic anger over NATO’s military operations in Afghanistan

Day 105 24/7 DC VIGIL for DARFUR; Day 35 HUNGER STRIKE (54 days so far this summer, with breaks); ARRESTED Sept 9th at White House with 29 others from Africa Action; http://www.standwithdarfurwhitehouseii.blogspot.com

THE ONLY HOPE FOR DARFUR: WE-THE-WORLD’S-PEOPLE. Duh.

It is said that the mark of truly being “crazy” is expecting different results from doing the same thing over and over and…. Ok, we needed to try some new approaches, hoping we could find a new formula for mass social change (stopping Genocide has NEVER been done); looking for an approach that would be comfortable, convenient, safe, executed from our computer terminal / phone / TV or office in some combination. The variations we’ve tried are: * Blame (Bush, UN, EU…) , * Emails, letters, postcards…,* Letting the Nonprofits do it, * Divestment. And the results are in. WE ARE NOT, STOPPING THE GENOCIDE!

You mean that the answer for Darfur is the same answer we found for…* Ending the Vietnam War, * Gaining Civil Rights in the US, * Gaining Women the right to Vote in the US, * Ending apartheid in South Africa, * Throwing off the British oppression at our start….?

Yup. No one else, nothing else can stop it, can save 4,000,000 in Concentration Camps in Sudan and Chad. The buck stops with WE-THE-WORLD’S-PEOPLE. Let’s stop talking and start - marching, demonstrating, sitting-in, hunger striking….

The next step is September 17th (SaveDarfur.org; DayForDarfur.org). BUT, then we need to be ready on SEPTEMBER 18th, 19th… AS LONG AS IT TAKES, WHATEVER IT TAKES.

Jay McGinley, jymcginley@cs.com

Sorry, Mustapha, but the Pope actually didn’t apologize. He regretted. Here will you find the complete statement:

http://www.lebaneselobby.org/News__index/news%202006/09%2016%2006%20Pope%27s%20statement%20in%20full.html

@anon: Apologise for what? Read the full text of the lecture. And remember Pope Benedict is an academic, not a politician.

The Pope did apologize. Check out this link - http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20060917.wpopee0917/BNStory/International/home

For a number of British newspapers which had stood right behind the Foreign Office over Lebanon and Afghanistan the controversy over the Pope’s remarks has given them an opportunity. They too have attacked the Pope in a political move to “win” Muslim opinion and thus deflect Islamic anger over NATO’s military operations in Afghanistan

That’s not quite true. Most British newspapers, including the left-liberal Guardian, while criticising the pope, think the reaction is overblown and that it’s time to draw a line under the issue before it gets out of control.

The overwhelming reaction here in the UK is as far as I can see, “here we go again.”

Lina’s right, the pope did apologise this morning, and in public. Given that the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt said that it was good enough for them (they rejected yesterday’s apology), and we’re not talking about a group of decadent Western limp wristed liberals here, hopefully that will now be the end of it.

He is ‘deeply sorry’ about the angry reactions, not about himself having quoted the byzantine emperor.

Then he is ‘deeply sorry for the reactions in some countries’ and again not about what he himself did.

Well, if you call that an apology, never mind. Hopefully things will get settled.

An Italian none in her sixties has been shot in her back in Somalia in a hospital for mothers and children. This is enough for me to bear for today.

So I won’t insist.

The pope did not apologize. Actually, if you carefully read what he said you’d notice that there is a lot of criticism of the Muslim reactions in his words. Rightly so.

Who even bothered to read what he actually said? Even if I agree that the quote in question was misplaced in the context of his argument, there still is the main issue he mentioned (belief and reason, not Islam and Christianity!!!). Islam and Muslims must find an answer to this question as the so-called ‘West’ has, at least to some extent. As long as it still is considered to be blasphemous to analyse the Quran in a historical-critical manner I do not see this coming.

Just ask yourselves this question: In India a puppet of the pope immediately was burned by an angry Muslim mob. Reaction of the pope? He clarified his remarks in a personal appeal, especially to the Muslim world. Regardless of what you think about the content, he did it anyway, in a civilized manner.

Go back half a year: Some carricatures of the prophet Mohammad, drawn and published almost half a year earlier, are suddenly in the spotlight. Angry mobs worldwide form up, Western embassies are attacked and burned. I was in Beirut at the time, nice feeling I must say…

Seriously, the carricatures were tasteless, ok, but the violent reactions of the ‘Muslim world’, whatever that includes, makes it hard to search for partners willing to enter into a serious and civilized dialogue.

Back to the puppet being burned in India: can you image what would happen if a puppet of Mohammad would be built and shown on TV, could you imagine the outcry? Can you imagine the reactions if this puppet would then be burned by and angry Christian or whatever mob? Just try and picture this…

The pope has not apologized, nor should he. He merely expressed regrets.

It is unlikely that the first bishope of Christianity bow to a bunch of illiterate goons, but with all the dhimmitude in Vatican these days, nothing surprises me anymore.

All polls show that the west patience with Muslim fanatics is growing short. There will be a lot of pressure on the pope for him NOT to apologize.

Pope Benedict gave a lecture at a university in which he quoted a medieval emperor. He was talking about reason within faith. Did any of the imams, protestors, political leaders or newsmen even read the pope’s words? I doubt it.

Yet, predictably, many in the muslim world are protesting for the media with signs in English that they probably cannot even read. Crowds are burning things. A 70-year old nun was even shot and killed in Somalia. All this over a medieval quote!!!???!!!

I hear over and over about how muslims around the world feel slighted by the West. They feel as if we are out to get them.

For those of you who do not understand Americans, please allow me to offer some insight. We Americans are a very tolerant people. You could worship whomever or however you want, as long as you allow me to do the same. Prior to 9/11, most Americans knew very little about muslims. We certainly had no feelings of anger or hatred toward them.

Muslim religious and political leaders are successfully pushing us toward hostility, however. We do not understand how somebody is willing to kill over a cartoon. We do not understand how muslims can kill each other over differences in religious practice (shia/sunni). We do not understand how the middle east can be do damn violent.

Most Americans are ready to leave Iraq and Afghanistan. We are ready to wash our hands of the whole mess. We are very hesitant to be involved in warfare. We would never even be in Afghanistan or Iraq had 9/11 never happened.

However, should an islamic terrorist ever succeed in launching a major attack in this country using nuclear or chemical weapons, all bets are off. Americans would call for blood. I would not be surprised if Tehran, Damascus, and/or other ancient cities simply disappeared.

For the sake of the same God that Jews, Christians, and Muslims all worship, can we not stop the extremism before it is too late?

That’s not quite true. Most British newspapers, including the left-liberal Guardian, while criticising the pope, think the reaction is overblown and that it’s time to draw a line under the issue before it gets out of control.

The overwhelming reaction here in the UK is as far as I can see, “here we go again.”

– Dirk

If the Guardian is in favour of free speech everywhere in the world and champions exporting democracy, why does it immediately react with editorials like “The fallability of the Pope”?

The Guardian, like every other British daily is behind the Foreign Office on every issue. Take the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974. Israeli invasions of Lebanon in 1982, 2006. Bombing of Yugoslavia. Take Guardian editorials giving maximum backing to Turkey’s EU bid even as it practises torture and blockades Armenia. Take the Indonesian invasion of East Timor in 1975. The Guardian, like the Foreign Office saved its criticism of that invasion till the very end. I stand by what I said. The Guardian will opportunistically try to appease Islamic opinion over the Pope or the invasion of Cyprus, but it will not change its position by a millimetre when it comes to Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon.

You hear

blah blah blah Islam is rife with violence.

You demand an apology

I appologize for inciting such a reaction

What I said was …

I do not believe that Islam is rife with violence.

This is the situation we have here.

Harry wrote:
= It is wrong for Muslims to see all christians as the “west” =

Anonymous (5:29 pm) wrote:
= I hear over and over about how muslims around the world feel slighted by the West =

I would like to emphasize that it is a big mistake to equate “the west” with Christianity. Most people in “the west” hardly believe in anything anymore (at least no formal religion). And the origins of Christianity are in the Middle East, not in “the west”. Soon the focal point of Christianity will have shifted from “the west” to places like Africa and South Korea. Europe is already thoroughly secularized, I don’t know when the US will follow.

It’s a great pity that this confusion of “western world” with “Christianity” causes so many misunderstandings between the middle east and “the west” and between Muslims and Christians.
In my own country for instance perhaps 5% of the population would still call themselves a follower of Jesus. Which means that 95% of the population are not Christians at all. Still in the Middle East most people would view my home country as “Christian”.

Being a Christian myself, I find this confusion very unfortunate.

whats ironic…wait…scratch that…there is nothing that surprises me anumore when it comes to the middle east or the “muslim world” or the arab world or whatever you want to call it. the mohammed cartoons caused a fury. riots, bombs, burnings, etc. iran hosts a gathering to debate the holocaust (which included cartoons) and did you see any large amount(if any) christians or jews protesting??? burning flags of iran or effigies of mohammed??? no. do you know why??? because of the fundemental differences between christianity/ judism and islam. love and hate. the popes point has been proven by the muslims themselves. they thing is, most muslims dont even realize it. do i agree with the crusades, absolutely not. but i agree with most people here in the US i have discussed this with and the over all reaction is: “come on…give it up.”

The question here is not what Pope said, but the reaction. When you react to words by shooting nuns, and notice i said “you”, it makes “me” shudder. Now, sadly, the “you” here is all of Muslims, lumped together not because they want to be identified as one masse, but because they let themselves be lumped together with the medieval goons who cannot tolerate someone critiquing their prophet. Why is it that even in a modern place like Lebanon you don’t have a critical religious studies program, that would analyze Muhammad, Islam, etc., from a critical perspective, just like it is done in countless places around the world for Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, what not. Why do you, Lebanese, and others, Muslims first of all (if not by beliefs then at least by birth), not protest the medieval views that are spewed daily by clerics? You might say “I don’t want to be killed” but if there are many of you, nobody will be able to kill you, especially if it is a grassroots, secular movement, with Muslim roots. A movement that would protest as well as take initiative and declare that it is OK to critisize, ridicule, blasphemy, and do whatever else to Moses, Jesus, Muhammad, and whoever else, and that if someone disagrees then the way to respond to words is with words, and to caricatures with caricatures, not with shooting and killing.
And yet again, moderates are complacent and quiet - and then they’ll complain, bitterly, how they just couldn’t do anything when situations like that escalate (and they will - remember that the more horrific your enemy appears, the more likely it is that there will be radicalization on the other side as well).

Time is running out for the Muslim world to renounce hatred, terror, and violence. You can push the West only so far before they conclude that if Islam cannot be appeased, then it must be confronted.

I am now waiting on the Muslim world and yourself Mustapha to apologize for havoc your coreligionaries have wreaked, including, but not limited to :
The attack on Churches, Catholic and not Catholic, the killing of a nun in Somalia, the burning of effigies of the pope and the insults perpetrated on Christians and Catholics.

The Pope’s comments may have been over-blown out of proportion; but, isn’t that what is being done by the media, the Western ones in particular, about Islam? Always exagerating and distorting facts and reality.

It is sad that in order to prove that Islam is the Religion of Peace, those who were offended chose to murder a nun.

If you in fact are ready to believe that Islam is not ready to be a part of the civilized world over this issue, I am glad you are coming around. But it was obvious a long, long time ago.

barsawed, the media has been under-reporting islamic radicalism, and the fact of how mainstream islamic radicalism really is. When muslism murder in the west, the media tried to conceal the religion/nationality of the killer, and the story goes away in a day.

Check this out, and you can compare it to the media that shelters and protects muslims from totally justifiable criticism http://www.westernresistance.com/

kachumbali:

i agree with what you said. If one reads the actual speech, it really had nothing to do with Islam or Christianity in it’s strictest sense, but rather, faith and reason. These violent protests are not endearing anyone to Islam. In fact, I will be honest right here and now and say that I am fed up with this radical Muslim reaction and it needs to be stopped.

Muslims offended by the statement the Pope used in his lecture, that the islam was built by coercion should remember the famous saying “aslem tislam” (meaning become moslem or die) used by early moslems bearing swords and readying to massacre non muslim population if they don’t cite the “la ilah illa llah”. The reaction to the Pope’s words show that moslems didn’t progress much since then and are still ready to fight words with violence.

On the other hands, “demanding” an apology from the Pope is a cheap attempt to humiliate a sacred clergy, his reaction by acquicing to their demand showed how civilized he is in contradiction to how haineous they are.

I think muslims should look into themselves why the world hates them

A CALL TO A SPECIAL IMAM

IF THERE IS AN IMAM OUT THERE WHO TRULY WANTS TO UNDERSTAND THE BEST WAY TO CRAFT THE FUTURE OF ISLAMIC TEACHING - A NEW MESSAGE FOR A NEW HOPE

HAVE THEM LISTEN CAREFULLY TO THIS PASTON FROM HOUSTON,TX-USA - AND FOLLOW WHAT HE DOES AND SAYS

HE HAS THE BIGGEST CHURCH IN AMERICA WITH MILLIONS OF VIEWERS EACH WEEK

(hint: he never has the crowd chant death death death - rather life life life )

http://www.joelosteen.com

“Many Muslim leaders have fanned the flames of angry mobs by (rightly) condemning the pope’s speech and demanding an apology.”

…while carrying their theocratic flags embelished with swords and AK47 motifs? Sorrry…no apology required.