Taliban Reacts to Pope's comments

The Taliban expressed their outrage at the Pope's allegations that Islam is a faith spread by the sword which blesses the arm that swings it. The furious reception to his comments referencing a 14th century emperor is not limited to the extremist opportunists waging war with the coalition in the south, east, and west of Afghanistan. Moderate mullahs of Kabul voiced their displeasure, urging calm, rather than effigy burning mobs seen in India, for fear that civil disturbance could be hijacked by the violent. The Muslim Council of Great Britain, issued soft tones of venom.

A broad swathe of Muslim leaders are angry at the Pope's comments and elements of the Muslim world are agitating further against the west, using his words to paint a picture of a decadent and contaminating belief system bent on conquering Islam.

There should have been big Cologne Cathedral size bells going off as he wrote the passage about Islam. Big bells.

Whether he choose to speed past those bells in the popemobile, or come to a sudden stop, his holy nose squashed against the bullet proof glass, to measure his words more carefully depends on whether he sees free speech as the right to manifest the direct thought to word process that is the simple manifestation of mind, or whether he sees free speech as a framework which can be efficiently used as a tool in the overall process of achieving one's aims.

In the first case he was right, if slightly deaf, to ignore the bells. Freedom of speech is just that. From a childs first gurgle to the wind winding out a dying mans throat, every utterance is protected whether it has been carefully considered or not. The drunken blurt, the angry yell, the faux pas, all deserve protection and God forbid anybody should stand in their way. No Muslim anywhere on the spectrum has the right to expect the Pope to keep his pontificating trap shut. The killing, angry protests and condemnation that meet every unsanctioned depiction of anything Muslim are simple blackmail, the tools of ideologues determined on strict control over perceptions of their beliefs.

Admittedly even in the west curbs freedom of speech. Damaging lies, dangerous truths, and incitements to violence, are all on occasion accepted as reasons for the denial of this right. And, if this addition to the rule on freedom of speech is to be taken into account, perhaps even in this goo-goo gaa-gaa sense the pope was wrong to speak out as he did. He incited violence. This wasn't the "Paki's out" incitement as we've come to expect from the BNP, not the deliberate provocation against a group of people by a member of the aggressing group. Instead it was an unintended provocation by a victim.

On the other hand, had the Pope kept his all seeing eye on the big picture which is, unless he is as sinister as he looks, to promote peace, those bells should have brought his little donkey to a screeching halt on a dusty road.

There is a war on in Afghanistan, the peaceful outcome of which depends on Afghans having faith that the coalition forces are helpers, not invaders or occupiers determined on corrupting and conquering. It is true, thank God, that the Pope's words do not represent the beliefs of everyone in the west, and it may be true that on a careful reading he had laid enough caveats to avoid strictly calling Islam an evil bellicose religion but the fact is that any token is taken as representative when the message fits.

If you are angering even the educated conciliatory European moderates, you have provided a training regime of must-read literature to the indoctrinators.

It is a difficult balance. If Islam is to be given the same place as other faiths or beliefs, it should put itself up to the same scrutiny that other faiths do.

The text of the original comments which were made as part of a theological discussion of how reason accords with faith. The angering quotation is "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". Even in context he is attributing violence to Islam as he suggests that while to Christians it is unreasonable to convert by the sword, Islam does not require reason or rationality. " God is absolutely transcendent. His will is not bound up with any of our categories, even that of rationality."



The question of just how wrapped up with violence Islam is, I leave for another, better educated day.