Responsibility
The Archbishop of Canterbury came to Bethlehem where he would “address the issue of Muslim attacks on Mideast Christians and Arab Christian institutions…”
In Bethlehem, you have heard reports of incidents in which Muslims have intimidated, shaken-down, beaten, and even killed Christian Palestinian residents of the city. Some Christians have reported that Muslims issued them death threats if they failed to sign over title to Christian-owned land.
In Iraq, priests have been attacked, some of them murdered.
You are the Archbishop of Canterbury. It is time you spoke out.
In the back of your mind, however, is the Pope’s September speech which, touching on Islam, touched off the murder of a nun in Somalia, and the bombing of churches in the West Bank, Gaza, and Iraq.
Solution: Blame the Christian West. And, while you’re at it, blame the Jews.
And he did… marvelously:
“In an extraordinary attack,” the Times of London summarized the archbishop’s message as stating, “Dr. Williams accuses Tony Blair and the U.S. of endangering the lives and futures of many thousands of Christians in the Middle East, who are regarded by their countrymen as supporters of the ?crusading West.’”
The Times further paraphrased the archbishop as maintaining that “Christians in the Middle East are being put at unprecedented risk by the Government?s ?shortsighted’ and ‘ignorant’ policy in Iraq.”
Bradley Burston responds:
There’s a pattern here, and not just the knee-jerk necessity to pin all blame for the Middle East catastrophe on the Bush-Blair-Israel axis.
There is also the racism of the politically correct. There’s a sense here that Muslims aren’t really responsible for their own actions, any more than they would be if they were mischievous children or animals in the wild.No, it’s us – the West, Tony Blair, George Bush, Israeli Jews – we are responsible. It was our hamhanded arrogance and state terrorism that brought on 9 /11 and the cavalcade of suicide bloodletting that followed. The only role of Muslims was to position the bombs, the box cutters, the Katyushas, the Qassams, the Kalashnikovs. We had already pulled the trigger.
And concludes:
In the end, the Archbishop has taught us all at least one lesson. Muslims must take responsibility for fighting Muslim intolerance toward Christians.
As should be obvious to anyone who read my opinion about the Pope’s speech on Islam and terrorism, I agree whole heartedly with Burston’s column. The Pope was brave enough to speak out against terrorism. He was brave enough to say that terrorism, today, is mostly a Muslim problem. If ‘we’ want to beat terrorism, Muslims around the world have to take responsibility and they have to engage in a fierce internal debate about the ‘true nature’ of Islam. If they believe that the nature, the true essence of Islam, is peaceful, let them publicly reject terrorism, let them publicly condemn those who commit terrorist acts and let them fight terrorism, fundamentalism and hate in their own countries and communities.
opinions powered by SendLove.to
4 Responses to “Responsibility”
Though usually a muslim problem, you don’t have to be Muslim to be a terrorist .
Sorry, I know it’s not quite on the topic, I agree with the sentiment of the post, but today it’s hard for me to get worked up about Islamic terrorism when my own cities airport has just been attacked by terrorists of our own, ending the “cease-fire” (which was really just a strategy to regroup and rearm, and we all knew it).
PS: I HATE that American publications call ETA “separatists” or “militants” and their attacks “part of a bloody campaign for independence”. They are terrorists, they form a terrorist organization that MURDERS people. They put bombs in shopping centers, they once put a bomb in a child’s toy. Calling them separatists lends them a hell of a lot more credibility than those bastards deserve.
OK, I’ve gone way off topic, but I’m kind of shaken up about this. Americans learned on 9/11 the terror and the helplessness that terrorism brings, but Spaniards have dealt with it for 40 years and we are damn sick of it.
Lynx will be posted and I agree completely with your comment. As I said, it’s ‘mostly’ a muslim problem, that doesn’t mean that other ‘groups’ don’t have the same problem.
And I’m sorry to hear this. It is understandable that you’re upset.
Lynx,
Why not give these separatists a chunk of land and then isolate them? Let their followers decide what kind of quality of life they want – independence and poverty or connectivity and prosperity.
Why would anyone want to do business with people who kill those who disagree with them?
Paul, among the many reasons to not do this (chief being that it’s against our Constitution and that the EU would not stand for it) there is the fact that they aren’t asking for a chunk of land, they are asking for an entire province. Oh yeah they want “independence” but still with Spain giving up some cash to “compensate” them for their “suffering” (the Basque country is given more money than any other province and is allowed more autonomy than any other). They also are asking for the province next door, which very energetically rejects the very idea of becoming part of the Basque country. Oh, and they also want a piece of France. I’ll leave to your imagination what the French have to say about that.
The point is that they won’t stop killing unless they get EVERYTHING they want, that is: A large piece of Spain and a piece of France with Spain giving them money, in addition to releasing every single ETA terrorist in jail. Even if we were willing to cowardly hang our heads and give them this (which we aren’t) there is the matter of the millions of Spanish citizens who would fall under their rule unwillingly. We’d have to deal with a massive refugee crisis.
I wish we COULD just put them all on a chunk of land, build a fence and forget about them, but they aren’t so brave and open, they will hide amongst the populace and continue their little fight (which incidentally makes them a ton of money through extortion, or what they call the “revolutionary tax”).