Enough Already

Anne Applebaum takes a look at the reactions to the speech Pope Benedict XVI made in Germany. She's fed up with the apologies. More important, she's fed up with the silence.

Unfortunately, these subtle distinctions are lost on the fanatics who torch embassies and churches. And they may also be preventing all of us from finding a useful response to the waves of anti-Western anger and violence that periodically engulf parts of the Muslim world. Clearly, a handful of apologies and some random public debate — should the pope have said X, should the Danish prime minister have done Y — are ineffective and irrelevant: None of the radical clerics accepts Western apologies, and none of their radical followers reads the Western press. Instead, Western politicians, writers, thinkers and speakers should stop apologizing — and start uniting.

By this, I don't mean that we all need to rush to defend or to analyze this particular sermon; I leave that to experts on Byzantine theology. But we can all unite in our support for freedom of speech — surely the pope is allowed to quote from medieval texts — and of the press. And we can also unite, loudly, in our condemnation of violent, unprovoked attacks on churches, embassies and elderly nuns. By "we" I mean here the White House, the Vatican, the German Greens, the French Foreign Ministry, NATO, Greenpeace, Le Monde and Fox News — Western institutions of the left, the right and everything in between. True, these principles sound pretty elementary — "we're pro-free speech and anti-gratuitous violence" — but in the days since the pope's sermon, I don't feel that I've heard them defended in anything like a unanimous chorus. A lot more time has been spent analyzing what the pontiff meant to say, or should have said, or might have said if he had been given better advice.

All of which is simply beside the point, since nothing the pope has ever said comes even close to matching the vitriol, extremism and hatred that pour out of the mouths of radical imams and fanatical clerics every day, all across Europe and the Muslim world, almost none of which ever provokes any Western response at all. And maybe it's time that it should: When Saudi Arabia publishes textbooks commanding good Wahhabi Muslims to "hate" Christians, Jews and non-Wahhabi Muslims, for example, why shouldn't the Vatican, the Southern Baptists, Britain's chief rabbi and the Council on American-Islamic Relations all condemn them — simultaneously?

Read the whole thing. She's spot on here. Nothing the Pope said has remotely approached the level of hate that is spewed daily from the Islamist "clerics". The West needs to stop apologizing to thuggish people like this. We really do need to stand united against this behavior and denounce it. The West must not only refuse to apologize for these supposed insults, but must demand the same standards of behavior from the Muslim world as we expect civilized nations to hold to. Giving them a pass on meeting those expectations is cultural chauvinism masquerading as tolerance.

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  By Fed up Mommy, Tuesday, 19 September , 2006 @ 9:40 am

  I agree with Anne Applebaum in the quote in the blog above. These Islamist clerics have free reign in the media and have no consequences for their actions! How would the Muslim community feel and react if the Catholics or Christians or Jews in Israel burned their Mosques, destroyed their places of worship as retaliation for a single comment made about Jesus or any other prophet from the old testament?

  These people are evil, vile, hate mongers who think that they are the only people who deserve to be on earth, not unlike Hitler did in pre-World War II Germany. The collective Allies rose to defeat Hitler and the Third Reich, why can’t the modern world Allies rise to the occasion and stick together so that they can defeat, or even just condemn, the actions and comments of these Islamic Fundamentalists? BECAUSE THEY ARE SCARED. That is why the Pope was so quick to apologize. This is what the Islamic leaders want, and now it is placed in their lap.

  Pope Benedict may have wanted to make a point, and the comment was historically based, but these “clerics” and Fundamentalists are so self important any opposition could “justify” action by them in their eyes. This is not what a God fearing, good hearted, leader of millions wants to happen. So, he tries to make the situation better by apologizing. Yes, once is enough though. Now let it go and get on with other affairs and other topics to show that there is more important stuff in the world to concentrate on than these fools. These people thrive on the attention they get in the media, if the news agencies keep rehashing the incident they are giving them the attention they want. STOP IT NOW!!

  I have never blogged before, but feel so strongly about this that I had to have my say somewhere.

  I fear for my future, fear for my children’s future and fear for these people’s souls. When judgement day comes around, Hell is going to need an Extreme Makeover to accomodate all these hate mongering evil doers.

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  By Gaius, Tuesday, 19 September , 2006 @ 10:02 am

  Well, thanks for commenting. Be careful, though. That’s how I got started blogging. One little comment…..

Other Links to this Post

1. bRight & Early » First Cup 09.19.06 — Tuesday, 19 September , 2006 @ 7:41 am