[A] ruminative disquisition by the Pope on the relation between faith and reason, which needless to say [was taken by] the usual types took the wrong way. So, resentful at having allegedly been slandered as irrational and violent, they reacted by shooting a nun in the back. Her name was Sister Leonella and she had been working in Somalia since 2002. As she lay dying, she whispered, “I forgive, I forgive.”
...[I]f you go to Mass at Westminster Cathedral you have to run the gauntlet of an Islamist demonstration organized by Anjem Choudhary, who called for “capital punishment” for His Holiness: His line is that anyone who says Islam is violent should be beheaded. Quod erat demonstrandum...So his lads chanted “Pope Benedict, you will pay / The mujahedeen are coming your way” and brandished placards proclaiming “JESUS IS THE SLAVE OF ALLAH” and “ISLAM WILL CONQUER ROME.”
Anyone care to join me for a reciprocal demo outside the Grand Mosque in Mecca?
Oh, but we wouldn’t dream of it. Instead, as the New York Times and the BBC did, we wonder whether the Pope was unnecessarily “provocative.”
...
But in this instance the folks wanting to silence others’ songs would seem to be the Muslims — or “radical Muslims,” as we still say, more in hope than conviction, [i.e.,] “This is a one-off situation you describe and so you can’t suddenly leap in to tar every Muslim with the same brush: It wasn’t a response from the Muslim world, it was the reaction of one person.”
Well, yes, time for the usual “of courses”: There are a billion Muslims in the world — or there were a year or two back; now the preferred round number seems to be “There are 1.5 billion Muslims in the world,” which, even given the conversion rates in Europe, seems something of a leap — but, whatever the figure is, very few of them want to shoot nuns in the back. However, that’s not the point, any more than it’s relevant that, as a Canadian reader informed me, you’ve got more chance of being struck by lightning than of being killed by terrorists. No doubt you’ve also got more chance of being killed by the comprehensively updated edition of the tax code falling off your top shelf.
But it’s not about the numbers, it’s about which mode of behavior dominates. It’s not about killing, it’s about broader, more pervasive forms of intimidation...
When you see those Islamogangstas outside Westminster Cathedral in London shouting “Death to the Pope!” they’re behaving, in effect, like the union enforcers in On the Waterfront. To be sure, the union did a lot of good things, and a lot of good men were members, but it was the heavies who made the running. In Islam, the heavies make the running, and they’re demanding what comes very near to a closed shop in public discussion of their faith. So where is our Marlon Brando?
Step forward, Andrew Robb, parliamentary secretary to the Australian minister of immigration. Speaking to 100 A-list Aussie imams the other day, he told them to shove the victim mentality and quit trying to pass off all criticism as “Islamophobia”: “We live in a world of terrorism where evil acts are being regularly perpetrated in the name of your faith,” said Mr. Robb. “And because it is your faith that is being invoked as justification for these evil acts, it is your problem.”
Indeed.
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