The Archbishop of Cant
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The Archbishop of Canterbury continues to demonstrate his quite extraordinary moral obtuseness when it comes to the Middle East. Not for the first time, he proclaims a moral equivalence between the perpetrators of terror and their victims. In an article in the Observer yesterday, he wrote this:
It doesn't take much imagination to see how internally divided societies find brief moments of unity when they have successfully identified some other group as the real source of their own insecurity. Look at any major conflict in the world at the moment and the mechanism is clear enough. Repressive and insecure states in the Islamic world demonise a mythical Christian 'West', and culturally confused, sceptical and frightened European and North American societies cling to the picture of a global militant Islam, determined to 'destroy our way of life.' Two fragile and intensely quarrelsome societies in the Holy Land find some security in at least knowing that there is an enemy they can all hate on the other side of the wall.Thus to the leader of the Anglican church, the global jihad is merely a figment of the frightened imagination of a west projecting its own insecurity onto the Islamic world. Yet more stomach-churningly the Israelis are said to
find some securityin knowing there’s an enemy that is unremittingly attempting to murder them. What grotesque thinking.
But it is a Muslim, no less, who has delivered the most stinging rebuke so far to this most confused and dangerous prelate. In an article in the Arab liberal e-journal Elaph, Libyan-European liberal thinker and entrepreneur Muhammad 'Abd Al-Muttalib Al-Houni wrote that the recent statements by the Archbishop on implementing shari'a law in Britain constituted a dangerous encouragement to fundamentalists in their war against the Enlightenment.
Recognizing all, or [even] some, of these laws would take European societies back to the age before the Enlightenment and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. As a result, the West would revert to barbarism. While I maintain that the European countries will never accede to these catastrophic demands - for reasons more practical than humanist - the fact that they were proposed by the British archbishop sends the wrong message to the Islamic world. The gist of this message is that there is no contradiction between Islamic shari'a and Western civilization if [shari'a] applies [only] for Muslim citizens.
What is the Anglican Church trying to achieve, and what interest does it have in such cartoonish proclamations? I believe that it wants achieve the following goals: To absolve itself of responsibility in the eyes of fundamentalist Muslims, who will be persuaded [by the Church's statements] that the clash is not between Christians and their Church [on the one hand] and Muslims [on the other] but a clash between Muslims and secular states. This will create greater hostility among Muslim citizens of European countries to their [host] countries, and will lead to increased violence and terrorism in the future…
These statements [by the Archbishop of Canterbury] also mean that the Church - or at least part of it - still does not believe in human rights legislation, and takes every opportunity to cast doubt on the universality and comprehensiveness of the humanist principles [underlying] it. Lastly, it this means that the mosques that are controlled by extremist Muslims in Europe do not have a monopoly on fundamentalism and on preventing [Muslim] citizens from assimilating into public life. Rather, the Church itself has, through these statements, become a charter member in this dangerous game.
What people like in the west like the Archbishop fail to grasp is that their words can have lethal consequences. A report from Harvard says that anti-war sentiments expressed in the US lead to more violence in Iraq:
Periods of intense news media coverage in the United States of criticism about the war, or of polling about public opinion on the conflict, are followed by a small but quantifiable increases in the number of attacks on civilians and U.S. forces in Iraq, according to a study by Radha Iyengar, a Robert Wood Johnson Scholar in health policy research at Harvard and Jonathan Monten of the Belfer Center at the university's Kennedy School of Government… The increase in attacks is more pronounced in areas of Iraq that have better access to international news media… ‘We find that in periods immediately after a spike in anti-resolve statements, the level of insurgent attacks increases,’ says the study…Words can kill. The west’s anti-war useful idiots have much to answer for.
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Melanie Phillips is a Daily Mail columnist. She also writes for the Jewish Chronicle and is a panellist on BBC Radio Four's Moral Maze. Her most recent book is 'Londonistan', published by Encounter and Gibson Square.
For a complete set of Melanie's articles click here
Melanie Phillips blog archive
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John
March 25th, 2008 1:55amYour obsession with Moslems is extremely unhealthy. At which stage in your life did you develop this aversion and have you sought help? Perhaps it would help if you saw people as humans first and subsumed your need to categorise people by their religion, you'd be a nicer person? As my mother taught me, take people as you find them.
Geoff Miller
March 25th, 2008 9:24amIts not hard to see why this idiot is running the CofE. One glance at the annual synod gatherings show most of the senior figures to be as ridiculous as he. Wet self indulgent Liberals all. If only this man had the insight to look at himself and see what a ridiculous figure he cuts. He is not only embarassing but dangerous. Any propaganda for Islamists kills people. Williams hands it to them in spades. He is perfect example of the intellectual who has no common sense or vision. He should be slung out but despite falling congregations the Church remains weathly and can go on like this for ever - in fact with no-one in the pews they will never be brought to account.
Tammy
March 25th, 2008 10:29amPrecisely.
Al-Qaeda, Iraqi insurgents and their associates act like PR merchants. A whiff of press interest and out goes the instruction for more publicity in the form of death and bloodshed.
We knew this happened in World War II and wouldn't let negativity cloud our objectives of stopping the march of Nazism yet here are the Western media gifting mad Islamists at almost every opportunity.
In Britain, we have the BBC and Channel 4 News who invested so much time in stoking up anti-removal of Saddam sentiment that why would they say anything positive about Iraq?
There was a moment on Radio 4's Today programme last week I saw written up in the 'Ephraim Hardcastle' column in the Mail in which the ghastly James Naughtie was trying to tear into a British military leader over the 'failure' of Iraq and the military man said words to the effect of "Will you acknowledge this failure in the future when BBC pension funds have huge amounts of assets tied up in Iraq companies in that failed state?" Can anyone find a link to an online transcription?
They're just puke.
Tammy
March 25th, 2008 11:35amI wish you'd take Melanie as you found her, John.
If you read the post properly, she endorses the words in statement made by a Muslim who opposes extremism.
How does that amount to 'categorising people by their religion'?
Ravi
March 25th, 2008 11:54amJohn, your question Your obsession with Moslems is extremely unhealthy. At which stage in your life did you develop this aversion and have you sought help?. I'll answer from my own experiences of friends and relatives. If someone who is Jewish and Zionist has an obsession with outing the aims of Islamists, political jihad backed by violent jihad, and who can read the hate for Israel as an Islamic inspired one based on various passages of the Koran and Hadiths then one's mind will be focussed on the threat. It is a natural response that anyone will fear and speak out about what threatens their lives. Mos definitely, death threats against Jews come from Islamists and Islamic Terror. Those under direct threat will speak out. The secondary role of those directly threatened is to make others realise that even though they aren't Jews they are still "infidels" and "Zionists". Isn't 9/11 and 7/7 enough for you? Should we be worried about Buddhists targetting our transport systems or teh daily hate spouted by Buddhists priests against 'non-believers'? Many of the predictions Meloanie made in Londonistan have come true. I know enough about Melanie's writing and comments in cyberspace that Melanie hits a nerve and so people will try and denigrate her efforts. If Melanie had nothing useful to contribute then no-one would bother to complain. Melanie doesn't drive the agenda, she reflects the fears that many people express but fear expressing them. I always get suspicious when people spell it "Moslems". Tends to suggest someone who isn't really into the discussion at all.
Dee Ranged
March 25th, 2008 12:00pmAgain Melanie - First Class.
This troublesome priest is a limped-wristed gargoyle. The sooner he goes the better.
Austin Barry
March 25th, 2008 12:55pmThe Archbishop's perennial difficulty, in addition to writing almost impenetrable English, is his apparent belief that abject weakness and supine surrender to just about everything exemplifies the tolerance and understanding of Christianity. He might instead have commented in robust terms on the beating administered to one of his colleagues last week by members of a rather more muscular faith. No wonder the churches are empty and the views of Hitchens, Dawkins are in vogue.
Time-to-Speak
March 25th, 2008 1:10pmAs an American who became an Israeli, I can assert that the Archbishop has no notion of reality.
1. Israel is NOT a "fragile" society. It is a robust one, full of vitality.
2. Israel is "intensely quarrelsome" to the extent that its citizens take affairs of state seriously, and much given to discussing and debating them -- often over coffee and a snack.
3. The Archbishop imagines that we find "security" in knowing that we are surrounded by homicidal maniacs bent on slaughtering us. This is silly beyond the call of duty.
Andy Gill
March 25th, 2008 1:23pmI think it is the Archbishop that is 'culturally confused' as he puts it.
Max Kaye
March 25th, 2008 1:23pmThe ABC is beyond caricature.
David
March 25th, 2008 2:00pmYes, Melanie.
He's the Archbishop of CAN'T.
Can't see what's going on.
Can't see the impact of his words and attitude.
etc. etc.
Now I invite others to add their Can'ts.
Pip
March 25th, 2008 2:01pmMelanie, have you read the NUT Final Agenda? (interesting reading from MOTION 47 onwards, but more interesting to read MOTION 48)http://www.teachers.org.uk/resources/pdf/3837-Final%20Agenda.pdf
An eye opener, to say the very least. (insert shocked smiley)
Bob Gray
March 25th, 2008 2:07pmRavi,you really must stop this - every time I am moved to take someone to task(in this case 'John') you beat me to it - and more eloquently!
LMR
March 25th, 2008 3:46pmPLEASE QEII Do the world a favor and remove this man. Your duty to preserve the church will not happen if he remains.
John the Second
March 25th, 2008 3:49pm"our obsession with Moslems is extremely unhealthy. At which stage in your life did you develop this aversion and have you sought help?"
For most of us, it was probably on 11 Septemver 2001, but to Melanie's great credit, she was there well before that
Verity
March 25th, 2008 3:55pmJohn quotes his mother: "Take people as you find them". What if you find them with a bomb in their rucksack? What if you find them wearing a suicide vest? What if you find them preaching hate and murder of homosexuals in British mosques? What if you find them forcing little girls to have their clitorises cut off so they'll never feel the urge to be unfaithful to their husband and embarrass him? I have a feeling your mother's rather unsophisticated folk wisdom comes from a different age - and was probably equally inappropriate even then.
John, a very important thing for you to understand is, islam is seen by muslims as the natural state of the world order. They believe that everyone was born islamic, because that is how things are, but some of us left. I don't know how your mother would take this. A very substantial section of them believe it is their god's will to force everyone in the world to "revert" to their natural state - submission to the diety. Islam means "submission" and that means you.
I don't know what life's lesson your mother would derive from this, but I think the rest of us can see the writing on the wall, and it's in Arabic.
Tammy
March 25th, 2008 4:27pmGive them a Sharia inch and they'll take a Caliphate mile:
http://bsimmons.wordpress.com/2007/05/09/a-muslim-friendly-america/
Verity
March 25th, 2008 4:32pmPS - John, at which stage in your life did you develop a passion for applying simplistic platitudes to international events, and have you sought help - given that the world is immensely more complex than you appear to understand?
Perhaps you could add Rodney King's "Can't we all just get along?" to your list of truisms. And for vapid folksy wisdom, what can beat Forrest Gump's "Life is just a box of chocolates"?
J. Isaacs
March 25th, 2008 5:10pmPip - thanks for the NUT Final Agenda pointer. No shocked smiley from me after ploughing through it over a large pot of tea and a cold compress on the forehead. Just weary acknowlegement that, since the fall of the USSR, international socialism in the form of NUT foreign policy has come down to twinning with Palestinian schools. No mention of any other schools worldwide. Also noticed, after a warning against Islamophobia, that Motion 48 was proposed by delegates from Oxford, whose City of Dreaming Spires is soon to wake its poor infidel teachers at 5am to the loudspeaker sound of the Islamic call to prayer from the mosque on the Cowley Road.
JB
March 25th, 2008 5:46pmWell, it seems to me the solution to this problem is obvious: end government funding for the Church of England. It will promptly go bankrupt, Williams will be out of a job and a platform for airing his views. Then former members of the Church of England can select a church, and religious leader, more to their liking, to be funded entirely by the membership. What could be simpler! That's what we do in the U.S. And that is why the former "mainline" churches are no longer "mainline". Members are taking their membership, and their money, to churches more to their liking. Free market religion!
Ravi
March 25th, 2008 5:47pmBob, on the other hand you might have not had so many typos! Thanks. Ravi. (BTW - I'm on response alert from Mossad Central Office and they text me as soon as there is something I need to respond to. Pay's not bad and the holidays are great. LOL!)
Ian
March 25th, 2008 6:12pmJB, It's a myth that the CofE has government funding. It has investments and its members contributions. The CofE is not funded through taxes in any way other than the tax relief available to all charities. News Flash! This is no longer 1776. We are in 2008.
The problem is that the politicians (to wit the PM and a committee) advise the Queen on the choice of the ABC. Rowan Williams is the appointee of your beloved Blair.
JB
March 25th, 2008 7:36pmIan, Thank you for setting me straight about funding for the Church of England. Well, then perhaps the Queen should exercise her rights as head of the Church and hire and fire as she sees fit. Does she have to follow the advice of the prime minister? BTW, he is not my beloved Blair any more than he is yours.
BJ
March 25th, 2008 10:34pmI'm beginning to feel rather sorry for the Archbishop. I disagreed with his suggestions on Sharia law but would defend his right to raise controversial issues in a gentle thought provoking if over verbose way witout being subjected to hysterical abuse. It is worth taking the trouble to read what he actually said in his Observer article rather than the Melanie Phillips version. For example, she suggests he argued "the global jihad is merely a figment of the imagination" when he actually says "It's not that the fears involved are unreal. Global terrorism is a threat".
He also says "Israel and Palestine really do menace each other's existence" (a gross overestimate of the Palestinian military capability in my view).
But nevertheless the Archbishop is obviously right that seeing conflicts such as Israel/Palestine as "a zero sum game" makes real negotiations to resolve the conflict impossible.
lynne
March 26th, 2008 4:15pmI am not nearly as eloquent as Ms. Phillips. However, I've said it before and I'll say it again---in my opinion, the Archbishop is, at best, a "useful idiot." And yes, I am an embarrassed Anglican!
Hereford
March 27th, 2008 10:56amHaving followed Pip's link, what I want to know is who do I write to to protest this politicisation of our education system. If teachers concentrated half as much on educating our children in how to make their way in the world as they do on political posturing, we would not have the horrendous problems of illiteracy and inumeracy in our society. I just want to shout at them and make them stand in a corner... ...arrggggh! TEACHERS!!!
Bob Gray
March 27th, 2008 8:19pmHereford: being equally incensed by the NUT directing teachers to actively promote the Palestinian 'cause', I lost my presence of mind and banged off an email to a BBC blog expressing my disgust at this not making any news programmes. Silly old me! I actually thought it might get past their moderator...