Pope Benedict XVI is a theologian, not a politician and puts his theology first regardless of the political context in which we live. In catholic theology the Pope might represent God on earth, but in practise he represents the 1.1 billion catholics world-wide and the catholic hierarchy in front of the world. Hopefully he will now look for sound political assistants to make sure he’s on message. The pontiff might not have meant to insult Islam when he quoted an obscure Christian emperor, but he doesn’t have an unblemished record either. As reported in the Times, the Pope abolished the Council for Inter-Religious Dialogue, subsuming it into another council and dispatching its head, Archbishop Michael Fitzgerald, a high profile arabist, as his emissary to Egypt and the Arab League. As a cardinal, he opposed Turkish membership of the European Union. Earlier on this year, visiting Auschwitz, he blamed Hitler and his squad for using ordinary Germans, he did not even consider the role of the Church in fostering anti-Semitism and seemed to interpret the Holocaust as the attempt by forces of evil to annihilate Christianity, the Jews being only the pawns used to achieve this. Not many people noticed, but this position did not do inter-faith dialogue any good.
The current controversy is born yet again from the pontiff’s theology rather than politics. He might have been quoted out of context, he didn’t quite endorse the emperor’s opinion of Islam, but the speech doesn’t absolve him one bit. In short (in his speech as printed on the Guardian), the Pope affirms that religion and human reason are not at odds, in particular, Christianity incorporates Greek philosophy into biblical faith thus deriving a religion based on rationality. It follows that what is unreasonable, such as violence, goes against God’s nature. He goes on to lament a long process of ‘de-hellenisation’ and later secularisation, whereby religion has been relegated to the realm of the personal, and is not accepted as rational.
The problem, however, stems from what is not said and how he said what he said. With regards to Islam, he quoted a condemnation of Islam by the fourteenth century Christian Emperor Manuel Paleologus II without distancing himself from it. Although he wasn't very explicit, he seemed to imply that Christianity made a separation between law and religion, between state and God, which is not present in either Judaism and Islam. This is something that has been argued amongst some theologians, but it's not free from problem. While it’s true that the concept of political revelation and philosophy is not significant in Christianity as it is in Judaism and Islam, we should not forget that Christianity rested on a Christian Roman Empire, not a secular state. The Pope also appears ignorant of the medieval philosophy he’s referring to and how Christianity synthesised Greek thought. It was through Jewish and Muslim sources, it didn't happen by miracle. In short, had it not been for Averroes and Maimonides, to name just the most famous ones, Christianity wouldn’t have had Tommaso d’Aquino. The Pope also seems to forget that it was Tommaso’s philosophy that led to science and so on, but that’s another story.
The Pope also seemed to equate Islam with Ibn Hazn’s theology. The Byzantine emperor argues that spreading faith through violence is something unreasonable, and that violence is incompatible with the nature of God. However, Benedict seems to say that this is not so for ‘Muslim teaching’ (as in Ibn Hazn), which holds that God is absolutely transcendent and cannot be bound by any of our categories, even that of rationality. This is not Muslim teaching, is an interpretation of one philosopher!
The speech, however, is not only critical of Islam. Although the Pope acknowledges the ‘positive aspects of modernity’, he criticises pretty much everything from the Reformation onwards, Kant in primis. I quite like medieval rationalist theology (of all three main religions) and I believe that religion and ethics have a place in society, do not contradict human reason (evolution included!) and can be a progressive force. The problem is that the Pope didn’t say this, he simply showed ignorance of philosophy in general.
He apologised, only to Muslims though ;) however his effigies have been burnt, mass protests have taken place, and two churches have been fire-bombed in Gaza and a nun was killed. Not bad for a rather unremarkable speech! We can definitely say that the Pope’s speech was sexed up by people who seem to be looking for ways to get Muslims to protest. As in the previous protest against the Danish newspapers’ cartoons, this latest campaign has been carefully organised on the internet to inflame Muslims, and it has taken them some time too. It would be interesting to know who is behind it and from whom they get their money. Nevertheless, the reaction is still disproportionate. It would have been better if leaders of Muslim states who have reacted with outrage had bothered reading the speech and proposed frank and open dialogue with Christians but also in their own communities, instead of pleasing anti-western sentiment and pour gasoline onto the fire. Both sides appear rather fundamentalist, in the sense that they see only their own narrow interpretation of the world and God and affirm their superiority over the other. They are doing a disservice to their heritage.
Ironically, they are both extremely modern and reacting to the deep changes in society that have taken place for quite some time. They are both reacting to a globalised technological world but fail to understand that only by embracing modernity, which includes tolerance, they can survive. Above everything else, violence is certainly not justifiable. Violence only brings more violence.
17 September 2006
16 September 2006
The universal value of life
The media are a funny business and it’s very interesting to see what makes the news, what doesn’t and how different similar events are reported.
Some weeks ago the Italian media had reacted with outrage, and rightly so, to a gruesome honour killing where a young Pakistani woman, Hina Saleem, was killed by her father in northern Italy. The honour killings were portrayed as a threat to the idea of human dignity, a sign of an oppressive culture where women are property and need to follow the rules established by the community’s patriarchate. Similarly, in recent weeks, what appeared to be the abduction of a 12-year old girl by her father to be forced into marriage in Pakistan was widely reported in the UK newspapers and prompted the local MP to step in. The reality was very different, however, it seems the girl wanted in fact to flee from her mother. Media's reactions aside, honour killings and forced marriages are an appalling sign of deep misogyny and lack of humanity. They have also been part of pretty much any culture, and they clearly still are.
The media, baffled by complexities, are now engaged in a battle of civilisations. In order to portray this tension between liberal democracies and religious traditionalism, they dissolve internal cultural contradictions and trends and disregard cross-cultural commonalities. They are fascinated by extremes and have decided that multiculturalism is so last century! In doing so, they trample upon the ‘truth’. The idea that it is religious traditionalism and minority ‘cultures’ that are oppressive, sexist and violent is blatantly ridiculous. Interestingly, similar events and news reporting happened again both in Italy and the UK that show the cross-cultural nature of misogyny.
While Hina Saleem’s father was busy cutting her throat, a divorced man in Italy killed his son. The media portrayed him as someone overwhelmed by grief who had crossed the line into madness. Back in the UK, the incidence of a father stabbing his baby son to death before committing suicide hardly made the news. These are not isolated incidents, but frequent episodes of sheer misogynistic revenge.
Domestic violence still kills a woman every three days in Britain and the numbers are quite similar across the EU. Separations and divorces are the most dangerous times for a woman. Pregnancies are similarly marred with violence. Too many men, by and large, are still reacting violently to their perceived loss of control over a woman’s body. What better recompense than to make her pay with the fruit of her body?
The ‘new man’ obviously hasn’t arrived yet, notwithstanding an increasing (and promising I would add) male interest in fatherhood. In the midst of all this, the ‘feminists’ keep quiet. They don’t dare criticise ‘the other’ not to pass as cultural imperialists, neither do they speak out against male ‘western’ violence so as not to lose credibility, given that feminism is so last century, isn’t it?
The media’s obsession on cultural specificity is not only nonsense but also counterproductive. Misogyny and the oppression of women are nothing to do with culture or religion, although they are certainly much more present, legitimised and, indeed, institutionalised where traditional interpretations of religion and society are present. The ideas of freedom and equality are universal and need to be treated as such. To believe otherwise, is to make freedom and equality relative to a time and a place. We have made a lot of progress with respect to domestic violence and even rape (the courts and the police have changed deeply). We need to learn from our experience and tackled honour-related violence and change attitudes across the board without portraying violence as culture-specific.
It looks like feminism and liberalism could be back in fashion!
Some weeks ago the Italian media had reacted with outrage, and rightly so, to a gruesome honour killing where a young Pakistani woman, Hina Saleem, was killed by her father in northern Italy. The honour killings were portrayed as a threat to the idea of human dignity, a sign of an oppressive culture where women are property and need to follow the rules established by the community’s patriarchate. Similarly, in recent weeks, what appeared to be the abduction of a 12-year old girl by her father to be forced into marriage in Pakistan was widely reported in the UK newspapers and prompted the local MP to step in. The reality was very different, however, it seems the girl wanted in fact to flee from her mother. Media's reactions aside, honour killings and forced marriages are an appalling sign of deep misogyny and lack of humanity. They have also been part of pretty much any culture, and they clearly still are.
The media, baffled by complexities, are now engaged in a battle of civilisations. In order to portray this tension between liberal democracies and religious traditionalism, they dissolve internal cultural contradictions and trends and disregard cross-cultural commonalities. They are fascinated by extremes and have decided that multiculturalism is so last century! In doing so, they trample upon the ‘truth’. The idea that it is religious traditionalism and minority ‘cultures’ that are oppressive, sexist and violent is blatantly ridiculous. Interestingly, similar events and news reporting happened again both in Italy and the UK that show the cross-cultural nature of misogyny.
While Hina Saleem’s father was busy cutting her throat, a divorced man in Italy killed his son. The media portrayed him as someone overwhelmed by grief who had crossed the line into madness. Back in the UK, the incidence of a father stabbing his baby son to death before committing suicide hardly made the news. These are not isolated incidents, but frequent episodes of sheer misogynistic revenge.
Domestic violence still kills a woman every three days in Britain and the numbers are quite similar across the EU. Separations and divorces are the most dangerous times for a woman. Pregnancies are similarly marred with violence. Too many men, by and large, are still reacting violently to their perceived loss of control over a woman’s body. What better recompense than to make her pay with the fruit of her body?
The ‘new man’ obviously hasn’t arrived yet, notwithstanding an increasing (and promising I would add) male interest in fatherhood. In the midst of all this, the ‘feminists’ keep quiet. They don’t dare criticise ‘the other’ not to pass as cultural imperialists, neither do they speak out against male ‘western’ violence so as not to lose credibility, given that feminism is so last century, isn’t it?
The media’s obsession on cultural specificity is not only nonsense but also counterproductive. Misogyny and the oppression of women are nothing to do with culture or religion, although they are certainly much more present, legitimised and, indeed, institutionalised where traditional interpretations of religion and society are present. The ideas of freedom and equality are universal and need to be treated as such. To believe otherwise, is to make freedom and equality relative to a time and a place. We have made a lot of progress with respect to domestic violence and even rape (the courts and the police have changed deeply). We need to learn from our experience and tackled honour-related violence and change attitudes across the board without portraying violence as culture-specific.
It looks like feminism and liberalism could be back in fashion!
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