Re: Archdhimmi of Canterbury
- From: "Ariadne" <ariadne.mac@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: 6 Mar 2006 05:07:15 -0800
Frinkenstein wrote:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,,1723793,00.html
Arson, rape, massacres ... and the strange silence of the archbishop
Nick Cohen
Sunday March 5, 2006
The Observer
Like Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Mao Tse-tung, Pol Pot, Saddam
Hussein and Slobodan Milosevic, the Islamists of Sudan claim
monstrous liars are libelling them. 'You are terrorists,' Abdel
Rahim Mohammed Hussein, the regime's defence minister, screamed at
journalists in Khartoum on Thursday. 'Any foreign correspondent from
any foreign agency, get out - we don't want you in here.' His goons
duly expelled reporters from his press conference for inventing the
incredible lie that Hussein and his friends were responsible for the
murder of around 200,000 in Darfur, the ethnic cleansing of two
million, the arson, the rapes ... well, you know the story.
Or maybe you don't. After all, it has not been in the news recently,
and not only because Hussein is shutting out the journalists.
Fashion matters and today the fashion is to ignore genocide. Quite
rightly, the crimes of American, British, European and Israeli
democracy are dissected and denounced. But an intellectual blockage
- a Chinese wall in the mind - prevents the critics applying
universal principles to far greater outrages.
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, made my point for me
in Sudan last week. Anyone who had heard the Church of England's
censure of Israel might have expected to see a primate filled with
righteous wrath. Consider his opportunities. While he was there, the
genocide was continuing in Darfur. The victims were black Muslims,
but strangely, the Muslim world has not revolted against the
Islamist murderers and torched Sudanese embassies.
In the name of inter-faith solidarity, Dr Williams might have found
the words of reproach they lacked. If he didn't want to talk about
Darfur, there was the decades-long civil war, which has seen the
enslavement of the Christian Dinka tribe in the south and two
million dead, more than in Bosnia, Rwanda and Kosovo combined.
On a visit to a church in Khartoum, the fearless archbishop told the
congregation: 'It will be a joy to share with fellow Christians in
Britain what... I have learnt from you.' What he had learnt was a
history of massacre, slavery and second-class citizenship, but he
didn't mention it.
The next stop was the Sudan Inter-Religious Council in Khartoum.
This might have been the place to lay into the dictatorship's murder
and persecution of Sudanese Christians. Instead, he confined himself
to saying: 'We are at peace with God when we face our failings with
honesty.' And so it went on. He travelled through a country torn by
religious mania and genocide without mentioning religious mania and
genocide.
His office said he was picking his words with the care of a diplomat
because his main concern wasn't the genocide in Darfur in the west
of Sudan but the faint hope of a peace deal in the equally gruesome
civil war between the Muslim north and Christian south, which he
didn't want to jeopardise. In any case, his lecture to his Islamist
hosts on facing 'our failings with honesty' was strong stuff by
inter-faith standards.
It may be tough talk if Anglicans are talking to Catholic bishops,
but I doubt very much if it would have reduced the psychopaths of
Khartoum to trembling penitents. To me, the failure of the
archbishop to speak plainly was not a sign of his diplomacy, but
flowed from his row with the Jews. Before he escaped to Africa, he
couldn't say why he wanted sanctions against Israel but not against
countries that committed far worse crimes - China, Syria, Iran,
North Korea and, indeed, Sudan - or give any indication that he was
morally obliged to provide an answer.
A few of his critics just wanted to protect Israel come what may.
Others were concerned about the retreat from universal principle
into relativism. If you say there must be higher standards for
democracies, you inevitably betray the victims of dictatorships by
blocking your mind from thinking clearly and shouting loudly about
their suffering.
The confusion isn't confined to the General Synod of the Church of
England. The United Nations tried to suppress a report that named
the alleged war criminals of Darfur, in a way that it would never
have suppressed the names of alleged torturers at Guantanamo. On the
blacklist was that friend of freedom, Mr Hussein. While he was
ranting at the journalists, he said that if the UN sent troops to
protect the people of Darfur, al-Qaeda would flood the country.
'Darfur will become the graveyard for the United Nations,' he
promised with what sounded like inside knowledge.
Isn't that an extraordinary threat for a UN member to make? Why
isn't every liberal newspaper and liberal party fulminating? Because
genocide is out of fashion, dear. It may make a retro return in
2008, say, or 2009. Books called We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow
We Will Be Killed will win literary prizes. Lachrymose documentaries
will appear on BBC2, probably narrated by Fergal Keane. The Church
of England will apologise, as it invariably does. They will all cry:
'Never again!' And at that precise moment, it will be happening
again.
--
Great article and title.
Islamism in the the court and the established
church.
Health check on the camp and the universities?
Well, according to my calculations, the robots
won't go berserk for at least 24 hours...
Oh, I forgot to, er, carry the one.
.
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