Thud is right: it’s not fair to compare reactions of well-fed Westerners to those of poverty-stricken Middle Easterners. To boil it down to Islam is overly simplistic.

Yet I could be a lot more sympathetic to the anger of Muslims about Benedict XVI’s statements if it were not so hypocritical. Apparently it is alright for Muslim clerics to call Jews apes and pigs, to say Christianity is a twisted religion, to dismiss the spirituality of Hindism with the blanket term of “idolatry.” Below are a few quotes from sermons delivered in Saudi Arabia between 1997 and 2000, collected in Hatred’s Kindom: How Saudi Arabia Supports the New Global Terrorism:

• Christianity is a “distorted and twisted religion.”
• “The idea of intertwining religions and the claim that the Jews and the Christians believe in religions of truth … are sinful arguments and deceitful ideas unacceptable to the religion of [Islam]. … It is forbidden for man to bring together Islam and blasphemy, monotheism and polytheism … Allah’s straight path of righteousness and the satanic path of heresy.”
• “There is no similarity between Christianity and Islam. Islam is a pure and clean religion believing in the oneness of Allah … whereas Christianity is a deviation from the right path.”
• The Talmud is “the holy book of the Satanish Jews.”
• “The idol-worshiping Hindus indulge in their open hatred against our brothers in Muslim Kashmir.”
• Jews are the “brothers of apes and pigs.”
• “The present behavior of the brothers of pigs and monkeys, their treason, their violation of agreements, the ritual impurity they bring to places of worship … are connected to the deeds of their fathers’ fathers that lived at the beginning of Islam.”

And what’s being taught in the Saudi schools? A few quotes from textbooks:

• “Jews and Christians are the enemies of believers[;] they will never approve of Muslims, beware of them.”
• “Muslims will kill all the Jews.”
• “It’s allowed to demolish, burn, or destroy the bastions of the kufar — and all that constitutes their shield from Muslims — if that was for the sake of victory of the Muslims or the defeat of the kufar.”

More examples are available here.

The pope is being painted as a Crusader who wants to suppress Islam in the West, indeed, in the whole world. Yet what happens to Christians in Saudi Arabia? From the State Department’s “International Religious Freedom” report:

The Government prohibits public non-Muslim religious activities. Non-Muslim worshippers risk arrest, imprisonment, lashing, deportation, and sometimes torture for engaging in overt religious activity that attracts official attention. The Government has stated publicly, including before the U.N. Committee on Human Rights in Geneva, that its policy is to protect the right of non-Muslims to worship privately; however, it does not provide explicit guidelines–such as the number of persons permitted to attend and acceptable locations–for determining what constitutes private worship, which makes distinctions between public and private worship unclear. Such lack of clarity, as well as instances of arbitrary enforcement by the authorities, force most non-Muslims to worship in such a manner as to avoid discovery by the Government or others. Those detained for non-Muslim worship almost always are deported by authorities after sometimes lengthy periods of arrest during investigation. In some cases, they also are sentenced to receive lashes prior to deportation.

The Government does not permit non-Muslim clergy to enter the country for the purpose of conducting religious services, although some come under other auspices and perform religious functions in secret. Such restrictions make it very difficult for most non-Muslims to maintain contact with clergymen and attend services. Catholics and Orthodox Christians, who require a priest on a regular basis to receive the sacraments required by their faith, particularly are affected. (Source)

Of course, now the pope has apologized and all this is a moot point. Probably people in Gaza saying things like this had nothing to do with it:

During one rally gunmen in Gaza city opened fire at the Greek Orthodox church; no injuries or damage were reported. An unknown organization named “The sword of Islam claimed responsibility for the incident.

“We want to make it clear that if the pope does not appear on TV and apologize for his comments, we will blow up all of Gaza’s churches,”� the group said in a statement. (Source)

Nor did his apology have nothing to do with peaceful Western Muslims saying things like “Pope Benedict go to Hell” “Pope Benedict you will pay, the Muja Hadeen are coming your way” “Pope Benedict watch your back.” (Source)

Still, one has to wonder when the Muslim clerics who called Jew monkeys and Christianity a twisted religion will apologize…

I’m certainly not the first to comment on this, but it’s been rattling around in my head for a couple of days.

Action and reaction:

• The pope makes comments that, when taken out of context, can be interpreted as implying that Islam is a violent religion.
• Some Muslims react by shooting a nun and others by fire bombing a church.

I really feel like a wing-nut for saying this, but…

• Why are we not hearing equal outrage in the Muslim world at these violent reactions?
• Why, when Madonna used crucifixion imagery in her latest tour (BBC), did we not get riots and violent protests at the Vatican?
• Why, when Jews are insulted, do we not see violent protests in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem?
• Why can various Muslims (including the leader of Iran) call for the destruction of Israel while we non-Muslims are expected to tip-toe around troubling ideas found in the Muslim world?

Update: Just after posting this, I read in the newest The Week of a Dutch priest who, angered at Madonna’s depiction of the crucifixion, phoned “in a fake bomb threat to a Modonna concert. [...] He was tracked down easily because he called from his home phone.” Google turns up a few stories about it.