Papal
Insults - A Bavarian Provocation
By Tariq Ali
18 September, 2006
Counterpunch
Was
Benedict's most recent provocation accidental or deliberate? The Bavarian
is a razor-sharp reactionary cleric. A man who organises his own succession
to the Papacy with a ruthless purge of potential dissidents and supervises
the selection of Cardinals with great care leaves little to chance.
I think he knew what he was
saying and why.
Choosing a quote from Manuel
II Paleologos, not the most intelligent of the Byzantine rulers, was
somewhat disingenuous, especially on the eve of a visit to Turkey. He
could have found more effective quotes and closer to home. Perhaps it
was his unique tribute to Oriana Fallaci.
Perhaps.
The Muslim world with two
of its countries---Iraq and Afghanistan-- directly occupied by Western
troops does not need to be reminded of the language of the Crusades.
In a neo-liberal world suffering from environmental degradation, poverty,
hunger, repression, a 'planet of slums' (in the graphic phrase of Mike
Davis), the Pope chooses to insult the founder of a rival faith.
The reaction in the Muslim
world was predictable, but depressingly insufficient. Islamic civilization
cannot be reduced to the power of the sword. It was the vital bridge
between the Ancient world and the European Renaissance. It was the Catholic
Church that declared War on Islam in the Iberian Peninsula and Sicily.
Mass expulsions, killings, forced conversions and a vicious Inquisition
to police the cleansed Europe and the reformist Protestant enemy.
The fury against 'heretics'
led to the burning of Cathar villages in Southern France. Jews and Protestants
alike were granted refuge by the Ottoman Empire, a refuge they would
have been denied had Istanbul remained Constantinople. 'Slaves, obey
your human masters.For Christ is the real master you serve' said Paul
(Colossians 3: 22-24) in establishing a collaborationist tradition which
fell on its knees before wealth and power and which reached its apogee
during the Second World War where the leadership of the Church collaborated
with fascism and did not speak up against the judeocide or the butchery
on the Eastern Front. Islam does not need pacifist lessons from this
Church.
Violence was and is not the
prerogative of any single religion as the continuing Israeli occupation
of Palestine demonstrates. During the Cold War the Vatican, with rare
exceptions, supported the imperial wars. Both sides were blessed during
the First and Second World wars; the US Cardinal Spellman was a leading
warrior in the battles to destroy Communism during the Korean and Vietnam
wars. The Vatican later punished the liberation theologists and peasant-priests
in Latin America. Some were excommunicated.
Not all Christians joined
in the crusades old and new. When Pope Urban launched the crusades the
Norman king of Sicily refused to send troops in which Sicilian Muslims
would be compelled to fight against Muslims in the East. His son, Roger
II, refused to back the Second Crusade. In doing so they showed more
courage than the leaders of contemporary Italy, who are only too willing
to join the imperial crusades against the Muslim world.
'To make sure of being right
in all things', said the founder of the Jesuits, Ignatius Loyola, 'we
ought always to hold to the principle that the white I see I should
believe to be black if the hierarchical church were so to rule.'
Today most Catholic prelates
in the West (including the Bavarian in the Vatican) and politicians
of Centre-Left/Right worship the real Pope who lives in the White House
and tells them when black is white.
Amen.
Tariq Ali is
author of the recently released Street Fighting Years (new edition)
and, with David Barsamian, Speaking of Empires & Resistance. He
can be reached at: [email protected]