09-20-2006, 04:30 PM
<b>Is the Pope a Catholic?</b>
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>But the furore is not about any rarefied points of theology or philosophy. It is a reflection of the wider political culture in which we all live today.</b>
This bizarre ruckus over the words of a medieval monarch has turned into a revealing picture of the modern world. A world in which nobody, not even the leader of a major faith, is allowed to express a strong opinion without risking condemnation and demands for an apology. <b>A world dominated by a victim mentality, in which groups with hyper-sensitive âoutrage antennaeâ are always on the lookout for the chance to claim that they have been offended, insulted or oppressed by the words of others</b>. And a world where <b>striking moral poses takes precedence over serious debate</b>, so that a minor issue of a few cartoons in a Danish newspaper or a paragraph in an obscure Papal address can be blown up into a phoney image war staged for the benefit of the global media.
The reaction of outraged Muslim groups to the <b>Popeâs remarks typifies the contemporary search for offence that can legitimise a victim identity</b>. As has been argued elsewhere on spiked, however, this outlook is a product more of Western multicultural identity politics than of Islam (see The price of multiculturalism, by Michael Fitzpatrick).
Just as the reaction to the Danish cartoons featuring Mohammad began in the West and was broadcast to the Muslim world, so it seems a safe bet that the Popeâs remarks in Germany were first picked up on somebodyâs outrage antenna in Europe (see Those cartoons: a caricatured argument, by Mick Hume). <b>These protests are then exported to the Islamic world, complete with pre-edited script, where they are turned into angry demonstrations for the benefit of the media over here</b>. Note the slogans on those protests in Palestine or Pakistan, mostly written in poor English â not the protestersâ language, nor the Popeâs, but that of the internet and the US/global media.
(Muslim groups are often the most militant expression of the outraged victim identity today, but it is not all one-way traffic. Thus gay and human rights groups in Britain were recently up in arms over remarks made by Iqbal Sacranie of the Muslim Council of Britain, condemning homosexuality as an abomination in the eyes of Allah. This was simply a statement of the conventional Islamic attitude, yet there were immediately calls for an apology and even a prosecution. Leading British Muslims responded with a letter to The Times (London), asserting their religionâs right to freedom of speech. Their one-eyed victim identity prevented them from seeing any contradiction in that, but the irony was not lost on others.)
<b>The row over the Popeâs remarks also highlights another fact of contemporary political culture. These manufactured protests by outraged marginal groups â often, as in this case, relatively small to start with â draw their strength from the uncertain, defensive reaction of those accused of using offensive words</b>. Almost before there had been any protests, the Catholic hierarchy in England had issued a statement distancing itself from the Popeâs speech. Before long the Pope himself was apologising for any offence he had caused. This all seems a long way from the historical notion of papal infallibility. <b>The result, of course, was not only to legitimise the outrage of the protesters, but also to prompt demands for more fulsome apologies. There is no way to appease a self-styled victimâs demands for redress.</b>
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<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>But the furore is not about any rarefied points of theology or philosophy. It is a reflection of the wider political culture in which we all live today.</b>
This bizarre ruckus over the words of a medieval monarch has turned into a revealing picture of the modern world. A world in which nobody, not even the leader of a major faith, is allowed to express a strong opinion without risking condemnation and demands for an apology. <b>A world dominated by a victim mentality, in which groups with hyper-sensitive âoutrage antennaeâ are always on the lookout for the chance to claim that they have been offended, insulted or oppressed by the words of others</b>. And a world where <b>striking moral poses takes precedence over serious debate</b>, so that a minor issue of a few cartoons in a Danish newspaper or a paragraph in an obscure Papal address can be blown up into a phoney image war staged for the benefit of the global media.
The reaction of outraged Muslim groups to the <b>Popeâs remarks typifies the contemporary search for offence that can legitimise a victim identity</b>. As has been argued elsewhere on spiked, however, this outlook is a product more of Western multicultural identity politics than of Islam (see The price of multiculturalism, by Michael Fitzpatrick).
Just as the reaction to the Danish cartoons featuring Mohammad began in the West and was broadcast to the Muslim world, so it seems a safe bet that the Popeâs remarks in Germany were first picked up on somebodyâs outrage antenna in Europe (see Those cartoons: a caricatured argument, by Mick Hume). <b>These protests are then exported to the Islamic world, complete with pre-edited script, where they are turned into angry demonstrations for the benefit of the media over here</b>. Note the slogans on those protests in Palestine or Pakistan, mostly written in poor English â not the protestersâ language, nor the Popeâs, but that of the internet and the US/global media.
(Muslim groups are often the most militant expression of the outraged victim identity today, but it is not all one-way traffic. Thus gay and human rights groups in Britain were recently up in arms over remarks made by Iqbal Sacranie of the Muslim Council of Britain, condemning homosexuality as an abomination in the eyes of Allah. This was simply a statement of the conventional Islamic attitude, yet there were immediately calls for an apology and even a prosecution. Leading British Muslims responded with a letter to The Times (London), asserting their religionâs right to freedom of speech. Their one-eyed victim identity prevented them from seeing any contradiction in that, but the irony was not lost on others.)
<b>The row over the Popeâs remarks also highlights another fact of contemporary political culture. These manufactured protests by outraged marginal groups â often, as in this case, relatively small to start with â draw their strength from the uncertain, defensive reaction of those accused of using offensive words</b>. Almost before there had been any protests, the Catholic hierarchy in England had issued a statement distancing itself from the Popeâs speech. Before long the Pope himself was apologising for any offence he had caused. This all seems a long way from the historical notion of papal infallibility. <b>The result, of course, was not only to legitimise the outrage of the protesters, but also to prompt demands for more fulsome apologies. There is no way to appease a self-styled victimâs demands for redress.</b>
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