Not content only to burn Christian churches (neither of which follow the Catholic pope), they turned on themselves. Never in the history of Christianity has a pope been proven correct so quickly and demonstrably. :shocked:
Predictably, the greatest beneficiaries of the Western enlightenment blamed reason, the true victim of Muslim rage through the ages. The editors of The New York Times said this morning, to the eternal discredit of that once great paper, that
[t]he world listens carefully to the words of any pope. And it is tragic and dangerous when one sows pain, either deliberately or carelessly. He needs to offer a deep and persuasive apology, demonstrating that words can also heal.
This is obscene. Apart from its factual inaccuracy -- there is no evidence that any of the enraged Muslims "listened carefully" to the words of the pope -- this is like blaming a beaten wife for provoking the bastard who throttles her.
It is the leaders of prayers in the mosques of the Muslim world who call on their faithful to riot in the streets. It is they who sow pain and incite violence, and anybody unburdened by a loathing of Western civilization knows it. Pope Benedict has nothing to apologize for. The leading clerics of the Muslim world have a great deal to apologize for.
Neither the pope nor the Muslim clerics are the only actors here. Tens of thousands of Muslims chose to act in violence or condone violence yesterday. Millions more supported them in this, the evidence being that Muslim politicians jumped on the bandwagon.
These millions of Muslims are hardly candles in the wind, helplessly manipulated by the imams. They chose their religion. They chose their mosque. They chose not to "listen carefully" to the words of the pope. They chose to take to the streets in rage, and they chose to burn and attack and kill perfectly innocent people, all on the say-so of one or another demagogue in a turbin. They are not children, however much the cultural relativists who absolve the rioters and their sympathizers infantalize them. I condemn these people for making bad choices; liberals, such as the editors of the New York Times, refuse to condemn them because they believe that Muslims are incapable of choices. I may deplore the choices of these rioting Muslims, but the New York Times holds them in contempt, regarding them as nothing more than wild animals. Just as we all blame humans who antagonize an animal into a violent response, the New York Times blames Westerners who "sow pain," as if Muslims have the free will of a cornered wolf.
For my part, I am sick of "Muslim rage." Whether inspired by the pope or Danish cartoonists or the clumsy use of the word "crusade" by a Western politician, there is simply no defense for the behavior of these imams and their followers. It is barbaric, and everybody who is not barbaric or an unreconstructed apologist for barbarians knows it. The Muslims who commit arson and mayhem in response to some Westerner speaking his opinion -- and the pope, as leader of the Roman church, is exactly that -- have chosen to act as enemies of reason, peace, and everything that is good in the world.
Now, perhaps this behavior is not inherent in Islam, but in other aspects of the culture in which these violent people live. Ralph Peters blames the milieu of the Middle East, by which I believe he means Arab culture, as opposed to Islamic tradition:
Islamist terror is a deadly threat we have barely begun to address. Yet religion-fueled fanaticism in the Middle East shouldn't surprise us: The tradition pre-dates the Prophet's birth by thousands of years.
Terrorists just have better tools these days.
What should amaze us isn't the terrorists' strength, which has limits, but the comprehensive failure of Middle Eastern civilization. Given all the wealth that's poured into the region, its vast human resources and all of its opportunities for change, the mess the Middle East has made of itself is stunning.
Beyond Israel, the region hasn't produced a single first-rate government, army, economy, university or industry. It hasn't even produced convincing second-raters.
Culturally, the region is utterly noncompetitive. Societies stagnate as populations seethe. To the extent it exists, development benefits the wealthy and powerful. The common people are either ignored or miserably oppressed - and not just the women.
Operation Iraqi Freedom wasn't so much an invasion as a last-minute rescue mission - an attempt to give one major Middle Eastern state a two-minutes-to-midnight chance to develop a humane, democratic government.
It may not work. But we'd better hope it does.
The Middle East's failure on every front enabled the rise of the terrorists - as well as the empowerment of other religious extremists, secular dictators and political parties willing to poison electorates with hatred.
The popular culprit for the mess is Islam. And there can be no doubt that the faith's local degeneration has been catastrophic for the region. By far the most numerous victims of "Islam Gone Wild" have been Middle Eastern Muslims.
But we can't be content with a single explanation for a civilization's failure, as powerful as the answer may appear. Yes, Islamist governments fail miserably. But so do secular Arab, Persian and Pakistani governments (whose leaders belatedly play the Islamic card).
Yes, the culture is Islamic, even in nominally secular states. But we have to ask some very politically incorrect questions that cut even deeper.
Many of the social, governmental and psychological structures at the core of Middle Eastern societies pre-date Islam. Authoritarian government; a slave-like status for women; pervasive corruption; labor viewed as an evil to be avoided; the relegation of learning to narrow castes; economies that rely on trade rather than productivity to generate wealth, even the grandiose rhetoric - all were in place long before Islam appeared.
The repeated failures we've witnessed go far beyond a religion on its sickbed. Instead of Islam being the Middle East's problem, what if Islam's problem is the Middle East?
Were Christianity and Judaism "saved" because they escaped the Middle East? Were these other two great monotheist religions able to master the power of knowledge and human potential because they were driven from their stultifying cultural and geographic origins? Did the Diaspora and the subsequent Muslim destruction of the cradle of Christianity ultimately save these two faiths?
The Middle East is a straitjacket that turns religions mad. We got away.
I'm not sure that I agree with Peters. Islam "got away" too, to the Balkans and Iberia. The Balkans have been a mess since at least the fall of Byzantine empire to the Muslims. The Muslim culture in Spain produced some of the umma's greatest accomplishments, but removal to Spain did not stop Muslims from devouring Averroes, who might have been the Islamic Aquinus. Both men tried to reconcile science and faith. The Christians canonized Aquinus, Iberian Muslims banished Averroes.
Whether Islam or pre-Islamic cultural institutions are the source of the problem, there is no escaping the fact that a huge proportion of the Muslim world is economically, scientifically, culturally and politically incompetent by the standards of the world. It has chosen to invent nothing since the Middle Ages, preferring to stew in the juices of decline than solve its own problems. It is so insecure in its faith that the slightest criticism from a non-believer propels thousands of clerics and millions of followers into paroxysms of rage. Yet Islam needs jihad, which I understand means "struggle." It needs a jihad against illiteracy. It needs a jihad against ignorance. It needs a jihad against sloth. It needs a jihad against corruption. It needs a jihad in support of women, without whom it cannot succeed in the modern world. It needs a jihad against the clerics who have -- allegedly, according to "moderates" -- perverted the truth of its religion. It needs a jihad against its governments -- secular and Islamic -- who have destroyed the future for more than a billion people. It needs a jihad against despair.
Until I see the arsonists and rioters among Muslims embracing these jihads, I will hold them responsible for the bad choices that they make, including the choice to reject secular education, the choice to destroy rather than construct, the choice to dwell in the past instead of dream about the future, the choice to obsess about Jews rather than wonder how they might emulate the Jews, and the choice to have so little confidence in the power of their own religion that they oppress and condemn and kill those who choose otherwise.
I
f Pope Benedict apologizes, I will resent him for the rest of his reign.
UPDATE: Glenn Reynolds rounds up more links on this topic, including to this post. In particular see John Hinderaker's post, in which he reminds us that Muslim extremists have designated this pope's predecessor for assassination. Michelle Malkin also has more this morning. All Things Beautiful examines the controversy from an artist's eye view.
churches, the Protestants can join us! 
