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Enough Apologies

[Washington Post] Anne Applebaum - Radical clerics from Qatar to Qom have called, variously, for a "day of anger" or for worshipers to "hunt down" the pope and his followers. From Turkey to Malaysia, Muslim politicians have condemned the pope and called his apology "insufficient." And all of this because Benedict XVI, speaking at the University of Regensburg, quoted a Byzantine emperor who, more than 600 years ago, called Islam a faith "spread by the sword." We've been here before, of course. Similar protests were sparked last winter by cartoon portrayals of Muhammad in the Danish press. Clearly, apologies are ineffective and irrelevant: None of the radical clerics accepts Western apologies, and none of their radical followers reads the Western press. Instead, Western politicians, writers, thinkers, and speakers should stop apologizing - and start uniting. We can all unite in our support for freedom of speech and of the press. And we can also unite, loudly, in our condemnation of violent, unprovoked attacks on churches, embassies, and elderly nuns. Nothing the pope has ever said comes even close to matching the vitriol, extremism, and hatred that pour out of the mouths of radical imams and fanatical clerics every day, all across Europe and the Muslim world, almost none of which ever provokes any Western response at all. Maybe it's time that it should: When Saudi Arabia publishes textbooks commanding good Wahhabi Muslims to "hate" Christians, Jews, and non-Wahhabi Muslims, for example, why shouldn't the Vatican, the Southern Baptists, Britain's chief rabbi, and the Council on American-Islamic Relations all condemn them - simultaneously?
2006-09-19 01:00:00
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