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September 20, 2006

Former Archbishop of Canterbury Backs Pope And Blasts Violent Islam

"Islam's borders are bloody and so are its innards. The fundamental problem for the West is not Islamic fundamentalism. It is Islam, a different civilisation whose people are convinced of the superiority of their culture and are obsessed with the inferiority of their power." (Lord Carey quoting Samual Huntington)

As pointedly worded by Ed Morrissey at Captain's Quarters, "for those who insist that Pope Benedict XVI delivered an insult to Islam by pointing out the evil of violent conversion in the use of a single quote from a 600-year-old text, Lord Carey will send them into hysterics,." and it indeed will:

[...] THE former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Carey of Clifton has issued his own challenge to "violent" Islam in a lecture in which he defends the Pope's "extraordinarily effective and lucid" speech.

Lord Carey said that Muslims must address "with great urgency" their religion's association with violence. He made it clear that he believed the "clash of civilisations" endangering the world was not between Islamist extremists and the West, but with Islam as a whole.

"We are living in dangerous and potentially cataclysmic times," he said. "There will be no significant material and economic progress [in Muslim communities] until the Muslim mind is allowed to challenge the status quo of Muslim conventions and even their most cherished shibboleths." ...

Lord Carey, who as Archbishop of Canterbury became a pioneer in Christian-Muslim dialogue, himself quoted a contemporary political scientist, Samuel Huntington, who has said the world is witnessing a "clash of civilisations".

Arguing that Huntington's thesis has some "validity", Lord Carey quoted him as saying: "Islam's borders are bloody and so are its innards. The fundamental problem for the West is not Islamic fundamentalism. It is Islam, a different civilisation whose people are convinced of the superiority of their culture and are obsessed with the inferiority of their power."

Lord Carey went on to argue that a "deep-seated Westophobia" has developed in recent years in the Muslim world.

Lord Carey was delivering a lecture titled The Cross and the Crescent: The Clash of Faiths in an Age of Secularism, at Newbold College, Berkshire.

Lord Carey, who has continued to work in interfaith collaboration since his retirement in 2002, said that the relationship between Islamic countries and the West was "the most dangerous, most important and potentially cataclysmic issue of our day. "

..."He described the two civilisations as "polarised and uncomprehending" and said that the Danish cartoons controversy last March showed "two world views colliding in public space with no common point of reference".

As does Lord Carey, I agree with my many Muslim friends who claim that true Islam is not a violent religion, but I also question why Islam today has become so associated with violence and why it is so infiltrated with a "deep-seated Westophobia". It is the Muslim world itself that needs to address these mattes with a very great urgency, and solve its own internal problems, before there will be significant material and economic progress in the Muslim world, or peace and true fellowship between the Muslim and non-Muslim worlds.

Two key points from Lord Carey's comments come to the surface and serve as an important take-home message here:

1. There will be no significant material and economic progress [in Muslim communities] until the Muslim mind is allowed to challenge the status quo of Muslim conventions and even their most cherished shibboleths."

2. The fundamental problem for the West is not Islamic fundamentalism. It is Islam, a different civilisation whose people are convinced of the superiority of their culture and are obsessed with the inferiority of their power."

In my heart of hearts, I do believe that the problems are solvable, and that in a bizzare kind of way, the beginings of solutions are in the making, in spite of all the Muslim violence and intolerance of anything critical of the Muslim world. Muslims need to learn that Islam is not beyond criticism (other faiths have prospered greatly through introspection, self criticism and reform), and Muslims must with great urgency and priority shut down the extremist segments of their faith, and establish a climate within which bridges between the West and Islam can be rebuilt where they have existed before, and established where they were never developed.

Perhaps we can all do a better job of it, this time. For now, however, the next move is Islam's.

Posted by Richard at September 20, 2006 11:51 AM