Saturday, April 21, 2012

Crusading Words from Ayaan Hirsi Ali? Hardly

Is this the best you can do, Ms Ali?

"[Ayaan] Hirsi Ali... told an audience of several thousand at the Global Atheist Convention in Melbourne, that it was Christians and conservatives who led the way in defending free speech and rights. 'Why is it that secular liberals in the West fail to help? Are they so insecure about the morals they live by and by which they raise their children?' She said elections following the overthrow of dictators had produced Islamist governments in Tunisia, Egypt and Morocco, with Islamists also gaining power in Libya and Yemen. 'The plight of Christians is dire. They are killed, their churches destroyed, the women are raped. This is also the plight of Muslim minority sects'. She blamed political correctness, white guilt over former colonialism that was actually racist because it did not hold non-whites to the same standards, and a view of Islam as romantically primitive (the noble savage). Ms Hirsi Ali... provocatively suggested it was too much to expect a billion Muslims to become atheists, so they should convert to the much more benign Christianity 'as a halfway house on the path to enlightenment'." (West's liberals fail to help, says Hirsi Ali, Barney Zwartz, The Age, 16/4/12)

Are you for real, Ms Ali? If you think that's going to motivate the troops you're sadly mistaken.

No, if a foaming, full-blown, no-holds-barred  Islamophobic crusade is what you're after, your words need to pack more of a punch, know what I mean? Something along these lines perhaps. After all, they worked a treat in 1095:

"A race absolutely alien to God has invaded the land of Christians, has reduced the people with sword, rapine and flame. These men have destroyed the altars polluted by their foul practices. They have circumcised the Christians, either spreading the blood from the circumcisions on the altars or pouring it into the baptismal fonts. And they cut open the navels of those whom they choose to torment with loathsome death, tear out their most vital organs and tie them to a stake, drag them around and flog them, before killing them as they lie prone on the ground with all their entrails out. What shall I say of the appalling violation of women, of which it is more evil to speak than to keep silent. On whom, therefore, does the task lie of avenging this, of redeeming this situation, if not on you, upon whom above all nations God has bestowed outstanding glory in arms, magnitude of heart, litheness of body and strength to humble anyone who resists you." (Pope Urban II drumming up support for the First Crusade, quoted in The First Crusade: A New History, Thomas Asbridge, 2004,  p1)

1 comment:

Lincoln Perry said...

It sounds to me as though Pope Urban II said it best!