( If you get a chance, read Charles Krauthammer's excellent piece in today's Washington Post. He writes: "And the intimidation succeeds: politicians bowing and scraping to the mob over the cartoons; Saturday's craven New York Times editorial telling the pope to apologize; the plague of self-censorship about anything remotely controversial about Islam -- this in a culture in which a half-naked pop star blithely stages a mock crucifixion as the highlight of her latest concert tour. In today's world, religious sensitivity is a one-way street. The rules of the road are enforced by Islamic mobs and abjectly followed by Western media, politicians and religious leaders." John Howard isn't one of those followers.) Posted on September 21, 2006: As I have noted many times, Australian Prime Minister John Howard is a rock-solid U.S. ally and a strong world leader in the War on Terror. He hasn't taken the David Cameron path of backpedaling on the decision to remove Saddam from power or that of Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero who ran away from Iraq. And Howard hasn't shied away from speaking out on the Pope's recent comments and the ensuing intimation campaign, which, as the Wall Street Journal put it, is "trying to proscribe how free societies discuss one of the world's major religions." An avid Standard reader from Australia sends along this interesting interview Howard gave on Australian TV on Tuesday. Some highlights:
TONY JONES: Now, PM, let's move on to other issues: As you'd be well aware, the Pope has provoked anger in the Muslim world after quoting a 14th century emperor who accused the Prophet Mohammed of inspiring evil and inhuman human ideas and spreading his word by the sword. Now Australia's leading Catholic has called, again, for an examination of whether the Koran, and what the Koran, in fact, has written about violence. JOHN HOWARD: Yes. TONY JONES: Do you think Cardinal Pell has a point in focusing on what the Koran has written about violence? JOHN HOWARD: Well I think the cardinal has a point in making the point that it's a strange form of restraint to respond to words you disagree with, with demonstrations and threats of violence. The Islamic community is perfectly entitled to criticise the Pope and the Pope is perfectly entitled, and other religious leaders are perfectly entitled, to express their views about other religions. But we're all meant to believe in peace and we're all meant to adhere to peaceful religions and I just think it's very strange and disappointing that whenever the Pope says something that people, or on this particular occasion, let's stick to this, he has said something that people don't agree with and that provokes demonstrations. Now, we are all meant to be bound by a belief in free speech and free expression, and my, I suppose, exasperation would be that of many of the people in Australia, that, okay, they may not like what His Holiness said and whether he should have said it or not is, in a sense, beside the point, but we are meant to believe in free speech and we are meant to not overreact. I think it's very important with these things that people don't overreact. I'm sure the great bulk of Catholics around the world want good relations with Islam, and the Catholic Church, itself, cops a fair amount of abuse on a daily basis. If Catholics rioted every time people attacked the Catholic Church, you'd have riots on a very regular basis.
How refreshing.