Denmark First, Germany Next

What’s the Muslim protest flavor of the week? This time its Germany and in a race to the bottom, the reason is even stupider than the controversy over Denmark. During his visit home to Germany, the Pope gave a speech that to the uneducated masses of Muslims was controversial. In his opening comments, he noted

The dialogue ranges widely over the structures of faith contained in the Bible and in the Qur’an, and deals especially with the image of God and of man, while necessarily returning repeatedly to the relationship of the three Laws: the Old Testament, the New Testament, and the Qur’an. In this lecture I would like to discuss only one point—itself rather marginal to the dialogue itself—which, in the context of the issue of faith and reason, I found interesting and which can serve as the starting-point for my reflections on this issue.

Thus, what comes next is meant as a mere anecdote and moreover a starting point for a discussion of faith and reason. That Islam is discussed is coincidental at best.

The emperor goes on to explain in detail the reasons why spreading the faith through violence is something unreasonable. Violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul.

God is not pleased by blood, and not acting reasonably is contrary to God’s nature. Faith is born of the soul, not the body. Whoever would lead someone to faith needs the ability to speak well and to reason properly, without violence and threats… To convince a reasonable soul, one does not need a strong arm, or weapons of any kind, or any other means of threatening a person with death….

Despite the obvious, that is that the Pope was quoting an obscure dialogue, in the delivered version, he does note “I quote” to emphasize the words were not his. He merely uses it as a jumping off point and never again mentions Islam in any way, shape or form.

So why are Muslims upset? The Pope very clearly came out against religious violence of all forms and in favor of dialogue. In addition, the Pope went on to criticicized the West for eschewing God and excluding other cultures. So why aren’t Christians bombing churches and protesting?

Are Muslims idiots? Are they all fanatics? No, but their reaction isn’t surprising from societies with low literacy rates, little to no education and oppression of women. However, since we can assume most people aren’t getting their information from the newspaper due to their illiteracy, we can assume that television and local rabble rousers are more likely the main source for the masses. In addition, given the poverty and underdevelopment, we can also safely assume most people aren’t getting their information and following the story via the internet.

This entire story sounds strangely familiar. As I wrote back during the Mohammed cartoon controversy, defunct Muslim governments used the Danish cartoons as a convenient lightning rod to redirect domestic anger and international attention away from themselves. In Syria it was particularly blatant and Stratfor postulated that Iran was fanning the flames to divert attention from its nuclear program. It seems old tricks are the best tricks.

Right on schedule, the usual Hitler comparisons have already been made and Palestinians are setting off bombs. Expect the situation to get worse.