Muslim world still seething at pope

You were just in Rome, at the Vatican. Does there seem to be a disconnect with how seriously the pope’s comments are being taken on the streets of Cairo and how seriously the comments are being taken in Rome?
Even I’m surprised at how deeply wounded many people are — including people that would be considered moderate Muslims. They are highly, highly offended by the pope’s remarks.

But the offense is not restricted to the pope’s remarks. There is a big connection between the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the recent war between Israel and Hezbollah, the ongoing conflict between the Palestinians and the Israelis and the current outrage. All of these events together combine to make the Muslim world feel as if it is under attack by the West. And even though the pope certainly didn’t throw any missiles at them, they felt that this was also another attack — albeit a verbal one — from a man who carries a lot of weight in the world.

That's partly because Benedict’s predecessor, John Paul II, was an international celebrity and held a very prominent position on the world stage. This pope, then carries the mantle of John Paul’s incredible popularity and then seems to be involved, if you will, in what many in the Muslim world consider this assault from the West on many different fronts.

I doubt that was Benedict’s intention, but nonetheless it’s being perceived that way in the Islamic world.

So does this all come down to just that — a difference of perception?
There is a huge gulf of understanding. From the Vatican’s perspective, the pope was talking about the need to distance religion from violence — even though perhaps in an undiplomatic way. Yet the response has been more violence, which seems to reaffirm the point the pope was making.

It is similar to the cartoon controversy, in which dozens of people died in the violence that resulted from that dispute. There is a very low tolerance level to perceived outside attacks on Islam.

Unfortunately the war on terror has taken on, at least in the Islamic world, a veneer of being an attack on the Islamic religion and way of life. Many people in the Muslim world feel that they are personally under attack, even if they reject the ideology of fanaticism, jihadism and terrorism.

Add to that the fact that in a lot of Islamic countries, the ability to speak freely on a multitude of subjects is highly restricted. In the West we are very familiar with free speech and have developed over the years an ability to take criticism that may actually be hurtful to us because we understand people’s right to express themselves. 

That doesn’t work in this part of the world because the ability to speak freely often is very, very restricted. So, it is very unusual to hear criticism of governments, political leaders, religious leaders. You don’t see a lot of critical debate in these societies. Subsequently when an offending remark surfaces, you get what appears to us in the West as an overreaction.

We talk about how the world has changed since 9/11 and certainly relations between Islam and Christianity have changed.

John Paul II was engaged in a battle between the West and communism. There is a belief that this pope is engaged in a battle between the West and fundamentalist Islam, and that the peaceful outcome is perhaps no less important than it was during the Cold War.

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