“We are very tol(l)erant, but….”
Many Maltese ask: why can't Malta be more like Saudi Arabia?
It appears that a few men praying at Ghar id-Dud in Sliema are a major problem, hence the presence of two police officers there to ensure they are not attacked, insulted or otherwise harassed.
It’s not the public prayer that offends, because hundreds of Catholics shouting, clapping, singing, fainting and kicking up as much irritating noise as possible are just fine. But 15 Muslims chanting briefly across the road from the Preluna Hotel constitute an offence against civilised society. Try explaining to those who think like this that a hallmark of civilised society is its ability to live and let live.
How and in what way is the sight of a Muslim praying in public offensive to a Catholic? I have tried to work out the source of the offence by ploughing through the vast number of antagonistic comments from antagonised people, beneath the latest report on an on-line newspaper. Last Friday, the men whose mosque-in-a-flat was closed down prayed again near the site of the old Chalet, and to hear people speak you would think they had declared war on Christians.
The flat where they prayed for the last couple of decades was sealed by the authorities after the neighbours complained. “It was really disturbing having the place used by 30 men every Friday to pray,” said one. I can understand that 20 to 30 men converging on a flat might be disturbing if they were carrying machine-guns or knives, or were heavily drugged or drunk, but the suggestion that they were disturbing because they are Muslim is quite ludicrous. Exactly what kind of backwater Billy do you have to be to think like that?
My parents live round the corner from that mosque-flat. Across the street from their house was another flat – used as a meeting-place by a Catholic prayer group. Every evening, the Christians would converge on it, clapping, singing loud hymns, chanting, confessing in that showy way, and praising the Lord in voices designed to ensure that he hears them all the way up in heaven. Because they didn’t stretch to an air-conditioner, on summer evenings they would throw the windows open. The noise was so bad that my parents would have to go out on very long walks, returning only when the Christians had gone to bed.
“Why don’t you report the annoying bastards to the police,” I asked my mother, when she said how fed-up she was of all the singing and praising. “Oh, live and let live,” she said, “and it’s even mildly entertaining in a way.” Exactly – though I must say that the neighbours who complained about the Muslims should thank their lucky stars they didn’t get the Christians.
The comments beneath the news report are interesting because they reveal how people (don’t) think. The main gist of many of them is that Muslims have a ruddy cheek, expecting to be allowed to pray in public in Catholic Malta when if a group of Catholic Maltese tried to do the same thing in ‘their’ country (as though there is a country called Islam) something would happen. This something is unspecified, but it is intimated that it would not be pleasant.
“What would happen in a group of Catholics had to celebrate mass in downtown Riyadh on a Sunday?????????????” Martin Borg asked rhetorically. Let’s leave aside the very great probability that none of the men praying at Ghar id-Dud are Saudis, and that some of them are actually Maltese. The most significant difference between Malta and Saudi Arabia is not that Malta is ‘Catholic’ while Saudi Arabia is an Islamic state. It is that Malta is a democracy but Saudi Arabia is not. There is religious freedom in Malta not because Catholics are tolerant, but because the Maltese state is democratic and because it has bound itself over to respect human rights, however much the citizens of this state may agitate against the fact and call for the police when they see a Muslim at prayer.
A man called Trevor Lorenzo Mizzi decided to draw on history: “The sight of the mighty bastions of Valletta and Floriana tells me all I need to know concerning this issue.” We fought them on the beaches, we fought them on the bastions, and now we’ll be fighting them near Tanti Palmier’s kiosk.
R. Camilleri needed some kalmanti: “WHERE ARE THE BOYS IN BLUE!!!!!!!!THE SLIEMA POLICE STATION IS NOT SO FAR OFF.” He hadn’t noticed that the boys in blue were guarding the Muslims’ backs against people like him. H. J. Zammit needed a stiff drink: “When are they going to demand the use of St. John’s Con-Cathedral? When that day comes, and it will come, then and only then will we realise what we gave away. The writing is on the wall.”
They recognise that the situation in Riyadh is unacceptable, but in the same sentence they call for Malta to be like Riyadh. They regard Riyadh with contempt for not allowing Catholics to pray in public squares, but then they insist that Muslims should not be allowed to pray in public squares in Malta. And they don’t even realise they are contradicting themselves and undermining their own argument.
Here is someone called Joe Galea: “If we go in a muslim country and start praying in the street, most probably we would be tortured and killed. Why these muslims are left to do such a thing in public. They have the mosque and should go there. This is a Christian country and its ours not theirs.” Sorry, sir, but some of those Muslims are Maltese. And it is as much their country as it is yours.
One man wrote of “a belligerent cultural invasion that operates under the guise of prayer” and which will “oust the host culture”. Who are these people, and are they standing next to me in the queue at the butcher’s? This same man responded, to somebody who remarked that she would rather see Muslims peacefully praying than half-naked Catholic teenagers rolling around in the Paceville gutter, that “half naked youth roaming the street are indeed disgusting anywhere, but they do not threaten the country’s security. If nothing else because most would be accountable to decent parents so their anarchic ways are somewhat restricted.”
There are the inevitable Little Englander racists, who despite a lifetime of looking down on the Maltese as goats, want to keep Malta free of people who are Muslim and sometimes (but not always) darker than the Maltese, so that when they choose to pop over for a cheap holiday and spend next to nothing, they can get a break from the Muslims, Pakis, darkies and wogs back home. Take this, for instance, posted by somebody who can’t even punctuate his own language: “wake up malta and look at the mess england is in with muslims malta will be a carbon copy of england unless you sort the muslims out now do not make the mistakes we have made.”
Others asked why the men don’t just go to the Corradino mosque instead of fussing because they were thrown out of their Sliema flat. Let’s see now – could it be because they’re based in Sliema and don’t have the time or even the means of transport to fight their way for 40 minutes through the traffic there and another 40 minutes back? That kind of suggestion is pretty stupid coming from people who insist on building umpteen churches in every neighbourhood, so that people don’t have to get into their cars to go to mass.
A man called John Inguanez has a solution: using the bus. “We have religious freedom, and that’s why they have a Mosque,” he wrote. “So public trasport is cheap and they can go to Corradino. There so called mosque in Chalet had no permit for a mosque. They must abide by our laws. In time, they will administer the sharia in public.”
The suggestion of building a mosque in Sliema drew a horrified reaction: “One is more than enough! If we are to building plenty of mosques around the island we’re basically welcoming more of the….who knows….at this rate maybe one day we’ll be considered a muslim country!” Oh, God forbid that should happen again. Been there, done that, changed our names and our religion and then a few hundred years later and it’s back to square one.
One Franco Farrugia, who constantly bangs on about the rights of dogs and cats but who appears to draw the line at the rights of people when they are Muslim, wrote: “I hate to say this, but this is provocation. Isn’t there a law that states that there cannot be a congregation of more than three to four people or something to that effect?” Oh, yes, right. That’s why you only see people moving around in couples and threesomes on the streets, lest they be arrested.
A man called Peter Critien took issue with a woman who remarked that Muslims have exactly the same rights as Catholics and can pray in public if they want to: “Mary Borg, if you’re fine with it go live in Pakistan or some place similair where there are no laws. Democracy is about being free but not about doing whatever one decides to do. This issue with these people praying is just another problem the authorities must deal with. I cant understand one simple thing, do we ever hear of issues with Roman Catholics causing an issue with their prayers in a muslim country or a Buddhist in a country where any other religion is the main religion?????? NO WE DONT and I’LL TELL YOU WHY BECAUSE WE ARE TO TOLERANT AND WE DON’T TRY AND IMPOSE OUR RELIGION ONTO THEM. They should thank their lucky stars they have ONE mosque and either go there to pray or get out of Malta.”
Somebody else is bringing out the sandbags and stockpiling tins of food already: “Stamp out the fire BEFORE IT SPREADS! Let nobody make a mockery of our traditions and beliefs. Are the authorities AFRAID to act? Christian churches in muslim countries are prohibited, so why must we tolerate muslim practices in OUR country?” Because we are a democratic state that respects human rights, sir. Think about it. But instead of thinking about it, he wants to call in the archbishop: “What is the position of the Maltese diocese with regards to these developments?”
Mario Gellel is incensed that the police are not arresting people for having the temerity to bring out their mats at Ghar id-Dud. “The police should take action at once against these people. They are making a mock of us. They know very well that if they want to exercise their religion they can go to Paola moskea. At the end of the story, none of them are Maltese. If they don’t like it they are free to go.”
Another one wants a return of the wars between Christian and Muslim forces. “So this is turning into the Maltese saying ‘Mis-sebgha jiehdu l-id’. I just hope our Church leaders intervene on this matter,” wrote Joseph Seisun, who with a surname like that cannot possibly have North African Muslim ancestors. Somebody else pressed the Caps Lock key: “This is UNACCEPTABLE!!!!!!!!! WHERE ARE THE AUTHORITIES? WHERE IS THE GOVERNMENT?!!!!!!!! WHERE ARE THE POLICE?”
One of my sons has just looked over my shoulder. “I can’t wait to leave Malta,” he said, “and get away from these people.” He meant the bigots, not the Muslims, nor the blacks.
This article is published in The Malta Independent on Sunday today.
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I was absolutely delighted to see the Muslims praying on the seafront, and the reaction they provoked. Finally, those hypocritical Catholics are getting a taste of their own medicine. Now they know how offensive it feels to have someone else’s religion rubbed in your face. And these Christians have the nerve to call us atheists intolerant. Look who’s intolerant now. Ban all public manifestations of religion, I say. The place for religion, like sex, is behind closed doors, and not in public. Stop the chants, the bangs in the sky and the processions blocking our roads; let us rest in the afternoons after a hard night-shift, and let our babies and dogs play in the garden in the summer without cowering in fear every time a firework rocks the sky. Live and let live..
One of your finest articles yet !
The mark of a civilised society is how it treats its minority groups, including religious and racial.
Malta is not a Catholic country. It is a country with a Catholic majority. There is separation of church and state, as there must be in any democracy, and freedom of religious expression is enshrined in the constitution.
But Daphne, after watching the video do you really believe they went to Ghar id-Dud to pray? I think these foreigners are protesting, or want to make a statement.
[Daphne – At least two of them are Maltese. And yes, they are praying there as a form of protest. I think that’s a good thing. I wouldn’t like to live in the sort of country where people are too afraid to do that sort of thing.]
They want to change the use of their flat to a place of worship. If I had a gathering of the Charismatic movement, Buddhists, Hindus, Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses or Muslims in my block of flats I would have objected, live and let me live in peace.
Ghar Id-Dud is not a place of worship. It’s a place to take out your dog or for a stroll. If they really wanted to pray they would have done that in a quiet area. On Fridays, Muslim men gather for prayers in a mosque.
[Daphne – Ghar id-Dud is a public place. You can do anything there except disturb the peace, run around naked, defecate or have sex, or sell things without a licence. Apart from that, it’s the equivalent of a park. You can stand on a soap-box and give a speech. You can play a musical instrument, you can pray, you can sit around in a large group and chat. Do you want to live in the sort of country where a group of people praying in public are rounded up or dispersed by the police? Think about the implications.]
During the week, while at work, they either go to the prayer-room , or find a quiet place.
These Ghar id-Dud prayers do not exactly fit the picture: Ghar id-Dud is not a quiet area. During the week we never see Muslims praying.
To be precise, years ago, a very devout Muslim young man was found dead with his throat slashed at Tigne Point where he used to go to pray at sunrise. Main suspects were his Libyan compatriots.
I don’t want to be personal but I couldn’t help imagining Mr & Mrs Vella going out for a “passigata sax-Xale’ (chalet) ” because of the happy clappers to find a small crowd of barefoot foreigners kneeling towards Mecca obstructing the pavement.
[Daphne – They don’t mind at all. If they were that narrow-minded they wouldn’t have the sort of daughters they do. It was the noise that bothered them with the singing, shouting Christians, not the religion.]
Tell your son not to come to Austria when he leaves Malta. The far-right parties (FPÖ and BZÖ) got about 33% of the vote between them in the last election, and they’re pretty bigoted. Don’t think it’s only Maltese!
…or to come to the Netherlands. Islamophobia is rampant here as well.
I agree with your son .. pity I can’t do the same though. Why are some Maltese so racist ?
Hi Daphne, to save me repeating myself you should by now seen my comment on Fr Joe Borg’s blog on http://www.timesofmalta.com. If not take a look there. I also commented beneath his article on The Sunday Times. Besides, if Muslims or any other religion want a place where they can gather to worship like everyone else they should find an adequate place were they do not disturb others, and apply to the proper authority for a permit, not take the liberty and do as they please.
[Daphne – You know, this kind of blinkered hypocrisy is really quite astonishing. Do you know how many Catholic prayer-groups there are in Malta? Many hundreds. They meet in hotels, in restaurants, in people’s houses, in flats, in halls…..nobody objects and no one stops them or reports them to the MEPA. You must know, as I do, a good 20 or 30 women who are members of a prayer group. Ask them where they meet, and whether the place has a permit to be used as a place of worship. There is simply no legal difference between 30 Muslim men meeting in a flat to praise God and 30 Catholic women doing exactly the same thing. The difference is only of perception: the Muslim men are perceived as threatening while the Catholic women are not, though I beg to differ on that.]
If Muslims or any other people expect tolerance they should show prudence and accept the laws of the country that is hosting them, respect the values and culture of the majority of the citizens of that country, unless they have other ulterior motives.
[Daphne – Exactly which law have they broken? The law that says you can’t pray at Ghar id-Dud? The law that says you can’t have friends round to your flat on a Friday lunchtime for a spot of prayer? The mistake they made was to call that flat a mosque. Had they registered it in somebody’s personal name, the neighbours and the MEPA wouldn’t have had a leg to stand on, because you can’t stop people inviting 30 friends to their flat to pray, sing, party or dance. They should get themselves a good lawyer, and do just that.]
An example of this we had refugees from India for donkey’s years, but they have never tried to dominate us, they have integrated well, they have flourished and helped in our economy, but still respect our values and culture.
[Daphne – Who’s trying to dominate you, for heaven’s sake? The nature of Hinduism is unlike Catholicism and Islam. It is not an organised religion, with priests and large public demonstrations and group prayer. It is not because the Indian immigrants were more respectful. It is because they have a completely different sort of religion to the religions of the Book.]
It is the right of the authorities to ensure that the citizens are safeguarded, and protect their way of life, religion and culture, without any hindrance from others.
[Daphne – Utter bollocks. Where exactly did you go to school? You are assuming that 1. none of the Muslims at Ghar id-Dud are citizens of Malta; 2. that citizens of Malta have special privileges which citizens of other EU member states do not; 3. that Malta is not bound over to respect human rights, including the right to freedom of worship; 4. that all Maltese are Catholics; 5. that no Maltese are Muslim, 6. that there is a law akin to that of Saudi Arabia which bans all forms of public worship unless they are Catholic; 7. that the duty of the police is to prevent Muslims from praying in public, rather than to protect them from people like you while they are doing so. Our culture and way of life do not need to be protected because aspects of both are horrendous. They need to be changed, to be dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century.]
Tolerate means ‘To permit without protest or interference” So if we are expected to tolerate, what is expected of those whom we will tolerate?
[Daphne – Like me, they tolerate you with your masses, and your processions, and your festi, and your bishop preaching against divorce and calling for the arrest of carnival revellers. If we can tolerate all that, surely you can tolerate 15 men on rugs at Ghar id-Dud.]
Well done you have convinced me that you all agree to tolerate the issue, in that case why not try and contact them and invite them to take up residence, turn it in mosque in your area, if you live in a block of flats perhaps the ground floor, and enjoy there presence from 4.30 am 5 times a day, bear clearing there throat and nostrils before they start praying in the back yard. It is nothing to do about praying it is the nuisance. And if you do not tolerate our masses, our processions, our festi and our bishops preaching against divorce, and the arrest of carnival revelers, I suggest one would not attend to any, but at least you have a choice thank God
[Daphne – If it were a Catholic prayer group, of the noisy chanting and praising sort, would you have reacted in the same frightened fashion?]
Actually, I did my best to obtain the mobile number of one of the people involved. I did and asked him if he would mind me joining them to pray, albeit as a Catholic. His answer was that I was welcome but told me there was no need for me to waste my holiday leave in that manner.
Don’t people realise that the only laws being broken here are those of freedom of expression, and that they are being broken by the so-called Catholic masses? To communicate messages that hinder the freedoms of others is against the law. Believe me. I’ve studied this particular law in enough depth.
[Daphne – If it were a Catholic prayer group, of the noisy chanting and praising sort, would you have reacted in the same frightened fashion?]
Reply
Yes I would do the same if a group of Catholics are chanting and praising the good Lord, 5 times a day from 4.30 am. You would have done the same that is if you expect to live the sort of peaceful life one expects to live. There is a time and place were we Catholics can chant and praise the good Lord in groups, I am sure you are very well adjourned on this? Any one else who expects to do the same should have the adequate premises to do so period. Hoping you had a ‘Happy Mother’s Day’
“but at least you have a choice thank God”
Actually we don’t have a choice, and it’s nothing to do with God, either, but to do with people like you. Living in an urban area, I cannot escape the interminable and dreadful brain-shattering cacophany emanating from loudspeakers during times of Catholic festivities. I think they call it the rosary. And not only that, but the thugs who erect these loudspeakers by invading peoples’ private property, without permission, and on behalf of the parish priest, deem themselves above man’s law. A 93 year old female relative of mine who lives on her own, was woken up at two thirty in the morning to find a group of such individuals in her bedroom balcony cursing and blaspheming away. Oh yes, they were invoking the Madonna, but it was not for any graces or favours that they were supplicating, it was her private parts that were the focus of their attention.
These same people break up our pavements to insert poles, and also obstruct the narrow pavements with gross religious statues (at risk to life and limb of the elderly) at times of festas.
And, of course, returning home exhausted from Gozo, one finds that in fact one cannot return home, as all access has been cordoned off due to the festa.
These are just a couple of examples, Mr.Scicluna (and don’t press me for more, for there are plenty more) of how it is not possible to avoid the inconvenience of Catholic manifestations in Malta. We do not have a choice. On the other hand, twenty peaceful guys in a corner of the Ghar id-Dud promenade are easily avoided, if that is how one feels about it. You, luckily, no thanks to God, do have a choice.
I seriously can’t understand what was wrong with what they did. Other than that why do the Catholics take offence at chants of God is the Greatest? Same God.
[Daphne – It’s actually ‘God is greater’: akbar, as in Maltese.]
I suspect it’s because they believe that God is a Magic Threesome: God, Jesus and of course the Holy Spirit.
[Daphne – I think it’s because the use of the word Allah reminds them of things they would rather not think about, like their own Muslim roots. The other day on timesofmalta.com somebody called Buhagiar was ranting on about North Africans, Arabs and Muslims, totally oblivious to the fact that he has a Tunisian surname. Tunis is jam-packed with indigenous Muslim people called Buhagiar. They are not of Maltese origin; the ones in Malta are of Tunisian origin.]
Daphne, I happen to know Mr Scicluna. He is a peaceful and gentle person, and a gentleman. He is also a very tolerant man. He also lives in a block of flats in St Paul’s Bay, one flat of which was also sealed off by MEPA because it was used as a mosque. But this time there were many more than 20 people quietly praying. More like 200 people leaving their shoes in the common parts, smoking in the common parts and generally making all kinds of noise during the early hours in Ramadan.
[Daphne – 200 people in a St Paul’s Bay flat built on the footprint of a St Paul’s Bay summerhouse?]
It has to be seen to be believed. There are many Muslims living in Bugibba. They all used to congregate in this flat. The noise was unbelievable. They could have been Charismatics and Mr Scicluna would have complained as well.
Private flats used for quiet unobtrusive prayer are not a problem. When they are used for mass gatherings of loud prayer, chanting, clapping, and general imposition they are a nuisance, be they used by Christians, Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, whatever.
My information on the flat in Tower Road tells a similar story. However I agree with you, Charismatics take the biscuit for the noise they tend to make.
My view is that faith is an intensely private affair, of the “go into your back room, where no one can see or hear you except the Lord your God” type. Holy Mass is different. It is celebrated in its rightful setting, a church. That is the place of worship. The same goes with Friday prayers for Muslims. It’s either a mosque or the privacy of your own home.
Fifteen men on rugs in Sliema are making a statement. I have no problem with that. In this day and age, however, I know many Muslims in Malta who don’t really approve of this sort of thing. I have many contacts with them. Something like this would be frowned upon even in Libya.
[Daphne – Roll on the summer, when we have a public statement of Catholicism every damned week, with processions, fireworks, petards from morning to night, diverted traffic and huge jams. If only Catholic demonstrations were as unobtrusive as though men with their rugs on a wide promenade.]
All in all, it’s a matter of perspective. I don’t think the majority of Maltese are intolerant to Muslims, or to any other religion. It’s just that 15 men on rugs on Sliema front make people uncomfortable.
[Daphne – They make the Maltese feel uncomfortable precisely because the Maltese have been taught from birth that Muslims are the historical enemy.]
The weekly debauchery in Paceville also makes me uncomfortable, but then Paceville is a place for that. A solution would be for the Muslims to conduct their prayer in a house, rather than a block of flats. You are bound to have issues with neighbours in blocks of flats, even if you have a pet.
I tend to hold the view that in Rome, one does what the Romans do. In this case, the Muslims are in Malta. I would expect them to be mindful of the situation they live in.
[Daphne – Mario, when in Rome do as the Romans do means in this case respect for freedom of worship. Malta is not a theocracy, or a Catholic state.]
Unfortunately, the Koran is explicit. It’s every Muslim’s duty to convert non-believers, by persuasion or by force if necessary. Many of them don’t do this. The same type of fundamentalists were present in the Catholic Church during the times of the Inquisition. But we have moved forward. I can’t say the same for Islam.
[Daphne – You can’t say the same for Catholicism either. Catholicism hasn’t ‘moved forward’. It has been restrained by secularism and by secular laws.]
Do these ‘Christians’ actually read the Bible?
It’s full of wisdom:
“And why do you look at the mote in your brother’s eye, but do not consider the beam in your own? Hypocrite! First remove the beam from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the mote from your brother’s eye.” Matthew 7.3-5
@John Schembri
“think these foreigners are protesting”
Your assumption they are foreign says a lot about you. As Daphne says, at least two are Maltese. The others could be non-Maltese EU citizens, in which case have exactly the same rights as you do.
Dear Mark, I don’t give a hoot about what the EU law says. When I worked in Italy, Germany, Spain and England I was always treated as a foreigner by my European brothers. So why should I treat these people as locals. There were maybe two Maltese and thirteen foreigners.
[Daphne – Well, if you went there with that attitude, I’m not surprised.]
How about treating them as fellow human beings then?
Daph, all I can say publicly is that they look at us as a threat when we Maltese take their production lines and make them more efficient. In Malta there is less company tax than in these countries.
“Non c’e’ piu’ straordinario colpa di voi Maltesi” was a typical comment from some of my colleagues in Emilia Romagna.
It is precisely the same perspective in which the Bortex employees see the Chinese who ‘stole’ their livelihood.
I cannot see any Europeans in this prayer group. Maybe as Daphne is saying there are two Maltese men.
[Daphne – I’m not ‘saying’ that. It’s what the reporter pointed out. Does the average Maltese man look especially European rather than North African or Middle Eastern?]
This is the same situation of the uncalled-for bell-ringing in Senglea (?). The ex-teacher or lecturer was right.
[Daphne – Oh Jesus, come on! How can you compare the two situations? You belittle the plight of those who had to suffer the relentless Senglea noise-torture.]
The solution in these situations lies in building a house of worship which takes so many people with adequate safety standards and without bothering other people.
If a charismatic group starts meeting in my block of flats, I would call the police, even if they don’t smoke and don’t leave their sandals and shoes on the landing. When I see such things I ask myself “would I have done this in my host country?”
When one is in a foreign country the first thing one must take care of is to respect the way of life they live in that country. When I was in Saudi and in Indonesia I used to ask the workers at what time they will be going for their prayers, so that we will plan the day around their way of life.
[Daphne – They are respecting our way of life and our laws. Our laws guarantee freedom of worship and freedom of association.]
I never complained to them that it was forbidden to watch Holy Mass on TV, or that I couldn’t eat pork or have a beer. In Saudi hotels one would not find RAI UNO.
[Daphne – That’s because Saudi Arabia is not a democratic state. Malta, on the other hand, is.]
In Malaysia there are many restaurants which serve only hallal food; one would normally know when he sits at the table. I used to order a beer and the waiter would say “here we serve only hallal food”. All I could do was to stand up and politiey get out of the restaurant, and find my Stella elsewhere.
[Daphne – I don’t get your point. Restaurants are private businesses. They can serve whatever they like. What next – are you going to start asking for applause when you visit a vegetarian restaurant in Copenhagen and restrain yourself from asking for a steak?]
In these countries I was only an invited guest and behaved that way. I expect our guests to behave as guests. I think this is the way Australians and Americans treat their guests.
[Daphne – You’re weren’t an invited guest. You were somebody doing a job. Tourists are not invited guests, either. They are paying customers.]
John ” cannot see any Europeans in this prayer group”
Unless you have examined all their passports, how could you possibly tell there were no Europeans? Not all people with EU passports are white and Christian.
Daph, to enter Saudi Arabia you have to have an invitation letter. In my case the company in Jeddah had to fill in an invitation form, send it to Malta and then the passport is sent with the diplomatic mail to Rome then you wait for a month and you receive your passport with a big white sticker the front (on the Malta coat of arms). The way you are treated by these countries will change your opinion about Muslim tolerance.
[Daphne – I despair. For the zillionth time, it is not religions which are tolerant or intolerant, but states. It is not Catholicism which is tolerant, but the states in which Catholicism operates, which keep Catholicism from imposing its excesses and violations of personal freedom on those who don’t wish to live that way. The exceptions that prove the rule – Malta and The Philippines and divorce. Previously – Ireland, El Salvador, Chile and divorce. The common factor? That’s right.]
Would you tolerate intolerant foreigners in your country?
[Daphne – Yes, just as I tolerate intolerant Maltese, even if they do give me lots to write about. Even if I didn’t want to tolerate them, I would have no choice but to do so. We have laws that oblige us to be tolerant even if we don’t want to be. That’s why Malta is a (nominally) civilised country and Saudi Arabia is not: because of those laws, and not because of religion. Religion clouds vision. Why do you and I think so differently? Because you were brainwashed from birth – religion, duttrina, this, that and the other, and I was not.]
We already have to put up with many forms of intolerance between us.
Muslim restaurant-owners in Malaysia are coerced to provide hallal food only.
[Daphne – Really.]
Are all Muslims intolerant? No, but many of their leaders seem to grow stronger when they declare a fatwa against (their) Islam’s enemies.
[Daphne – Yes, for the same reason that our archbishop would be at an all-time high if he were to declare war on Muslims in Malta, and for the same reason Hitler soared to power by declaring war on Jews. It’s called the stupidity of evil, or the evil of stupidity.]
The Danish cartoonists and Salman Rushdie immediately come to mind. Theo Van Gogh’s murder is another pointer of Muslim intolerance.
[Daphne – No. It’s a ‘pointer’ that many Muslims, like many Catholics, are evil and stupid. Let me just tell you one thing: when our house was set on fire three years ago, with the intention of killing everyone asleep inside, neither the archbishop nor the Mosta parish priest so much as rang or wrote a note, either because I am not a Catholic or because they just didn’t give a damn. But the Imam and the Rabbi both did so, and I am neither a Muslim nor a Jew. The Jesuits wrote and rang, but then we were in that one together, weren’t we, and the boy who had to help put out the fire was one of their pupils at the time.]
By all means let them have another mosque, if need be bigger than Casablanca’s Hassan Deus Mosque. You correctly stated that Saudi Arabia is not a democratic country, but please tell us which are the real democratic countries which are also predominantly Muslim? I cannot find one, and that says a lot about the mentality in which these people live.
[Daphne – I apologise for having to burst your bubble, but European democracy is linked to Protestantism, not Catholicism – even in Malta, alas. In fact, Italy still has the most terrible trouble with it, oscillating between communism, anarchy and fascism, electing porn stars and perverts, and barely reacting when its disgraceful prime minister trots out a list of harlots and show-girls as MEP candidates.]
I think Turkey is the nearest answer to my question, thanks to Atatürk, nearest in line comes Iran. Just watch what is happening in Pakistan.
When I was once in Egypt, news broke out that Pakistan made The Bomb. An Egyptian shopkeeper with whom I liked to share a word told me “Now WE also have The Bomb.”
[Daphne – God forbid that all Christians the world over should be judged by a Muslim on the basis of a remark passed by a grocer in Marsa, Malta.]
The peace-loving Thais have problems in one region: the predominantly Muslim southern region.
Do you need more smoke to say that there’s the fire of intolerance in the Muslim mentality? I’m choking!
[Daphne – Trouble with you, John, is that you’re a fervent Catholic. Hence, you can’t see the beam in your own eye, or the fact that Catholicism behaves itself only because it is forced to do so by secular laws. And that is precisely the problem with the places you mentioned: the secular state is too weak to contain the excesses of fundamentalist religious leaders. Not to drag our own recent history into it or anything, but the Catholic Church did declare a vote for the Labour Party as a mortal sin and have party officials buried in unhallowed ground. And the referendum on integration with Britain did collapse because most electors took heed of the archbishop’s fear of being subsumed into a Protestant country – even though they themselves were quite keen to be subsumed, which is why they stayed away, rather than voting No. Now imagine if that archbishop had been running the country. And imagine if the British – those nasty Protestants – had gone head to head with Catholic Church leaders in Malta instead of managing them so very well.]
“Which predominantly Muslim country has a democracy which is really working?” the answer is “Hardly one”. And the main reason for that is intolerance.
[Daphne – I’m going to have to chant a calming mantra before replying. You really are determined not to understand, aren’t you? Democracy in Europe is the result of a long, long, long evolutionary process involving a great deal of blood-shed, much of it due to religious differences. The European Union is the result of a major conflagration within living memory. European democracy was exported along with European emigrants to the United States, Australia, and Canada. The European democracy we know and love is linked to Protestantism, not Catholicism. That is why the states of South America are largely undemocratic and the states of North America are not. You may not like this bit of news, but Malta has the democracy of Protestant Britain, and this meant that we escaped the totalitarianism and fascism which afflicted the other Catholic countries of the Mediterranean in the 20th century, despite the great number of totalitarian fascists among us.]
Whether it’s coming from Islam or the region I really am not interested, but the pattern is there.
[Daphne – You’d damn well better become interested if you’re going to argue sensibly instead of irrationally.]
So,no burst bubbles there. You avoided my question.
[Daphne – It’s hard to know what to do with silly questions, John. Does one ignore them, or does one dignify them with a complicated response which then gets ignored because the one posing the question has done so as a challenge rather than because he wants an answer?]
There’s no denying that Christianity is part and parcel of the European identity, as much as Islam is part of the Arab world.
[Daphne – Actually, I think the fights between different sorts of Christians, culminating in the struggle between Christianity and secularism, is what defined Europe. The American colonies were founded largely by people fleeing other Christians who didn’t approve of their sort of Christianity. And then we had all the Jews fleeing the Christians in the 19th and 20th centuries. Nice.]
I am one of those who think that Turkey should not be part of the EU. Just because Constantinople (Istanbul) is part of Turkey it doesn’t mean that the rest of Asia Minor is part of Europe. This is like the hitch hiker on a road who has his other four friends waiting in hiding.
[Daphne – You’re on very dodgy ground there as a Maltese person, John. Malta is farther south than Tunis. The line that was drawn could just as easily have put Malta on the other side. After all, the island was considered part of Africa for centuries, and even the British had their doubts in the 19th century. They actually had to pass a resolution declaring Malta formally to be part of Europe. It wasn’t because they thought of us as European – if that was indeed how they thought of us, they wouldn’t have needed that formal declaration. It was so that Malta wouldn’t be considered a hardship posting, which would have entailed paying anyone sent out here a hardship posting allowance. So basically, it was a stratagem to save money that put us on the ‘right’ side of the dividing line.]
“The line that was drawn could just as easily have put Malta on the other side. After all, the island was considered part of Africa for centuries, and even the British had their doubts in the 19th century.”
Yawn , yes with all those minarets they were in difficulty.
U hallina Daf ! I was just about to tell you “go tell that to the marines” , but they would have a conflict of interest on this matter.
[Daphne – Africa is not made by minarets, John. Please don’t carry on demonstrating that in your mind, Africa/Arab/Islam are synonyms. They’re not. The scouts sent by the Order of St John to Malta before they got here filed a report describing a barren rock with people living in African huts. The Carthaginians, from whom those like you are keen on claiming ancestral origins for our language, were African. St Augustine, if I must use references to which you can relate, was African.]
http://www.parliament.gov.mt/information/Committee%20-%20Social%20Affairs%20Committee/11-Social%20Affairs%20Committee.asp
Click on the first audio recording. It’s a social affairs committee meeting that’s quite a laugh.
A spokesman for the Ministry of Justice gives a 40-minute overview of the illegal immigration situation in Malta and then a couple of MPs had the chance to ask questions and comment.
The only thing Labour’s immigration spokesman Michael Falzon could say was that we should decide once and for all whether to use the term ‘illegal’ or ‘irregular’.
And Joe Debono Grech asked in all seriousness whether immigrants have a vote.
Then Nationalist MPs, especially Michael Frendo, grill the minister with some very good questions, to which Joe Debono Grech continuously passes stupid remarks.
“And Joe Debono Grech asked in all seriousness whether immigrants have a vote”
Well, I’m an immigrant (or expat as some prefer to call it) from the UK, and I have the vote.
[Daphne – What people like Joe Debono Grech mean when they say ‘immigrants’ is black people from Africa. Bear in mind that Joseph Muscat has decided to ditch Tony Blair and is now modelling himself on Enoch Powell instead.]
Given the origins of mankind are not in Malta, but in Africa, we are all immigrants then – just how far back you have to go.
And before they start, they need to say half the rosary in our name….. BUT they want to be done by 3:45pm……
And they say that its important they speak responsibly because they are being recorded and the people can hear the recording…. errm…. excuse me?
Out of curiosity, what has the Maltese church said about this? I am sure they were up in arms to protect the freedom of religious minorities to pray to whom in the end, is the same God.
“And before they start, they need to say half the rosary in our name” – that would be the separation of church and state then…
Dear Daphne,
I have to thank you for this article and blog. It has lifted my spirits immensely. What is it with these people? Why do they need to be such hypocrites?
I am hurt even by the moderator at timesofmalta.com, who took objection to my comment condemning other commenters as intolerant and as being the ones actually breaking the law.
Same here
Well this may seem a little bit of a no-brainer to a local, but, I’m presuming Malta and her politics are quite influenced by the Catholic religion?
There was a case, was there not, where a play was to be put off due to intervention by the Catholic Church? I believe its name was ‘Stitching’, and I think The Times of Malta gob-box Fr Joe Borg was preaching on how sinful it was.
And Fr Joe Borg was wrong. As was everyone who tried to ban this play. If you don’t like it don’t see it. Simple.
Hear, hear.
Being the producer of this play, let me clarify that the Catholic Church was not directly involved in the ban. It is true that we were accused of blasphemy but that was a trumped-up charge to get us under the penalty of imprisonment. If we didn’t face this charge we would have been fined €50 for performances.
It is true that Fr Joe Borg made some unfortunate comments on the case, but we never gave them too much attention, both because they were silly remarks and because, when all is said and done, he is inconsequential.
@Adrian Buckle Great to hear from the producer. So will the play be going ahead then? When is it, as it’s a show I’ve wanted to see and so could tie in seeing it with a much needed trip to Malta?
@Marc Anthony
Hi there. The situation with STITCHING at the moment is that we’re battling it in courts. We’re working on bringing the author Anthony Neilson to testify. He is very willing to come but there is a hitch in that he is under contract to direct a play for the Royal Shakespeare Company in London at the moment, who are very loathe to allow him take leave from the production. Still, we’re trying to find a compromise that suits everyone.
Are we going to stage the play? The advice I’ve been given is to fight it out in courts because if we win it (and I am convinced that we will, even if we have to take it to Strasbourg), then Malta might be forced to drop its Censorship Laws (we are suing the state on breach of Freedom of Expression). The moment we win, the play will be put on the road. And this is what the censors fear most. STITCHING is a wonderful play, beautifully and skillfully written (Anthony Neilson is after all artistic director of the RSC!), about a relationship gone wrong, about a man and a woman doing their best to stick together in spite of a tragedy that has driven the woman mad.
And hopefully, this will be the play that finally brings Daphne to a local theatre production!
Daphne,
Thanks so much for your article. It was extremely well written and made several excellent points.
Keep up the good work!
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20090510/opinion/tourists-are-welcome-but-not-them-muslims
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20090510/religion/needed-more-mosques
http://www.timesofmalta.com/blogs/view/20090509/fr-joe-borg/should-there-be-more-mosques-in-malta
If the group were Buddhists then there would not have been such a furore. Islam is an intolerant religion and it is this fact that bothers people so much. The John Howard line of thought is worthy of some consideration.
[Daphne – More intolerant than Roman Catholicism?]
I have nothing against Muslims praying at Ghar id-dud. I don’t agree with them but that’s my choice. What I worry about and what should be of more concern is the way this religion is overtaking everyone everywhere. Like a lot of others I have just received an e-mail showing a message on youtube. I had already seen something similar some months ago. There certainly is a pattern and we are on the receiving end.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NjJ_d04aUiE
Dear Friends,
I believe we must truly open our eyes and distribute this clip to as many Europeans as possible.
Subject: Europeans open-up your Eyes
Maltin aqrawh u tkexxkxu!! (Maltese people read this and be frightfully aware)
Subject: Europeans open-up your Eyes
Friends visit this site – it’s self explained,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NjJ_d04aUiE
That is exactly why Libya is allowing thousands of illegal immigrants leaving to Europe. Gaddafi has just been elected president of the African Union.
This video is 100% proof that illegal migration from Africa is a Muslim invasion. Historically, they didn’t succeed to conquer Christian Europe militarily, so now they are using legal and illegal migration. England is practically already conquered by Muslims.
[Daphne – The world according to a YouTube video – oh, well. Next it will be Donald Duck.]
Actually the You Tube video is quite disturbing and try as I might I could not find any counter arguments from any other source on the web. It is based on the fact that the birth rate in European countries is going down while the birth rate among immigrants living there is going up. It is easy to project what that will result in, I just did not think it could happen in such a short number of years. You Tube has indeed become our modern “oracle” but it may be too easy to just dismiss anything that appears on it as being shallow and facile. If anyone can put forward some facts and theories that disprove the projections being made in this video or show that some erroneous mathematics have been used, then he/she is more than welcome. Is it really just scaremongering?
[Daphne – Yes, it’s just scaremongering. It’s not a person’s religion that counts, but a person’s education. Unfortunately, we have come to judge Muslims by the equivalent of the Duluri-procession-with-loudspeaker-people that Cikki describes here. How do you imagine that those ‘Catholics’ look to somebody who has grown up in Finland? The Muslims who are the equivalent of you and me are invisible. They are not out in the streets protesting with placards calling for Christians to be killed, in the same way that the Maltese Catholic equivalent of those Muslims are all over timesofmalta.com calling for the police to be brought in against the Muslims. An upswing of any sort of religious fundamentalism is bad – and if you look at what is happening in some parts of America, and even in Malta with Gift of Life and extremist prayer groups, you will see that fundamentalist Christianity poses as great a threat to secular freedom as does fundamentalist Islam. Fortunately, there are controls in place against Christians as well as against Muslims: Europe has a very long and bloody history in the fight for freedom of worship and for secularism. We haven’t got here by coincidence, and Malta isn’t even there yet. The assumption we make is that a Muslim will vote for another Muslim, or that a Muslim is necessarily extremist and will vote for another extremist. Wrong: many of the Muslims living in Europe have come here precisely because they appreciate the freedom of a secular society. I have several friends like that, who, having become accustomed to living in a secular society, cannot bring themselves to leave it. They are certainly not going to vote in any way that will seek to replicate what they left behind. Let’s put it this way: the population of Malta is supposed to be 98% Catholic. Yet in 1996 we elected an atheist as prime minister. You cannot assume that all Catholics are extremist, or that Catholics vote for Catholics. Similarly, you cannot assume that all Muslims are extremists, or that Muslims vote for other Muslims. I really disliked the school I went to, but for one thing: the complete integration into the convent-school system of my fellow pupils who were Muslims. I have to hand it to the nuns – they were brilliant at this, teaching us respect by example. As a result of being educated in a Catholic convent with Muslims, I do not fear or hate Muslims or regard them with suspicion. And because there were Muslim girls in our school, there were no lessons that taught overt or covert hostility to Muslims, picturing them as The Other – as in, for example, the typical Great Siege narrative, or the ‘occupation’ of Malta by Muslims.]
@Adrian Borg, Thanks for what you said; there’s been a lot of depressing news in the UK and I needed a good laugh. Do you have to Google answers for everything or can you think of some of your own occasionally? Sorry for being mean (I can’t resist some British sarcasm) but let me answer this with a quote from Benjamin Disraeli: “There are lies, damn lies, and then there are statistics.” The reason why you can’t find any counter-arguments is because they haven’t argued anything. All they’ve said is that the Muslim population in Europe is growing. So? We already have Muslim majority countries in Europe, as said in the video, and so what? These countries are polities and operate like any other Christian or non-religious majority polities. Of course, one needs to control immigration, but that has nothing to do with whether they are Muslim. To be entirely honest, I would be more worried were I to hear that there was a rise in Christianity in the UK (or Europe for that matter) as I believe that in well-educated nations religious belief systems begin to crumble.
@ Daphne: I am not a Gift of Life fan, but exactly how many fatwas did they declare? Your comparison is highly unbalanced.
[Daphne – Let’s see now. A fatwa on me, a fatwa on Sharon Ellul Bonici (who caved in), a fatwa on Rebecca Gompaerts, a fatwa on Harry Vassallo, and moral violence on everyone else who doesn’t agree with them. How else do you think they obtained those signatures? I’ll just give you an example from a bridge-party organised for women to raise funds for Gift of Life. Paul Vincenti goes round with his petition, after a rousing speech about poor little babies. My friend refuses to sign. “So you’re in favour of abortion?” he says loudly, attracting as much attention as possible. “If you don’t sign, you’re in favour of killing babies.” And on and on and on. She didn’t sign. Good for her. Actually, you have a good example here of a zealot who would be really dangerous in a non-secular environment. Paul Vincenti might not call a real, actual fatwa because he is against murder. But it might also be because he would be arrested and charged with incitement to violence. His counterparts in the United States have no such reservations. They’re killing abortion doctors and firebombing abortion clinics.]
The fatwas which I was referring to have violence in them. Not all fatwas are condemnable, one is against the stockpiling of nuclear armaments. But I hate the way people are coerced to sign by so called Catholic zealots as you described up here. I’m sure that your friend hasn’t changed her identity and isn’t hiding in a bunker because of Vincenti’s threatening behaviour. So she cannot be compared to Salman Rushdie.
[Daphne – You’re quite exhausting. Why on earth should she be compared to Salman Rushdie?]
“I suppose Gaddafi sends his scouts to the various states of sub-Saharan Africa, to recruit people to invade Europe.”
No, they go to work there earn some money there and pay for a trip on a boat. They fit in his plan which he is boasting about in the video. His inaction is enough to encourage the ‘invasion’.
[Daphne – If you see it as Gaddafi does, you must have the same mentality. It probably has something to do with an overdose of religion, which leaves people unable to think straight for the most part.]
” Why on earth should she be compared to Salman Rushdie?”
So Paul Vincenti is just an amateur near the Muslims who are after Rushdie’s blood.
[Daphne – Yes, because in lives a society which restrains him by force of law. But if you look at the psychological type, you can see what I mean when I see that he would have been very frightening indeed had he been born in present-day Iran or 15th/16th century Spain or Italy.]
Daphne actually that was our blood brother Gaddafi not Donald Duck. He’s the one who is sending these poor immigrants on small boats to invade Europe. And with whom some brother EU leaders rub shoulders and other organisations are gravely concerned. When returned migrants end up back on his shores.
[Daphne – Gosh, an original conspiracy theory. I suppose Gaddafi sends his scouts to the various states of sub-Saharan Africa, to recruit people to invade Europe.]
“Trevor Lorenzo Mizzi decided to draw on history: “The sight of the mighty bastions of Valletta and Floriana tells me all I need to know concerning this issue.””
Mr Mizzi is either twisted or misinformed, or both. Those “mighty” bastions were erected by Muslim slaves, very often under pain of death or starvation.
@ TimC: Islam is not an intolerant religion. You may wish to read some of the sources – I can furnish you with a decent biblio.
As usual on this blog, bigotry is being countered with joined-up bollocks.
Two points:
1) Christian slaves also existed bla bla bla
2) Bla bla bla Muslims living in Christian kingdoms, tolerance bla bla, crusades bla persecution bla neither here nor there. etc etc
[Daphne – Yes, the only argument that should be used is the fact that Malta respects freedom of worship, so if you want to build a church to the Giant Spaghetti Monster, then you are free to do so. End of story. However, people here should be reminded of their own history and ethnicity, because one of the reasons that we are so keen to portray Muslims as The Other is that we are ‘protesting too much’. In reality, Muslims are not The Other at all. Another point: you would think that, with demand for European speakers of Arabic being so high, the Maltese would move in to fill this gap in the market, because we are the only Europeans able to learn Arabic with no problems at all, the structure of the language and much of the vocabulary being identical to our own. But we don’t. The phobia is too great. Instead, we insist on competing with a great welter of others by learning Spanish, French, German and Italian. Any EU citizen who is fluent in Arabic and English is going to have a massive advantage in the corporate career market, but we just don’t see that, do we?]
Spot on about the Arabic bit. It would do wonders for us businesspeople to speak Arabic. We don’t. I bemoan the fact that I threw it all away when Mintoff/Karmenu forced me to study the language, I need it so much nowadays.
[Daphne – You’d pick it up in two seconds if you put your mind to it. It’s Maltese, written in a different way. Most people are put off by the script, but you can learn it as a spoken language and be happily illiterate. I intend to do this when I can clear the space in my life.]
Greetings to all Pastafarians, the supporters of the only true religion. All hail the Flying Spaghetti Monster, and his eight commandments, the “I’d Really Rather You Didn’ts”
It’s FLYING Spaghetti Monster, heathen! May you be touched by his noodly appendage. Ramen
Well yes, but the alphabet is a bit of a problem. And there are already thousands of Arabic-speaking Europeans (I mean native speakers) who speak real Arabic. The Classical Arabic that is taught in language courses is a dead language, akin to Latin. We’d stick out like a dog’s bollocks if we were to speak that.
[Daphne – I’m not suggesting learning classical Arabic, but spoken Arabic. A Maltese person who really wants to avoid the alphabet can just learn the spoken language – just as so many North Africans and Palestinians have picked up very fluent spoken Maltese through living and working in Malta. Yes, I know there are thousands of native speakers of Arabic in Europe, but their second language is rarely English because they tend to come from the former French and Italian colonies. A Maltese person would have the distinct advantage of speaking fluent English (always assuming….) and fluent Arabic. The comparison you should make is to the British and the Dutch, the only Europeans who speak fluent English generally. How many British and Dutch people are able to learn Arabic? How many Arabic-speaking immigrants in those countries – and their children – have picked up fluent English?]
In any case, Daphne, you got my point, and I agree with the main thrust of your commentary, but I must insist on being pedantic, because this is precisely the sort of situation where broad brushstrokes make matters worse. A Muslim is one thing. An Arab is another. An Arabic speaker is yet another. If by “Muslim” you mean “a practising Muslim brought up within the Islamic world”, then I’d say that there is a dividing line. It may sound like a bunch of Huntington-speak, but they are “The Other”, just as much as we are “The Other” to them. Ethnicity counts for nothing. And let me repeat what I’ve already said: Among Maghreb, Mashreq and Arab countries, we are an insignificant speck. The only ones to gaze with fascination or phobia at our Arabic language are us. Let us not delude ourselves into Mintoffian “hbieb ta’ kullhadd”, “bridge between civilisations” fantasies.
[Daphne – That’s not what I’m saying at all. As a pragmatic person, I believe in maximising one’s assets and building a competitive advantage. It is much, much easier for a Maltese person to learn Arabic than it is for a Maltese person to learn German, so it follows that a Maltese person who wants to add another language to his repertoire should go gunning for Arabic, not German. As for the rest, Maltese people are brainwashed from the beginning against both Muslims and Arabs. Arab Christians? Muslim Turks? Same difference. The culture appears to be the source of the problem, rather than the religion as such – which is why the relatively large number of Bosnian Muslims living in Malta don’t upset anyone’s prejudices. Extreme religion of any kind creates a sense of The Other. For example, because of my own very moderate views on religion, I think of fundamentalist Catholics as The Other. There is no common ground and lots of room for discord unless one stays off the subject of religion altogether. I know of several marriages that have broken up because the wives became increasingly involved in prayer groups and became more and more fundamentalist, and the husbands could no longer cope.]
One of the sources of tension between Muslim Europeans, and non-Muslim Europeans is precisely this failure to acknowledge certain differences, and seek to communicate across the dividing line. I’m all for your “live and let live” approach, but harmless traditions can sometimes run foul of European laws (case in point being the wearing of Muslim veils or Sikh turbans in public institutions in France). I don’t mean to imply that Europe somehow “belongs” more to me than it does to a practising Muslim European. It’s just that European secular laws, European human rights, and in the main, European political decisions, are made by persons raised in the non-Muslim tradition.
I’ve lost thread of my argument here, what with having to write this when I’m supposed to be working. In a nutshell, I’d rather see a thriving Europeanised Islam than a faux-secular Europe preaching freedom of religion and making micro-regulations on the hoof. So: you reach out to Muslims and to fundamentalist Catholics who erect Gift of Life statues in the same way. You explain that this is secular Europe, and by God (whoops) you don’t flaunt your religion, and you don’t break established rules in the name of avenging some obscure skirmish in 1099.
That means no Flying Spaghetti Monster statues on public roundabouts, and no Flying Spaghetti Monster veils in your passport photo.
You can choose not to publish this comment. It’s long, and I don’t want to be misunderstood.
The government has evening classes that teach it. I plan to join when they reopen. But you are right, I am put off by the script.
We already have tons of churches dedicated to the flying spaghetti monster. They’re all over the place – every restaurant that serves pasta is a temple to his noodly goodness. We also worship at home, in our dining rooms. Even Pizza Hut is converting. Hail the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_bvRs0C3rE
Peace and spaghetti marinara, brothers and sisters
Kellimhom biz-Zurrieqi Mario u jifhmuk tmenin fil-mija , M’ghandniex xi nghidu , f’l-ghazla tal-kelma aghzel “harga ” mhux ” eskursjoni”. ghax inkella l-anqas Malti ma’ jifhmek.
May you be touched by His Noodly Appendage.
RAmen
@ Norbert Bugeja. I once had a conversation with what I believed to be an enlightened Muslim Imam. He was quite unequivocal about it. They consider our religion, and any other religion, as not correct, and their duty is to change that.
[Daphne – And Catholicism’s stance on other religions is…..what, exactly? That they are all wrong, and that Catholicism is the One True Religion.]
Sorry Daphne, nobody except the most extreme fundamentalist Catholics say that. The last popes have always spoken quite forcefully on freedom of worship.
[Daphne – You’re wrong there. It’s the One True Religion and while we respect The Others we would always prefer to have them converted for the salvation of their souls and the greater good of Catholicism. Let’s put it this way: you can’t preach that only good Catholics go to heaven if you’re also teaching that it’s OK to be a Buddhist. If Buddhists go to heaven too, then why bother being a Catholic? Roman Catholics are only given permission by their church to marry non-Catholics if they promise to bring up their children as Catholics – just as Muslims who marry non-Muslims have to promise to bring up their children as Muslims, and Jews who marry non-Jews have to promise to bring up their children as Jews. Had you chosen to marry a Protestant, you would not have been allowed to marry in a Catholic Church unless your fiancee promised to set her religion aside and bring up her children as Catholics.]
Islam doesn’t even tolerate the very idea. Yet in the majority of EU countries, it is just something that you are and if you start giving too much importance to intolerance when it really is not present, you cut off its breeding ground.
Incidentally, Libya, for all that people think of it, has always had a history of tolerance, as does Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, Egypt ( 20% are Copts, who are heavily discriminated against, but that’s another story), Syria, Turkey (a secular state) – other religions co-exist with Islam. Unfortunately, many mullahs preach otherwise.
In the UK, I have heard a mullah say that it’s time Britain became an Islamic state, at which half the people there walked out in disgust. This was three years ago.
[Daphne – And I know of an island where people call for the police to move in when they see a few Muslim men at prayer in public.]
you and the Imam are both wrong. Neither is the One True Religion. Both are false gods. All hail the FSM
Maybe it’s because I went to a Jesuit school, so my views are heavily influenced by them, but we used to be taught a lot of what other religions think. We had talks about Buddhism and Hinduism by a missionary Jesuit who spent years living in India. We were taught about Islam by a Franciscan, Fr Theuma, who also taught us Arabic, and who incidentally translated the Koran into Maltese.
This was 25-30 years ago. The Jesuit Refugee Service takes care of a lot of refugees. When the Iraqis were here, we used to help out. When the Albanians came, the JRS was at the forefront. When the present wave of immigrants started, again it was the JRS at the forefront. The Jesuits are part of the Catholic Church.
[Daphne – Except when they are occasionally expelled and outlawed for not toeing the line.]
Not once did I ever hear a word against other religions. On the contrary, we were initiated into the mysteries of meditation using Hindu texts. Not once do I hear them trying to convince people in their care that Catholicism is the One True Religion.
Catholicism’s stance on other world religions is now, and has been for at least 40 years since Vatican Council II, a rapprochment and an asking for forgiveness for past hurts.
[Daphne – Em, that’s not quite what came out of the Pope’s visit to Jordan.]
Daphne, I am afraid you have to catch up here. The Charismatics DO NOT represent the modern church.
[Daphne – If the Jesuits taught me anything, it was logic. If the Jesuits form part of the Catholic Church, then so do the Charismatics. If the Charismatics don’t, then neither do the Jesuits. The basis for assessment on whether a Catholic organisation forms part of the Catholic Church is not whether it appeals to Mario Debono or not.]
Nor do the bigots. They exist, yes, but the people who silently think that there is no difference between Hindu, Muslim and Christian also exist in great numbers.
Unfortunately, Islam has made a bad name for itself.
[Daphne – Yes, almost as bad a name as Catholicism has in Protestant Europe. Catholic = ignorant = peasant = backward = the past blight of Europe.]
Thats why people are afraid. Yes, they are afraid of Muslims praying publicly on mats. Don’t blame them, because the media portrays Islam as wanting to take over the world.
[Daphne – I do blame them, Mario. Few people in Malta are as relentlessly exposed to the media as I am, but my views are entirely different. This is because I had an atypical upbringing by atypical parents who taught me to think and to reason, rather than to swallow the received wisdom. I am not afraid of Muslims. If I am afraid of anyone at all, it is those zealous tal-pepe Catholic women who have received no formal education and who ended up ripe for conversion into the equivalent of Islamic fundamentalist women who wrap themselves in black and blow themselves up. Until you have seen the faces of some of these women harden and twist as they argue for Jesus and against ‘secularism’, you won’t know what I mean. I can really picture one or two of them blowing themselves up for Jesus, a man they speak about as though he lives in their spare room and has dinner with them every night.]
If anything, it is Islam that needs to change the way it communicates, not us or anybody else. If it weren’t such an apparently oppressive religion in its practice, people wouldn’t be afraid. For once, i have to agree with Mr Stellini here.
[Daphne – Mario, why – do you imagine – have so many Maltese, Spaniards, French and Italians rejected Catholicism? Because it’s a fun and freedom-loving religion which doesn’t have its spies between your sheets and which preaches toleration of difference? Hardly.]
You couldnt have put it better, HP Baxxter
Mario, the Jesuits thought you a lot of things, including evolution, and I seem to remember you standing up in class and denying it, just before our A-level. I also seem to remember you getting thrown out of class for it. I’m not sure which of the two events shocked me the most!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSOac66ppNI
[Daphne – Mario’s shady past is coming back to haunt him.]
“Roman Catholics are only given permission by their church to marry non-Catholics if they promise to bring up their children as Catholics.”
Are you expecting to go through a Catholic marriage without making a promise that you won’t bring up your children as Catholics?
[Daphne – Yes, because the Catholic Church is supposed to have moved beyond thinking of the sole purpose of marriage as the procreation of legions of brand-new Catholics for its Catholic army. Or so the defenders of Catholicism have told me here.]
(Same would apply to a Muslim marriage.)
[Daphne – I thought you’ve been busy describing Islam as a backward and intolerant religion. Now you use Muslim practice to justify Catholic practice.]
The non-Catholic spouse is asked to solemnly declare that s/he won’t impede the Catholic upbringing of the children from the marriage. Otherwise it won’t be a Catholic marriage.
[Daphne – Really, why not? You mean to say that because I didn’t bring my children up as Catholics then my husband and I are not really married to each other after all? Thank God for that quick business with the public registry official in the sacristy, then, or I’m going to hell for fornication – oh, but that would still be fornication, wouldn’t it, because it’s only the Catholic rite that counts. Jahasra, I’m so well out of all that crap. I really don’t know how or why you love your chains.]
One still has the civil marriage option.
[Daphne – Until 1993, it wasn’t an option but the only way to get married, because the Catholic rite didn’t count in the eyes of the law. Your legal marriage was a civil marriage, as mine was, and not a Catholic one. Then in 1993, we had yet another example – which I forgot to mention earlier – of the Catholic Church interfering in the running of state matters, and using the negotiations on the transfer of its property to the state as leverage to seize more power over marriage. In return, it got the government to capitulate to a demand for legal recognition of the Catholic marriage rite – without the need for a civil ceremony. This exposes the government to demands for the recognition of other religious marriage rites. But the worst, by far the worst, is this: if you married in a Catholic Church here post-1993, and you want to apply to the courts for a civil annulment, the court will not consider your request if your spouse decides to object. On the other hand, whether or not your spouse objects, you can apply to the Curia for a Catholic annulment. In other words, we have created a state-within-a-state where Catholic marriage is concerned. What was that you were saying about Islam and shariah law again?]
“Those mighty bastions were erected by Muslim slaves”
The workforce that built the bastions was overwhelmingly Christian.
I find my self sounding like Victor Meldrew in “One foot in the grave”, muttering ‘I don’t believe it’ all the time. Well done, Daphne, and well done, John! A few years ago an elderly relative of mine stopped ‘church helpers’ from putting fluorescent blue lights along the floor
of her parapet, to be lit as the Madonna was carried past her house.
I used to find the Duluri procession in Valletta very solemn and moving until I went a few years ago and the loud speakers had been put up and a woman’s dreadful voice was chanting away. Never again!
More and more of my fellow countrymen and women are racist, hypocritical and are turning people away from their religion.
So many idiots, so little space!
Daphne -(Islam) more intolerant than Roman Catholicsm? Come on, Daphne, the answer is a BIG YES. Just look at women’s rights and gays’ persecution in Islamic states.
[Daphne – No, Islam is not more intolerant than Roman Catholicism. In their intolerance towards women and homosexuals, and their belief in the supremacy of heterosexual men over all other beings, the two religions are identical. You know as well as I do that left to their own devices the Catholics would corral all gay people and deny them every right in the book, except the right to breathe and eat. Sodomy was a criminal offence in the Christian world – even between a man and a woman – just as it still is in the Islamic world. It continues to be a mortal sin in Catholicism between two men, and a lesser sin between a man and a woman, but Catholicism has long since been forced to operate within a secular system that does not allow people to be punished for anal sex. Also, within Catholicism, the woman’s role is to stay home and breed as many Catholics as possible, obeying the husband and not using contraception.
The difference is that we see Catholicism only in the context of a secular European environment, where it is contained, restricted and restrained by the secular state. Left to run riot, as it was in the pre-Enlightenment period, it would be as frightening as Islam is in Iran. Iran is at the point the Catholic countries of Europe were just over 200 years ago. Catholicism didn’t change. The legal regime in those countries did, in such a way as to protect people from the excesses of Catholicism. Let me cite an example of something that happened to Muslim slaves who rebelled in Valletta just a little more than 200 years ago: they were paraded down Merchant Street while pieces of their flesh were removed from their bodies with red-hot pincers and then stuck to other parts of their bodies with boiling-hot tar. The torture continued until they were finished off in public. This is taken from Godfrey Wettinger’s masterpiece on slavery in Malta.]
I personally would very much object to an apartment in my block being used as a mosque, Christian prayer group (even if their leader has dyed hair and plucked eye brows), or a nightclub. Any non-residential use in an apartment block degrades the quality of life in the block, because of noise, parking etc.
[Daphne – Yes, I agree, but if you are going to report the Muslims then report the much noisier Christians, too. Like you, I wouldn’t put up with either. But my objection to the Muslims would certainly not be on the basis of fear, and if they were silent then I wouldn’t object at all. People coming and going don’t bother me. Anyone who is bothered by other people shouldn’t choose to live in a block of flats. It’s a contradiction.]
Also, I am against the idea of having WEEKLY Muslim prayer worship on Ghar id-dud. If it were a one-off manifestation, no problem with that. Can you imagine the open air St Patrick’s Sunday Mass being transferred to Ghar id-dud, throughout summer. Get real Daphne!
[Daphne – St Patrick’s mass involves hundreds of people who would block the promenade. And no, a small weekly gathering of Muslims doesn’t bother me at all. It’s entertaining. I grew up at Ghar id-Dud, and so I can speak from more than 20 years of personal experience when I say how horrible it was to have the space invaded every summer night by thousands of shouting, screaming Maltese hamalli from every conceivable village, with their tombla and their ‘ejja l-hawn ha nifqalek wiccek’ communication with their ghastly offspring. August brought the drunken Sicilians, and now June to September bring the vomiting German, French and Spanish teenagers to add to the Maltese working-classes in their Sunday best. You have to live there to know what I mean. Twenty men praying are paradise compared to what the people who live there have to endure on summer nights. Give me 20 Muslims with their prayer mats any day rather than hundreds of Maltese Johnnies with their screaming children and their horrible clothes. On a summer night, walking through Ghar id-Dud is like being at the trade fair.]
These pictures reveal the true nature of Islam.
http://www.goofigure.com/images/library/muslim_protest_2.jpg
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_QfVWU-2pVL4/R4SwE125xLI/AAAAAAAAAcA/dn8EweO23nA/s400/muslimProtest1.jpg
http://www.goofigure.com/images/library/muslim_protest_5.jpg
http://www.standwithus.com/gallery/cartoonprotest/LondonProtest.jpg
[Daphne – No more than a video of a Doctor John gathering with fainting hysterical women reveals the true nature of Catholicism, I’m afraid. What you are revealing here is the nature of prejudice, both ways.]
..and the following reveal the true nature of Christianity, right?
http://www.godhatesfags.com/visual/photos/somejewswillrepent.jpg
http://www.godhatesfags.com/visual/photos/911giftfromgod.jpg
http://www.geocities.com/johnnymcdowell/Gott_Mit_Uns.jpg
godhatesfags.com is not a Catholic website. It’s just another bunch of misguided, renegade Christians.
And what do those Nazi troops have to do with Catholicism?
[Daphne – And the links you posted are ‘just another bunch of misguided, renegade’ Muslims. It works both ways.]
Those Muslims are Muslims. Those ‘godhatesfags.com’ Christans are not Catholics. Which is a whole lot of a difference.
[Daphne – You’ve lost me there, sorry. I thought Catholics were Christians.]
You said that Catholicism is looked upon with scorn in Protestant countries. Protestantism is not even a religion. It’s a fake version of Christianity created by a fat buffoon called Henry the Eight who was incapable of getting a male heir and vented his fury at the Pope for not allowing him to divorce. So you see, it is a ‘religion’ with no principles. It’s just a by-product of vented fury.
[Daphne – Il-lostra, x’injoranza bazwija. Henry VIII started the Church of England, not Protestantism. It was called the Church of England as opposed to the Church of Rome, because he continued to think of it as a separate branch of what was essentially the same church. The chief architect of the Protestant movement was Martin Luther – in Germany. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/479892/Protestantism
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/351950/Martin-Luther
I see you haven’t moved beyond the rubbish Maltese children were taught back in the dark ages when we were at school, nor have you bothered to make your own enquiries. Do please grow up.]
Uhm… Perhaps due to there being a Christian majority in the Nazi high command.
Saying that, the whole point is that you cannot judge anyone due to the extremists in that particular group. There are many dissenting schools of Christianity (there are some 35,000 different Christian sects from what I’ve heard), just as there are dissenting schools of Islam. You posted a series of images of actions performed by Muslims, without having the slightest clue of what their beliefs are and what type of Islam they are following.
And my point was (obviously, I thought) that different dissenting schools of Christianity have their extremists too. I’m an atheist – do you think I support atrocities done by other atheists, or that I can automatically take credit for good things done by other atheists? Of course not. Obviously I think that people who believe themselves to know, and follow, the revealed word of God have a bit more responsibility than the unknowing rest of us, but that’s completely beside the point.
Hi Pat
“do you think I support atrocities done by other atheists, or that I can automatically take credit for good things done by other atheists?”
No atheist commits atrocities in the name/cause of atheism, unlike some believers in one god figure or another, including the Christian one.
Catholics are Christians but some Christians are not Catholics. That’s my point.
http://wsu.edu/~dee/REFORM/ENGLAND.HTM
“When he met with failure, Henry did what every other king would do. He fired his closest advisor. This was an important move. His closest advisor on the matter was Cardinal Wolsey, the Lord Chancellor of England. The negotiations with the papal court were largely carried out by Wolsey. When he failed, Henry dismissed and arrested him and replaced him with Thomas Cranmer and Thomas Cromwell. Both these men were sympathetic to the new ideas of Martin Luther….”
Hence, Protestantism.
[Daphne – No, not ‘hence, Protestantism.’ Protestantism did not begin in England with Henry VIII. It began in Germany with Martin Luther. This are not matters of speculation or dispute. They are facts. Please don’t do the usual ignorant Xarabank thing of confusing facts and opinions, or deciding that your opinion is a fact.]
@ Pat
“Uhm… Perhaps due to there being a Christian majority in the Nazi high command. ”
What’s your point really?
[Daphne – Pat’s point is that the Nazis were Christians, but nobody thinks to use the Nazis as exemplars of Christianity, in the same way that you are using Arab terrorists as exemplars of Islam.]
Nazi Germany didn’t fight in the name of Christianity for sure.
[Daphne – They fought against anyone who wasn’t.]
They fought for world domination. Germany happens to be a Christian nation, so by default, the high command would have consisted of Christian officers, including Hitler himself.
I think all Muslims believe in the Jihad. So basically they’re all the same at the end of the day. Islam is a violent religion which sprouted in a violent region, where the only chance of survival was through violence. You must remember that Islam’s founder, Muhammad, spread his message through violence by conquering Mecca and slaying all those who opposed him. Did Jesus do the same to spread his message? No.
[Daphne – Oh Gesu hanin. Read some European history, and find out how people were forcibly converted first to Christianity and then to one form of Christianity rather than another. Willing converts were few and far between. And we still don’t know what exactly happened in that dark age in Maltese history when the Maltese converted from Islam to Christianity, and what made them do it. It wasn’t because they suddenly saw the light, we can assume that.]
“And my point was (obviously, I thought) that different dissenting schools of Christianity have their extremists too. “
Okay you’re right. But contemporary Christian extremists do not blow up buildings, airplanes and killing innocent people in the name of God.
[Daphne – Actually, they do. Look at recent American history, and look at the Protestant versus Catholic bloodshed and murder in Northern Ireland.]
“Nazi Germany didn’t fight in the name of Christianity for sure. ”
Does the phrase “gott mit uns” ring a bell to you? In how many speeches didn’t Hitler relate to the Jews as christ killers? There are some evidence suggesting Hitler himself wasn’t a true believer, but to ignore that christianity was not a central theme to communicate his ideas to the people would be complete denial.
“But contemporary Christian extremists do not blow up buildings, airplanes and killing innocent people in the name of God.”
Even if they weren’t doing this, something which Daphne already pointed out they do, you still can’t claim they are all backing those kind of thoughts, which is the whole point. I would be the first to admit I would prefer them to rise above Islam altogether, just as I think it would be great if Christians could get over their beliefs as well. But here’s the thing. What I personally believe is something I have all the right in the world to express to others and even influence if I want, but I can not impose those thoughts and ideals on anyone. In a democracy each individual is free to pursuit their own school of thought, whether those are based on spiritual nonsense, or rational thinking (yes, I’m free to say such things), with noone having the right to impose on that freedom. You can chase after your dream of a Maltese theocracy as much as you want, but you will find the rest of us secularist kicking and screaming till the grave rather than let you impose that on the rest of us.
Now may I suggest you do some studying, both on Protestantism and democracy before you try to put forth another argument.
“What’s your point really?”
Oh, this was in relation to you asking what Nazi troops have to do with Catholicism. All clear?
I repeat, did Jesus forcibly convert the apostles and his disciples? No. They came willingly to listen to Him on the mount. Those people who ‘forcibly’ converted people were heretics using Christianity as an excuse to inflate their wealth and power.
[Daphne – We don’t know, because Reuters and AP weren’t there to report back.]
The Maltese were never Muslim, even during Arab occupation.
[Daphne – You cannot possibly know more than the historians who have studied this matter. There was no concept of ‘Maltese people’ a thousand years ago, but only of ‘people who lived in Malta’. Those people were Arabic-speaking Muslims from Sicily (originally from the region that is now Tunisia), and we are their descendants, which is why we speak degraded/evolved (however you wish to put it) Arabic and many of us have surnames like Buhagiar, Busuttil, Buttigieg, Said, Micallef… It is also why there is not one place-name in Malta or Gozo that is pre-Arab. Place-names survive serial occupation, which is why southern Italy has many place-names that pre-date even the Roman period, back when it was Magna Graecia. Why you should regard your Muslim Arab heritage as a matter of shame is beyond me, though a lifetime of brainwashing might have much to do with it. Sicily looks back at its Muslim heritage with enormous pride and sells it to visitors.]
Believe it or not, a large majority of the population retained their Christian beliefs. Is there any evidence of medieval mosques? The islands are littered with medieval chapels and churches.
[Daphne – The only Christians in Malta a thousand years ago were slaves born and captured elsewhere. Roger the Norman’s recorder specifically notes the fact that the Christians held as slaves by the residents of the city were freed and helped to leave the island so that they could return home. The propagandists of our nascent nation-state misinterpreted his words – possibly deliberately – to mean that the Christians were ‘Maltese’ (an anachronism) and that the Muslim residents of the city were expelled. They weren’t. The Normans hadn’t even expelled Muslims from Palermo; Muslims were key members of the Norman court there.
There are no chapels or churches in Malta that predate the 15th century. Buildings do not carry signs on them proclaiming them to be mosques. When the islands ceased to have a Muslim population, those buildings would have been converted to another purpose. There is a great deal of Arabic architecture in Malta’s oldest villages. I once spent days trotting down every alley as part of a university survey.]
Northern Ireland is the rightful territory of the Irish people. The IRA fought to expel the Brits from their homeland. That was their sole aim. Religion was just a sideshow.
[Daphne – There are Irish Protestants. Not all Irish are Catholic. That is the whole point.]
@Pat
Well, of course Jews killed Jesus Christ. And we thank them for that, for without them we wouldn’t have our Saviour. Hitler hated Jews not because they killed Christ, but because they were taking the jobs of the German people at a time of searing unemployment. Such an argument was very persuasive on millions of unemployed Germans. Thus, the Third Reich began….
[Daphne – To say that Jews killed Jesus Christ is like saying that a Roman Catholic organised the extermination of six million Jews 65 to 70 years ago.]
Islam ORDERS them to have those kind of thoughts. Mine does not. Read the Koran. There are whole chapters about the Jihad.
[Daphne – Read the Old Testament. There are whole chapters about how to wreak vengeance on others, sacrificing your first-born to appease God; an eye for an eye; people being exterminated for buggery and fornication; serpents tempting naughty ladies with apples; heroes sending men to war so that they can sleep with their wives……If the New Testament superseded it, then why does it continue to come attached to Round One?]
Are you living in the real world? There is nothing called “free will”. Even in so called “free-democracy”. We are all but pawns of the great powers of this world.
[Daphne – I thought the fundamental premise of Christianity is free will.]
Everyone can live in his own fairyland, just like you are. But not everyone has power. There is no such thing as “true freedom” in the real world, my friend. People impose all the time, whether you like it or not. That is the nature of human beings, I’m afraid. The only thing you can do is fight back. But you must realise that you’re like an ant trying to tell an elephant not to step over it. It’s impossible.
You can scream for all eternity for all I care. Catholicism is not imposing anything on you. You can believe in your pipe-dream of the “total freedom”. No problem.
“Now may I suggest you do some studying, both on Protestantism and democracy before you try to put forth another argument.”
Don’t attempt to patronize me. I don’t need to clutter my mind with useless garbage about fake religions and failed political systems. You don’t need to be a “know-it-all” to guess which apple is rotten and which apple isn’t.
[Daphne – Calm down. I think Pat’s suggestion that you read up on Europe’s religious and political history is actually a good one. You’re still using the information you were given in primary school, and it doesn’t come across well in an adult. If you really want to argue your cause convincingly, it pays to be armed with the facts, even if you interpret those facts differently.]
—Hitler hated Jews not because they killed Christ, but because they were taking the jobs of the German people at a time of searing unemployment. Such an argument was very persuasive on millions of unemployed Germans. Thus, the Third Reich began….—
This is what I call ‘Hey presto: instant history lessons’. If only everything were that easily explained.
“Well, of course Jews killed Jesus Christ. And we thank them for that, for without them we wouldn’t have our Saviour.”
Would be all nice and dandy unless it had been used for a long time as motivation behind anti-Semitism. I’m sure you are aware that Hitler’s actions were just the culmination of centuries of considering the Jews as vipers and worse. Also ask yourself why it was so easy for Hitler to use Christian doctrine in his motivations to persecute the Jews.
I can’t believe how unaware you are of your own holy text. You don’t even have to look to the Old Testament to find immoral teachings. There was no hell in the Old Testament. The Old Testament did not instruct you to leave your family to join a cult. The Old Testament did spread God’s word with the sword though.
“We are all but pawns of the great powers of this world.”
Kevin?
“Catholicism is not imposing anything on you.”
Oh please. Look at what children are being taught in schools because of Catholicism. Look at the centuries of scaremongering about hell and limbo, which has caused so much anguish for parents of children lost (only for your last pope to suddenly realise there is no such thing).
Also, my pipe-dream of “total freedom” is obviously an impossible task, but the day we start striving for less is the day we all start returning to middle age theocracy, which is why it is so important to fight against it.
Why do you find the history of Protestantism to be useless garbage? What makes it more fake than the religion you adhere to? It’s true, guessing the rotten apple is not a difficult task and Catholicism has by far passed its expiry date.
–-“Nazi Germany didn’t fight in the name of Christianity for sure. ”
Does the phrase “gott mit uns” ring a bell to you? In how many speeches didn’t Hitler relate to the Jews as Christ killers?–
Hitler exploited and abused Christianity in order to reach the majority Christian masses for his propaganda campaigns. Also he needed the Church and its potent influence (in those days) and its support. Officially he was a Catholic but actually he was a heathen with strong affinity to Germanic mythology and occultism. He was only interested in Christianity as a ‘propaganda tool ‘and ‘Gott ist mit uns’ was just another ‘opium for the people slogan’. Unfortunately, it worked.
[Daphne – Thank you for reminding John Meilak that Adolf Hitler was raised as a Roman Catholic. He might not have known in the first place.]
I know that he was a Catholic. He was educated by Jesuits (yes, the Jesuits) actually.
” And the links you posted are ‘just another bunch of misguided, renegade’ Muslims. It works both ways.”
The problem lies with the magic word: guidance. Christians have their leaders to whom they refer for their guidance.
[Daphne – You must be the person sent to test my patience, John. Christians do not take guidance, unless they are sheep like you, with your duttrina and your priests. The reason I don’t go out and blow people up is not because I am either Christian or take guidance. And if the reason you don’t blow people up is because your religious leaders told you its wrong, then I’m seriously worried for the state of your emotional development. What’s going to happen to do if you suddenly stop believing in your religious leaders? Where are you going to get your moral compass?]
Arabs (and Muslims) still ‘need’ this leader. There were many Arab leaders who were assassinated and they continue to compete between themselves to be the this leader, for them he has to be the defiant type like Gaddafi, Saddam Hussein or Bin Laden.
Islam does not have a leader like the Pope for the Catholics, the Arcbishop of Canterbury for the C of E, the Dalai Lama for the people of Tibet or Metropolitan Kirill of the Russian Orthodox Church.
Many Jews believed that Ariel Sharon (is he still on life support machines?) was the Saviour of Israel while others are still waiting for his coming.
http://myminddroppings.wordpress.com/2009/04/22/muslim-moderates-are-culpable-if-not-complicit/
http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2009/02/losing-our-heads-.html/
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20090511/local/president-to-discuss-feasts-with-parish-priests
Oh good grief:
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20090511/letters/sunday-mass-on-cruise-liners
So Daphne can you tell us wether 300 Catholics have a right to celebrate Sunday Mass on a cruise liner?
[Daphne – It’s not a matter of right, but of whether they want to get together and organise it with the cruise company. A cruise ship, unlike a promenade, is a privately-owned space. If their request is refused, they can go on another sort of holiday. But with falling passengers numbers, I’m sure they’ll be accommodated – as a business decision.]
Some quite interesting reading from Paul Sims, of New Humanist:
http://blog.newhumanist.org.uk/2009/05/problem-with-identity.html
A survey shows the intolerance shown by Muslims in Britain towards, amongst other things, homosexuality, something which should not be denied. But he also suggests solutions being a matter of facing the identity problem, which is shown quite well in the following part:
“What I found in Blackburn is that those working in the community feel that the government should place more emphasis on addressing issues of poverty, education and health, rather than on flagship schemes for tackling extremism. And this ties in with what the Iranian-American writer Reza Aslan argues in his new book How to Win a Cosmic War – Global Jihadists rely on creating a “master narrative” for disaffected young Muslims, in which “the global grievances to which they have been exposed are connected to the local grievances that they themselves experience every day”. It therefore follows that if you can address those local grievances, you can break that link between local and global, you can reduce the likelihood of young people turning to extremism.”
Whether you agree with the premise or not, it’s still a worthwhile read.
Even if you’re not a humanist, I can strongly recommend the New Humanist blog. Paul Sims, who writes the majority of the contributions, tends to be very to-the-point on many issues, although the majority of the articles tends to revolve around religion.
Just love your graphic description of Ghar id-Dud summer nights …”ghastly offspring” – complete with ringlets and gold earrings. As for parents admonishing children, the ultimate I once heard at the Due Balli in Valletta in waterless-KMB-governed Malta was “Ejja l-hawn ghax jekk jispicca l-ilma, bil L— ta’ L-Arcisqoff nahslek!”
[Daphne – We used to give Ghar id-Dud a wide berth in the summer. The bit near the mobile kiosk at the far end, just before turning down to Qui-Si-Sana, was particularly horrible. As I recall, the class division was as follows: marmalja ta’ criecer at Ghar id-Dud, tal-pepe grannies/mummies/children at Fond Ghadir near the ‘kabbana’, a mixed crowd near the tower and then quite iffy again round Taormina kiosk. I’m talking about summer nights (winter nights, the right crowd congregated at Ghar id-Dud and conducted their social life in freezing and wind-blown conditions), but when we young mothers used to be out with our prams on weekday afternoons, the system wasn’t any different. We never went anywhere near Ghar id-Dud. That was for the NQLUs. Apparently, it still is, judging by the people The Times reporter interviewed: “not here, where I get my children to eat and relax. Ghaliex ma mmorrux f’xi toqba x’imkien?” Put up the barricades! If only that man knew how very much in-nies tal-post don’t want his sort around either. The secondary objection to the development of apartments in Stella Maris parish, after the disruption and the architecture, is that it has changed the social mix of the original tal-pepe streets completely. There was no social mix before, or hardly any.]
Just read more comments on this blog. Daphne you ask “what is Catholicsm stance on other religions is …what exactly ?” The catholic church speaks of the “3 great religions” which believe in One God – Catholicism , Judaeism and Islam . So indeed the Catholic Church has great respect for the other two.
I agree with Daphne, but these people should understand that many Maltese are genuinely fearful of them. Perhaps if they prayed somewhere not as public as Ghar id-Dud it would help. These people are trying to make a statement by provocation. Praying works anywhere so perhaps if they found somewhere not so central it would please everybody.
[Daphne – Except those who believe in the right to freedom of worship, which implies the freedom to worship in public, rather than in some covert hole like the early persecuted Christians.]
It’s ironic that the dark-skinned Maltese Catholic migrants to UK/US etc.. were (and probably still are) viewed as a “threat” in much the same way by the WASPs (white Anglo-Saxon Protestants)… we just don’t understand certain things when we live in a bubble, or in this case a rock surrounded by miles of water.
This may come as a shock to some, but we live at the edge of, and are dwarfed by, the vast African continent. Can we realistically expect not to be influenced by it in any way in today’s shrinking world?
We’re a country at the crossroads. We always had and always will have people migrating across our small stepping-stone of land…
Instead of reeling back in fear of the unknown, if anything we should take the opportunity to influence migrants, by example, the ways of a tolerant European country in the hope that we will make the slightest difference in the long run… but apparently we’re a long long shot from that attitude…
[Daphne – I think it’s African migrants who have much to teach us about toleration, judging from what I read when they are interviewed by Maltese journalists.]
Excellent article by the way…
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article5358194.ece
Daphne – toleration, or tolerance?
[Daphne – The correct usage is toleration. I got a bit fed up of using the incorrect one – tolerance – just because it was expected and everyone here uses it. Anyway, just to expand further:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_tolerance
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/toleration/
http://mw1.m-w.com/dictionary/toleration
http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~wldciv/world_civ_reader/world_civ_reader_2/voltaire.html
http://www.let.rug.nl/~usa/D/1601-1650/maryland/mta.htm
http://www.constitution.org/jl/tolerati.htm
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/edict-milan.html
I trust this helps.]
In December 2008, when I was passing through the border control at Washington DC they asked me if I was ”North African or Middle Eastern”….Enough said
Excellent article!
[The Jews killed Jesus]
Wrong. The Jews never had the right to impose capital punishment, especially crucifixions, and not even floggings. The only death penalty they could apply was the hit and run strategy of stoning, which was mainly applied to what were believed to be adulteresses, and many a time to hide the shady doings of the same executioners.
[Daphne – Thank you for that. The brainwashed ‘I don’t study history because it’s garbage’ people here fail to realise that the decision to crucify Jesus Christ was taken by the Romans, who governed Judea. Crucifixion was a Roman method of execution, not a Jewish one.]
Crucifixion was the capital punishment invented by the Romans especially for traitors and terrorists and for those who were seen as a threat to the Roman way of life. It is a known fact that people were condemned to death by crucifixion by the hundreds, even thousands, and condemning people to crucifixion was just another chore of a day at the office for any Roman consul. So it can be fairly deducted that Jesus (although no actual historical records of the person or facts exist) was condemned to death because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. But again the death sentence by crucifixion was a Roman prerogative. In a large number of cases people were sent to death on the fly and for no apparent fault or reason.
The idea that Jesus was sent to death by the Jews was created by the early followers (mainly in the first couple of centuries) because of an internal struggle between numerous early believers (churches) and the marketing strategy adopted by the winning faction that it was much better to leave the Roman Empire out of crucifixion so as to win as much newcomers from the Empire as possible.
[Daphne – Yes, that’s right. Early Christianity spread in the Roman Empire, so it would have been dangerous, not to say self-defeating, to be accurate in saying that the decision to kill the saviour was one taken by the Roman authorities.]
Apart from all this, ‘Christianity’ does not in itself exist as a religion. Not because one does not accept the ideals instructed through the ages as a good way of life (other religions have even higher ideals and older traditions) but because the church as we know it is all based on the teachings, interpretations and writings of Paul of Tarsus which are to say the least his personal ideas of how one should live. And even these have through the ages been adapted, re-written and interpreted by the Christian churches in a way that suited the religious leaders of the time.
As for violence by religions, one has only to refer to the Old Testament for many examples, this being one of them:
‘The Lord commanded Saul, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy everything that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.’
Nearer in time, the behaviour of Isabella of Spain and the purging of the Jews of the Iberian Peninsula is a very dark chapter of European civilisation. The extermination of whole civilisations in the Americas brings to shame those who try to hide behind the thin veil of a ‘church against violence’.
Too far back in time for you? Read some contemporary history of the atrocities perpetrated by the Christian Serbs at the expense of the Bosnian Muslims and note how Christian Europe closed both eyes.
As it is often quoted;
“With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.”
“no actual historical records of the person (Jesus) exist”.
So what’s the New Testament? Your own valid contribution draws on these records – for example, the Saul of Tarsus missives.
“Crucifixion was the capital punishment invented by the Romans “
Completely wrong: crucifixion predates the Romans by many years. The Romans were quite big fans though.
“(although no actual historical records of the person or facts exist)” Again, completely wrong, unless everybody at the time including the Romans agreed to spread a common fairytale. Whether you believe in him as God is a different matter entirely of course (I happen to believe steadfastly).
As to this whole praying at Ghar id-Dud business, the fanatics shot themselves in the foot – those people are praying in pulic as a protest because they know how much we intolerant Maltese would be outraged, besides having all the right in the world to do so.
Also, I would have no problem with MEPA’s decision if it were consistent and applied equally across the board.
An apartment is not the place for regular worship by a large group of people, be they Muslims, Christians, Charismatics or any other prayer meeting. It causes inconvenience to other residents, as Daphne’s mum found out with those damn prayer groups, not to mention those effing festi with their petards.
There is also the aspect of health and safety regulations (I KNOW that was not the reason it was closed but it should have been). Once again, regular inspections should also be carried out in all churches etc to make sure exits are clearly marked and fire extinguishers present. That will be the day.
If they want to pray on the front what on earth is the problem? Are these fanatics (the racists not the people praying) so insecure of their faith that the sight of other people of other faiths praying scares them?
For the record, I am a practising Catholic (even if admittedly a poor specimen) and damn proud of it. But I can’t associate myself with these self-declared defenders of the faith any more than I can associate Bin Ladin with being a good Muslim.
The New Testament is the putting-down in writing of oral traditions and events that happened a century or more earlier. This is quite strange for a nation that has one of the oldest traditions of putting down in writing its history and the study of such writings from time immemorial.
It is a fact that there are no historical records of the persons or events claimed by the Christian church. There are no historical facts of a Jesus Christ but one finds *many* messiahs or persons who claimed to be the messiah in Jewish history, but no Jesus Christ.
[Daphne – Messiah is just a corruption of the word for leader, like the Maltese ‘mexxej’. The Labour Party has one of those.]
As for Paul of Tarsus, again there are no proven facts, he drew his writings and teachings from what was passed on to him. He had no actual irrevocable facts in hand and it was he who elaborated the ‘Jesus risen from the dead’ theory. Being a Pharisee he had to get one back from the followers of the Sadducee movement who were more involved in politics than religion; their main belief was that there was no life after death. They denied God’s involvement in everyday life and denied the spiritual world of angels and demons.
As the Western Roman Empire dwindled, people looked for direction and leaders. The religious leaders of the time grasped the unique opportunity and emulated Roman secular powers: the despotic and authoritarian way of ruling; the system of electing the leader from a very small group of elite followers; the creation of a god in their own image; the divine right to rule; the right to declare anyone and everyone as enemy of the state; the imposing of a new Pax Romana, one either submits or is exterminated; the taking over of the festivities of the previous empire, including the festival of Ares the Greek god of war; installation in sumptuous buildings; the confiscation and keeping of all foreign idols taken as spoils of war; the right to extract by torture testimony which goes directly against the tortured witness; the fancy and colourful clothing as worn by previous emperors; the right to extort taxes; I could go on for longer but the parallels are obvious.
You seem to equate “historical records” with primary source documents such as birth or death certificates, or official court proceedings of a trial. It is true that as far as Jesus is concerned, and unsurprisingly, no such document exists.
But “historical records” has a wider meaning. For example: Anglu Farrugia is a contemporary of mine, though I have never had the pleasure of meeting him. Daphne has, and if she were to relate to me her personal experiences of the man, and I were to record them, and in two thousand years time my scribbles happened to be the only contemporary record of the man to survive, then they would be regarded as an important historical record of proof that such a man existed, and they would also furnish some information about him.
And so it is with Paul and Jesus, who, though they were contemporaries, never met.
It’s as near as you can get to a primary source document at this distance in time.
I have no qualms against believers, any type of belief or religion, even if it is in The Flying Spaghetti Monster. That is to the benefit or not of the believer. As far as I am concerned if it gives the person a sense of security and makes the believer happy then so be it. It makes me happy too.
What I was pointing out is the fact that the Catholic religion as is and has been preached along the centuries is full of contradictions and especially violence. As for facts, please do not consider the gospels as fact. Facts are not written down centuries after the event. Those are traditions carried forward by word of mouth.
It has been noted that the Dead Sea Scrolls and The Nad Hammadi texts predate the gospels by a good number of years. Why weren’t these writings included in the gospels? They strike at the foundations of what has been taught through the ages and show that much of what is attributed to the teachings of Jesus predate him by some centuries.
John Meilak: “I think all Muslims believe in the Jihad. So basically they’re all the same at the end of the day.”
This sort of statement is more than a little offensive – and that’s because of the lack of logic, and the obtuseness of deductive, self-referential ‘reasoning’ that interprets uninformed opinion as fact. All you need to do is substitute ‘Catholics’ for ‘Muslims’ and ‘their own supremacy’ for ‘the Jihad’ to see what I mean.
On a related note, I have had Muslim friends for most of my life. Right now, two Muslims are sitting opposite me in an office and there are several more in the same, rather large, building. I have often visited countries that are predominantly Muslim. No one, at any point, has attempted to convert me or blow me up. That is not to say that such things never happen. It is merely an observation that your comment is fatuous and the equivalent of anyone saying to you that all Catholics believe all non-Catholics should be burned at the stake. I don’t imagine you believe that yourself so you do your religion a disservice by making absurd claims in its defence.
Good reasoning for historical documentation. Why not use the idea as a base for a thesis for a degree in history.
I stress again there are no historical records. Considering that the sick were healed and the dead were ordered to rise, the least one would expect is for the Roman consul to be amazed and instead of condemning to death he would have kept Jesus as his aide or send him to Rome to meet the Emperor. He would have been a great help during any military campaign considering that healing, raising the dead was not much of a problem. Apart from that, walking on water would have landed him a part time job as a messenger and would have aided much any campaign.
There are very much lesser feats than the rising of the dead recorded by Roman contemporaries.
As for Paul of Tarsus, allow me to draw a local parallel as your good self has made; what is your opinion of a man who changes his political idea overnight? Wouldn’t you call it opportunism? I am sure that if Paul were to be alive today, with two thousand years of hindsight, he would have acted and spoken much differently.
I’ve lost the thread of your argument here. What’s opportunism got to do with a contemporary historical record?
I requested what historical strength has what was written by Paul of Tarsus considering that he was never a first hand witness.
Reading through the Acts one cannot but notice an underlying tug-of-war between various factions of the new religion, and the faction that reached Rome first won over the others. As always happens it is the winners that write the history books.
The next big event was the council of Nicea, as ordered by Emperor Constantine (the one who killed his wife Faustina at the request of his mother Helena). It was at this council that the structure of the church was decided. In just the same way as Constantine would have decided an act of war. Most of the decisions taken had nothing to do with religion but more with politics. All those who were against him and his followers were declared as heretics. All their writings condemned and ordered to be destroyed. When all was done and Constantine was sure that his throne was secure he decided that it was in the best interest of his successors that he becomes a member of the new church through baptism. But by then the damage was done and spreading.
That is history that has destroyed a lot of (written) history.
Your question has already been answered above.
Those are not historical facts, only hearsay.