I see the Pope agrees with me (as Franco Debono might say)
For the last few days, I have been engaged in debates on the comments-board of this website with some of my regular readers who insist that I am wrong and misguided in saying that the current spate of terrorism has nothing to do with religion, and that it is not religions which are violent but people who deliberately use a false interpretation of religion, as they would any other convenient (political) ideology, as the means to obtain power over others through force and fear.
I have been contradicted at every turn by some of my readers who are clearly unable to look at the matter dispassionately, some because they identify primarily as Roman Catholics and still see the world in terms of Rome vs Islam, others because they hate all religion, and others because they interpret (mistakenly) my observations as stemming from an anti-Roman Catholic bias and so become defensive.
Yet in this morning’s news I read that Pope Francis has said exactly the same thing (he must read this website…).
“Violence is always the product of a falsification of religion, its use a pretext for ideological schemes whose only goal is power over others…I express my hope that religious, political and intellectual leaders, especially those of the Muslim community, will condemn all fundamentalist and extremist interpretations of religion which attempt to justify such acts of violence,” he said.
60 Comments Comment
Leave a Comment
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20150112/world/pope-urges-muslim-leaders-to-condemn-religious-based-violence.551598
Next time someone contradicts you ask them if they have any friends of a different religion to their own. Their answer should go a long way in explaining why they disagree.
I have but the Muslims just try to impose their religion and customs on you and your country. All other people of other religions accept the motto that when they are in Rome do as they Romans do. Muslims do not accept this but they want to take all over Rome.
[Daphne – I have seen no evidence of this. Have you? On the contrary, what I have seen is the opposite: people going nuts and protesting because some Muslims thought they would pray in the open air on the Sliema front. But meanwhile it was all right for John Bonnici Mallia to use Mdina Square for his prayer meetings.]
All the friends I have who are not Catholics respect my religion and I respect theirs. Truth be told most of them are well educated and European, and not just because they live in Europe.
I have often had conversations about religion with non-European Muslims and they have never tried to impose their religion on me. I asked many questions about their religion, and they answered politely.
I have also had “proper” Christianity imposed on me several times, especially in Malta, and often these people turn out to be very hypocritical in the end.
The point is that there are good people and bad in all walks of life and it does not depend on their religion. Unfortunately, too often, ignorant or uneducated people are exploited by others who wish to push forward their agenda. Sometimes they also manage to use more affluent and educated people who are blinded by something or other.
Daphne, with all due respect have you ever lived in a predominantly Muslim neighbourhood? Well I have, in several countries, and let me tell you it gave me a sense of what living during apartheid must have felt like. It was not pleasant and I do not wish anyone to live in that kind of tense environment where the women never smile and the men walk around like arrogant warlords.
[Daphne – ‘Where the women never smile and the men walk around like arrogant warlords.’ Sounds just like Malta. I’ve been reading a book published in the 1950s and written by a man who sailed his boat from Britain to Australia, giving a description of every place he stopped in along the way. The bit about Malta is fascinating: what struck him was the sullen, scowling or ‘dead’ expressions of the Maltese on the streets.
I can’t give your comment the proper consideration it deserves unless you furnish me with the context. Where were these predominantly Muslim neighbourhoods in which you lived, in several countries, and did your sense of alienation come from the religion, the culture, the ethnicity of the people or the place? I have lived in predominantly Roman Catholic neighbourhoods all my life, where the women never smile and the men throw their weight around like they own the place, and the atmosphere can be very tense when I am recognised as a person whose views they disapprove of, but I never feel alienated because I am used to it. I have heard bells and seen churches and Roman Catholics and lived among them in a chauvinistic culture my whole life. The familiar doesn’t have to be something you share or which you approve of. Your sense of dislocation came from feeling you were among the unfamiliar and not from being around Muslims. Incidentally, are you a man or a woman? I ask because a woman’s experience is different to a man’s even in Malta. Women working in Malta operate in a context where they are often the only woman in the room and where everything is said and done entirely from a man’s perspective.]
Having said that, I have had great Muslim friends. But admittedly they were just nominal Muslims. They were critical of the religion and even admitted that they were considered heretics, or in their exact words ‘bad Muslims’ in their countries of origin.
[Daphne – I understand how you feel. Some of my friends are Roman Catholic, but the friendship only survives because we avoid the subject of prayer meetings and similar.]
For the ubiquitous Muslim terrorists wreaking murderous havoc from New York to Nigera and the Far East it is not a question of when in Rome do as the Romans. It is a question of when you are in Paris do as we do in Mecca, Saudi Arabia etc..
Thank you for taking the time to answer.
I understand what you are saying with regard to Malta and I too have seen that sullen look on many people’s faces. Having said that, I have seen that look on many a face in the UK, a country I feel is inhabited by severely depressing people. However, the look I am referring to is different. I do not know how to explain it to you.
I do not want to be too specific but to give you some context I am referring specifically to Switzerland and Belgium.
The ethnicity of the people did not bother me and foreign languages fascinate rather than scare me. I am quite a reflective person so I have tried to analyse my feelings on this. I, and others like me who lived in the same areas, felt looked down on, stared at, and in the case of the women, disrespected and unsafe.
Anyone who has lived in a place they are not welcome will know that look, the ‘get out of my neighbourhood look’. I am not saying this tendency is confined to Muslims; it can be based on anything tribal, race included.
I also found it rather unfair that at discos (I promise I am not that old but I still insist on calling them that) you would see no Muslims until 3am when they knew the girls would be as loose as a goose and then they would just start making a nuisance of themselves and generally harassing the ladies. No doubt their women are locked up at home being ‘good girls’ whilst the boys play with the infidel slappers.
[Daphne – How did you know they are Muslim? Did they wear the equivalent of a yellow star? What does this look like to you if you couldn’t read that sign – some kind of demo by young Muslim men somewhere in the Middle East, right? Because that’s what I thought it was before I looked closely enough: http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20150113/opinion/Joseph-Muscat-s-albatross.551670 ]
The women wore variations of the veil, and I won’t be smart here and mention all the various types just to prove that I am not some ignoramus.
[Daphne – You were talking about the men who went to the club while their women were at home, so veils don’t come into it. And a veil in a club at 2am, anyway? I don’t think so.]
The men, not all, wore attire you would normally see Wahhabis wearing.
[Daphne – At a club? Be serious, please.]
As for the young men in the photo, I think you are being a bit naive here for the sole purpose of making your point.
In this photo, using context — an argument you always use — I can deduce that these men are Maltese and if you would like to go one step further, a mixture of agnostic, atheist and nominal Catholics.
[Daphne – No, it is impossible to deduce they are Maltese without the context of the accompanying news story and without knowing that the language on the placard is Maltese. Those young men look 100% Middle Eastern. Anybody who is not Maltese would immediately draw that conclusion, as would many Maltese who couldn’t read the writing because they don’t have their spectacles on. My point to you here is that you cannot assume that somebody is a Muslim just because they look Middle Eastern or North African.]
Context is king. Would you also argue that if a group of men, all stereotypically Chinese in appearance, speaking Chinese, with behaviour and mannerisms your experience tells you are that of a Chinese person, were to turn up at a disco you would assume they were from just about anywhere on the planet?
Would you ask yourself: ‘ooh I say, could these lovely gentlemen be Nigerian Muslims’?
[Daphne – We are talking about religion, not ethnicity or citizenship here. It reveals a great deal about your mindset that you think of ‘Muslim’ as an ethnicity rather than a religion. My point to you is that you should not assume that anyone who looks Middle Eastern or North African is a Muslim or even Middle Eastern or North African. Equally, you should never assume that your Chinese people here are NOT Muslim, because China has one of the world’s oldest-established Muslim populations outside Saudi Arabia. But then a Chinese Muslim probably foxes your prejudices because they live like all other Chinese people and are indistinguishable from them except for the fact that the men go to the mosque and they don’t eat pork.]
The people I am talking about are from predominantly Muslim countries. By the way, having worked and lived with Christian Middle Easterners and North Africans, I know how to make the distinction between the behaviour of the two groups, with exceptions, given. But then, only people desperate to argue their point will use the exceptions as their focal point, wouldn’t they? Those who know their argument is sound use the norm as their guide.
[Daphne – You are making the usual, fatal error commonly made by Maltese people (who should know better): that there are no class divisions or socio-educational distinctions in North Africa and the Middle East. And so you conflate the behaviour and attitudes of North African and Middle Eastern ‘hamalli’ with those of Muslims in general. Behavioural differences are not attributable to religion. They are attributable, as everywhere else in the world, to social class, education and family background. Use the signifiers you would use for assessing somebody European – they are no different. But if you start off from the point that ‘this is an alien culture’, you will miss those signifiers. I don’t, just as I don’t miss them among Europeans. You say you felt alienated living in a Brussels neighbourhood where mainly ‘Muslims’ lived. It wasn’t the fact that they were Muslims that alienated you, but the fact that they were from a certain kind of background, and instead of reading the signifiers as differences of social class, you read them as cultural differences due to religion. North African and Middle Eastern people from educated backgrounds and the top rungs of the social ladder do not congregate in ‘Muslim’ neighbourhoods. That behaviour is typical of working-class immigrants, which is why the Maltese do it in Australia. You would feel equally alienated, I suspect, living on a housing estate in Bormla.]
I would be interested in reading comments from people who, like me, have worked with both Indians and Pakistanis. The Indians I have worked with were predominantly Sikh and Buddhist whilst the Pakistanis were all Muslim. The difference was truly astonishing.
I found the Indians respectful and cooperative and the Pakistanis arrogant, and uncooperative. The ideology a person grows up with intimately shapes their character, how they see the world and how they interact with it.
[Daphne – This is a very blinkered statement. I grew up Roman Catholic. It had absolutely no influence on my character. Other things did. I am grateful for the experience of growing up in a religious country, however, because it gave me a great deal of insight into how the religious mindset works to control and shape society, which is useful when understanding Islamic societies. Maltese people are arrogant and uncooperative, ill-mannered and extremely passive aggressive. I never attribute this to their having been raised Roman Catholic, but to cultural attitudes which have nothing to do with religion. The main problem is ignorance, lack of manners and a catastrophic absence of self-awareness. Given your attitude, I’m surprised you haven’t told us that ‘Indians rape girls and leave them for dead’ and that ‘they kill girls for refusing to marry old men’.]
It has nothing to do with religion. The reverse could happen with many Maltese youngsters if the church was still fixated with crusades and could still manipulate them.
It has everything to do with religion. This part of the Pope’s quote is as ironic as it is cheeky: ““Violence is always the product of a falsification of religion, its use a pretext for ideological schemes whose only goal is power over others…”
Organised religion is *precisely* about exercising power over others by means of violence. In the past, the Catholic Church’s violence included physical torture and burning at the stake and today it lingers on as the mental violence that comes with the threat of eternal damnation.
I was still a young boy when I asked myself the following question: why would I go to hell if a car ran me over before I could confess my relatively minor mortal sins, while a murderous mafioso who repented on his deathbed would just do some Purgatory time and then spend eternity in Heaven? The God I was told about was obviously not just at all. This was the first doubt I can recall having, but it took several more years to break free of all the brainwashing and guilt.
Of course, the Catholic Church has toned down the Hell rhetoric in recent years because it was pushing people like me away, but the strongest motivating factor remains the same: fear of eternal damnation. Other Christian denominations, like the Evangelicals that are now infesting Malta with their closed and bigoted thinking, want to take us back and worse.
Islam, on the other hand, is still in its ‘Old Testament’ / medieval phase where they want to control the minutiae of people’s lives. Even building a snowman is apparently a sin: http://gulfbusiness.com/2015/01/saudi-cleric-condemns-snowmen-anti-islamic/
Then again, the Pope too wants to control whether people can use condoms or not in the privacy of their bedrooms, including people in Africa who desperately need them to avoid the HIV/AIDS epidemic that is ravaging their communities.
Where is the love?
“ghax mhux l-indiema imma l-imhabba qeghda ssejjahli lejk.” S. Augustine 4th century.
Perfectly put
Peritocracy, you have perfectly embodied Christ’s freedom: you are free to think and do whatever you want. You are free to believe or not believe. That is Christ’s love. That is what Christ asked Christians to do. That is the example Christ set to follow.
Because let’s face it, if you believed and still believe that living a Christian life meant not doing anything which could send you to hell, then you have not understood the very basic notion of Christianity. You got the Christian values all wrong.
If you chose not to believe, if you chose not to follow, therefore why do you criticise? Why do you comment on the doings of a community which you chose not to form part of?
As regards your second paragraph Catholicism does not hold that a child would go to hell for an unconfessed “minor mortal” sin or that a murderous Mafioso would go the heaven after some perfunctionary insincere death bed confession and a spell in purgatory.
Physical torture and burning at the stake were not some exclusivity of religion including Catholicism. Unfortunately that was the routine method of extracting confession and punishing treason (including practicing a religion different from the ruler’s) by the state at that time.
The Pope does not control or punish anybody for what they do in their bedrooms or anywhere else, He only teaches without having any police or army doing any surveillance or enforcement.
I think that is enough to convince reasonable people that you are completely off the mark as regard H. H. Pope Francis and the Catholic Church.
Daphne, I’m afraid the real message is in the following sentence: “I express my hope that religious, political and intellectual leaders, especially those of the Muslim community, will condemn all fundamentalist and extremist interpretations of religion which attempt to justify such acts of violence.”
This means that the Pope is yet to see the Muslim community leaders unambiguously condemn such acts.
[Daphne – No, it means exactly what it does: that Muslim leaders have special status because it is THEIR contradiction of the statements made by terrorists on Islam’s behalf that is the most significant. Muslim leaders have been unambiguous in condemning what happened, already. The Pope said he hopes ‘religous, political and intellectual leaders’ will speak out. This does not mean that he hasn’t seen or heard any do so.]
Some months ago on one of the uber-serious talkshows on German TV, the talkmaster asked a couple of high-level Muslim leaders in Germany whether they were unambiguously against acts of violence by extremists against other religions. Very unfortunately, and shockingly, neither gave an answer without ifs and buts in it.
[Daphne – In their position, you would probably do the same, or refuse to go on the talk show. Not because of what you really think, but because of fear of the consequences of expressing it. When you think of ‘Muslims’ as a homogenous mass all loyal to each other and united in dislike of liberty and other religions, you are unable to see that the minority of terrorist extremists is a threat to Muslims too.]
Not everyone is as ready as you are to accept uncritically that Muslim leader are honestly “unambiguous in condemning what happened, already”. It is acceptable in Islam to lie to unbelievers if that promotes the cause of Islam.
Islamic states are notorious for inflicting the most cruel and degrading punishments for the slightest disrespect towards Prophet Muhammad. But when muslim terrorists “blaspheme against Muhammad” by their violence, not a finger is raised to actually punish them. Terrorists are actually recruited from madrases.
At a distance from some particularly heinous terrorist act Imams in Islamic states openly preach Holy Jihad against all unbelievers and “going for their necks”
Just like one is expected to agree with whatever a Maltese person does or says ‘ghax l-iehor barrani’.
Experts are not immune to saying ridiculous things either. Terrorism expert Steven Emerson had to make an apology after what he said to Fox News : ”… And, parts of London, there are actually Muslim religious police that actually beat and actually wound seriously anyone who doesn’t dress according to religious Muslim attire.”
http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/jan/12/fox-news-expert-ridiculed-over-birmingham-is-totally-muslim-city-claims?CMP=fb_gu
Of course the pope would agree with you, he is the leader of a religion. It is in his interest to say that.
If people believe that god exists and that their actions in this life have a bearing on an afterlife, the connection is obvious.
Of course there have been many attacks that were not in the name of a religion but when you throw it into the mix along with a mental condition or social conformity, it is a very dangerous ingredient.
It is recorded in the gospels that Jesus observed that even the Devil knows how to quote the word of God when it suits Him. Some use the word of God as enlightenment , others , to bash around people when the occasion arises.Those who think that Islamic Fundamentalists are misinterpreting their faith should have a closer look at how the founder of Islam set about with establishing his religion buy referring to the what was recorded in their holy books themselves.
“especially those of the Muslim community”
Just saying.
You got it in one, xifajk.
In the days of the Crusades, illiteracy was almost universal, hence the ignorance, hence the fact that they could take place.
Today, there are no excuses and in fact, Roman Catholicism has only brutalised small quantities of people on a local basis in the past two centuries (eg: Irish orphans). RC stopped having political power.
Islam is not only strong but growing ever stronger politically, even trumping (against women’s wishes) democracy when that was introduced in Islamic countries. It has no recognised universal leader or authority, hence no-one keeps it in check.
Of course it’s about religion. Ask the women.
[Daphne – Chris, Islam is the vehicle by which women are oppressed. This held true even for Roman Catholicism. Without Islam and without Roman Catholicism, women were and are still oppressed. Look at India. Look at rural China. The drive to oppress women is almost universal. Religions merely served to codeify and give a pseudo-legitimate framework to what men wanted to do anyway. Is Maltese misogyny caused by religion? No, it isn’t. It’s far more fundamental than that.]
For an official version of Catholicism’s attitude to wives I would like to recommend reading St Paul’s letter to the Colossians Chapter 3 Verse19.
‘ I read that Pope Francis has said exactly the same thing (he must read this website…).’
You really want to ruin the bog roll’s editor’s day don’t you?
been telling people that, ages…
Maria says: spot on.
You didn’t exactly expect him to come out and give honest academic interpretations, or his honest opinion on Islam as a religion and political ideology did you?
The last time a pope did that there were mass killings, bombings, embassy invasions, burnings, and worldwide protests. That was Benedict’s reminder that he was no longer an academic philosopher theologian but rather a politician and statesmen.
The Pope is a politician and his words are necessarily measured, and quite frankly, skirt around the truth. I would hardly take this as some kind of confirmation of your take on the events.
[Daphne – Oh come off it. The Pope says something that contradicts the arguments you have been making on behalf of Roman Catholicism, and you try to rationalise it as something he did because he had to. The Pope, of all people – and most certainly this pope in particular – will say what he means or say nothing at all.]
Look, I won’t bother. I will just sit this argument out. I participated against my better judgement.
One of the reasons I love this blog is precisely because it is not politically correct, except on this one of course. Meanwhile the facts are staring us all in the face. Name one liberal democracy in the Muslim world, and for the love of God do not mention Turkey, even less so Bosnia Herzegovina.
The next twenty years will vindicate many of the regulars here.
[Daphne – If I were politically correct, albona, my arguments and my views would be just the same as yours. ‘Politically correct’ depends on the context. What is ‘politically correct’ in China is not the same as what is ‘politically correct’ in France. The politically correct view in Malta is that we start off from the Roman Catholic IDENTITY (as distinct from religious) standpoint and view Islam as the natural, historic, cultural enemy. That is your view, therefore you are the one who is politically correct in this debate. It is not my view, therefore I am not politically correct on the subject of religion and identity in the Maltese context. You cannot see that I am consistent in my refusal to take the mainstream, politically correct approach just because it is what everyone else seems to think therefore, to quote our Opposition leader in a misguided moment, ‘36,000 people can’t be wrong’. You become upset when my views on national identity (because this is not about Islam or RC) don’t coincide with yours as they do on most political issues. But then I suspect you came to your political views not through a process of assessment but through the ‘national identity’ question. I did not.]
He would say that wouldn’t he? Being the media savvy head of a major religion and all that. One of the main essences of religion is precisely the granting of power of a caste or an elite over the rest of society and the arbitration of who gets to use violence among other things.
The founder of Islam declared himself an Abrahamic prophet and cited divine backing to justify and the violence he need to carry out to convince the Arab tribes to unite under his banner and help himself to his rivals’ wealth and women.
His Holiness should also keep in mind that were it not for the likes of the Emperor Constantine and Charlemagne, who were very violent men, his religion wouldn’t have survived.
Heck! Even in our own history Daphne, do you think Roman Catholicism became the dominant religion here because of the proselytising of Saint Paul or because of the Normans?
[Daphne – The Maltese population is little more than a thousand years old, so St Paul couldn’t possibly have had anything to do with it. Nor did the Normans; Muslims formed part of the Norman court and business, cultural and political life in Palermo so it follows that Malta was no different. In fact the problems for Muslims in Malta and Sicily began with the end of ‘Norman’ rule and the entry into the scene of the House of Hohenstaufen. Islam was proscribed in Malta in the 13th century, contrary to popular belief and that old schoolbook Gateway to Our Nation’s History, which has done so much damage. A good article by the historian Godfrey Wettinger is reproduced here: http://vassallohistory.wordpress.com/vassallo/the-origin-of-the-maltese-surnames/ It is not on this specific subject, but related.]
I think many are attempting to rewrite history according to thier whims and prejudices including some odd historian such as Wettinger. In fact I think there are more competent historians, such as Professors Buhagiar, Frendo, Fenech and Fiorini. In any case his article is on surnames and is based on hypotheses and subjective interpretations.
[Daphne – Godfrey Wettinger is the specialist in the field, David. Mario Buhagiar’s views are much the same, except that they differ most notably on the question of Al Himyari’s account of Malta as an uninhabited island. In any case, Buhagiar is a historian of art and culture and his interest in the Arab and pre-Arab period is rooted in that aspect, unlike Wettinger who is concerned largely with social organisation, for want of a better description. Henry Frendo and Dominic Fenech specialise in 19th and 20th century politics. They do not research, write about or teach this field of Maltese history. I don’t know enough about Stanley Fiorini’s work to comment.]
Regarding your point on the Maltese population, there were people in Malta some 2000 years ago and more. So why is the population only 1000 years old? Did the Maltese people of 2000 years ago go extinct like the dinosaurs or were they all barren?
[Daphne – http://melitensiawth.com/incoming/Index/The%20Arabs%20in%20Malta/1990proc%2007%2030%20Sept.%20A%20realistic%20assessment%20of%20al-Himyari%27s%20account%20by%20G.%20Wettinger.pdf The description of Malta as an uninhabited island comes from a contemporary description by Al Himyari. Wettinger contests its accuracy on the basis of the absolutist ‘uninhabited’. The reality is likely to have been that ‘uninhabited’ actually meant inhabited by just a few people living on the edge of survival, with no civilisation, towns or cities. This is borne out by the archaeological record (even allowing for the fact that you can’t argue from the absence of evidence), the language (we speak Tunisian Arabic with no traces of an earlier language though plenty of subsequent influences), and more latterly, genetic research. The bulk of genetic material – apologies for the simplistic terminology but this is for general consumption – is even newer than 1000 years, having entered the Maltese population over the last 500 years. The ‘female’ genes are older, and most of that new genetic material came from men arriving from elsewhere, but mainly from southern Italy. This is borne out, interestingly, by our language, which uses the fundamental Arabic ‘omm’ for mother but has no word for ‘father’, ‘missier’ being a corruption of the French ‘monsieur’. At some point we lost the Arabic word for ‘father’ altogether. There would have been a social reason for this: the mother remained the constant, for obvious reasons, but at some stage the father ceased to be and his role was lost. This might have been because the predominant majority of fathers were sailors and other itinerants who stopped for a while, fathered children and left.]
In 1127 Roger II reasserted Norman rule in Malta and reestablished Christianity as the dominant religion in Malta although all Muslims were expelled later in 1224. Christianity predates the Arab period as archeological and other evidence shows. Thus I think Wormfood may be right.
[Daphne – Yes, David, Christianity predates Islam in Malta but that is neither here or there because Christianity predates Islam overall, full stop. The point is that there was no continuity between the Christianity in Malta of around the fifth century AD and the reemergence of Christianity around the 13th century. There was a very long period in between: different people, different religion.
No, Wormfood is not correct. He displays complete lack of knowledge about Maltese history of that period, but then his misconceptions are mainstream because they are the ones taught at school in our time.
Christianity was established in Malta – not RE established – during and after the hegemony of the House of Hofenstaufen. The indications are that this was done through a three-pronged process of expelling all those who refused to convert, placing a proscription on the signs, practices and symbols associated with Islam (including the formulation of names) and encouraging settlement by Christians.
There has so far been no entirely satisfactory explanation for why the dominant language continued to be Arabic with the terminology of Islam adapted to serve Christian religious practice, despite the influx of large numbers of people (well, genes at least) from southern Italy.
I suspect the clue lies in the term ‘mother tongue’. Our mother tongue is literally the language in which we are raised by our mother (the primary care-giver) as distinct from the father, who wasn’t around so much. The mother – the ‘omm’ – was an Arabic-speaking person.]
Fiorini is a mathematician by training (I’m being generous, because he hardly did any mathematics research for the last few decades of his career as mathematics professor, and instead just did history). The rest of them never really put their findings in context. Typical Maltese erudites-not-historians.
Your best bet, if you want things in context, is Charles Dalli, who represents the new generation of Maltese historians.
In any case, the (tiresome) debate about the timeline of Christianity in Malta is hampered by lack of evidence. In history, absence of evidence usually means evidence of absence, so there’s nothing much that anyone can or should argue about.
Mario Buhagiar claims an unbroken Christian presence since the late Roman period. Evidence for this is extremely scarce. I would err on the side of common sense, but then again it pays to keep the debate alive if you’re an academic.
[Daphne – No, he does not, unless he has switched to the diametrically opposite view since he taught me at university around 20 years ago. He is certainly the go-to person for early Christianity in Malta, but he had none of Wettinger’s doubts about Al Himyari’s account of a deserted Malta.]
As an aside, there’s more to the Wettinger vs Fiorini rivalry than historical debate. Ut fructificemus dagger drawn, what?
But does it really matter? I put it to you that Maltese historiography is deficient precisely because it is Maltese. If Malta were not an independent state, then the history of this island would be written about as part of a larger whole – and that’s the way it should be. History is all about looking at things at the right scale. Our scale is too small, so we end up doing erudition instead. So far, it’s only Charles Dalli who does history.
[Daphne – That is not only a major deficiency in the way history is written. More worryingly, it is a serious deficiency in the way history is taught in Malta. I learned no history at all at school after the age of 12, because I was subject to the stupid system prevalent at the time where at 13 you had to choose ‘sciences’ (biology, chemistry and physics) or ‘arts’ (history and geography), but I clearly remember taking issue with my sons’ school about a curriculum in which the GREAT SIEGE was taught in a knowledge vacuum as a one-off battle between Maltese and Turks to young children who hadn’t been told about the Ottoman Empire. That is because teaching children about the Great Siege is not about history at all; it is a lesson in faith and national identity. It is massively frustrating.]
Dear Mrs. Caruana Galizia, it isn’t usually believed that “Missier” comes directly from the French “monsieur”.
It is likeliest to be derived from old Picardian French: “Mes Sire”, which can mean “My Lord” or equally “My Father”. Hence the English old Norman derivation of “he sired a son”, where the Sire is the father in the old Picardian context. This phrase will have been used by both Normans (circa 900 AD onwards) and Anjevins.
The basis of this is that as you may know, as dealt in much detail in John Julius Cooper, 2nd Viscount Norwich’s books “The Normans in the South” and “The Kingdom in the Sun”, the Normans went as far south as Malta and Count Roger of Normandy arrived on the Islands in 1091. The Normans stayed here (as overlords) for quite a long time (diluted with the Swabians of the House of Hohenstaufen (Stupor Mundi) until essentially 1266, when the Islands passed on to the crown of Anjou.
“Mes Sire” was in turn the forebear of the French “Mon Sieur”, which also means “My Sire” or “My Lord”, but had lost the Norman quality of also being used for a father, as this was extracted from the Latin “Pater”, into “Père”. Interestingly enough, a friar in France is often called an “Abbe”, which is directly related to the Semitic and Arabic “Abba”, “father”.
In spite of the great importance we give ourselves, Malta was always a county of Sicily from the Normans onwards (and less, before that) until the Knights of St. John came along. The Maltese reflected in Pietro Caxaro’s “Cantilena” from the 15th century is Siculo-Arabic in nature, very similar to writings found in Sicily from that very same period. It is undoubted that the Jewish community here (which did not encounter the same level of persecution as it did in Sicily or the Continent) left strong linguistic influence, as it did leave many Jewish surnames as well, such as “Zammit”, “Gatt”, “Ellul” and many others.
This is not hearsay but fact. “Zammit” for instance is a corruption of the early “Zamet” which arrived in Malta, which is the Yiddish name for Semogotitia, a region in Lithuania.
An important indication of the early (considerable) Jewish (or rather, Hebrew) population of Malta is that for example, of the 24 catacombs in St. Paul’s complex (Rabat, Malta) there is clear, undisputed, archaeological evidence of Christian, Pagan and Jewish burials side-by-side and no visible divisions.
I must say that Mrs. Caruana Galizia’s assertion based on other people’s opinions that Malta was mainly uninhabited say 1,000 years ago would not sit comfortably at all with the need for a port of call with fresh supplies, vegetables, water, meat and biscuits to be taken onboard, The truth is that the period from 300 AD to 1300 AD, where Malta is concerned, is very poorly documented.
Two censuses (should be “censii”) were held from 800 to 1530: one was held in 990 AD by the Fatimid administration (Tunisian caliphs) and records (Sicilian records, obviously) that there were:
13,161 Moslems and
3,606 Christians in Malta,
and that there were:
1,811 Moslems and
2,733 Christians in Gozo.
The total population of the Islands was recorded by the Fatimids as being 21,311. It is likely that as the Fatimids founded an “anti-Caliphate”, that they would have counted women and some children (say above age 5).
Another census was held by Abbot Gilibert of Catania, under Frederick II in 1240, when the Islands were still mainly Moslem, and this census shows that:
Malta:
Christians – 47 families
Saracens – 681 families
Jews – 25 families
Total: 753 families in Malta (assuming average family size to be 10 persons, the population may have been around 7,530), a considerable decrease from 990 AD.
Gozo:
Christians – 203 families
Saracens – 155 families
Jews – 8 families
Total: 366 families in Gozo (once again, assuming average family size to be 10 persons, the population may have been around 3,660), a less significant decrease from 990 AD.
The total population of the Islands was recorded by the Abbot Gilibert in 1240 as being 1,119 families – (say a population of 11,190, which is a 50% decrease from 990 AD and an absolute Moslem majority).
The first census held by the Knights of St. John (well recorded and detailed) lists 25,001 persons in Malta and 4,659 in Gozo.
This may suggest either a significant pestilence or famine between 1000 AD and 1240 AD. It also shows a period of relative security and stability, between 1240 and 1530.
Conservative, “Abate” is a surname, not the word for “Abbot”. The numbers you cite for the 1240 document are a little tricky to interpret. The original document is in fact an Angevin copy, with the usual abbreviations. Particularly troublesome is, of course, the dash instead of the letter “m”. Anthony Luttrell suggests that the scribe could have misread “Christianoru[m] m[ille]” as “Christianorum”, thus missing a whole one thousand families. Charles Dalli suggest that the figures are right, but only referred to families paying tax to the crown.
This is really heavy anorak stuff and not really relevant. The relevant bit is that this island is stuck with a language, culture and genetics that are not European, when it claims to be European. Of course it wouldn’t have mattered had we been part of a real European entity (vide Gibraltar, where they have no such hang-ups). But there you go. It’s the politicians’ fault.
Didn’t Mario Buhagiar argue for the survival of an Anchorite community in Malta?
[Daphne – I can’t recall that, but then I haven’t kept up very much since then. I do remember him being emphatic about Malta being properly Muslim through and through and contemptuous of any suggestion that Islam was imposed on the Christians of the place who then threw off the yoke of Islam and reverted to Christianity the first chance they got. He also had rather a lot to say about the fact that Christianity in Malta was that of the east rather than the west.]
I’m with you on the issue of the Great Siege. It’s the bloody obsession with national identity that has kept us stupid. How could it be otherwise, when questioning anything gets you branded as unpatriotic?
And don’t get me started on Maltese museums and guidebooks.
Mrs Caruana Galizia, you tell David that: “…The point is that there was no continuity between the Christianity in Malta of around the fifth century AD and the reemergence of Christianity around the 13th century. There was a complete and very long period in between: different people, different religion…”
Documented evidence would disagree with this as the census in 1240 would appear to indicate a reduced continuity of Christianity (before the administratively induced “re-introduction” of Christianity to the Islands). It is however undoubted that the Christian faith (of the few) which prevailed in Sicily (and therefore, Malta) after the Moslem invasions was not the Latin rite but the Byzantine Greek rite. Frederick II’s evangelisation efforts brought the Latin rite to Malta.
Mrs. Caruana Galizia, you say that: “…There has so far been no entirely satisfactory explanation for why the dominant language continued to be Arabic with the terminology of Islam adapted to serve Christian religious practice, despite the influx of large numbers of people (well, genes at least, from Southern Italy…”
The global reason for this (where, for example —– are concerned), is that Allah” is the Arabic word for “God”, rather than the “Islamic” word for “God” and has been so long before the existence of Islam (Christianity predates Islam by 622 years). The names “Allah” and “God” are generally interchangeable in Middle Eastern cultures. Some English translations of the Qu’ran (Koran) use the name “God,” others use “Allah.” This sometimes comes as a surprise to Christians who were raised in Western cultures. Among former Muslims in the Middle Ages, in Sicily and Malta, many converts to Christianity commonly referred to God as “Allah.” As the concept of the “Trinity” was not taken over by Islam, this remained a Latin term, and likewise with other Christian concepts which were not incorporated into Islam.
For example, lent was adopted by Mohammedans and therefore our term is “randan”, very similar to “Ramadan”, whilst advent wasn’t adopted by Islam and is therefore Latin-derived. Big feasts or festivals in Arabic are called “Eid”, hence our “Ghid”, but it is not a derivation from Islamic tradition, but rather that Islamic tradition appropriated words from the prevalent Christian tradition at the time.
Where Malta is concerned, the dominant language was not actually Arabic as you say – it is more complex than that and is generally called “Siculo-Arabic”, which is a mixture of the sea-faring languages of the southern Mediterranean, including of course Greek, Hebrew and Phoenician. Spain continued to be largely Moslem until the fifteenth century, and for Arabic to be spoken there. Sicily and Malta spoke Siculo-Arabic. This survived in Malta but died out in Sicily, where the Royal Courts of the Swabians, the Anjevins and the Aragonese, could impose the new language(s), something they couldn’t do from afar in Malta (which anyway was simply a “port” and not a “realm” or even a “country”, it was simply an inhabited atoll – why bother with it).
Therefore, it wasn’t that Christian religious practice on the Islands used the terminology of Islam, but that Islam had appropriated Christian terminology in the Middle East, which then continued to be used in Malta. Where Greek or Arabic terms were not in use, lost or forgotten, Latin came in very quickly – grizma, precett, stola, alba, ostja, altar, avvent, and so on.
Christian Egyptians (Copts), Christian Arabs (Melkites, Maronites, and so on) and other Latin rite Christians in countries with Arabic languages call the Christian God “Allah”, and so on, just like we do.
If you then look at the census of 1632, which is 102 years after the arrival of the Knights of St John, you will note a total population of 45,656 (including Gozo), up from 29,659 in 1530 before they arrived. This would have been made up of around 10,000 knights, retainers and creatures (including Greeks), and an actual population growth (non-migratory inflow) of 5,000 births in 102 years. Which then leads to the next bit where the Venetian ambassador to Malta in the seventeenth century writes that the Maltese speak “a strange dialect of Italian with a Genoese cantilena” and “many ancient words I had never heard before”.
Genoa was an important trading port with lots of sailors, and a good few of them may have settled on the Islands by that time, enough to inject lots of Italian into the Siculo-Arabic, leading to today’s 60-40, Italian-Semitic roots of Maltese vocabulary.
Mr Baxxter, you mis-read my contribution: I said: “Interestingly enough, a friar in France is often called an “Abbe”, which is directly related to the Semitic and Arabic “Abba”, “father”.”
“Abbe”, not “Abate”.
You do know of course that large numbers of Maltese went to Gibraltar, and the reason it doesn’t have the hang-ups is because they don’t speak Maltese but English. It’s the language that is the main issue here – and the flat-roofed houses which are definitely Arabic.
Conservative, you misread my contribution. I was referring to your “Abbot Gilibert”.
Conservative, Frederick II never evangelised anyone. It’s just that he had a rebellion to deal with (the Ibn-Hammuds ruled the Sicilian interior like an independent emirate – they even minted their own coins) which had been going on since Norman times. And he had to deal with a hostile Papacy and a host of rebellious barons.
So it wasn’t about religion at all (just like the Crusades, but I’m flogging a dead horse here) but political power. That is to say, religious identity was nothing more than political affiliation. This whole “faith” mumbojumbo came in very late. Round about the 1960s. Don’t get me started.
I would also be careful about using the word “imposed”. The transition from a trilingual curia (Arabic-Greek-Latin) to just a Latin one seems to have been a natural one (demographics, immigration from the north of Italy and southern France.
Let’s just say that Sicily in 1200 in roughly the same state, linguistically, as Malta in the 1900s: a literate minority speaking and writing the language of international communication (English) and the great unwashed speaking a degenerate, pidgin, limited and inbred language (Maltese).
If Maltese hadn’t been declared, at the stroke of a pen, a national and official language, it would have died out just like Siculo-Arabic.
Alas, and so the darkness spread. Fast forward to 2015 and we have Xarabank.
Our children will curse us, said the Poet. They would, if they had any brains.
There is no biblical or archaeological evidence that St Paul converted one single Maltese person to Christianity.
There is no archaeological evidence of Christianity in Malta before the 4th century AD.
Interesting debate. One of the reasons why I love this site. I didn’t know that, thank you Daphne for providing us with the real version of events and a platform for stimulating debates. Our education system has misled and failed us.
[Daphne – The disturbing thing is that Maltese children are taught a set of myths and half-truths as Maltese history in school, then when they go to university, also in Malta, they are told ‘Forget all that, scrub the slate clean. These are the facts as we know them.’ And this only if they read for an arts degree and then again, an arts degree in a related field. Most adults in Malta are completely uninformed about Malta’s evolution, still repeating the same old chestnuts and myths across the dinner-table, and God forbid anybody should try to introduce the available facts into the conversation because this is considered to be a renegade view up for discussion rather than the subject of academic research. I have long since learned that any conversation on this subject is dangerous in most company because Maltese people – of my generation and older at least – are completely uninterested in the facts. History to them is not history but a reaffirmation of a particular identity. They view any new information with hostility if they perceive it as challenging or undermining that identity, but information is information. It’s interesting in and of itself. That’s how I look at it, but then I’m not hampered by issues of national identity.]
Mr Baxxter,
My most sincere apologies, I did misread your contribution. I will not spar with you on whether it’s Abbot Gilibert or Gilibert Abate – surnames were not at all that common unless with a “de” at that time to denote father, place or extraction. I was going by Galea, Powicke, Fryde, Cheyney, Cappelli, and Poole – but I shall not argue as I do not know further and have never researched the chronicler. I shall rely on your better resources.
I used a word that is in common usage when I mentioned Frederick II’s “evangelisation efforts”. I might as well have said “proselytising” or “Christianisation efforts”. All efforts to import or impose religion are always political. From the British missionaries in India to the Islamists in Iraq and Syria. Frederick II’s purge was the same as Ferdinand and Isabel in Spain in 1492 – where states failed to do that they had to deal with the strife that tore France and Germany asunder.
1960-1970 was a tragedy for the Roman church – but enough said.
Stupor Mundi had a munificence and brilliance in his age that attracted scholars from the whole of Europe. His court was akin to the renascimental patronage of the Medicis in the humanist renaissance. Scholars would have communicated in Latin – they were nearly always clerics anyway and always studied in Latin, coming out of Paris, Rome and so forth. So the court language was undoubtedly now Latin (as opposed to old Picardian French in the previous Norman period). The great unwashed will have migrated from the King’s displeasure of Siculo-Arabic to a more acceptable siculo-Italian. From Dante, later, we know that the mainland Italian was already flourishing and structured.
Mr Baxxter, I am a committed monarchist, anglophile, and revere the same institutions as you do – but never forget, in the “Pari Passu” question, it was the pro-British parties who advocated the use of English and Maltese in tandem – the pro-Italian Mizzians were completely against the introduction of Maltese in schools and regarded it as a retrograde step. Then along came Aquilina who made sure that even non-Semitic latinised words were replaced by Arab words in the curriculum, and our children in schools were taught that in “proper Maltese”, “pilota” was “bdot”, an “ajruport” was a “mitjar”, a “siggu” was a “maghqad”, a “pjazza” was a “misrah” and all that blistering nonsense.
If we are honest to ourselves, we will accept that 1974 was a national tragedy, the great point in history when a country moves sideways rather than remaining staid and solid: we became a republic, when all it meant was a transition to oblivion. We already had the Malta Pound in 1972, and already had all the independence we needed to be “rajna f’idejna” (and do I hate that phrase – how the hell can you hold your arms in your hands?!). From a proud, smart country, we became a shabby, socialist backwater, depending on alms for the poor. It is the tragedy of essentially no education in a little island in the middle of nowhere.
My dear Sir, we have a great deal in common and I could kill three bottle of Laphroaig with you, after lunch or dinner at the Club. If you will grant me the distinct honour, I would be delighted if you were to ask Mrs Caruana Galizia for my details or I ask for yours. Your secret dies with me (the true identity of the Scarlet Pimpernel, one means).
If you’re a woman, preferably single and preferably 18-35, then yes. Otherwise, there’s no point.
My dear Baxxter,
Alas, I am not a woman, I am not single and I am not 18-35. I should think that firmly puts me outside of your sphere of conversational interests.
It’s just that life is short, and time is running out.
I think my views on the subject have been mentioned many times before, but in principle I’m not in any large disagreement.
The only thing I do find peculiar is when you say they use a “false interpretation” of religion. How would you tell the difference between a true and false interpretation? What makes one interpretation right and the other one wrong?
If religion doesn’t make us do bad things, then how does it make us do good things. Either it’s a worldview you follow, which have consequences (good or bad), or it’s only a tool used for other means. I’m not sure in practice which explanation you subscribe to, but in the Pope’s case it’s certainly the former – religion forms thoughts, ideas and behaviour.
Religion isn’t by default anti-violence, just as it isn’t automatically violent. Religion is what humans makes it into. But what is clear is that some religions are more efficient catalysts for violent behaviour than others – as are other non-religious worldviews and ideas.
” …some because they identify primarily as Roman Catholics and still see the world in terms of Rome vs Islam, others because they hate all religion, and others because they interpret (mistakenly) my observations as stemming from an anti-Roman Catholic bias and so become defensive.”
You forgot the majority – Islamophobes.
Most Maltese people are simply Islamophobes, and this cuts across all social strata. Whether they are religious themselves is irrelevant (they tend not to be). Many of the readers of this blog, although educated, just can’t stomach Muslims. It’s obvious in the way they write.
Muslims are people and therefore a hatred of Muslims would make them xenophobes.
‘Islamophobia’ is a word that was invented by the media and used by morons and those who want to censor debate.
One cannot have an irrational fear of a set of ideas, only someone with a totalitarian mindset would dismiss disapproval of certain ideas or assertions as a pathology.
You’re wrong. Xenophobia is, by definition, fear of foreigners. I hate Nazis, Nazis are people, that does not make me a xenophobe.
Nazis aren’t just people, they adhere to a totalitarian ideology. I loathe Communists, I take it that doesn’t make me a Communistophobe because my hatred for Communism is not irrational. Xenophobia is not a fear of foreigners but of that which is different. Thanks for proving my point about people who use made up words like “islamophobia”
Spot on, Wormfood – if it makes me Islamophobic, so be it.
It’s also counterproductive and hypocritical to push aside those who fled Islam and Shar’ia and may be facing it here.
Wormfood, I think you will find that islamophobia is not an invented word, but can actually be found in the dictionary.
“Dislike of or prejudice against Islam or Muslims, especially as a political force.”
Taken from http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/Islamophobia
I will take this definition any day over one from someone who calls himself ‘wormfood’.
I have no problem with debating Islam. All religions should be challenged, criticised, ridiculed, debated etc.
What one should not do is say things like “since some Muslims blow things up, then all Muslims blow things up”. I trust you get that.
I have no problem in saying I’m anti a “religion” (a political system in reality) that is brutal and misogynistic. I’d have much more of a problem accepting it.
Ian, most of Europe is Islamophobic.
64% of Germans think Islam isn’t compatible with their nation, Merkel just issued a fatwa, decreeing islam integral to Germany.
[Daphne – Jozef, it is a serious mistake to quote Germans on the subject of whether another religion or ethnicity is compatible with their NATION. Even the Germans themselves understand that.]
Shall we say Islam is integral to Germany’s industries?
And then we’re all surprised at the rise of the far right.
Dresden’s marches have become a weekly affair, thousands suddenly find themselves described as neo Nazis.
I think Reza Aslan makes your point marvellously
https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=10152410206006167&pnref=story
Il terrorismo fondamentalista «rifiuta Dio stesso»
http://vaticaninsider.lastampa.it/nel-mondo/dettaglio-articolo/articolo/francesco-francis-francisco-medio-oriente-middle-east-medio-oriente-38506/
Fundamentalist terrorism “eliminates God himself”
http://vaticaninsider.lastampa.it/en/world-news/detail/articolo/francesco-francis-francisco-medio-oriente-middle-east-medio-oriente-38506/
Every one seems to have looked the other way as 2000 Nigerian Christians were killed off last night by Boko Haram Islamic fundamentalists. Oh dear , yet another co incidence that the terrorists seem to be acting in the name of Allah again.
‘Violence is always the product of a falsification of religion’.
It seems that some Maltese are more Catholic than the Pope.
Pope Frank the pseudo liberal is hardly a dispassionate analyst. I really don’t think the head of one the world’s largest religions is going to say that religion feeds terrorism, just as he wouldn’t say his organisation was a haven for child rapists.
All institutions which have children in their care attract child rapists to them but only the Roman Catholic Church has protected them.
False interpretation of religion indeed!
‘Moderates’ are the fig leaf behind which extremists hide, but extremism is a misnomer. It is the extremists who have the correct interpretation of the texts upon which religions are based, not the moderates. It just so happens that in Islam, the extreme (but accurate) interpretation of the texts is the mainstream view.
Terrorism and extremism is mostly caused by people subscribing to bad ideas, mostly by being indoctrinated at childhood. As someone else has said, Islam is the mother lode of bad ideas.
If there wasn’t the bad idea in the first place, children with traumatic upbringings might be tearing the legs off flies or torturing pets, rather than going through years of planning to fly planes into buildings. And the vast majority of them would be doing neither.
Lets avoid an Islam lovefest for now, shall we? Which is not to say there is no change. Six years ago the head of Hezbollah was issuing fatwas and demanding the heads of those who insulted the prophet, and now he is saying the killers insult Islam or similar. Whether it is a marketing ploy for western consumption is yet to be seen.
In the meantime, what we have to go on are the surveys of the Islamic population at large. When those change, then we’ll see.
http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/pages/opinion-polls.htm
Since I am one who, more often than not, disagrees with you on this subject, I wonder under which category you place me. None of them would be complimentary since all query the intellectual ability of persons who disagree with you do so on any good grounds.
Yes, religions may be abused or misinterpreted by individuals, but when these individuals amass a strength across continents that threatens nations, use children as human bombs, treat women as inferiors in society, deny the freedom to change your creed, inflict crude punishment for infringing the law,…… you can hardly put this down to individuals and exonerate the religion that inspires the.
Specifically, with reference to Islam, who is the authority that can enlighten the rest of the world on what its true meaning?
Do not blame the Pope for being so diplomatic because of the position he holds.