House Editorial: And we quote, ‘enough is enough’
Muslim outrage at free speech exercises has gone to o far
Posted on September 18, 2006

For those of us who made the mistake of turning on the news this week, it was déjà vu all over again. Somewhere in Europe, a guy “insulted” Islam in some form of speech, and the Middle East exploded in a fury of riots. Only this time, it was not caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad in Danish newspapers, but a quote of a historical figure in a speech to a university audience by the one-and-only Pope.

In a speech last Tuesday, Benedict XVI quoted from a book recounting a conversation between a Persian and a Byzantine emperor in the 14th century. In quoting the emperor, Benedict accentuated the fact that they were words uttered in history, and not his own.

“He said, I quote, ‘Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.’”

A few days later, as predictable as Old Faithful — and as full of hot air — protestors took to the street, burning effigies of Benedict in Karachi and firebombing churches in the West Bank. Italian newspapers are reporting that the Pope’s security has been beefed up. At the Pope’s summer palace, where he delivered a half-apology for the controversy on Sunday, sharpshooters watched from a balcony and plainclothes officers monitored the crowd with video cameras.

In the apology, Benedict expressed that he was “deeply sorry for the reactions in some countries to a few passages of my address …which were considered offensive to the sensibilities of Muslims. These, in fact, were a quotation from a medieval text, which do not in any way express my personal thought.”

The Pope stopped short, however, of apologizing for quoting a historical document in a speech to college professors — for which he was further lambasted by Islamic leaders.

“It is not enough,” Mahmoud Ashour, former deputy of Cairo’s Al-Azhar Mosque, told an Arab TV station. “He should apologize because he insulted the beliefs of Islam. He must apologize in a frank way and say he made a mistake.”

Except, of course, that he didn’t. If quoting a historical figure, even one critical of Islam, in an academic context is wrong, all liberal education is wrong — a sentiment the Danish cartoon fiasco further indicates may exist in the Middle East.

In a small way, the goal attempted by the demonstrations is the same goal attempted by terrorists: out of fear of violent repercussions, others outside of our control will submit to our demands, in this case, never, ever speaking ill of Islam. If we in the West capitulate to such demands, in the same small way, we lose. The fear produced by the Danish cartoon fallout set a dangerous precedent, indicating that violent protests can be an effective means to restraining ends. Let us not lose again.