Comments on: Minarets and Crucifixes

By: Hill

Hill — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 19:39:12 +0000

You’ve got the advantage of having a much more thorough exposure to Europe on the ground than I do, and I take your analysis of the empirical issue seriously. I do think that simple xenophobia is at work to some degree here. I just think we’d miss something to reduce it to that. Insofar as the conversation precedes an actual (though potentially impending?) demographic shift, perhaps it can be useful, but you may be right that there is a kind of violence being done in exaggerating the demographic facts themselves.

By: Anthony Paul Smith

Anthony Paul Smith — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 18:41:38 +0000

Thanks for taking the time to think through an actual response. I still disagree with you, but it has more to do with a serious lack of empirical evidence than any kind of “higher” argument. Frankly, I have to disagree with you when you write, “nor is it helpful to understand the encounter of post-Christian Europe with a growing Islamic population as simple unwarranted xenophobia”. In Switzerland, for instance, the there simply isn’t a significant growth in the Islamic population. Same thing in England, where there is arguably more of an Islamic presence in the cities, where the population remains 92% white and “Christian” (encompassing all sorts of positions) yet you have people talking about resiting the influx of Islamic immigrants, wanting “their country back”, and the threat of Sharia law (a physical impossibility).

I also, of course, agree that majority Islamic countries should treat Christian communities with the same respect and the respect required by most mainstream readings of the Quran (and many countries do respect Christian communities officially). Thing is, I don’t live there. I live here, where the threat is against Muslims and their community. I’m not a Muslim or even all that interested in arguing for the superiority of Islam. I mean, if I had my way we’d all be reasonable Communists that took the best bits of religious practice and left most of the dogma. Don’t tell James KA Smith or Steve Long though.

By: Hill

Hill — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 18:13:25 +0000

You have me pegged, except for my tendency to enter debates. You are closer on the pure contrarian side. Maybe I’m just overly dialectical, but I tend to push back on whatever is being discussed, especially if it seems overly one-sided or intellectually disingenuous. I guess to be more specific, the opinions I’m most likely to criticize are the ones that I’m generally inclined towards myself, but that seem insufficiently motivated. My reaction to Scott’s question was motivated by the sense that whether or not Islam is anti-humanist doesn’t really matter, and in fact, I don’t even know how one could answer that question. It’s like asking whether or not Christianity is anti-woman. It depends on who you ask and whether or not we’re talking about the concept of Christianity or some historical instantiation of it. I fully admit that Islam (just like Christianity) is capable of being fully realized in a way that is compatible with “humanism” (which is basically a cipher here, but functional), however, much like Christianity, depending on one’s predispositions, one may accord an increased significance to certain forms of Islam (or Christianity) which happen to be ready to hand in either case, some of which may present problems, cognitively speaking, for accepting the ascendancy of one over the native cultural milieu of a given region. Suggesting that there is nothing whatsoever of concern in terms of the political or social ramifications of a growing Islamic population of Europe is a kind of knee-jerk political correctness. The failure to realize that one can raise this issue without impugning Islam generally or Muslims in particular is similarly motivated, I think.

I want to reiterate that I think Wilken fails to capture the issue here and that his argument falls completely flat. For one not inclined to charity towards him, I can see how this might be damning. That being said, the issue is not as simple as a bunch of Swiss bigots conspiring to rid their country of Muslims, nor is it helpful to understand the encounter of post-Christian Europe with a growing Islamic population as simple unwarranted xenophobia. I certainly would not begrudge Saudi Arabia a certain amount of trepidation regarding an influx of Christians. In fact, I’m fairly certain they have extensive legislation in place.

So here I am with the Vatican in opposing the ban on minarets but also in calling for an increased reciprocity in the way Christian countries relate to minority Islamic populations and vice versa, a reciprocity that requires concessions from both sides. The hope would be that this could open up a space for mutual good faith in a discussion of the changing demographics of Europe. All of this is in the service of the freedom of conscience and religious assent.

By: Anthony Paul Smith

Anthony Paul Smith — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 16:04:04 +0000

Well, perhaps if you actually made some kind of point rather than simply being contrarian I wouldn’t have to guess, based on your contarianism, what you’re trying to say. I don’t read you as some kind of hyper-right wing fundamentalist. I read you as a vaguely culturally right-leaning convert to Roman Catholicism that tends to enter debates in defense of the general authority and rightness of the Catholic Church. That doesn’t seem that far from the truth.

By: Daniel Imburgia

Daniel Imburgia — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 19:15:18 +0000

If one skimmed history from the 30 Yrs War, thru the holocaust up to “shock an awe,” one might reasonably ask if the construction of minarets poses such a serious threat to ‘western cultural values,” (considering the “skylines” of Dresden, Coventry, Warsaw, Nagasaki, and Baghdad). Perhaps some ‘atheists and communists respect the cross’ in Italy as Wilken argues, but I have spent Sunday after Sunday at Mass in Rome in huge cathedrals with a mere dozen other worshipers (however, there is a shop a couple of blocks from Saint Peters where overflowing barrels of cheap crucifixes made in Chinese sweatshops are sold by the kilo!!). I am not sure the call of the Jesus was to build Christianist skylines and Gospel theme parks, but if so, one might just as well do it in Las Vegas where the aesthetics of Simulacra can be appreciated without anyone noticing the hypocrisy (now that the surviving Paiute, Walapi, and Western Shoshoni Indians have rendered “fealty” to the “Western Christian tradition of human rights” and built there own casino “skylines”). The “assault on memory” Wilken fears, might better be combated by helicopters spraying Donepezil and Ginkgo Biloba onto the herds of believers streaming into mega-churches on Sunday morning or pumped into the air ducts in Swiss banks where Nazi capital continues to compound interest. Obliged.

By: Theophilus

Theophilus — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 20:19:31 +0000

The zero-sum logic train has just left the station. Honestly, these ideas of rights and freedoms developed in the West, at a time when Christianity was the predominant religion there, and therefore had a formative influence on the development of these concepts. But nobody said that that excludes these concepts having currency outside that kind of environment. You read that into Hill’s comments without justification.

By: Jeremy

Jeremy — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 03:54:16 +0000

You never did Anthony’s question on whether or not you would’ve signed the Manhattan Declaration…

By: Hill

Hill — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 01:56:49 +0000

You have a basic issue with reading comprehension that likely stems from a subconscious desire to see me as some sort of hyper-right wing fundamentalist. It’s worth thinking about.

By: Anthony Paul Smith

Anthony Paul Smith — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 00:37:21 +0000

Are you honestly asking? For one, assuming that human rights or freedom of conscience is antithetical to Islam in some radically anti-European sense. Seriously man, read a damned book about Islam.

By: Anthony Paul Smith

Anthony Paul Smith — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 00:35:43 +0000

Yes, that’s basically the point.

By: Scott Coulter

Scott Coulter — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 15:19:52 +0000

To the extent that Muslims are regarded as / treated as an ethnic group in Western countries, Islamaphobia deserves classification as racism, in my mind.
But Islamaphobia is still a form of cultural imperialism and Western colonialism (perpetuated by white, Christian Europeans and Americans) even if it isn’t “racism” per se.

By: Scott Coulter

Scott Coulter — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 15:17:19 +0000

But the question shouldn’t be whether there are Muslim-majority countries or even modern Muslim religious states that have anti-humanist policies & practices. The question should be what the European Muslims that are building the mosques in Europe think Muslim culture teaches about human rights. The Muslim Americans I know value things like freedom of religion and democracy and human rights — and in many cases, I suspect, these values would play some role in the story these Muslims would tell about why they are in the U.S. I would guess that things would be similar in Europe.

By: Hill

Hill — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 05:42:22 +0000

What exactly do I have wrong here, dear Anthony?

By: Anthony Paul Smith

Anthony Paul Smith — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 02:08:02 +0000

Yeah… if you don’t mean to set up some sort of facile comparison you probably shouldn’t write what you do here. Jesus. I mean, do some research Hill! Otherwise you risk sounding like these EDL fucks we had to chase out of Nottingham last weekend.

By: Anthony Paul Smith

Anthony Paul Smith — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 02:06:02 +0000

Man, you really should have just studied with Milbank. You’d already be a doctor by now!