(Scotland's Chief Cardinal) O'Brien urges Muslims to say sorry for 9/11

[sabra]

http://scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=1563542006

O'Brien urges Muslims to say sorry for 9/11

THE leader of Scotland's Roman Catholics, Cardinal Keith O'Brien, has called for Muslims to apologise for the 9/11 and 7/7 bomb attacks, declaring that the public should not have to live "in fear of attack" from believers of the Islamic faith.

In a move that has provoked a storm of outrage, the cardinal claims that, as the Pope apologised for the offence caused last month by his comments on the Islamic faith, so Muslims should now step up and say sorry for the attacks carried out in the name of their faith.

O'Brien said: "There have been no apologies for the shooting of the nun , let alone for 9/11 or the London bombings. I would like to see some reciprocal moves from the Islamic side. We shouldn't have to live in fear of attack from Muslims."

The cardinal's comments were made in the same interview in which, as was revealed last week, he backed Scottish independence, praising the benefits autonomy could bring. A fuller version of the interview appears in this weekend's Catholic Herald newspaper.

[BadGimp]

1. what an idiot

eom

[Henny Penny]

24. I think you are being too generous!

What a dickhead.

[xchrom]

26. perhaps a compromise? Idiot Dickhead.

[nolabels]

53. That is such a precious and dainty intro for such a titled man

:rofl:

[lastknowngood]

2. Perhaps the catholic church could apologize for the crusades and

the inquisition?

[BrklynLiberal]

8. hmmmm. Excellent idea. And what about all the other indigenous peoples

they "converted" and helped enslave? Wasn't it the Pope who divied up South America between Spain and Portugal as if was Church property to be handed out to whomever it pleased?

[Betty]

9. and all the sexual abuse of children?

people who live in glass houses....

[barb162]

19. Perhaps the Muslims should apologize for taking over Spain

around the same time, as long as we are going back a thousand years.

[PsychoDad]

27. And what of those pesky Scandinavians

Remember all that Viking stuff about the same time? What was up with that?

I think it's high time we get a hearty "We're sorry for slaughtering all those monks and pillaging and such. Sorry, our bad".

And those Mongols....

:)

peace.

[Igel]

31. Eh, Vikings were active in the Mediterranean.

But the Muslims drove them out--even managed an attack on Iceland, I hear, and many more attacks further south.

Got their fair share of nuns, too. :-)

[PsychoDad]

33. I didn't know about that.

I knew the barbary coast pirates were muslim.

I'll have to look up this new info. Thanks :)

Peace.

[Igel]

43. Wassalamu 'aleika. n/t

[Ms. Clio]

46. perhaps you could put up some credible cites for that information

I won't hold my breath, however.

[shadowknows69]

60. Cain should definitely apologize to Abel

n/t

[The Stranger]

62. They were expelled from Spain, and subject to the Inquisition as well.

The Catholic Church has a saint for Spain that was sainted for murdering Muslims. He is known as St. James the Great or "matamoros" -- Moor Slayer.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._James_the_Great

Pretty nice way to become a saint, huh? Killing people.

[Igel]

30. Done, and done.

Perhaps you missed it.

I suspect Spain long gave up hopes of an apology for the Conquista, and Austria an apology for being attacked. Or the SE European Slavs expecting compensation for their kids taken as tribute to help conquer more territory for the caliphate. Or the Jews for their expulsion from Granada, with some 1500 killed when they wouldn't leave.

Because, you see, these things didn't happen, or were positively moral virtues--to assert they happened if they were bad, or weren't good if they're acknowledged to have happened, is to be an Islamophobe. Any excesses--even over 400 years by many 10s of thousands of Muslims--were done by a few miscreants. And we don't dare say that this behavior was endemic to Arab lands. Of course the results of those excesses are, well, good. Christian excesses? Well, there were at most a few non-miscreants in their corrupt ranks. (Can you spot the asymmetry? Lots of commentators in the US and Europe can't.)

So Andalus was unalloyed tolerance and joy for Jews and Christians. The Slavs preferred oppression to self-government, since, well, that's what Allah willed.

Personally, I don't expect an apology. Just accuracy in Arab-language textbooks. But that's apparently against Islam and Arab honor. But we can't say that, because that's also against Islam and Arab honor.

So I agree. It's safer to call for the Catholic Church to yet again apologize for what they did. They haven't made many death threats in the name of God and Church for a couple hundred years. I also find scarecrows are much safer opponents in a fight.

[Ms. Clio]

37. it's a good thing you don't expect 2 billion people to apologize

otherwise, just the usual crap here.

[harun]

48. Catholicism has a big ole organized church

Islam does not. Even a caliphate system is nothing like an organized church. So asking Muslims as a whole group to do anything is rather rediculous. One would need to direct their requests to individuals.

For the rest of your mistatements I think you should start http://www.amazon.com/World-History-Dummies-Peter-Haugen/dp/0764552422/sr=8-1/qid=1161572991/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/102-7383539-8809764?ie=UTF8">here.

[AngryAmish]

63. they did

[Wilms]

3. What an idiot is right.

Bush and Cheney aren't Muslim.

[Webster Green]

4. Catholic leaders need to STFU!

Sounds like this asshole is blaming all Muslims for 9/11.

[rpannier]

5. This is really an inane statement

Should all Irish people apologise for the IRA.
Should every German be made to apologise for the real bush I, I mean hitler.
Should every white American and/or Canadian be made to apologise for what happened to Natives.

Not every Muslim is an Arab. The racial make up of Islam is very diverse.
Most followers of Islam do not sympathise with osama bin love-bush, terror or the murder of innocents.

[krispos42]

6. How about Muslims disavow radicalism?

That would make me feel better. And then the Christians and Jews and Hindus and such can also disavow radicalism.

Then maybe we can concentrate on more important stuff.

[Katzenjammer]

23. better they should all disavow reactionism.

It's the reactionary 13th-century attitudes that are at the bottom of all the violent sectarianism, misogyny, and other stupidities.

[Zybelline]

39. ALL the religions should do public mea culpa and then shut up for 10 years

the last Pope, JPII kinda apologized for the crusades

that leaves only, um, the inquisition, collaboration w Nazis, preventing any familyplanning in much of the world, telling Africans not to use condoms in time of Aids, etc, for the Church to kind of be caught up on its mea culpa

and yes, of course Bush and Cheney are criminals BUT you have to be NAIVE not to see young muslims in europe are very confused and manipulated

why dont they try to reform the horrors/violence/injustice of shariah in many parts of the world? why dont they be the reformers of their own religion ? why do they only nit pick on democracies and remain blind to systematic torture in almost every muslim country in the world ?

I agree with the posting, muslims should denounce those attacks on their host countries, the murder of Pym Fortuyn the Dutch elected official, the fear and threats on even Mozart opera recently...

dont make Jane Fonda's mistake yes, our administration are criminals but dont idealize the Viet Cong, dont idealize sunnis and shia killing each other in droves

jallas ! ( arabic for enough arready ! )

[LetsGoMurphys]

50. good luck n/t

[oblivious]

7. Hmm, try the Pope's apology: "I'm sorry people are upset about 911."

[cigsandcoffee]

10. It would be nice if "The Muslim Street" reacted to this without violence.

I'm starting to think the Catholic leaders are goading them in to making violent asses of themselves in some kind of religious PR war.

[Igel]

32. To become a violent ass, one must first start out as an ass.

One cannot make a violent ass out of oneself without assenting to it.

The goads, moreover, are little more than popsicle sticks. Not even sharpened ones. A popsicle stick might, given enough effort, cause my son's gerbil harm. But for them to provoke an ass to violence they must be highly sensitive asses.

That's what we see in some sectors of the world's population: an overabundance of highly sensitive, very sore asses.

[Ms. Clio]

38. wtf is the "Muslim Street?"

There are 2 billion Muslims in dozens of countries.

Asinine indeed.

[cigsandcoffee]

47. You've seen them, I'm sure.

The hordes of angry folks burning down embassies and shooting AK-47s off while burning the Pope (or whoever) in effigy. That Muslim street, that the press is always right on the spot to capture. You surely must have seen them at some point if you've ever watched the news.

[Ms. Clio]

52. yeah, that really helps

a relative handful of people out of 2 billion in dozens of countries speaking as many languages somehow constitutes a generic, holistic "Muslim Street" that speaks for all of them everywhere. :eyes:

[Irreverend IX]

56. Well, Muslims in the UK...

Have shown a disturbingly high propensity for radicalism.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/02/19/nsharia19.xml

"Four out of 10 British Muslims want sharia law introduced into parts of the country, a survey reveals today."

"Forty per cent of the British Muslims surveyed said they backed introducing sharia in parts of Britain, while 41 per cent opposed it. Twenty per cent felt sympathy with the July 7 bombers' motives, and 75 per cent did not. One per cent felt the attacks were "right"."

There was one incident mentioned here a few weeks ago where Islamic protesters in the UK chanted "we got you on the planes, we got you on the trains, we'll get you in the churches." Given the presence of such open hostility towards their adopted country, I can see why the bishop in question might want some collective apology.

[Ms. Clio]

57. bullshit

A handful of people out of billions. They aren't going to "apologize," and those who don't agree with them (75% by your own figures) don't need to apologize for anything, so a "collective" apology is not only idiotic, it's meaningless.

[Malikshah]

11. As a "man of God" he appears to have stuck his head up his ass

and not read the numerous condemnations, etc. from Muslim groups from around the world regarding 9/11/01 and other incidents.

http://www.juancole.com/2005/07/friedman-wrong-about-muslims-again-and.html

What a pathetic excuse of a "Christian" he is. His time in front of St. Peter will be quite rough I suspect.

[savemefromdumbya]

12. did Blair pay him to say that?

how does this man know that we were attacked by muslims?

[JI7]

13. he should worry about the sexual predotors within the Catholic Church

[Zybelline]

40. he can and you should worry about both

[struggle4progress]

14. Maybe O'Brien could start by apologizing for every KKK atrocity ..

.. perpetuated by some nitwit claiming to be "a Christian."

Or, come to think of it, since a lot of IRA members considered themselves Catholic, maybe O'Brien could apologize for each innocent person who died in an IRA bombing.

How about all those nice church ladies who sometimes drown their kids in the bathtub? Has O'Brien apologized yet for every such instance?

[LetsGoMurphys]

49. The KKK was rabidly anti-Catholic as a matter of fact...

Dont even get me started on the IRA comment.

[struggle4progress]

54. You're absolutely right, but I didn't call the KKK a Catholic group:

I merely pointed out that the Klan has traditionally made noises about how "Christian" it thinks it is. I personally think they are completely full of shit when they make such noises, and I bet that most Muslims consider the 9/11 plotters equally full of shit.

Surely if O'B thinks it appropriate to demand Muslims to apologize for the crimes of 9/11 -- crimes which almost every Muslim in the world had ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with and which dismayed and shocked large numbers of Muslims around the world -- surely if O'Brien thinks that such a demand is reasonable, then it is equally reasonable to demand that Christians APOLOGIZE for the KKK.

I suppose I need to say clearly that I would not actually expect O'B to apologize for the KKK, and in fact I would not seriously call for such an apology from O'B, since I do not really regard the Klan as being a group which he or most other Christians have supported, despite the Klan's noises about its own supposed "Christianity."

In the same vein, I am not really claiming that the Catholic Church should apologize for any IRA bombs that killed innocent people, nor would I make such a demand seriously, nor am I defending the ugly British history in Ireland. But since it is credible that many IRA members were raised Catholic, and considered themselves Catholic, if O'B thinks it appropriate to demand Muslims to apologize for the crimes of 9/11 then it would surely be equally reasonable to demand that Catholic Church APOLOGIZE for the IRA. Should I say that I do not actually expect O'B to apologize for the IRA and that I am not seriously calling for such an apology from O'B, since I have no reason to believe he supported any IRA actions which harmed innocents?

I find the remarks attributed to O'B ignorant and offensive. I wonder if it occurs to him that the 9/11 criminals killed a number of Muslims working in the WTC and that their families certainly owe us no apology for the crimes of which they were victims.

[Critters2]

15. The leader of Scotland's Roman Catholics

What kind of position of power is that?! Isn't that like being the leader of Wyoming's Muslims? Who gives a rat's ass what this guy says?!

Oh, and Cardinal, I'm of Huguenot descent, and we're still waiting for the apology for what you did to my ancestors. I trust that will be coming forthwith.

[aquart]

17. Precisely. Let them clean their own house.

[muriel_volestrangler]

21. 800,000 Catholics in Scotland

according to the 2001 census: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2005/02/20757/53570

(Of course, they may not be 'active', but that's what they replied when asked, and they had the option of saying 'no religion' or declining to answer).

More than the entire population of Wyoming, in fact. :P

[struggle4progress]

16. Again and again and again and again and again

Islamic Statements Against Terrorism

Mustafa Mashhur, General Guide, Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt; Qazi Hussain Ahmed, Ameer, Jamaat-e-Islami Pakistan, Pakistan; Muti Rahman Nizami, Ameer, Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh, Bangladesh; Shaykh Ahmad Yassin, Founder, Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), Palestine; Rashid Ghannoushi, President, Nahda Renaissance Movement, Tunisia; Fazil Nour, President, PAS - Parti Islam SeMalaysia, Malaysia; and 40 other Muslim scholars and politicians:

.. The undersigned, leaders of Islamic movements, are horrified by the events of Tuesday 11 September 2001 in the United States which resulted in massive killing, destruction and attack on innocent lives. We express our deepest sympathies and sorrow ..


Shaykh Muhammed Sayyid al-Tantawi, imam of al-Azhar mosque in Cairo, Egypt:

.. Attacking innocent people is not courageous, it is stupid and will be punished on the day of judgement ..


Abdulaziz bin ‘Abdallah Al-Ashaykh, chief mufti of Saudi Arabia:

.. the recent developments in the United States including hijacking planes, terrorizing innocent people and shedding blood, constitute a form of injustice that cannot be tolerated by Islam, which views them as gross crimes and sinful acts ..

http://www.unc.edu/~kurzman/terror.htm

The Islamic Circle of North America declares Friday, September 14, 2001, a day of mourning and prayers.

The Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA) is extremely horrified and saddened by the tragedy in New York and Washington D.C. Our hearts and prayers are with the families of the victims of this horrible and despicable crime. We condemn this heinous act and call upon our political leaders and the media to act responsibly, and not generalize when speculating about the perpetrators. Islam does not permit such unjust actions ..

http://groups.colgate.edu/aarislam/icna.htm

Relatedlinks and photos http://groups.colgate.edu/aarislam/response.htm

THE NINTH EXTRAORDINARY SESSION OF THE ISLAMIC CONFERENCE OF FOREIGN MINISTERS
DOHA – STATE OF QATAR
23 RAJAB 1422H (10 OCTOBER 2001)
FINAL COMMUNIQUE

.. the Foreign Ministers of the Member States of the Organization of the Islamic Conference held an Extraordinary Session in Doha, capital of the State of Qatar, on Wednesday 23 Rajab 1422H (10 October 2001), to discuss the repercussions of the events which took place in the United States of America and its effects world-wide and in particular on the Member States ..

1- The Conference strongly condemned the brutal terror acts that befell the United States, caused huge losses in human lives from various nationalities and wreaked tremendous destruction and damage in New York and Washington. It further reaffirmed that these terror acts ran counter to the teachings of the divine religions as well as ethical and human values, stressed the necessity of tracking down the perpetrators of these acts in the light of the results of investigations and bringing them to justice to inflict on them the penalty they deserve, and underscored its support of this effort. In this respect, the Conference expressed its condolences to and sympathy with the people and government of the United States and the families of the victims in these mournful and tragic circumstances.

2- The Conference, proceeding from the provisions of the OIC Convention on Combating International Terrorism, reaffirmed the willingness of its Member States to effectively contribute to an international collective effort, under the umbrella of the United Nations as the forum where all States of the world are represented, to define the phenomenon of terrorism in all its forms and without selectiveness or double standards and contribute also to addressing its causes, eradicating its roots and achieving international security and stability.

3- The Conference stressed that such shameful terror acts are opposed to the tolerant divine message of Islam which spurns aggression, calls for peace, coexistence, tolerance and respect among people, highly prizes the dignity of human life and prohibits killing of the innocent. It further rejected any attempts alleging the existence of any connection or relation between the Islamic faith and the terrorist acts as such attempts are not in the interest of the multilateral efforts to combat terrorism and further damage relations among peoples of the world. It stressed as well the need to undertake a joint effort to promote dialogue and create links or contacts between the Islamic world and the West in order to reach mutual understanding and build bridges of confidence between the two civilizations ...

http://www.oic-oci.org/english/conf/fm/All%20Download/frmex9.htm

[PassingFair]

28. Can you send these to him, Struggle?

Perhaps he will apologize for not having
looked for them....

[Igel]

35. I usually require my group or communal apologies

to, when there's doubt, include confirmation that they belong to that group.

I am equally horrified by the abuses committed by coalition forces in Iraq, the Muslim invasion and following oppresion of and atrocities in the ME, N. Africa, Spain, and SE Europe, the genocide in Rwanda, the Nanjing Massacre, the plague that preceded most European settlement in the New World, events in Darfur and S. Sudan, the atrocities and forced conscription of kids in Uganda, and the Armenian Genocide. But I call for restraint when speculating about who may be responsible for each, and generalizing when assigning blame.

Not an apology, therefore meaningless, as far as the 'apology' goes; I'm neither Turkish, Catholic, a member of the US military or the Lord's Army, a Muslim, Japanese, or Hutu, nor did I devise contagiousness or smallpox. Therefore I'm not to blame, and no apology is possible. Merely an expression of outrage using the vocabulary of remorse.

It's a defensive act, since it stresses that not all Catholics, US military folk, Muslims, Japanese, or Turks were involved. I'm not to blame.

But it's also offensive, since it basically expresses doubt that the Turks, the Muslims, Catholics, US military, or Hutu. Somebody else is possibly to blame, not even my group.

Moreover, neither Catholic doctrine, US military codes, Islam, nor Japanese tradition (as I see it) permit such atrocities. Therefore nobody in my group could have done it--Aristotle would conclude that somebody else must be blamed, and my self-esteem and dignity cannot be accosted. In fact, an actual apology would be immoral. Given the widespread belief that Muslims did *not* actually stage any attacks, the condemnation of the attacks is more than a merely theoretical implicit condemnation of some other group, known or unknown.

Apology: A written or spoken expression of one's regret, remorse, or sorrow for having insulted, failed, injured, or wronged another. "Having" has a subject: the same person doing the apologizing. If 'having' is construed (ungrammatically) to have a different subject, it's not an apology. When the Catholic Church apologized for the wrongs committed in the Crusades and the Inquisition, it claimed responsibility on behalf of the Catholics of the day, for the communal support and approval of the Crusaders' actions. When the US expressed remorse over the Rwandan genocide, implicit was remorse over the US' not having done something about it; remorse over the Hutus' killing the Tutsis involves sympathy, not an actual apology.

Usually when Muslim leaders apologize for attacks, they all but explicitly state they're expressing regret that somebody else did something, or that something happened. No actual regret, remorse, or sorrow. No acceptance of communal responsibility; and typically there's an implicit (sometimes even explicit) rejection that anybody in the collective committed anything wrong. This is not an apology, any more than having the US express horror at the Rwandan genocide is an apology for the actions; it's an apology for not having taken an action. Most Muslim 'apologies' don't even go that far: they're a rejection of any responsibility to have taken action. In other words, it's equivalent to, "As president of the US, I can say that we deeply regret that Hutus killed Tutsis and mourn the Tutsi deaths, but call for restraint in suggesting that any third party should have intervened."

There have been a small number of apologies (as opposed to expressions of sympathy) on behalf of Muslims; I don't see any in your list. Typically they haven't been from any Muslim in any leadership position over more than a small congregation, and all, IIRC, have been from individuals in European countries and the US/Canada.

[struggle4progress]

42. Concur in part, dissent in part.

I think the record shows clearly enough that large numbers of Muslims around the world were appalled by the crimes of 9/11 and expressed their dismay and sorrow clearly and immediately. Insofar as they were not responsible for the attacks, that constitutes a perfectly normal and acceptable human response. This, however, has not kept a number of loud-mouths from wondering, again and again, during the intervening years, why Muslims have not expressed outrage about the crime. I am inclined to regard demands for "apologies" as essentially the same as demands for expressions of outrage or sympathy, though (of course) you are literally correct to note that there is a distinction. But the distinction is more or less irrelevant as a political matter, because the repeated demands for either expressions of outrage or expressions of remorse serve essentially the same end, although the demand for remorse includes implicitly an insistence on responsibility.

It is true that a number of the expressions of outrage and sympathy in the links I posted are somewhat defensive and that some show a certain tendency to enlarge the discussion to other topics. The defensiveness may well have been warranted since the US promptly began mass arrests and implemented a number of other prejudiced policies which resulted in both physical abuses and false accusations, two particularly well-known cases being the deportation of various Maher Arar abroad for torture and the subsequent effort to blame Brandon Mayfield for the Madrid bombings. It is perhaps natural to read the tendency to enlarge to other topics as evidence of insincerity ("Yes, well this is very unfortunate but ..."), which might sometimes be an accurate reading, in which case the text is somewhat offensive, but in a number of cases there may be cultural issues involved which do not translate well.

On the other hand, a sweeping generalization like your "Usually when Muslim leaders apologize ..." strikes me as stereotyping. The expressions of sorrow and regret seem to have been widespread.

[yurbud]

18. pope apologized for his own actions, not other Catholics,

will he apologize for pro-nazi catholics who backed Hitler?

[sakabatou]

20. This is why they hate us

[CJCRANE]

22. 9/11 was not carried out on the orders

of some kind of muslim pope or any official muslim group.

Al-Qaeda/Bush/Cheney (whoever was responsible) is not going to apologise for it.

[stella]

25. shouldn`t Bush apologize for invading Iraq and killing thousands of people

[Zybelline]

41. yes, but "reciprocity" should be expected in muslim world

only seeing yourself as victims never taking responsibilty for victims your religion has caused, this mentality is very dangerous

very common in all the fundamentalists' thinking

[Ms. Clio]

45. I guess you're saying that somehow 2 billion people in dozens

of countries should all "reciprocate" for something they had no part of at all.

Yes, fundamentalist thinking is extremely stupid and dangerous. And I'm not thinking of Muslims at all.

[stella]

55. Thank You

for making my point to post 41

[Ms. Clio]

58. sure, anytime! Your point was excellent

actually, a Bush apology (although that will happen when pigs fly) would make much more sense, since he is directly responsible for all those deaths, while the 2 billion Muslims around the world are not responsible for anything, and have done nothing for which they should "apologize."

These threads draw out the ignorant bigots, though, like flies to their favorite shit.

[goforit]

29. Obrien, a man of many grudges.

[Ian David]

34. On September 12, 2001 the entire world-- including Muslims-- were with us

In Iran, they marched in the streets-- in solidarity with America.

In Palestine and Afghanastan... not so much.

But everywhere else, the world-- including the Muslims-- were with us.

Let Pope Ratso apologize for the vatican's crusades, the pogroms, the inquisition, their complicity in the Holocaust, and their current genocidal efforts to spread AIDS and poverty...

Then, once The Vatican has attended to the plank in their own eye...

[AlamoDemoc]

36. F@cking moron!

perhaps the Catholic church should apologize harboring pedophiles? Start by searching the Vatican basement.

[HuffleClaw]

44. idiot

pretty offensive remarks. easily as offensive as if he'd said "jews should apologize for killing christ".

[Canuckistanian]

51. Only if Christians apologize for:

1. The Crusades
2. The slaughter of American indigenous peoples
3. Missionaries to third world countries
4. Colluding with Adolph Hitler

And finally,

5. Putting George Bush into power.

[SOS]

59. By this reasoning

white, American Christians should apologize for Timothy McVeigh's terrorist attack in Oklahoma City.

:crazy:

[Zhade]

61. Sure - when all Christians apologize for the Crusades, etc.

What's that? They don't have to, because they're not responsible for those acts?

DING DING DING!