Italy’s far-right Northern League has come up with some provocative ways to protest against the construction of mosques. One of its members, Senator Roberto Calderoli, has called for a “Pig Day” to demonstrate against a planned mosque in Bologna. In December 2006, protesters left a severed pig’s head outside a mosque being built in Tuscany. Their latest idea was to parade a pig around the site of a planned mosque in Padua last weekend to “desecrate” the property.

Italy’s Sky TV has the video here. It’s in Italian but you’ll get the point.

The woman leading the protesters is former deputy Education Minister Mariella Mazzetto, a Northern League member. She told the journalist: “We have blessed the ground that the city of Padua wants to transfer for the mosque … It is a question of defending Italian identity.” Muslims and non-Muslims joined in denouncing the protest.

The rest of the video deals with a case that could be seen as the opposite of the Northern League’s approach. A priest in Treviso has been allowing local Muslims to use his parish hall for Friday prayers for three years. “For me, they are all children of God,” Father Aldo Danieli told Corriere della Sera. But his bishop told him on Saturday he would have to stop the practice, since Church law said Catholic places of worship could not be used by other religions.

This probably won’t be the last time that the Northern League uses pigs to try to provoke Muslims. How should they react?

Another day, another book about America’s Religious Right…

At least that’s what I thought when I heard there was yet another book published on the conservative Christian movement that has wielded so much influence in the Republican Party — and by extension some aspects of U.S. public policy.

But Tom Perrotta’s new book “The Abstinence Teacher” sets itself apart from the rest of a very large pack by the fact that it is a novel — a marked departure from the slew of non-fiction works out on the Religious Right. My story “Novel examines U.S. culture war on soccer field ” discusses the book with Perrotta.

New books on the movement keep coming out, despite the fact some analysts say it has already run its political course. That view seems to be underscored by the startling fact that former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani is leading the Republican field in the 2008 White House race despite his support for abortion and gay rights.

Most of these books are polemical, some are alarmist and a few have certainly been thought-provoking.

To name just a very few (and sticking to titles I’ve read) they include Kevin Phillips’ “American Theocracy” (which also looks at the politics of oil and debt), Thomas Frank’s “What’s The Matter with Kansas?”(has the Republican Party used abortion to get blue collar Americans to vote against their economic interests?), Lauren Sandler’s “Righteous” (about the evangelical youth movement) and Nicholas Guyatt’s informative recent look at Apocalyptic U.S. Christians, “Have a Nice Doomsday.”

There have been many, many more and new ones are rolling off the printing presses at a steady rate.

But fictional takes on these issues have been, as far as I’m aware, rare — excluding of course the “Left Behind” series and other popular works of modern U.S. Christian fiction, which are a different kettle of fish.

The first critical fiction look at the Religious Right from the outside was probably Margaret Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale.” Published in 1985 and regarded by some as a prophetic look at the Religious Right’s political ambitions, it is set in the Republic of Gilead - a re-branded and theocratic America after the conservative Christian revolution.

But there has not been a lot since, to the best of my knowledge, and Perrotta thought to himself that it was a topic that surely lent itself to fiction.

“George W. Bush’s 2004 re-election (credited by many to religious conservatives) was a jolt to me as a novelist. I thought I was missing half the story here,” Perrotta told me last week.

He said that he felt that for most novelists, the world of evangelical Christianity was “foreign” — which may explain the relative dearth of fictional treatment on the subject.

His novel takes a micro-approach to make bigger points about the U.S. culture war — sex education in a local school system and prayers on the little league soccer field — and involves people from opposing sides who find they may have more in common than they thought.

“I really liked the Atwood book. I think she did a beautiful job of portraying the Religious Right with unchecked power. But what I really wanted to do was show people on opposite sides wrestling with their doubts and talking to each other the way normal people talk,” Perrotta told me.

I must confess it was nice for a change to read a fictionalised account of a subject I report on and read about on a regular basis.

American novelists have long tackled the big subjects of their day, from slavery to racism to war. The Religious Right and the culture wars may now starting getting their due in this regard.

It seemed incongruous for the marabout to answer his mobile phone while conducting prayers. The faithful were gathered on mats around his ornate deckchair and I was at his feet waiting to speak to him for our feature on Senegal’s Mouride Sufi brotherhood entitled “Fake Prada Fuels Senegal’s Muslim brotherhood. ” The scene illustrated how close together the ancient and the modern as well as the spiritual and the material sit for members of the brotherhood.

It was one of his talibe, or followers (the term in the local language Wolof comes from the same Arabic word “talib” — religious student — that has become notorious in a different context in Afghanistan). The caller asked the cheikh to perform a Muslim naming ritual for the latest addition to his family. Seated in the sandy compound of one of his many homes, Cheikh Bethio was happy to oblige right away. He asked the family to hold the phone to the baby’s forehead, right ear, left ear and genitals while he whispered its name and blew into the phone. The faithful at his feet bowed their heads and kept silent. They’re used to such interruptions – sometimes he even performs weddings this way.

Mouridism, a Sufi Islamic movement based in Senegal’s holy city of Touba, preaches hard work as a means to paradise and the accumulation of wealth so as to build mosques, Koranic schools and help the poor. Its devotees have taken the lesson to heart and the result is a network of small businessmen and traders who combine religious fervor with a natural Senegalese ability to drive a hard bargain. Mourides run the majority of stalls in Senegal’s markets. They are the producers, promoters and retailers behind its thriving music industry, which has borne such stars as Youssou N’Dour and Cheikh Lo. They control its trucking and bus companies and own tens of thousands of hectares of its peanut plantations. Hip-hop superstar Akon and English premier league footballer El Hadji Diouf rank among their number.

Such is their devotion to hard work that thousands of Mourides answer a “ndiguel” – a call to work – by the movement’s caliph, Serigne Saliou Mbacke, each year. Talibe from all backgrounds – students, teachers, bankers and doctors – come to help harvest the peanut crop by hand, some of them camping out in the fields for weeks at a time.

Looking like a cross between a music festival and a refugee camp, the tented community they set up in the Khelcom fields around Touba is where they eat, sleep and chant religious songs together after working the fields, forming friendships that last a lifetime. The phenomenon is seen as an act of religious cleansing and of solidarity, the epitome of the philosophy that hard work wins the favour of God.

Critics say the Mourides’ reverence for their marabouts, including Cheikh Ahmadou Bamba who founded the movement in the 1880s, outstrips their respect for the Prophet Mohammad. They also say that sending children as young as 10 to Koranic school deprives them of other educational opportunities.

The Mourides reply that for them, Bamba is the Prophet’s slave and that revering him is a legitimate short cut. And in a country where unemployment is rife, half of the population are under 18, and even the best-educated struggle to find work, the brotherhood provides a surer route to economic independence for the young.

Cheikh Bethio and his fellow Mouride leaders are material as much as spiritual icons.

In the corner of his compound is a blue Mercedes and, next to it, a brand-new white Hummer, a gift from Serigne Modou Kara, one of Ahmadou Bamba’s descendants.

In this impoverished corner of Africa, religion and materialism make comfortable bedfellows.

Amid the hullabaloo in the “science vs. religion” debate, one conference produces more thought-provoking arguments than the usual fare. It’s called “Beyond Belief” and it’s been held these past two years at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California. The first reports of this year’s session (Oct 31-Nov 2) are just coming out — the latest edition of New Scientist has a full-page story and an editorial (registration required) — and there was an interesting new tone to the debate.

The 2006 session was called Beyond Belief – Science, Religion, Reason and Survival and New Scientist’s report read: “It had all the fervour of a revivalist meeting. True, there were no hallelujahs, gospel songs or swooning, but there was plenty of preaching, mostly to the converted, and much spontaneous applause for exhortations to follow the path of righteousness. And right there at the forefront of everyone’s thoughts was God. Yet this was no religious gathering - quite the opposite. Some of the leading practitioners of modern science, many of them vocal atheists, were gathered last week …” For a fuller account, see George Johnson’s very readable report in the New York Times.

This time around, the meeting was entitled Beyond Belief - Enlightenment 2.0 . The New Scientist report observed: “Last year’s meeting resounded with rallying calls from atheists determined to replace faith wherever they found it with a scientific world view. This year things were more conciliatory, with speakers recognising that we need many tools to make sense of the world besides the strictly rational…”

We’ve noted before that the neo-atheist wave that hit the best-seller lists a while back seems to be waning. The mood at the “Beyond Belief” symposium seems to be another sign that the discussion among scientists may be going beyond the polemical stage. As the New Scientist editorial observed: “To borrow from a popular biblical saying, humankind cannot live by rational thought alone. To want to cleanse society of religion before understanding its evolutionary roots and purpose seems strangely unscientific”

Not everybody was converted, of course. University of Toronto biochemist Larry Moran, in one of the first blogs on the meeting, poured cold water on some of the arguments as reported by New Scientist. The Science Network promises to post videotapes of the debate soon.

Any foreign correspondent who ever covered the old Soviet bloc remembers how the official press seemed to print only news-free communiques and bland official photos. Scanning newspapers like Pravda or Scînteia or Neues Deutschland, the skilled reader looked for subtle changes from the norm as hints of possible shifts in official thinking. Once a slight deviation was sighted, readers would watch to see if it was just a flash in the pan or whether it became a normal feature.

That style of reading came to mind when L’Osservatore Romano published on Sunday what may be its first article ever by a Jewish writer. With its columns of papal speeches and discretion about internal Church issues, the Vatican daily has an unmistakable stylistic likeness to those old party organs. Not in content or purpose or inspiration, I hasten to add (hold the emails, I’m not saying the comparison goes that far). But as newspapers go, it’s as daunting as those other papers and its regular readers develop the same keen sense of small differences. So what does this change mean? Is the official voice of the Catholic Church opening up to views from other faiths? Will Muslims, Hindus or others follow?

The article was a review of a new book Brutti Ricordi (Ugly Memories), an Italian translation of two essays by Israeli academics Anita Shapira and Ephraim Kleiman on the departure of the Palestinians from Israel in 1948-1949 (review here in Italian). The author, Anna Foa, is a history professor at La Sapienza University in Rome. “The byline is not the only significant element,” writes veteran Vatican watcher Sandro Magister of L’Espresso magazine. It was also interesting, he said, that the book dealt with the dispute in Israel about whether the Palestinians left in 1948 “of their own will or were forcibly banished by the victorious Jews.”

Corriere della Sera Vatican correspondent Luigi Accattoli asked the Vatican daily’s new editor Giovanni Maria Vian whether this was the first Jewish author published there. “It’s hard to say, given that our newspaper has a 146-year-long history. There may have been exceptional cases of hospitality, but this is probably the first time that a Jewish voice has been invite to provide a cultural article,” Vian answered. He said he wanted to cover cultural issues more broadly, inviting “authoratative voices of various backgrounds” to contribute. He also plans to have more women writers and beef up the paper’s Internet site.

For more on this unique newspaper, check out a recent entry on Magister’s www.chiesa site (in English this time!) reprinting a witty article “The difficulties of “L’Osservatore Romano” that Cardinal Giovanni Battista Montini — the future Pope Paul VI — wrote in 1961. It’s down the page, below a portrait of Vian. Two short excerpts:

One will notice immediately that “L’Osservatore” does not speak, for example, of theatre, sports, finance, fashion, judicial trials, cartoons, puzzles… or of anything that would seem to capture the curiosity, if not always the interest, of the so-called general public…

Even when the headline page is not in Latin, one cannot always say that it provides enjoyable reading. Edifying, yes; but no one blames the respectable newspaper if it cannot serve as entertainment, unlike the many other papers that make for amusement and relaxation. And we will say nothing of the page, as ostentatious as can be but full of the usual roundup of Vatican events, which may provide the pleasure of an incomparably grandiose spectacle, but not without a certain suspicion that one has seen all of this before…

The southern German state of Bavaria is one of those areas, like southern Poland, that are known for their fervent folk Catholicism. It was on full display last year when Bavaria’s favourite son, Pope Benedict, visited his native state. But Catholicism is changing even in Bavaria, as his successor as archbishop of Munich and Freising has admitted. Cardinal Friedrich Wetter told fellow Bavarian bishops on Thursday that so many candidates for the priesthood have such insufficient knowledge of Catholic teaching that seminaries will have to introduce remedial courses to bring them up to standard.

“Candidates for the priesthood increasingly come from various backgrounds and apply for the admission to the seminary with sometimes quite different prior experiences of faith and the Church,” he said in a statement (here in German). “With a propaedeutic course inserted before normal theology studies in the seminary, the Bavarian bishops want to add an educational phase that fosters the seminarians’ spiritual growth and personal discernment, … transmits basic theological knowledge and allows insight into the real situation of the Church through participation in social and pastoral work.”

A further translation of that translation would be: “we need a remedial course because the incoming seminarians don’t know enough about the Catholic Church.”

The one-year course will start in the fall of 2008 and all entering seminarians will have to take it at the Catholic theology faculties in Passau or Bamberg, Wetter said. He added that the bishops hoped this would not lengthen the overall length of study required before ordination.

According to a Bavarian newspaper, the Augsburger Allgemeine, “professors at the universities often complain about their students’ sketchy knowledge. Professors don’t want to teach catechism, they want to give theology lectures. Even Christian Hartl, regent of the Augsburg seminary, told this newspaper about students who before entering the seminary ‘were not so rooted in their parish’ and had ‘more distance to the faith’ than their predecessors just a few years ago.”

Several other dioceses in Germany have introduced remedial courses at their seminaries in recent years. Neighbouring Austria launched one for all entering seminarians in 2000, after the Vatican advised it following an inspection visit there.

Six international human rights groups have appealed to the U.N. Human Rights Council to press Pakistan to release Asma Jahangir, the world body’s special rapporteur on the freedom of religion or belief. The Pakistani lawyer, a leading human rights campaigner in her country, was put under house arrest in Lahore when President General Pervez Musharraf declared a state of emergency on November 3.

The six groups — Amnesty International, The International Federation for Human Rights, Human Rights Watch, International Service for Human Rights, World Organisation against Torture and Pax Romana — also said Pakistan should lift a threat of detention against Hina Jilani , the U.N. special representative on the situation of human rights defenders who is currently outside of her native Pakistan but would be arrested if she returned. Jahangir and Jilani are sisters who have been active campaigners for women’s rights in Pakistan.

A group representing all 38 UN special representatives and working groups on human rights also protested against emergency rule in Pakistan and singled out the arrest of their colleague Jahangir and the detention order against Jilani. “We are concerned that placing a Special Procedures mandate holder under house arrest may adversely impact on his or her ability to carry out the activities necessary to fulfill the mandate. We are alarmed that a detention order remains in place against Hina Jilani, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on the situation of human rights defenders,” they said.

Pakistani blogs have posted an email they said was from Jahangir including a copy of her detention order which put her under house arrest by declaring her home a “sub-jail” for 90 days.

Jahangir, who also heads the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, has been the U.N. watchdog on freedom of religion since 2004. She visits several countries a year to monitor religious rights there and produces country reports and an annual report for the Human Rights Council in Geneva.

In an interim report for the Security Council in August, she said she was preparing country reports after visits to Tajikistan and Britain. She also has invitations to visit Angola, India, Israel, Turkmenistan, Mauritania and Serbia to monitor religious freedoms there. In addition, she said she had started special studies on two issue of particular concern — the religious rights of refugees and the situation of people with atheistic or non-theistic beliefs.

The letter by the six human rights organisations reads:

Ambassador Doru Costea
President
Human Rights Council
Geneva
Geneva, 7 November 2007
Dear Ambassador Costea

We are writing to seek your urgent intervention as President of the Human Rights Council, and that of the Bureau of the Council, concerning two of the Council’s Special Procedures, the Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief, Asma Jahangir, and the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Human Rights Defenders, Hina Jilani.

On 3 November 2007, the President of Pakistan, General Musharraf, declared a state of emergency that has led to the detention of hundreds of human rights defenders, contrary to Pakistan’s international human rights obligations. We have been informed that Ms Jahangir, the Human Rights Council’s Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief, was placed under house arrest over the last weekend, subject to a 90 day order. This action effectively prevents her from discharging her responsibilities as a mandate holder of the Council.

We are concerned that Ms Jilani, the Special Representative on the situation of Human Rights Defenders, who is presently outside Pakistan, faces house arrest under a similar order when she returns to Pakistan. This threat is subjecting Ms Jilani to pressure that in itself affects the discharge of her responsibilities. If she returns to be placed under house arrest, she too will be entirely prevented from acting under her mandate.

Action restricting or preventing the Council’s mandate holders from discharging their responsibilities is intolerable under any circumstances. The fact that the action is being taken by a member of the Council makes the situation even more serious. General Assembly resolution 60/251 establishing the Council requires that “members elected to the Council shall uphold the highest standards in the promotion and protection of human rights, (and) shall fully cooperate with the Council.”

We ask that the Bureau of the Council require Pakistan to account to the Council as a matter of urgency for its conduct in relation to the mandate holders in terms of its responsibility under the General Assembly resolution. Pakistan should be required to lift all restrictions on Ms Jahangir and Ms Jilani so that they are able to continue their work under their mandates from the Council without pressure, threat or interference.

We request an opportunity for representatives of our organisations in New York to discuss this situation with you personally and urgently. We ourselves will be seeking meetings with other members of the Bureau here in Geneva.

Yours sincerely,

Chris Sidoti for

Amnesty International, Irene Khan, Secretary General

Fédération Internationale des Droits de l’Homme, Souhayr Belhassen, President

Human Rights Watch, Ken Roth, Executive Director

International Service for Human Rights, Chris Sidoti, Director

Organisation Mondiale Contre la Torture, Eric Sottas, Director

Pax Romana, Budi Tjahjono, Coordinator
cc Permanent Representatives, Human Rights Council Member States

The U.S. National Association of Evangelicals (NAE), which has broadened its agenda to include environmental protection and the fight against global warming, has decided to practice what it preaches by encouraging its members to take up a government- sponsored energy saving initiative.

The ENERGY STAR Challenge is a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) program aimed at improving the energy efficiency of America’s commercial and industrial buildings by 10 percent or more.

“If America’s more than 300,000 houses of worship cut energy use by 10 percent, they would save nearly $200 million each year – money that could be used for missions and other priorities,” said Richard Cizik, vice president of governmental affairs for the NAE.

“It would also prevent the annual release of more than 2 million tons of greenhouse gas emissions, which is equivalent to the emissions generated by about 400,000 cars , or the planting of over a half million acres of trees.”

Cizik has been instrumental in prodding the NAE — which by some estimates represents about half of America’s roughly 60 million evangelicals — to preach the green gospel , a position which has made many old culture warriors see red and does not have the support of all its members.

The late Jerry Falwell railed against it, while others see it as a distraction from their “core issues” of abortion and the family. For some Christians with apocalyptic views, caring about the environment is a moot point if the world is about to end anyway.

But Cizik, who is also a staunch social conservative, supports the argument that humanity must be stewards of God’s creation. In his view, Christians have a special duty to fight climate change because it is seen hitting hardest at the poorest of the poor, especially in places such as Africa.

Turkey has signalled it may soon amend a free speech law that has been a stumbling block in its drive to join the European Union. Justice Minister Mehmet Ali Sahin said this on Tuesday soon after the European Commission issued its annual progress report on Ankara’s membership bid. The interesting angle here for this blog is that the EU criticism singled out not only the much-criticised law on “insulting Turkishness” but also current restrictions on freedom of religion.

Releasing the report, Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn noted democracy had prevailed over military meddling in Turkish politics this year. “The new momentum should now be used to relaunch the reforms to improve fundamental freedoms, particularly the freedom of expression and religious freedom, so that they prevail in all corners of the country and in all walks of life,” he said (my emphasis).

The report gave Turkey a mixed review concerning religion. “As concerns freedom of religion, freedom of worship continues to be generally guaranteed,” it wrote. But it added: “Overall, the environment as regards freedom of religion has not been conducive to the full respect of this right in practice. A legal framework has yet to be established in line with the European Convention on Human Rights so that all religious communities can function without undue constraints. No real progress can be reported on the major difficulties encountered by the Alevis and non-Muslim religious communities.”

The ex-Islamist AK Party governing Turkey has argued for more religious freedom in general, seeing this as a way for Muslims to have more rights in the country’s rigidly secularist system. AK leaders have said these freedoms should also apply to the non-Muslim minorities there. But it takes time to translate that into practice. Several European governments are paying particular attention to progress on the religious freedom front, so the pressure is on Ankara to introduce reforms.

Other points in the report include:

– “The Association for Support of Jehovah’s Witnesses has received a final decision from the Turkish authorities confirming that the association is legally registered.”

– “On 19 June, the Ministry of Interior issued a Circular on freedom of religion of non-Muslim Turkish citizens. The Circular acknowledges that there has been an increase in individual crimes against non-Muslim citizens and their places of worship. It requests the governors of all provinces to take the necessary measures to prevent such incidents from happening again and to enhance tolerance towards individuals with different religion and beliefs.”

– “Attacks against clergy and places of worship of non-Muslim communities have
been reported. Missionaries have been portrayed in the media or by the authorities as a threat to the integrity of the country and non-Muslim minorities as not being an integral part of Turkish society. To date, use of language that might incite hatred against non-Muslim minorities has been left unpunished.”

– “Non-Muslim religious communities - as organised structures of religious groups - continue to face problems such as lack of legal personality and restricted property rights. These communities have also encountered problems with the management of their foundations and ith recovering property by judicial means.”

– “Several churches ave not been able to register their places of worship. Alevis face difficulties with opening their places of worship (Cem houses or “Cemevi”). Cem houses are not recognised as places of worship and receive no funding from the authorities.

– The Halki (Heybeliada) Greek Orthodox seminary remains closed.”

– “The Ecumenical Patriarch is not free to use the ecclesiastical title Ecumenical on all
occasions. In June 2007, the Court of Cassation ruled on a case against the Holy Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate … This decision potentially creates further difficulties to the Patriarchate and to other non-Muslim religious communities in the exercise of their rights guaranteed under the European Convention of Human Rights.”

– “In December 2006, 122 foreign clergy were working in Turkey under the Bylaw on the Law on Work Permits for Foreigners. However, there are still cases reported of foreign clergy who wish to work in Turkey facing difficulties and whose right to equal treatment with Turkish nationals is not ensured.”

Sigmund Freud is said to have told a student who over-interpreted his smoking habits: “Sometimes a cigar is only a cigar.”*

The quote came to mind when the Vatican announced that King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia had presented Pope Benedict with a jewel-studded golden sword during their historic meeting. Didn’t the Prophet Mohammad have a sword, the one on display at the Topkapi Palace in Istanbul? Doesn’t the Saudi flag have a sword on it? And didn’t the pope refer to Islam being “spread by the sword” in his Regensburg speech, sparking off protests around the Muslim world?

This was the first meeting between a Supreme Pontiff and a Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques. Was Abdullah taking the opportunity to send some kind of message?

Anybody covering religion knows questions like this will pop up in readers’ minds and bounce around in the blogosphere. So as soon as we heard the news, there was a flurry of instant messages between our Rome, Paris and Riyadh bureaus. We had to give some explanation for why the king should give such a gift.

Riyadh correspondent Andrew Hammond was quick to set things straight. “It’s just a Bedouin custom,” he IMed back. “They give them to foreign vistors to Saudi who they respect. It’s a mark of respect in Bedouin tribal terms.” And that’s what Vatican correspondent Phil Pullella wrote in his report.

So sometimes a sword is only a sword.

Check out the video:

* When I went to look up the source for this famous Freud quote, I found this entry in the FAQ of the Freud Museum in London: “Where did Freud say, “Sometimes a cigar is only a cigar.”? If you know the answer to this one, please let us know because we have no idea…”