from The Great Debate:
Hitchens was an atheist who believed
By James Ledbetter The opinions expressed are his own.
It seems entirely possible that Christopher Hitchens will be primarily remembered in America for his public atheism. I suspect Hitchens himself was surprised at how wildly popular God Is Not Great became, giving much-needed voice and ammunition to thousands of godless heathens in the land of the drive-through church.
Yet it's an inadequate way to remember the man, and not because Hitchens did little more in that book than to lay some tracing paper on the Enlightenment's best thinkers and draw giddily (though with acidic and often very funny ink), or because—this is not an exaggeration—the American public regards atheists on about the same level as rapists.
The problem is that splitting the atheism away from the body of Hitchens's work debases it into a kind of rascally parlor trick—"Uncle Christopher, say the mean thing about Mother Teresa again!"—and distracts from the thorny paradox at the heart of Hitchens's thinking. Which is: While certainly an enemy of superstition and an eager chronicler of the sins and idiocies of the world's religions, Hitchens was actually a lifelong believer, if strictly in man-made gods. It is impossible to contemplate his prodigious and passionate writing without recognizing that it was always animated by crusades, holy men, and devils.
Indeed, the Hitchens universe was long populated by notions of absolute good and evil, stretching back to his days as a student Trotskyite. This tendency was tempered by a love of literature and the cocoon of irony that writers wrap around themselves. But Hitchens himself spoke of the struggle between the literal and ironic minds, and it is an aptly Hitchensian contradiction that the episode, I think, that created his own brand of fundamentalist was in defense of the ironic mind—in 1989, when the Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa on Salman Rushdie for the supposed blasphemy of The Satanic Verses.
The importance of the Rushdie saga on Hitchens's thinking cannot be overstated. "I felt at once that here was something that completely committed me," he wrote in his splendid memoir, Hitch-22. "It was, if I can phrase it like this, a matter of everything I hated versus everything I loved." This is of course a functional definition of evil and good. And there were obviously implications for the future, once Hitchens learned that among the Western left, it is entirely possible for well-meaning people, in the name of multicultural "understanding" or "tolerance" of non-Western societies, to overlook and even excuse atrocities and barbarism that would never be acceptable if perpetrated, say, by the Republican Party and its allies.
Few today would find fault with Hitchens's stance or actions on behalf of Rushdie. But he began to apply the moral purity he derived from it to situations where the good-versus-evil ledger was not so neatly visible. From the mid- to late-'90s on, when the books on Mother Teresa, Bill Clinton, and Henry Kissinger were published, the absolutism had pretty much taken over his work.
Mideast Christians struggle to hope in Arab Spring, some see no spring at all
Middle East Christians are struggling to keep hope alive with Arab Spring democracy movements promising more political freedom but threatening religious strife that could decimate their dwindling ranks. Scenes of Egyptian Muslims and Christians protesting side by side in Cairo’s Tahrir Square five months ago marked the high point of the euphoric phase when a new era seemed possible for religious minorities chafing under Islamic majority rule.
Since then, violent attacks on churches by Salafists — a radical Islamist movement once held in check by the region’s now weakened or toppled authoritarian regimes — have convinced Christians their lot has not really improved and could get worse.
“If things don’t change for the better, we’ll return to what was before, maybe even worse,” Coptic Catholic Patriarch of Alexandria Antonios Naguib said at a conference this week in Venice on the Arab Spring and Christian-Muslim relations. “But we hope that will not come about,” he told Reuters.
The Chaldean bishop of Aleppo, Antoine Audo, feared the three-month uprising against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad spelled a bleak future for the 850,000 Christians there. “If there is a change of regime,” he said, “it’s the end of Christianity in Syria. I saw what happened in Iraq.”
In Egypt, where the Coptic Orthodox and Catholic minorities are under heavy pressure from Salafist Muslims, methods the state used to keep Christians in line before President Hosni Mubarak was toppled haven’t changed. When there is a conflict between a Muslim and a Christian, the police still have them hold a “reconciliation session” that usually ends in the Muslim’s favour, said participiants at the conference organised by the Oasis Foundation led by Venice Cardinal Angelo Scola.
Fr. Milad Sidky Zakhary, head of the Catholic Institute of Religious Sciences in Alexandria, said that laws proclaiming legal equality for all Egyptians are not enforced. “As a Christian, I must hope. But I must recognise that there has been no real progress,” he said. Referring to one of Venice’s best-known musicians, he added: “The great Italian composer Antonio Vivaldi wrote the beautiful symphony The Four Seasons. For us Christians in Egypt, there are only three seasons. There is no spring.”
Bahrain crisis could worsen Sunni-Shi’ite sectarian tensions in the region
A Bahraini police crackdown on pro-democracy protesters, two days after Saudi Arabia sent in 1,000 troops to bolster its longtime Gulf Arab ally, will heighten Sunni-Shi’ite tensions in Bahrain and beyond. At least five people were killed and hundreds wounded when police cleared demonstrators from Manama’s Pearl Square on Wednesday in an attempt to halt weeks of popular unrest.
The violence, so soon after the Saudi-led intervention, will further embarrass Washington, which had urged dialogue to tackle Bahrain’s problems and says Riyadh did not consult it before moving troops to the island where the U.S. Fifth Fleet is based. That may be the case, but U.S. Defence Secretary Robert Gates visited Bahrain at the weekend. To many Arabs the timing smacks of U.S. complicity in King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa’s decision to invite the Saudis in and declare martial law.
The decision to crush a protest movement inspired by popular revolts in Egypt and Tunisia is conditioned by the sectarian factor in Bahrain, a tiny country seen by the United States and the GCC as a bulwark against the rising power of Shi’ite Iran.
Sunni Gulf rulers tend to view Shi’ites in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia as a potential fifth column for the Islamic Republic, despite what Gulf-based political analyst Neil Partrick called the “clear Arab affinity of many of the Shi’ites of the Gulf.”
Bahraini Shi’ites have long complained of discrimination in housing and jobs, charges the government rejects. The protesters had sought to cast their movement as national, not sectarian. But amid the tumult of Middle East protests, the sectarian overtones of the Bahrain crisis find a ready echo in places like Iraq and Lebanon, where Sunni-Shi’ite tensions run high.
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U.S. military chaplains air issues
Chaplains representing every branch of the U.S. military and many faiths gathered on Wednesday to discuss everything from counseling stressed-out soldiers to a recent lawsuit charging the military neglects a sexually abusive culture.
“Yes, there is sexual abuse. They said it is not attributable to the culture fostered by the Department of Defense, it is attributable to the culture of our society,” said the Rev. Dr. C. Welton Gaddy, president of the Interfaith Alliance, who helped lead the discussion held in the House of Representatives’ Cannon Office Building.
In a federal lawsuit, outlined in the New York Times, 17 current or former service members portrayed the military as allowing a sexually charged culture that fails to prevent or punish incidents of rape and sexual abuse. The chaplains’ view echoed that of a Defense Department spokesman that sexual assault is a wider societal problem, but was a priority of the military.
The repeated deployments of U.S. soldiers to Afghanistan and Iraq over the past decade has taken a toll on psyches, making it difficult for the roughly 2,000 U.S. Army chaplains and hundreds more in other branches, Gaddy said.
“They said of the repeated deployments, ‘Yes, that is very worrisome concern and it something that is not going to end any time soon’,” he said.
“There are a lot of people who are not clinically diagnosed (with post-traumatic stress disorder) who have severe issues related to that and the chaplains try to handle it in their regular counseling procedures,” he said.
Among the participants in the discussion were a rabbi who is a captain in the Army Reserves, a Methodist, a Muslim and a Baptist. If the chaplains themselves become stressed by their duties, Gaddy said they did not air it.
This article has been posted on Religious Freedom USA. To learn more visit: http://www.religiousfreedomusa.org
Attack fears cloud Christmas for Baghdad Christians
Normally on Christmas Eve, Ban Zaki puts on festive clothes and takes her family to Baghdad’s Our Lady of Salvation church for lively holiday celebrations.
Not this year.
Dressed in black and fighting back tears, she has brought her three children to the church to honour her late husband, who was killed along with 51 others when Iraqi forces stormed it after militants took hostages during Sunday mass on Oct 31.
“He died on this spot,” 49-year-old Zaki said, pointing to the marble floor of the Catholic church. “This year, there will be no festivities, no celebrations. The images of the attack and how they killed my husband here in this place are still in front of my eyes. Those were four hours I won’t forget for the rest of my life,” she said.
The attack triggered a fresh exodus of Christians from some Iraqi cities amid renewed fears that Sunni Islamist militants were trying to drive Christians out of their homeland. The U.N. refugee agency said last week that some 1,000 Christian families, roughly 6,000 people, had fled to Iraqi Kurdistan from Baghdad, Mosul and other areas.
No Christmas festivities for some Iraqi Christians
Some church leaders in Iraq have told Christians not to celebrate Christmas except with prayer after lethal attacks and continuing threats by militants against the Iraqi Christian community.
“No Santa Claus, no celebrations, no gifts this year,” Archbishop Louis Sako, chairman of the Chaldean archbishops in Kirkuk and Sulaimaniya, said on Wednesday. “We don’t have the right to jeopardize others’ lives.”
In a new threat published on an Islamist website, the local affiliate of al Qaeda threatened more attacks against Iraqi Christians. Insurgent attacks have panicked Iraq’s minority Christian community. Thousands have fled to the semi-autonomous northern Kurdish region or overseas.
In the worst attack, 52 people were killed when security forces stormed Our Lady of Salvation Catholic church in Baghdad after militants took hostages during Sunday mass on October 31. Iraqi authorities said they had arrested 12 suspected al Qaeda members in connection with the assault.
“We are still deeply wounded from what happened in Our Lady of Salvation church,” Sako said. “We saw innocent people brutally killed while praying to God, so how can we celebrate?”
“We will not celebrate this year. We will only pray to God asking for peace to prevail in our country.”
Is free Iraq becoming a more Islamic state?
A group of men recently ordered Siham al-Zubaidi to close down her Baghdad hair salon for two months for Shi’ite religious festivities. She had no idea who they were but complied because she feared for her life.
“Can you just tell me who will pay the rent of my shop for these two months? What shall I do to support my family? What is the relation between hair dressing and religious events?” Zubaidi, 40, asked furiously. “This is a new dictatorship. They want Iraq to be an Islamic state. But this is not right. Iraq includes a variety of religious factions … These are alien ideas, not Iraqi.”
Recent efforts by authorities, clergy and unknown bands of neighbourhood enforcers to police morals by shutting nightclubs, bars and other establishments has heightened concerns among academics and intellectuals that Iraq, now emerging from war, is displaying the tendencies of a hard-line Islamic state.
Baghdad’s local government this month re-activated a federal order from last year to close down the capital’s nightclubs and liquor shops due to concern the venues were undermining morals. The crackdown followed similar actions in some Shi’ite-majority provinces in the south.
“What is going on are normal consequences when religious parties take over power. They start with such practices, and end the way the Taliban in Afghanistan ended, or other parties in Iran,” Baghdad political analyst Hazim al-Nuaimi said.
In September, local authorities in Babil province prevented an arts festival that has been held yearly since before 2003. Security forces told organizers a day after the festival started to end it because it included dance shows. In the southern city of Basra, the government shut down a foreign circus a few days after it opened last month. Basra authorities said the government department of Shi’ite endowments held that the land on which the circus was set up could not be used in a way that violated Islamic Sharia law.
The new measures sparked protests by some Iraqis who said the government is trying to kill freedom more than seven years after the U.S.-led invasion that ousted Sunni dictator Saddam Hussein and paved the way for majority Shi’ites to take power.
Iraqi Shi’ites mark Ashura without incident, Saudis scuffle in Medina
More than two million Shi’ite pilgrims in Iraq’s holy city of Kerbala marked Ashura, commemorating the slaying of the Prophet Mohammad’s grandson Imam Hussein at the battle of Kerbala in 680, with no major violence reported amid tight security. But Saudi security forces dispersed crowds of Shi’ite and Sunni Muslims after scuffles broke out in the holy city of Medina.
Shi’ites from across Iraq, along with thousands of foreign pilgrims — most dressed in black — streamed into Kerbala for the emotive ritual on Friday in which the faithful beat their heads and chests and gash themselves with chains and swords to mourn the event that defines Shi’ism and its split from Sunni Islam.
“According to official statistics, there are more than two million Iraqi pilgrims and 248,000 foreign pilgrims who have entered Kerbala city,” said Mohammed al-Moussawi, head of the Kerbala provincial council.
Security officials assigned thousands of police officers and soldiers to protect the pilgrims as they headed to Hussein’s shrine in Kerbala, 80 km (50 miles) southwest of Baghdad. Authorities imposed a city-wide ban on cars and motorcycles to help prevent attacks. Read the full story here.
In Saudi Arabia, the Shi’ite website Rasid.com said a group of Sunnis had attacked several Shiites with stones late on Thursday as they were outside commemorating Ashoura in Medina, Islam’s second holiest city. A local Shiite resident also confirmed the incident to Reuters. He said it had occurred near the landmark Quba Mosque.
Iraqi Christians flee to Kurdish areas or abroad – U.N.
Thousands of Iraqi Christians have fled their homes to semi-autonomous Kurdish areas and neighbouring countries since a Catholic church in Baghdad was attacked six weeks ago, the U.N. refugee agency has said.
Some 1,000 Christian families, roughly 6,000 people, have arrived in the northern Kurdish areas from Baghdad, Mosul and Nineveh, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said. Several thousand have crossed into Syria, Jordan and Lebanon.
Many spoke of receiving threats or leaving out of fear. Fifty-two hostages and police were killed when Iraqi forces tried to free more than 100 Catholics taken hostage during Sunday mass on October 31.
“Since the awful Baghdad church attack and subsequent targeted attacks, the Christian communities in Baghdad and Mosul have started a slow but steady exodus,” UNHCR spokeswoman Melissa Fleming told a news briefing on Friday.
Iraq’s Christians once numbered 1.5 million out of a total Iraqi population of about 30 million and there are now estimated to be about 850,000, or about 3 percent of the population.
Iraq pres rejects Aziz death order, partly because he is Christian
Iraqi President Jalal Talabani said on Wednesday he will not sign an execution order for Tareq Aziz, the former deputy of dictator Saddam Hussein sentenced to death last month for crimes against humanity.
“No, I will not sign the execution order for Tareq Aziz, because I am a socialist,” Talabani told French television France 24 in an interview. “I sympathize with Tareq Aziz because he is an Iraqi Christian. Moreover he is an old man who is over 70.”
Iraq’s high tribunal passed a death sentence on Aziz, once the international face of Saddam’s government, in October over the persecution of Islamic parties in Iraq during Saddam’s rule. The Vatican and Russia both called on Iraq not to carry out the death sentence on humanitarian grounds, noting his age and health problems. The Vatican said mercy would help the war-torn country make progress toward reconciliation, peace and justice.
It was not clear whether Talabani’s opposition to signing the death sentence would prevent it from being carried out.
Aziz, a Christian, was well known in foreign capitals and at the United Nations before Saddam’s downfall. The U.S. government did not join the appeals to spare Aziz’s life. Analysts said that was partly because the United States itself carries out the death penalty and also possibly because it did not consider his hands to be entirely clean.
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Resident FaithWorld Expert
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(quote) That this prediction did not come true does not mean that Hitchens was wrong, exactly.
look, read hitchen’s quote immediately after your sentence – it is pure hitchenesque = shoddy, sprawling, inebriated, boring shite
“would make even the most limited impression on the heavily armored certainties” – wot the? hitchens desperately trying to be articulate
The Lice in Wunderland, looking through the whisky glass