Bashing the Archbishop

Rowan Williams gets properly chastised in today's Times. Here's Dean Goodson:

[C]onventional wisdom holds that Tony Blair and George Bush made the world a much more dangerous place by invading Iraq. That we’re losing badly in Iraq, if we haven’t already lost. That Mr Blair is “riding pillion” to President Bush — and that if he didn’t do so, we would probably all be much safer.

In that sense, the Archbishop of Canterbury rounded 2006 off perfectly, declaring in this newspaper that Anglo-American “firepower” in Iraq had triggered an explosion of extremism that made life far harder for Christians across the Middle East. His line is reminiscent of the old Yiddish joke about two Jews in front of a firing squad in Tsarist Russia. One suggests: “Let’s make a run for it.” Replies the other: “Shhh, don’t make trouble.”

Never mind the ideological, political and physical assault on Christians all across the Middle East and Asia since the 1970s — fuelled by the rise of Wahhabist ideology. Never mind that Christian communities there have been in decline for at least a century. Rather like the Islamists, Dr Williams prefers to lay the blame for the deplorable condition of the Middle East’s Christians at the door of Great Satan and Little Satan. Short of blaming the Jews for the tsunami — as some Muslim radicals did in 2004 — the Archbishop did a wonderful job of letting the real sources of evil off the hook.

A letter from Stephen Shaw:

The Archbishop of Canterbury’s plea for us all to “pray for the little town of Bethlehem” makes depressing reading, though for reasons unstated in his article.

In 2002 a hideous suicide bombing at a hotel in the Israeli resort of Netanya killed 30, mainly elderly guests, and injured 140 others. To protect its citizens from such murderous attacks, Israel launched Operation Defensive Shield, part of which included an effort to apprehend those Palestinians involved in such attacks. Some of those pursued, themselves not Christians, chose to take refuge in the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. The almost worldwide condemnation which Israel received then, when it sought to extricate those concerned, is parallel to the easy condemnation of the security fence, which now affects Bethlehem and many other areas with significant Arab populations.

My experience during many visits to Israel is that most Israeli Jews, as well as Israeli Arabs and Christians, dislike the fence. It is ugly, expensive and bad for Israel’s battered image. But they dislike even more being blown up as they travel on buses or eat in restaurants. The sad fact is that the fence has saved lives.

And another from Professor Shaun Gregory of the Department of Peace Studies at the University of Bradford:

The Archbishop of Canterbury is right to draw attention to the suffering of Christians in the Middle East but wrong to lay the blame for this at the feet of Western foreign policy.

The genocide, displacment and repression of Christians across the Muslim world is one of the great untold stories of the past 150 years. Were it more widely known it would explode the myth of Islamic tolerance of other faiths.

The Archbishop falls into precisely the intellectual trap which has long obscured the reality of Christian persecution under Islam: an unwillingness to risk offending Muslim leaderships reinforced by orientalist guilt for the West’s troubled past with the Islamic world.

Comments

[Bob-B]

Good stuff. Williams is such an idiot.

[Francis Sedgemore]

"Good stuff. Williams is such an idiot."

Williams is no idiot, but he is well out of his depth in the political arena when commenting on anything other than domestic social policy. Even there, I disagree with a lot of what he says, but at least he presents an intelligent challenge to policymakers who don't appear to understand the human consequences of their actions.

Rowan Williams is probably the best godbotherer-in-chief England has had for a very long time.

[Bob-B]

Okay, I'll settle for 'well out of his depth in the political arena when commenting on anything other than domestic social policy'.

[Dom]

"The genocide ... of Christians across the Muslim world".

I know the point he's making, but really the word "genocide" is just wrong there. A small point, I guess.

[Mick H]

In general yes, but then there's the Armenians.

[Richard]

"Williams is no idiot, but he is well out of his depth in the political arena"

Correct, but why? I suggest it is because "nice people don't do war", and he would rather be nice than a warrior. There are problems with that position. First: nice people can die just as easily as nasty people, especially at the hands of nasty people. Second: because nice people don't do war, they are utterly hopeless at understanding it - and we *are* in a war. Third: nice people seem quite unable to accept that some people genuinely are nasty, and do not have a nice side to appeal to. Islam has no such problems because, at least as far as infidels are concerned, it has no scruples.

"All warfare is based on deception" - Sun Tzu.

[IanLondon]

Someone involved a CofE Church local to me directed me to these people a few months back, makes interesting reading.

http://www.barnabasfund.org/

This is a obviously Christian organisation and is well-known amongst the CofE that has been around for quite a while (since 1993), so it seems incredible that the higher echelons like Williams are still incapable of pointing out the elephant in the room.