Confronting Islam

The pope was right to do so, even though he could have been more politic and accurate. In that vein, good for the former Archbishop of Canterbury:

Lord Carey said that Muslims must address "with great urgency" their religion's association with violence. He made it clear that he believed the "clash of civilisations" endangering the world was not between Islamist extremists and the West, but with Islam as a whole.

"We are living in dangerous and potentially cataclysmic times," he said. "There will be no significant material and economic progress [in Muslim communities] until the Muslim mind is allowed to challenge the status quo of Muslim conventions and even their most cherished shibboleths."

Arguing that [Sam] Huntington's thesis has some 'validity', Lord Carey quoted him as saying: "Islam's borders are bloody and so are its innards. The fundamental problem for the West is not Islamic fundamentalism. It is Islam, a different civilisation whose people are convinced of the superiority of their culture and are obsessed with the inferiority of their power." Lord Carey went on to argue that a "deep-seated Westophobia" has developed in recent years in the Muslim world.

Ressentiment under Allah: a toxic brew indeed.