More Freedom, More Democracy, More Co-operation
"I have come to Lebanon as a pilgrim of peace. As a friend of God and as a friend of man."Let me assure you that I pray especially for the many people who suffer in this region."Instead of the weapons import, which is a grave sin, we should import ideas of peace and creativity and find solutions to accept each other with our differences."
Pope Benedict XVI
The good man of God is, of course, quite correct. But - how to achieve such an objective? It is not as though peace and goodwill are helpful viruses, to be contagiously gifted upon those who are bereft of those virtues. People must themselves turn themselves to appreciate that acceptance of others and communicating that acceptance and appreciation of what others bring to relationships has merit.
He speaks of the higher planes of human relationships. In some societies, xenophobia, suspicion and religious animosities are more intrinsically part of the values and the social compact through a heritage that has handed down these attributes from historical antecedents to the present.
Surely the Pope knows better than that of just how flawed human beings are, and how humans can be plunged en masse into a chaos of corrupted conscience. He has only to look back to the first quadrant of the 20th Century in his own country of birth.
But on his trip to Lebanon, courageously undertaken in the midst of region-wide chaos and strife, he was greeted with cannons and a 21-shot salute. Munitions used in war and in recognition of a peaceful emissary of the 'brotherhood of humankind'. If any country exemplifies the temporary failure of that brotherhood it is certainly Lebanon.
And Lebanon has not been exempt at the present time from strife boiling over from Syria; their master-slave relationship has not been a gift from God for Lebanon, nor the presence of Iranian-inspired-and-sourced proxy Hezbollah. The Pope, in his fervent wish to assure his hosts that he has their best interests at heart, and speaking to the wider Muslim world, spoke glowingly of the Arab Spring.
"It is the desire for more democracy, for more freedom, for more co-operation and for a renewed Arab identity", he praised.
That is a commendable perspective, which one would anticipate a man of God would express. Overlooking the lack of co-operation, and freedoms that have allowed the treachery of fanatical Islamists to launch violent attacks on those whose version of Islam does not match theirs, and on the most obvious elements of Western presence and power.
He spoke of the plight of Christians in the Middle East, for a Middle East without Christians "would no longer be the Middle East", he believes. What then would it be other than an entirely Islamicized Middle East, much to the full satisfaction of the prevailing Muslim majority?
Which is fully engaged with its cleansing activities toward the Christian minority, but deadlocked for the time being respecting the Judaic element more familiarly known as the Zionist Entity.
Labels: Christianity, Islamism, Lebanon, Middle East, Peace, Political Realities
posted by Pieface @ Monday, September 17, 2012
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