Mr. Allah's Neighborhood

Opinion Journal ^ | 12/19/02 | Collin Levey

[SuziQ]

Leave it to the Public Broadcasting System to spread on the holiday spirit, in joyful disregard of church-state separation. This week the ding-dongs on high have merrily rolled out a three-part documentary on the rise of Islam, getting media tongues wagging just in time for the holiday talk shows.

[SuziQ]

I thought it was interesting that the series leaves out any hint of violence on the part of the adherents of Islam. Could you even IMAGINE a three part story of the Catholic Church that DIDN'T mention the Crusades or the Inquisition? I didn't think so!

[SuziQ]

I'm sure that there are individual Muslims who are very peaceful people, but there are literally MILLIONS of them who want nothing more than all the Jews in the world dead, and every American along with them! It is a shame that PBS had to be so PC as to ignore that.

[FreePaul]

Lets see if any Republicans, including our President, have the guts to stop government funding for PBS. Last time it came up they caved in and let this kind of trash continue at tax payers expense.

[JennysCool]

It is a shame that PBS had to be so PC ...

PBS = PCS. I like it!

[Steve_Seattle]

The public schools' interest in the history of Christianity seems limited to the Inqisition, the Crusades, and the Salem Witch Trials, long-ago events which seem to loom much larger than the atrocities committed by leftist governments throughout the 20th century.

[hang 'em]

We should invade PBS, slaughter its leaders, and convert it to Christianity.

[Cicero]

I know I'm unlikely to convince anyone who's unwilling to read the books, but the Inquisition got a bad rap. What we THINK we know about the Inquisition is mainly the result of what historians refer to as the Black Legend, anti-Spanish and anti-Catholic propaganda originating in 17th-century England and Holland. By the standards of the time, the Inquisition was fair and just, and resulted in very few executions.

Let me just cite the two opening paragraphs of an on-line article by Brian Van Hove, S.J., which refers by name to a few of the historians who have been doing objective research in this field:

A New Industry: The Inquisition

The present time is the "Golden Age" of Inquisition studies, as I pointed out in an unexpectedly sensational article published in "La Civiltà Cattolica" in 1992.1 Everybody, at least in Rome, so I was later told, talked about it. At that time, seventeen Italian newspapers carried commentary or notice about the two-part article, and without any surprise, there was great ridicule that I was "whitewashing" this ugly chapter. They insinuated irresponsible revisionism. Journalists placed the Inquisition alongside the Holocaust and other unspeakable horrors attributed to religious or racial intolerance. Especially the Communist and Socialist papers took this line.


But as I was anxious to point out - and the present opportunity is the only public one I have had - I was only using the secondary sources, saying nothing new. The original documents have been studied and published by rather dispassionate scholars. I was trying to let the contemporary historians, who usually have no personal or religious interest at all in this whole matter, have a wider audience outside their little technical circle. These authors had first come to my attention, especially Edward Peters, Gustav Henningsen, John Tedeschi, and Henry Kamen, while I was in studies at The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C.3 A modest professor, Dr. Nelson Minnich, simply used Kamen for a reading list on the topic of "Catholic Reform Movements, 1400-1550." That year was 1990.

[BlueLancer]

"but the Inquisition got a bad rap"

Tell that to the Albigensians.

[citizenK]

ping - saw on another thread that you were asking if people had seen this show

I saw the last 30 min. or so, and was not overly impressed. The people describing Mohammed were devout followers, and all I could conlcude was "good for them." The message of last night's show was a bit heavy on the "go hug a Muslim today" because they are so filled with compassion for others. The problem with what I saw of the show was that it avoided any controversy regarding the disconnect between the life of Mohammed (as they portrayed it) and the radical movements of Islam that are at war with the US today. Collin Levey (the author of the above article) is correct in this assessment, and is correct in saying that PBS lets down the public once again for fear of "offending" the sensabilities of American Muslims.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

I watched the first hour of the show and couldn't believe the nonsense and doubletalk espoused about peace and women's rights. You'd have had to have been living in a cave for the last 20 years to believe anything from this blood cult.

[duckln]

bump Inquisition got a bad rap.

Is there a convienient on-line sort course on this assertion?

[SevenDaysInMay]

I noted that the Meccans retaliated against the Medina based Mo'ham's for Islamists' bandit raid on one of their caravans, but lost due to being cut off from water at the battleground.

Is this the beginning of their M.O., attack, thievery, and murder under the name of Islam? From a profiteer's Night Ascension dream, they targetted the Holy Land for conquest.

Mo'ham's true profit philosophy may have been a vast improvement over the traditional arabs' bloodsoaked tribalisms, but stealing and invading for other cultures' communities' wealth is a hell of a way to promote "faith", even if it based on meteorite idolatry.

What a social cancer.

[LiteKeeper]

bump

[LiteKeeper]

The nonsense they put out about the Muslim treatment of women was sickening...made Mohammad sound like he was a Don Juan...caring so much for women. If so, something has happened since then..."it ain't necessarily so, no mo."

[SevenDaysInMay]

After the Moors were pushed back to Africa, the "Church" got serious about cleaning up that multiculturalism. Jew were "invited" to leave, and thinkers were told what to think. The only significant technological advance allowed was in instuments of torture. New World gold, stolen in the best mulsim tradition, financed the "Church's" terror campaign well into lowland countries of Europe. Mother Church as a bi+ch.

One social cancer for another.

[Darksheare]

Well.. PBS DOES stand for 'Public Bull S**t'

[Steve_Seattle]

Nobody defends the Inquisition, but you often see wildly exaggerated claims as to its scope and to the numbers killed. During its entire history, there were probably somewhere between 8,000 - 20,000 executed, but you often see figures in the millions. Compare that to the number of innocent civilians the good old USA killed in 10 minutes at Hiroshima. Similarly, Protestants seem blissfully ignorant of the actions of Cromwell, etc., in Ireland, and of the history of British persecution of Catholics, the Penal Laws, etc.

[inquest]

Besides, there's nothing like a good Inquisition once in awhile to rejuvenate the mind and body. Always puts me in the right mood!

;-)

[YoungKentuckyConservative]

Compare that to the number of innocent civilians the good old USA killed in 10 minutes at Hiroshima. Similarly, Protestants seem blissfully ignorant of the actions of Cromwell, etc., in Ireland, and of the history of British persecution of Catholics, the Penal Laws, etc.

Or better yet, compare it to the number of soldiers and civilians that would have been killed if the USA had not dropped the bomb on Hiroshima, since Japan was ready to engage it's civilian population in an all out struggle to save the empire. We might as well go for maximum effect on this one.