Mike D
Master of the Arts
Posts: 204
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Post by Mike D on Mar 20, 2012 16:21:12 GMT
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Post by sandwiches on Mar 21, 2012 9:26:04 GMT
If the Saudi Grand Mufti said such things then yes it should be receiving the same publicity as if a major religious leader had said something in similar vein about religious minorities in The West. Whether are not such utterances affect goverment policy, they create an atmosphere that encourages fanatics: rt.com/news/peninsula-saudi-grand-mufti-701/ |
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Post by sandwiches on Mar 24, 2012 19:02:18 GMT
Well said the Bishops: blogs.reuters.com/faithworld/2012/03/24/european-bishops-slam-saudi-muftis-fatwa-against-gulf-churches/European bishops slam Saudi grand mufti’s fatwa against Gulf churches
Christian bishops in Germany, Austria and Russia have sharply criticized Saudi Arabia’s top religious official after reports that he issued a fatwa saying all churches on the Arabian Peninsula should be destroyed.
In separate statements on Friday, the Roman Catholic bishops in Germany and Austria slammed the ruling by Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdulaziz Al al-Shaikh as an unacceptable denial of human rights to millions of foreign workers in the Gulf region.
Archbishop Mark of Yegoryevsk, head of the Russian Orthodox department for churches abroad, called the fatwa “alarming†in a statement on Tuesday. Such blunt criticism from mainstream Christian leaders of their Muslim counterparts is very rare.
Christian websites have reported Sheikh Abdulaziz, one of the most influential religious leaders in the Muslim world, issued the fatwa last week in response to a Kuwaiti lawmaker who asked if Kuwait could ban church construction in Kuwait.Still not reported in western media! |
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Post by sankari on Mar 25, 2012 10:56:52 GMT
Still not reported in western media! Reuters is western media, last time I checked. So are The Atlantic and the Washington Post, which have both reported on this story. The Atlantic article is 7 days old already! |
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Post by sandwiches on Mar 25, 2012 11:56:02 GMT
Certainly can't see it in the British media. Still well done The Jerusalem Post: www.jpost.com/MiddleEast/Article.aspx?id=263235“It’s astonishing, horrible and amazing that the most important Muslim cleric in the land that gave birth to Islam can call for the destruction of churches without this genocidal fatwa attracting any international condemnation or protest,†wrote Giulio Meotti, an Italian journalist with Il Foglio and expert on Christians in the Middle East, in an email to The Jerusalem Post. “Where is the White House? Where is Lady Ashton? Where is the Vatican? Where are the UN’s agencies?†he asked.
Meotti, who is working on a book about the Vatican and Israel, said the fatwa will have consequences for Christians in the region, and the West should respond with a counter “antigenocidal campaign†based on the UN’s Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, ratified on January 12, 1951.Still, it's not like the Western media has double standards?: www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/15/anti-islam-ad_n_1350032.htmlThe New York Times found itself at the center of a controversy on Thursday over its refusal to immediately run an anti-Islam ad.
Fox News and the Daily Caller ran stories questioning whether the Times' decision to indefinitely delay publishing ad was a sign the paper had a religious double-standard.
The articles note that the Times previously ran an anti-Catholic ad that, among other things, said faith in the religion was misplaced, "after two decades of sex scandals involving preying priests, church complicity, collusion and cover-up going all the way to the top.â€
But when Stop Islamization of America director Pamela Geller asked to run a paid advertisement with a similar style and anti-Islam message, the Times refused, at least for now, telling Geller that "the fallout from running this ad now could put U.S. troops and/or civilians in the [Afghan] region in danger.†|
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Post by sankari on Mar 25, 2012 12:34:09 GMT
They accepted an anti-Catholic ad from a group calling itself 'Freedom From Religion.' This tells me the NYT expects Catholics to react peacefully. They're delaying the publication of an anti-Muslim ad by a group calling itself 'Stop Islamization of America' citing security concerns. This tells me the NYT expects Muslims to respond violently. If there's a double standard here, it's not one I'd appreciate if I were a Muslim. Is this a paranoid conspiracy theory by western conservatives Yes. No. I really get sick and tired of people screaming 'WHY ISN'T THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA COVERING THIS??!!?!?!?!' when the mainstream media is in fact covering it and usually has been for some time. |
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Post by sandwiches on Mar 25, 2012 13:13:43 GMT
If there's a double standard here There is. And I think people are entitled to point it out. |
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Post by ignorantianescia on Mar 25, 2012 13:58:08 GMT
If this issue is too low-profile, isn't it the task of Christians to raise the profile of this issue so that international pressure will increase? It is indeed more apt to inform more media of this issue than to complain first.
Isn't it also possible that some media did notice it, but wanted to do some more research first? Notice that some newspapers did publish it a little later. Maybe because only then they got across the story, but it is also plausible that they wanted to do some independent verifying first, which consumed time. I at least wish the Russia Today article would have involved some more fact-checking, because it is a shambles.
There's a big flaw in Tom Blumer's tendentious piece, he assumes that all Western media would have noticed this scandal so quickly. The problem is that the Arabic articles, well, had to be translated. That he tries to wave this issue away with the silly excuse of "but there's Google Translate so there is no need for interpreters" shows some more problems with his argument. Anybody who knows a foreign language and has compared originals to the translations of online translate tools should be aware that using those tools frequently results in enormous flaws. Homonyms often make those tools bork. Perhaps they can be relied on by conspiracy bloggers, but they can't by credible newspaper editors.
There are plenty of reasons why Western media would be late to publish about this. So I'll agree with Sankari that this talk about media bowing to the Islam is a conspiracy theory. If the complaining bloggers were not conspirationists, would they not have contacted media outlets before reaching a far-fetched conclusion and "teaching the controversy"?
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Post by sandwiches on Mar 25, 2012 20:32:03 GMT
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Post by sankari on Mar 26, 2012 0:22:40 GMT
It's been reported in the Catholic Herald. Perhaps a simpler explanation is that secular newspapers are cowardly? The Grand Mufti made his proclamation on the 15th of March. The Washington Times published a story about it on the 16th of March. Last time I checked, the Washington Times was a secular newspaper despite being owned by Rev. Sun Myung Moon. So... where's the cowardice here? Perhaps an even simpler explanation is that the media recognises this is just the frenzied rant of an old man who has no power to determine Saudi government policy? We're not talking about anyone with executive authority here. It's more a case that we know the Saudi government isn't going to destroy any churches, so there's nothing to worry about. The Saudis can't afford to insult the West; they rely on us to protect them from Iran and Iraq. There are plenty of reasons why Western media would be late to publish about this. Also, they weren't even late. I was able to show that the Western media was reporting it just a day after non-Western media had broken the story. Literally one day! |
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Post by ignorantianescia on Apr 12, 2012 6:40:36 GMT
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