A DIFFICULT AND TURBULENT JOURNEY BUT THE POPE IS RIGHT TO EMBARK ON IT
Irish Independent
November 27, 2006 Monday
The political and religious world watches as the Pontiff prepares
for a confrontation with Islam
THERE is, we must suppose, an outside chance that Pope Benedict XVI
could be attacked, or even assassinated, during his visit to Turkey,
starting tomorrow.
Some counsellors within the Vatican tried, for this reason, to dissuade
him from carrying out the trip. But rightly, he insisted on going. A
Pope should be ready to be a martyr for his faith, and there could
be few better reasons for martyrdom than a confrontation with Islam.
It is not that Islam is always an aggressive faith, as some would
have it. But it is the rising power in the world of faith, and in the
world of values. And Benedict, as Joseph Ratzinger, has been studying
Islam and the Koran for many decades.
In the Aegean, the greatest opponent of Islam is not the Vatican –
or at least it hasn’t been since the Battle of Lepanto in 1571. The
fiercest opponent of Islam are the Greek Orthodox – and other Eastern
Orthodox – churches, who are the hereditary opponents of Islamic
power in the region.
Greece versus Turkey has meant, for centuries, Orthodox Christianity
versus Ottoman Islam. The old (and by now probably offensive) joke
that a "Turkish Delight" was a Greek massacre derives from this
deep fault-line.
In the 19th century, William Gladstone was almost as exercised by the
massacres of the Bulgarians by the Turks as he was by the problems
of Ireland. He wrote screeds on this question – which was, for him,
a question of Christianity versus Islam.
A similar perspective arose over the genocide of the Armenians
during the First World War, when, it has been claimed that more than
a million and a half Armenian Christians were exterminated by the
dying Ottoman Empire.
Again, the deep cultural fissure wasn’t just race, or nation, but
religion, and again it was Christians versus an Islamic nation.
Kemal Ataturk, the modernising Turkish President from 1923 to 1938,
secularised Turkey and brought in many other reforms, including the
abolition of the caliphate – rule by a religious authority – and the
advancement of women’s rights. (A quirkey aside to Ataturk’s career
is that he is said to have been an admirer – and possibly a lover –
of the young Zsa Zsa Gabor.)
Rural Turkey was never secularised in the same way as Istanbul and
Ankara – much, perhaps, as rural Ireland retains the practice of faith
while Dublin’s churches grow empty. Yet, after Ataturk’s influence,
Turkey was, until now, easy-going and tolerant about religion, and
never imposed strict laws about liquor, for instance, in the manner
of other Islamic countries; there is even a common Turkish brandy
known as raki. Visitors to Turkey today still find it, overall,
a congenial place, without the prohibitions that now characterise
other Islamic nations.
Yet, more experienced observers note the changes occurring beneath the
surface – an Islamic revival growing apace. Lord Norwich, an expert on
the Eastern Mediterranean, writing as John Julius Norwich, recently
said that the change is profound. "Forty years ago, no politician in
Istanbul went to the Mosque. Now, no major politician dares not go."
And, like all Islamic countries, Turkey’s birth-rate is copious, with
16.62 births per 1000 of the population; whereas its old enemy, Greece,
now has one of the lowest birth-rates in Europe, with 9.72 per 1000 of
the population. If trends continue, the Greeks will be wiped out within
a few generations. And if Turkey should enter the European community,
its burgeoning population could prove a dominant factor in the future
of the Community. (Benedict is known to be opposed to Turkey’s entry.)
Pope Benedict’s mission is primarily, of course, religious, although
the Vatican, being a power in the world, cannot but help wield
political power at least indirectly.
Thus, the watching world makes much of the Holy Father’s meetings
of intentioned "rapprochement" with Islam, through the person Ali
Bardakoglu, the head of Turkey’s religious affairs directorate. The
Islamic Turks have made it plain that they expect the Pontiff to
apologise a little more grovellingly for having been critical of
Islam in his Regensburg address.
And yet, the Pope’s first loyalty must be to brother Christians in
the Orthodox traditions, who, all over the Eastern Mediterranean
are under pressure from the expansion of Islam, from Cyprus to the
Lebanon and to Palestine itself.
In Ireland, we are apt to think that the divisions within Christianity
are Catholic and Protestant: but the religious wars of western Europe
are in the past. We now need to be much more aware of that other
branch of Byzantine Christianity which is effectively in the front
line in the culture clash with Islam – and apparently losing ground.
Benedict cannot assuage the Muslims at the expense of the Orthodox
churches, and he would be a diplomatic genius if he managed to be on
equally good terms with both. However carefully he treads, this is
bound to be a difficult and turbulent journey: but he is absolutely
right to make it.