Pope Benedict's Regensburg lecture (2006) on 'Faith, Reason and the University' - criticising both Islamic absolutism and Western scientism for their rational deficiency - was, I believe, the pope's honest and personal attempt (without any interference from the Roman Curia) to see whether a dialogue with Islam was possible. He was, of course, quickly deterred by the offended and violent reactions coming from the Islamic world, with Erdogan in the lead.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached."
This quote from a Byzantine emperor, when read in the context of the pope's remarks, leaves no room for misunderstanding the pope's intentions, except by malicious intent or stupendous obtuseness. Or is it both? In the sense that some stupendous obtuseness (or lack of self-awareness, i.e. inability to self-reflect) can only see malicious intent in whatever it dimly perceives as criticism, and then reacts with self-righteous outrage, which in turn can only be perceived by the other side as either stupendous obtuseness or malicious intent?
The pope did not apologise, but only expressed regret for having been misunderstood. Which again was met with Muslim outrage for not being a full apology!
Or is it even much simpler? And does that remark by the Byzantine emperor express a simple truth, which is also dimly perceived as such by Muslims? A simple truth which they then believe must also be shared by the pope, even when he ostensibly distances himself from the emperor's remarks, because nobody can distance himself from what is true? Is that what the outraged reactions reveal?
Muslims' perception of Western Islamophobia is similarly sincere in that they cannot see how Islamophobia is instilled in Westerners by Muslim utterances and behaviour. Muslims obviously cannot understand for what reason Westerners find it so easy to detest them, nor that it is exactly this stupendous obtuseness wherein lies that reason! Because self-righteous obtuseness in human affairs necessarily translates into callousness, i.e. insensitive and cruel disregard for others. When Muslims do not express revulsion at the idea of avenging the Prophet's honour by murdering the entire editorial board of Charlie Hebdo, how can they be surprised at being met with the same revulsion? But surprised they are. And therefore profoundly despised.
What if the abdication of human sovereignty by submission to God's word and the abolition of personal responsibility for the execution of God's will leads directly to the usurpation of God's place, i.e. the highest form of blasphemy? Then it is entirely possible that the ancient contest between Rome and Carthage is repeating itself in the 'clash of civilisations' between the West and Islam.
Edward Saïd was equally incapable of understanding how Western Orientalism was a truthful reaction to oriental cultural beliefs and practices. And as a true Oriental he reacted with self-righteous outrage and wrote a book-long indictment of the West for its imperialist and culturally insensitive misunderstanding of the Orient. When in truth there was no misunderstanding at all, because cultural differences are not insurmountable obstacles to understanding, as they do not erase our common human nature, neither materially nor spiritually. All there was was Saïds own stupidity, forcefully demonstrated by his inability to see it.
Bassem Youssef a 'beautiful human being'? Well, maybe to someone who uses that kind of empty language to say nothing. I really detest that guy! The self-absorbed smugness! The constant facial expression of someone very pleased with himself! And how dumb can one be? Does he know anything about the history of this conflict? Or is he just parroting all the talking points of the Palestinian Nakba victimhood narrative? And I mean all of them: he obviously has put in some real effort to store them in memory so that he can regurgitate them, ad nauseam and very proud of his own performance. I've had enough after 10 minutes. I had already seen him in his first interview with Piers Morgan, which told me all I needed to know. And am I to believe that this man is a competent heart surgeon? Well, he went into comedy, with some success apparently, although I can't imagine him making anything but lame jokes at the expense of others. With Piers Morgan he somehow got it into his head that sarcasm was called for to get the right perspective on Israel's response to the Oct 7 massacre! He has what in German we call 'ein Brett vor dem Kopf', i.e. a plank or board in front of his head, to describe what amounts to a very heavy and solid form of stupidity or idiocy. When he's not trimming his beard, I suppose he spends a lot of time at the gym, and I can totally understand that about him.
Lex Fridman with his obsession of looking at everything from a 'human angle' is obviously not the right person to discuss the politics of this conflict with anybody, let alone with a person as clueless as Bassem Youssef, who is bound to believe the most improbable conspiracy theory first. Lex thinks it is 'black humour' and praises him for it! Can you believe it?
The political immaturity of this Muslim Arab is something to behold, to be sure. The last thing I would do is look for hope in a comedian of this calibre, when the root cause of this 100-year-old war, for whomever doesn't purposefully look away, is Muslim supremacism as dictated by political Islam. I cannot resist the temptation of citing Schopenhauer's assessment of Islam: "The usefulness of Mohammedanism lies in its intrinsic vacuousness: there is no god but Allah and Mohammed is his prophet. This simple creed of the unity of God imposes no intellectual or higher spiritual demands upon the believer, but promises to satisfy all his most carnal urges, even allowing him to pursue a course of self-indulgence and extreme sensuality in the afterlife. - The Koran is a confused and disorganised literary production, an embarrassing potpourri of Talmudic fable and pre-Islamist paganism; yet despite its lack of sophisticated content, it is reputed by believers to be a miracle, for how could a book meant to be recited in such mellifluous cadences as our wonderful Koran be composed by Mohammed, an illiterate peasant, save by the inspiration of the Angel Gabriel? Thus, when recited, this demonic production seems to cast an hypnotic spell bewitching and subduing all those believers within hearing distance, which may explain the wild popularity of certain Koranic readers down throughout the ages, such as the mediaeval Hafiz. - Also, the bellicose character of this book with its repeated calls of "Raise your swords and slay the unbelievers!" is enough to inspire a savage fanaticism in even the simplest and most self-effacing of believers. This means that the Koran isn't so much a religious book as it is a fiery call to arms; as such, it is the most disgusting piece of propaganda ever written, shamelessly enlisting the disenfranchised and exploiting the emotional volatility of the young as the raw material by which it spreads its tentacles."
PS: I continued listening while writing and was astonished to learn that Bassem knows about the 'Protocols of the Elders of Zion' being plagiarised from Maurice Joly's 'Dialogue aux enfers entre Machiavel et Montesquieu' (1864). But then he calls it a 'satirical play' because he read that on Wikipedia, without understanding that it was in fact a very insightful deconstruction of the plebiscitary subversion of democracy and the rule of law by Napoleon III. He's clearly one of these people who know more than is good for them.
PPS: He also repeats that talking point about the Palestinians 'paying' for the crimes against the Jews of Nazi-Germany. I wonder what he would respond to my question: what exactly were the Palestinians asked to pay by the Zionists? It is the central question. And 'Nakba' is not the correct answer. But does he even know that Zionism started much earlier than the Holocaust, and in anticipation of such a disastrous derailment in Europe? Not all Jews were Zionists, but the Zionist constituency in Eastern Europe was there, and much larger than the native Palestinian population. The real question is: was it lawful for the Palestinian and Arab leadership to callously disregard the rights and ambitions of the Zionist constituency of diaspora Jews and to reject any compromise that would at least partially satisfy the national aspirations of both peoples in Palestine? And to resort to violence from the outset to thwart the Zionist enterprise? Especially when taking into account that the Palestinian population, who was never given a vote in the matter, was much more conciliatory toward Jews and Jewish immigration than their Muslim supremacist leader Amin al Husseini and the Muslim Brotherhood? 'Nakba' in 1948 was after all an accusation hurled by the Palestinian refugees at their leadership for having led them to catastrophic defeat in a needless and unjust war against their Jewish neighbours! And looking back on it today, does it make any sense to continue that 100-year war for Muslim supremacy in Palestine with the help of the Iranian regime and its IRGC affiliates? Just imagine what bi-national Palestine could have been today, if the Palestinians had accepted to become a (large) minority in a democratic Jewish-majority state as projected by the Zionist leadership. Without forgetting that if they had accepted it at the beginning of the British Mandate, diaspora Jews could have immigrated in much greater numbers, escaping or even preventing the later Holocaust, and the British Mandate could have ended much earlier with the attainment of independence, say in 1936, when in actual history the idea of partition was first put forward by the British in response to the violence of the Arab Revolt, and when Muslim supremacist leaders were aligning themselves with Nazi-Germany and adding 'scientific' racial anti-Semitism to their homegrown Islamic variety of Jew hatred. How can one avoid the distinct impression that Muslim supremacism has been no less a force for evil in the Middle-East as White or Aryan supremacism has been in Europe? And it continues to wreak havoc till this day, apparently with the approval of large swathes of the Muslim population including Bassem Youssef, even when some Arab governments clearly wish to extricate themselves from this endless and fruitless anti-Zionist war? How to explain such stupendous political immaturity and outright idiocy? Such self-righteous superstition in the 'true believers' who cannot accept that Muslim suffering isn't automatically the result of some Western injustice, but the consequence of their own choices and actions? When it is clearly blasphemous to preempt God's judgement in the matter and to believe that God is on your side no matter what you think, say or do? Is it because there was so little surface water in the Arabian desert that the Prophet and his followers never learned how to look at themselves in the mirror? I do believe that Russell's Paradox is at work here (as when a lie is big enough to make it hard to believe it is a lie, and you'd rather believe it), and that the intractability of the conflict does not stem from its complexity, but from its simplicity: because it is difficult to believe that the root cause is so simple, endless complexification becomes credible, which then makes it impossible to see the wood from the trees! And off they go in all sorts of wrong directions, believing themselves to be very smart and knowledgeable, while overlooking completely some or all of the basic facts when looking for the lost keys under the lamppost where at least there is some light.
