Western and Muslim societies "irreconcilably different", poll finds

Here's a real news flash for you. Western and Muslim societies are different. They have different religions, different customs, and different value systems. And, according to polling data being discussed at the Metropolis Conference of the Association for Canadian Studies, most Canadians -- Muslim and non-Muslim alike -- think the differences are "irreconcilable".

Whether it’s the rise of Islamic State zealots, the killing of free-speech advocates in Paris and Copenhagen or disputes over niqabs, the polling, done by Leger Marketing, shows Canadians share in the growing global anxiety about sectarian conflict. 63% of Canadian Protestants, 62% Jews, 60% of Catholics and 46% of the non-religious believe Western and Islamic societies cannot be reconciled. Even 42% of Canadian Muslims believe the contrast between the West and Islamic cultures is too great to be bridged.

Jack Jedwab, vice-president of the ACS which commissioned the Leger polls, called the findings "a huge blow to interfaith dialogue". He said the belief of a majority of Canadians that the West and Islamic society are locked in inevitable antagonism echoes the thesis of Harvard political scientist Samuel Huntington, author of The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of Political Order. Way back in 1992, Prof. Huntington predicted -- correctly, as it turns out -- that people’s cultural and religious identities would be the primary source of conflict in the post-Cold War world.

The Pew Research Center keeps track of such things. Its new report -- "Latest Trends in Religious Restrictions and Hostilities" -- confirms that worldwide social hostilities involving religion reached a six-year peak in 2012 and have remained basically stuck at that level.
Almost three in four global citizens, Pew reports, live in countries where religion-fuelled conflicts run the gamut from vandalism of property and desecration of sacred texts to violent assaults resulting in deaths and injuries.

What are the worst countries in the world for sectarian conflict? According to the Pew index, India shares that distinction with... wait for it... Israel. Next on the "Very High" list are the Palestinian Territories, Pakistan, Nigeria, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Syria, Somalia, Afghanistan, Tanzania, Indonesia, Egypt, Central African Republic, Iraq and Kenya.

What is the link which connects all the countries -- saving perhaps Sri Lanka -- on the list of "Very High" social hostility index? No prize for guessing that they all have Muslim majorities or large Muslim minorities.

What should we in North America learn from all t his? The polling done for the ACS revealed Canadians' concern about religion-related conflict is leading many to yearn for tighter border restrictions and less immigration from Muslim countries such Pakistan, Nigeria, etc etc etc.

Asked whether governments should deal with security concerns by "making it more difficult for people to come across national borders," 68% of Canadian Catholics agreed. So did 62% of Canadian Protestants and Jews, as well as 51% of the non-religious. Even 42% of Muslims agreed.

The two Leger polls of 2000 Canadians, including 500 born outside the country, were conducted in 2013 and 2014. They have an accuracy of plus or minus 2.9% 19 times out of 20. In general the polling results did not show marked differences between the responses of native-born Canadians and immigrants. Even the new-comers know a problem when they see one... even when they're part of it.

IS jihadists clash with Kurds -- guess where?

Aw, c'mon. You cheated, didn't you? Probably took a close look at the picture and figured (correctly) that they don't have "POLIZEI" in places like Mosul, Kirkuk or old Baghdad. No siree Mohammed!

This bloody clash, between hundreds of supporters of the jihadist group Islamic State (IS) and more hundreds of ethnic Kurds took place in the streets of downtown Hamburg, the second-largest city in, errr, Germany.

The violence -- said by der Polizei to have been as ferocious as anything seen in Germany in recent memory -- is just a reminder that the jihad (holy war) being waged by Islamic extremists against all "infidels" (i.e. non-Muslims) is not limited to Syria or Iraq or Armpitistan or suchlike desert wastes. A battle could break out anywhere... in any place with more than a handful of Muslim immigrants or "refugees"... the kind of people the Pope and the Prez want us to welcome into our communities.

But don't take Walt's word for it. Listen to Daniel Abdin, imam of Hamburg's Al-Nour Mosque, told Der Spiegel, "I had the feeling that we are living in Hamburgistan... The atmosphere was very, very explosive."

German police said they were shocked by what they described as an unprecedented level of violence. In an interview with Passau Neue Presse, the chairman of the German Police Union, Rainer Wendt, reported that police in Hamburg "experienced life-threatening brute force" by perpetrators who were "armed to the teeth."

The copmeister warned that the IS-Kurdish conflict is "threatening to unleash a proxy war on German soil." Yes... Today Germany, tomorrow...

Pope Francis refuses to acknowledge Middle East "War of Religion"

On Monday, in "Under Pope Francis, Christianity matters less", Walt gave you the key points from a lengthy interview with leading Vaticanista Sandro Magister, on the 40th anniversary of the beginning of his career as an analyst and commentator on the state of the Church and religion in general.

Sig. Magister noted several trends in the Papacy of Pope Francis that disturb not just Traditionalists but many mainstream churchmen, including leading bishops and Cardinals. One of these was the inexplicable silence of the Vatican on Islam and the Muslim world in general. He called the Vatican's political correctness "caution pushed to extremes.... I don’t see any advantage to it. It seems to me that it hasn’t resulted in any help, even minimal or partial, for the Christians in those regions. Caution is understandable, if it’s measured in proportion to the effect. It’s valid if it produces lesser damage.

"We have a power like ISIS and we are too fast in saying that Islam has nothing to do with it; that they are instead nurtured by radical Islam, which doesn’t resolve the question of rationality and the relationship between faith and violence. That is exactly what Pope Ratzinger had addressed in Regensburg. In fact the only true dialogue between Christianity and Islam came about after that lecture...."

Today, in his Chiesa blog, Sig. Magister takes up the question again. In the face of the offensive of radical Islam, he writes, Francis’s big idea is that "we must soothe the conflict." Forget Regensburg! And forget about the 1000s of Christians among the many victims of puritanical Islam.

Sig. Magister finds it "impossible not to see in this the features of a 'war of Islam' pushed to the extreme, fought in the name of Allah. It is illusory to deny the Islamic origin of this unbridled theological violence. This has been published even by the officially supervised La Civiltà Cattolica, only to be contradicted afterward by its fearsome director, Antonio Spadaro, the Jesuit who plays the role of Francis's interpreter.

"On Islam the Catholic Church stammers, the more so the higher up the ladder one goes.

"The bishops of the dioceses of the Middle East are calling upon the world for effective armed protection, which never comes. In Rome, Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran publishes the most detailed denunciation of the atrocities of the caliphate, and declares an end to all possibility of dialogue with those among the Muslims who do not stamp out violence at its roots.

"But when the secretary of state, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, speaks in New York from the tribunal of the UN, as he did on September 29, he carefully avoids the taboo words 'Islam' and 'Muslims', and pays the obligatory tribute to the mantra that denies the existence of that conflict of civilization which is plain for all to see....

"In 2006 Benedict XVI, first in Regensburg and then in Istanbul, said what no pope had ever dared to say: that violence associated with faith is the inevitable product of the fragile bond between faith and reason in Muslim doctrine and in its very understanding of God."

But Benedict XVI isn't the Head of the Church any more, or so we're told. Instead we have Francis, who believes in "peaceful coexistence" with the Muslims. Perhaps next month he'll tell us he believes in Santa Claus too.