Last night I came across a couple of news articles about a prominent Italian Muslim (who, to be fair, hadn’t actually practiced Islam for many years) who converted to Christianity and was baptized by the pope as part of a televised Easter vigil service. I say congratulations to him, and admire his bravery. Magdi Allam, who took the name Christiano in the baptismal ceremony, already had one death warrant against him for his activism against Islam, and I am sure this very public conversion will earn him another.
Some media commentators, ever ready to deliberate on matters they don’t understand, questioned why the Pope would create such a public show. It seems consistent with his bold statements about the true nature of Islam, and I think he as well as Allam is to be praised for boldly confronting an issue which Muslim leaders would rather keep secret, that is, that conversion out of Islam deserves the death penalty under sharia law – law which is often effectively carried out by vigilantes or family members of converts in Muslim countries.
In American politics, I finally decided to read Obama’s famous race speech. I have to say, much as I disagree with his philosophy and his grasp of history, conservatives who denigrate his speaking abilities seem to be doing so unfairly. It is a rhetorically effective speech, well constructed, cleverly addressing all the key issues and defusing them. Not that I think he actually solved the question of his connection Jeremiah Wright, but he did the best possible job of explaining him and at the same time making the attacks on him part of a bigger picture.
March 24, 2008 at 4:07 pm
not being up to date on american politics, what is his philosophy and his grasp of history?
March 26, 2008 at 6:32 am
Obama is running as a classic liberal, which is to say he believes that the government should be all things to all men, providing health care, disability income, retirement income, every type of education free of charge, etc etc. That’s the philosophy that I disagree with.
As for history, he tries to blame discrimination for all the woes of black society in America: families falling apart, lack of education, doing poorly when they are in school, etc. Now some of that may be due to discrimination. But research shows (and I’m sorry, I’ve forgotten the name of the 1000pp book now) that the level of education has decreased, and the poverty level increased, in the African-American community, after the official government War on Poverty and simultaneous civil rights era in the 1960s. Like many blacks, he wants to blame the whites entirely for problems that his community bears some responsibility for.
But that’s what his base wants to hear, so he said it well.