world youth day
9 Jul 2008
From Doormat to Dogmatism
Some of Irfan Yusuf's best friends are Catholic - but he doesn't think they deserve more police protection than anyone else
Okay, I admit it's a bit risky for a Muslim to comment on World Youth Day. For one thing, the last time the Pope said something even mildly critical of Islam, some Muslims reacted like a pack of rather violent galahs, burning churches in the Gaza Strip and even murdering a nun in Mogadishu.But fear not, dear Catholic readers, for I'm not interested in attacking His Holiness. Nor do I have anything against Catholics. If anything, I have an enormous soft spot for them.
It all started in the mid-70s, a time when I was much smaller and life in Grade 2 at Ryde East Public School would have been close to perfect, were it not for the fact that I was taunted, teased and bullied fairly regularly.
Kids can be very cruel, and one kid in particular insisted on pushing me around and labelling me "nigger" and "boong". He also used to tease my mum, who would pick me up each day in her Volkswagen Beetle. Mum also insisted on wearing saris, and everyone loved poking fun at just how different we looked.
So you can imagine my shock when I saw this same kid bullying some other kid who had white skin and blond hair. Apparently this kid was also different, but the only difference I could see was that he wore a different school uniform to ours, with a small yellow cross embroidered on the blue shirt. His school bag had the words "Spiritus Sanctus" on it.
"Why are you bullying him? He's just like you," I asked the school bully. "It's not as if his mum wears a sari and drives a daggy car."
"He's not like us. He's a f#cking Catholic," was the response.
I rushed home and told mum of my amazing discovery - white kids got teased and bullied just like us darkies. Her response was to befriend as many Catholics as possible, including the mum of the bullied Spiritus Sanctus kid. Suddenly my social circle expanded from the kids of my mum's South Asian (Hindu, Sikh, Muslim, Jain, Jewish, Buddhist and Christian) friends to include Aussie Catholics. It was mum's way of showing solidarity with the bullied.
So it is pleasing to learn that after all these decades of being the subject of sectarian bigotry and prejudice, Catholics can finally practise their faith openly. I'm really glad that Catholics have come so far - from the days when kids from Catholic schools in my street used to get beaten up, to openly celebrating their faith in the presence of their spiritual leader.
But I do have my reservations. Unlike one newmatilda.com writer, my qualms are less about money and more about liberty. I'd really hate to see the NSW Police using similar (although not as violent) bullying tactics in the name of protecting pilgrims.
I guess it really boils down to values. Cardinal Pell once accused Muslims of having difficulty separating Church from State. Unless he openly distances himself from (and not just denies involvement in) increased police powers designed to protect pilgrims from annoyance, his own secular credentials might look compromised.
As a visiting head of State, the Pope should be afforded secular police protection. But I doubt worshippers of any faith need more secular police protection than any other person.
Delicious
Digg
StumbleUpon
Newsvine
Facebook
Kwoff
Discuss this article
To participate in the discussion Sign in or Register
I would have thought they need less. If people harass them, can’t the Pope use his laser vision to smite the bullies?
Was that an attempt at sharp wit Pobjie? No? Satire maybe?
It’s all very well to be protecting the pilgrims, but the citizens of Sydney, Australia have rights too. They should have the right to move freely through their own streets and to ridicule what they believe is outrageously eccentric and irrational behaviour and ideas. Especially if they have the responsibility to educate their children and don’t want their minds tainted with these strange religious rituals that ‘celebrate the pain and torture of a god’, with the promise of the total forgiveness of all sins. This sort of moral rubbish is damaging to children’s minds, as are the images of crucifixs.
These people deserve to be exposed for what they are, the antithesis of the real Christian message of compassion, open-mindedness and tolerance, rather than the hierarchial and paternalised patronising of old-fashioned, religious jargon they still present to their flock.
denise, Yeshayahu Leibowitz, philosopher and observant orthodox Jew once said "The Jewish religion died 200 years ago. Now there is nothing that unifies the Jews around the world apart from the Holocaust."
Before you complain about Catholics and "what is good for the children" why don’t you pull back your little horns and ask yourself how we teach our children about the Shoah? How do we teach our children about the Book of Esther or Purim or any other in our own very long list of horror stories?
You object to Catholics and their crucifixes but you fill the pages of New Matilda with complaints and outrages about Jewish insistance on recognition of the Shoah, about teaching genocide in our Jewish faith, about our own association with mass murder, Zionism, Israel and the plight of the Palestinians!
You consider these things not a problem for the children so long as there are no crucifixes involved?
Oi Vey! What hutzpah!!
Without a spirit of respect and goodwill all of our futures will be filled with many more holocausts and horror stories of mass murder and genocide, so denise, as a Jew, here is some advice, I would not join this growing queue of bigots who are so keen and eager to attack our Catholics and fellow Australians.
George Vickers
Was that an attempt at tolerance, Vickers? No?
As if you understood the term Pobjie.
George, I’m not sure what you’re asking. To teach our children about religious topics, what’s wrong with situating them in their historical context?
philannetta.blogspot.com
Philannetta, mine was less a question than a response to the concerns of denise.
Enquiries into the histories and origins of religions should be encouraged, of course, and I cannot see how there could be a threat to our children if they participated in these enquiries.
Regards
George Vickers
I have been to a few catholic weddings, and far from emerging spiritually uplifted, now that they are in English the truth emerges.
The whole nuptual mass is a parody of the Biblical Temple of 2000 years ago.
The incense, the priests ’ robes, the wine and wafer.
However, whilst it was about animal sacrifice and an attempt to freshen the air of the stench of death, well now it is an anachronism.
The worst part was when the priest said in amongst the "shema" and various references to the holy land. "The night Christ was BETRAYED"
In a tone of hatred and invective as he looked at his audience whom he knew was composed of a number of Jews.
As Pete said. an omnipotent god, who has given us free will, who would come down in the body of a man, sit in judgement of himself and let himself be tortured so as to say see you lot "know not what you do" is guilty of being no less than a total meshugganah.
However the continuing holding of Jews being acccountable for the Roman execution of a man/deity is really obscene.
If the Pope does’nt say sorry to the Jews as well as other victims of the church then he should get the sack.
How dare he try to proseletyse us.
But I run ahead of myself, if he does apologise for the contrition of Pope Pius 12 with the Nazis then maybe, just maybe it will begin the path of healing between the Jews and Catholics.
Let’s hope (dare I say pray) so.
Oli
Jesus would be horrified at the painful images of himself being idolised against his own religion - Judaism.
And George, only a true Jew feels the pain of Jesus and is aghast and insulted at the parody of his suffering which was obviosly in vain.
The scariest thing about this pope business is that I learned that he was a member of the Hitler Youth. I don’t care that the report said that he was "forced" into the movement, this Nazi undercurrent is very disturbing.
I am not impressed that a mortal man is given the adoration of a God. And that we are to believe that God actually blows in his ear.
And don’tcha just love how Australia is so desperate to have a saint, and the RC church needs to keep the faithful happy that they are considering dropping most of the saintly criteria to achieve their outcome. These are strange days on planet Earth!
Soon we will have burned out politicians offering themselves for sainthood just as they nominate themselves for knighthoods for doing nothing outstanding except carrying out their jobs.