Posted on 09/26/2006 4:13:39 PM PDT by excludethis
Madrid: Jose Maria Aznar, former Spanish prime minister, defended Pope Benedict XVI’s comments about Islam, saying on Friday the pontiff had no need to apologise and asking why Muslims never did. the Spanish media said yesterday.
“Why do we always have to say sorry and they never do?” Aznar told a conference in Washington on “global threats” on Friday.
On Saturday, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso was quoted as saying that more European leaders should have spoken out in support of the Pope after he made his disputed comments on Islam.
"I was disappointed there were not more European leaders who said 'naturally the Pope has the right to express his views'," Barroso was quoted as saying to the Welt am Sonntag newspaper.
"The problem is not the statements of the Pope but the reaction of the extremists," the paper quoted him as saying.
Referring to the Moorish conquest of much of the Iberian Peninsula from the eighth to the 15th century, Aznar said: “It is interesting to note that while a lot of people in the world are asking the Pope to apologise for his speech, I have never heard a Muslim say sorry for having conquered Spain and occupying it for eight centuries.”
Aznar, who was the Prime Minister from 1996 to 2004, took Spain into the American-led war in Iraq, against massive public opposition.
Addressing Friday’s conference in Washington on “global threats”, Aznar said: “We are living in a time of war ... It’s them or us. The West did not attack Islam, it was they who attacked us.”
“We must face up to an Islam that is ambitious, that is radical and that influences the Muslim world, a fundamentalist Islam that we must confront because we don’t have any choice.
“We are constantly under attack and we must defend ourselves,” he said.
“I support Ferdinand and Isabella,” he proclaimed, in reference to the medieval Catholic monarchs who drove the Moors out of Spain in 1492.
Barroso said the caution on the part of European leaders was probably due to "worries about a possible confrontation" as well as a "certain form of political correctness."
"We have to defend our values," he said. "We should also encourage the moderate leaders in the Muslim world - and they're the majority - to distance themselves from this extremism," Barroso was quoted as saying.
Meanwhile,the Pope is due to meet Muslim envoys on Monday as part of a diplomaticc initiative to boost inter-faith dialogue.
The meeting is to be held at Castel Gandolfo, the Pope's summer residence
He was only narrowly defeated...a real shame.
It was not him. Aznar had retired. It was Rajoy, his successor, who was defeated.
Regards, Ivan
Thanks. It's a shame the Spanish went wobbly.
With Aznar, Spain was a power once more, a force to be reckoned with. With Zapatero, it's become a bloody hippie commune in the sun.
Regards, Ivan
I think Spain has the same problem we do in the states...the cities and their "intellectuals" have far too much political power.
Very well stated.
Isambard Wilkinson, Telegraph (UK), Jul. 22
St James the Moor Slayer, Spain’s patron saint, has notched up another victory.
Church officials have been forced to overturn a decision to remove a statue of the saint from the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in north-west Spain.
The statue, an 18th-century work by Jose Gambino which depicts St James on a white charger hacking off the heads of Moors beneath his rampant mount’s hooves, was deemed to be offensive to Muslims.
However a spokesman for the church, which is Christendom’s third holiest site after Rome and Jerusalem and attracts half a million pilgrims each year, said yesterday that, due to public anger over the proposed move, the statue will now remain in place.
“It is still here on the same spot. It is not going anywhere,” a spokesman for Alejandro Barral, the president of the cathedral’s art commission, said. “We have decided that the statue of St James will stay in the cathedral. There is no reason why it should be removed in the near future. For the moment the debate over its future has been suspended.”
The Spanish press reported that terrorist bomb attacks on Madrid trains in March had precipitated the withdrawal of the statue.
The Spanish national newspaper, El Mundo, said: “According to our sources the authorities fear that the image could attract the anger of the Arab world in a period of high tension.”
The plan was to put the statue in a museum and replace it with a less provocative effigy, one of St James the Pilgrim.
The decision outraged Roman Catholics. One newspaper commentator dubbed it “political correctness gone mad”. People gathered in strength to place flowers at the foot of the statue and newspapers published letters of complaint condemning the “intolerable heresy”.
The announcement of the withdrawal was welcomed by the Muslim community as a “step towards peace” according to Houssam El Mahmoudi, the president of the Association of Moroccan Students in Santiago.
St James, who was described by Cervantes’ Don Quixote as “the most valiant”, still exerts a strong hold on the Spanish popular imagination.
Spanish troops deployed to Iraq were issued with a special badge depicting the Moor Slayer’s red cross. Santiago Matamoros, as he is known in Spanish, was the brother of St John the evangelist. He was beheaded in AD44 in Palestine after the King of Judea, Herod Agrippa, sentenced him to death, making him the first apostle to be martyred.
According to tradition his body floated in its sarcophagus to the lands where he had been a missionary and was buried in the westernmost part of the peninsula near Santiago de Compostela.
St James, of whom bloodthirsty statues abound throughout Spain, has been a figure of veneration since he appeared on a white cloud at the battle of Clavijo in 844 and spurred Spanish soldiers on to victory against the Moors.
On Sunday, in a ceremony that will resound with ancient symbolism, King Juan Carlos will pay homage to the Moor Slayer on his saint day by making the annual National Offering at Santiago.
The dictator Gen Francisco Franco once sent his only Moroccan general, Mohamed ben Miziam del Qasim, to make the offering. Sensitive officials covered the base of the statue with cloth to hide the decapitated heads of his compatriots.
They can shove it up their collective arse. Gibraltar is British, and more importantly, those who live there want it to remain so.
I think Spain has the same problem we do in the states...the cities and their "intellectuals" have far too much political power.
Agreed. And there is far too much hand wringing about the Spanish Civil War still going on.
Regards, Ivan
It only takes a small swing in the electorate to change a government.
The Spanish were staunch supporters of the WOT and a great many still are.
The government may have changed, but the Spanish people have not so much.
The same thing can, has and will happen again here in the States.
I'm going to have to challenge you on that absurd assumption. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I seem to recall that recently Spain was considering giving animals certain "human rights". Now if that is indeed true then your assumption is wrong...since the silly arsed monkeys on the Island are probably aligned with Spain's intellectual finest and I'm pretty sure they out numbered humans...as in people. Although I have to admit, they (the monkeys) acted more French when I was there last.
Seriously, I think I did see something about animal having human rights in Spain recently...maybe they are trying to subvert the Monkeys.
By the way, Spain still has troops in Afghanistan and just recently in Lebanon. It is not difficult to predict that the next terrorist attack will be in Spain. It worked once, why not twice?
By the way, the Muzzies are just mad they are living in the sand! This whole religous thing is a cover. They are drunk on their feelings of superiority and obsessed with their lack of politcal power. The west went 'democracy' back in the day, and they didn't. They were wrong. The religous thing just didn't work out and provide as they hoped. The truth hurts. It's just that simple.
Oh, most Merciful God we beseech You in all your Infinite Wisdom
to smite these Mohammedans.
This is truly a great article. Too bad "Peaceful" Muslims will demand this guy's head...
Yeah, I think you're on to something.
They envy us for our lawns.
The former Spanish prime minister, Jose Maria Aznar, is correct on all counts. Glad he pooled all Muslims together and didn't try to single out just some faction. That's where Barroso is wrong is speaking for "moderate" Muslims. If they're so damn moderate, why do they still persecute people of other religions? Trying to paint multiple faces on Islam when it truly only has one.
When I can visit Mecca, as an infidel, just visit, and when I can bring a Bible into that infernal kingdom, then we'll talk. Till then these head-hacking whack-jobs can shut the hell up!
LOL!! I said this exact thing to my sister a couple of weeks ago!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.