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Nearer My God To Thee
Matters of religion have been troubling Angela Merkel. Germany's chancellor, who leads that country's Christian Democrats, after all, has called for a clause in the European Constitution reflecting the continent's religious heritage. At the same time, she's just received a religiously-themed letter from Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who reminds her that the world's - and Germany's - problems can be laid firmly at the door of those pesky Zionists.
The constitution first. The Guardian reports that Frau Merkel had an audience with Pope Benedict XVI yesterday, and emerged from the meeting endorsing his campaign to recognise Europe's Christian heritage in the next draft of the Constitution.
Religion was a fraught issue when the Constitution was drafted. In May 2004, seven countries (Italy, Poland, Lithuania, Malta, Portugal, the Czech Republic and Slovakia) demanded the text include an explicit reference to Christianity.
In November 2004, a million Christians signed a petition demanding that the EU recognise Christianity's formative role in Europe's traditions and culture in the treaty. The petition came after support from the then Pope, Jean Paul II, who urged Europeans "not to cut themselves off from their birthright."
The Italians may have been motivated by the European Parliament's refusal to back Rocco Buttiglioni for the Justice Commission because of his conservative Catholic views. However, it found a surprising number of signatories in the Netherlands, perhaps because Christians there were shocked by the Islamist murder of film-maker Theo van Gogh.
Paris led the opposition to the Christianity Clause: In part, because France sees the EU as being built in its image, with its fierce separation of church and state. At the time, France was having religious difficulties itself, as Muslim groups fought a state ban on women wearing headscarves in schools. Declaring the EU Constitution to be influenced by Christianity might have raised temperatures to unwelcome levels.
Britain too was uncomfortable with any mention of religion in the Constitution text, though more for reasons of trite political correctness than for any higher-minded separation of powers. As members of the UK's Muslim community find themselves more and more dangerously alienated from the establishment culture, it is likely that Britain's government would swing even closer to France's position than before.
Angela Merkel may have other plans. Her predecessor often appeared content to follow Paris' lead in European policy: The new chancellor has made it clear that while France and Germany will work closely together, Berlin will follow a more independent agenda. Merkel's determination to revive the constitution next year, following its rejection by French and Dutch voters, is the first conflict: No French government will be willing to sell a treaty the people rejected so comprehensively without major changes few other nations could agree to. In Germany, however, the Constitution is widely supported as a Good Deal, delivering increased voting rights to Berlin.
Her conversion to a Christianity Clause appears, on the face of it, to be more surprising. However, Merkel is the daughter of a pastor and her party has many Christian supporters. One of its partners, the Christian Social Union of Bavaria, is overwhelmingly Catholic. They also happen to be extremely proud of their Pope, who is himself a Bavarian.
Some commentators expected that the public outpouring of grief that followed Jean Paul II's death would lead to a Christian revival in Europe. It's too early to tell if this is the case, but it is clear that with the entrance of ten new, largely traditional Christian member states in 2004, the EU is more Christian than ever before. Merkel's support for Benedict will play well there, and may be part of an attempt to curry favour in central Europe, where many felt alienated by Gerhard Schröder's closeness to Russia and Paris: It remains to be seen if it will have any effect on the Constitution.
Iran's Holocaust Fatigue
God is on the mind of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad too. The Iranian president sent Merkel a letter last week, laying out a few points of common interest between their countries.
Ahmadinejad begins with an appeal to Germany's culture, its arts and its "positive influence on international relations and the promotion of peace."
He then mentions how "certain global powers and special groups" (wonder who they could be?) gain benefits from portraying Germany as a "defeated and indebted power." Hmmm....
He quickly gets on to the war: Some nations, he writes, are forbidden to take pride in their achievements: "The propaganda machinery after World War II has been so colossal that has caused some people to believe that they are the guilty party by historical accounts and must pay the penalty for the wrongs committed by their forefathers for successive generations and for indefinite period of time."
Why should this be the case, Ahmadinejad wonders. "Sixty years have passed since the end of the war. But, regrettably the entire world and some nations in particular are still facing its consequences. Even now the conduct of some bullying powers and power-seeking and aggressive groups is the conduct of victors with the vanquished...
"The extortion and blackmail continue, and people are not allowed to think about or even question the source of this extortion, otherwise they face imprisonment. When will this situation end? Sixty years, one hundred years or one thousand years, when? I am sorry to remind you that today the perpetual claimants against the great people of Germany are the bullying powers and the Zionists that founded the Al-Qods Occupying Regime with the force of bayonets in the Middle East."
Ah. I wondered when we'd get to them.
"I have no intention of arguing about the Holocaust. But, does it not stand to reason that some victorious countries of World War II intended to create an alibi on the basis of which they could continue keeping the defeated nations of World War II indebted to them. Their purpose has been to weaken their morale and their inspiration in order to obstruct their progress and power. In addition to the people of Germany, the peoples of the Middle East have also borne the brunt of the Holocaust. By raising the necessity of settling the survivors of the Holocaust in the land of Palestine, they have created a permanent threat in the Middle East in order to rob the people of the region of the opportunities to achieve progress. The collective conscience of the world is indignant over the daily atrocities by the Zionist occupiers, destruction of homes and farms, killing of children, assassinations and bombardments."
Why did England, who had "apparently such a strong sense of responsibility toward the survivors of the Holocaust" not invite the Jews to settle there, he asks. Alas, along with issues on Israel's nuclear arms and aid sent by "some Western countries", we will never know the answers to this questions:
"Regrettably, the influence of the Zionists in the economy, media and some centers of political power has endangered interests of the European nations and has robbed them of many opportunities. The main alibi for this approach is the extortion they exact from the Holocaust (...)
"Just imagine where Germany would be today in terms of its eminence among the freedom-loving nations, Muslims of the world and peoples of Europe, if such a situation did not exist and the governments in power in Germany had said no to the extortions by the Zionists and had not supported the greatest enemy of mankind."
Ahmadinejad then launches into an attack on the US, blaming it for the world's ills, from Africa to Latin America. This could come almost word-for-word from one of the rants in the Guardian's Comment is Free pages, though Ahmadinejad complains that the absence of respect for God is the real reason for America (and others) straying from the path of righteousness. Some - not least many secular Iranians - might argue that too much God, rather than too little, might be the cause of many of the region's difficulties.
Merkel's response has not been recorded.
Interestingly, Ahmadinejad makes his appeal to Merkel as a woman, as he claims they are in possession of "stronger human sentiments and certain manifestations of the divine compassion and kindness, specially in the position of a mother and being at the service of the people." Merkel isn't a mother but, as a western woman, one would imagine that she might violently disagree with the Iranian president's claim to prevent "violations of rights" particularly as they apply to the oppressed: News emerged today that Ahmadinejad's religious police have been roaming the streets of Tehran this summer ordering 64,000 women to change their dress code to better reflect Iran's dress code.
"We are certainly seeing a return to behaviour we haven't seen for 10 years," said Hadi Ghaemi, the Iran researcher for Human Rights Watch.
