To Have a Friend

When I was growing up in Chicago one of the guys in our group came from a family that owned a bar and restaurant out on Mannheim Road, not far from the growing O’Hare Airport complex. In those days you could still find some farm land around the airport and some spaces between the buildings in that area. There was an old sign behind the bar and it obviously had been in the family a long time and meant a lot to them. It was a simple maxim: “To Have a Friend, Be One”. They pretty much lived by that. They were friends to many and they had scores of friends in return.

I was driven to think about that guide for living as I continue to shake my head in astonishment at the high dudgeon of the Islamic world over the remarks of a fourteenth century Byzantine emperor used by Pope Benedict XVI in a speech last week.

The essence of the historic comment was that the Prophet had directed that Islam be spread by the sword and that this was an unusual way for a religion supposedly of peace to be propagated. The discussion revolved around the incompatibility between jihad, holy war, violence and the nature of God.

Key to this issue is that the words were said by someone more than 500 years ago. The statement wasn’t one of prejudice or disrespect by the pontiff, but was an example of discussion long ago.

So, the Muslims of the world find that this description of their religion and their prophet as being violent and unpeaceful is so offensive that they now are pronouncing capital punishment sentences against the Pope. They are so insulted by characterizations that they aren’t a peaceful religion that they are Shooting Nuns, Burning Churches, and Demanding Death of the Pope

Excuse me, but isn’t that what the benighted Byzantine emperor was griping about?

It was a few months ago that in a somewhat misguided effort to illuminate the intolerance of the Islamic world, a Danish newspaper sought to publish editorial drawings (I avoid the terminology “cartoon” to avoid being recipient of a Fatwa myself) of the Prophet. The result was that around the world cars were overturned, churches were burned and an innocent priest in Turkey—a long way from Denmark—was killed. Thousands rioted to demonstrate their peacefulness.

It may be the flowery rhetoric of the Middle East that I simply don’t understand. I do understand that if you want to get along, you need to make an effort to get along. If you want to have a friend, be one. If someone doesn’t understand the alleged peacefulness of your beliefs, avoid killing them to correct their misunderstanding. Standing in demonstrations and shouting “Death to…” whomever is not going to make your case.

But, it seems overly optimistic to think that the Muslim world is going to change any time soon. What might be possible, however, is for the rest of us to acknowledge the hypocrisy. Stop apologizing. Stop pussy-footing around this jihad. Stop treating these murderous, fourteenth century thugs who seek to dismantle civilization as someone who should be isolated and protected from offense. I don’t like being threatened. I consider that insulting. I demand some apologies from the mullahs and the imams and the ayatollahs. If they want a friend, I’m ready. But to have a friend they need to consider how to be one.