Traipsing
The Guardian must have scared itself with its “turbulent priest” editorial on Saturday – it has now taken it back.
The one on Saturday was not wholly admiring of the pope’s performance.
[H]e believes that there is only one one spiritual source – again his – from which all our values derive. He is attacking not only the Reformation, the separation of church and state, but the very basis on which a secular society is built.
But today, well, on further consideration, when confronted with an actual pope, the only thing to do is grovel.
Despite Benedict XVI’s unbending and in some senses cruel conservatism, the Guardian supported his visit, recognising that there was diplomatic business to do and, perhaps, a chance of reconciliation.
What diplomatic business? Vatican city is not a real state, so what diplomatic business can there be to do? And why would reconciliation be a good thing? Given the recognition of the unbending and in some senses cruel conservatism, why reconcile? Few people want reconciliation with Nazis or fans of apartheid or Fred Phelps; why should the Guardian want reconciliation with the reactionary top priest of a reactionary church?
The Guardian doesn’t say, perhaps because it is in too much of a hurry to say fuck those motherfucking atheists (that’s not me, I’m channeling Tim Minchin).
If the pope has not done much reconciling, then neither have his militant opponents. The thousands who traipsed through London chanting “he belongs in jail” may not see any connection between themselves and the anti-papist mobs of the past, but there is a failure to afford sincere faith the respect it is due.
What respect? What respect is the due of sincere faith? And does the Guardian really mean respect? Since it’s incompatible with protest, the meaning is apparently more like universal unquestioning obedience. Yes, the protesters failed to afford sincere faith that. Whew!
(And what on earth does the Graun mean “traipsing”? Automatic contempt for the very act of protesting now?)
Apparently the Grun takes exception to “he belongs in jail.” But it is at least arguable, and is being argued, that he has (as the head of his organization) committed a crime against humanity. It’s not simply self-evident that he is in no sense a criminal.
But hey – he is a religious leader. It Is Forbidden to say harsh things about religious leaders, at least according to the Tory papers and all the others too.
Having moral problems with the Catholic church makes one a member of anti-papist mobs, ey?
Kind of like how anyone who disagrees with any aspect of Israeli foreign policy is an anti-semite, no doubt.
Oh, how many papists got hanged this time around? If it’s less than one, I’m not really sure I understand the comparison.
Yes, as I said in my last note on the last thread, it is a great pity that the Guardian should have gone back on what it had earlier said about the pope, which, not to put too fine a point on it, did not show the kind of respect to sincere faith now being claimed as his right. Despite his cruel conservatism. Whoever is doing editorials for the Guardian needs to get a contradiction detector, and at least try for some kind of consistency. If they want to call him cruel, then they should resist the temptation to tell us that we respect him no matter how sincere he is in his faith.
(As an aside this is British respect for status in action. I saw it at work in my years in Bermuda, where, at synod meetings, the bishop would say something, the knights (Sir John and Sir Henry) would support him, and everyone else — until Canadians came along — would say, “Yes sir! Three bags full sir!” And when, at my first meeting, I said no, I disagree, I was looked at as thouggh I had three heads. Well, I did, I suppose, compared to them!)
Why does faith get to be respected just because it’s sincere? I’m sure every one of the hijackers on 9/11 held very sincere faith. But only another person who held that faith could respect it. So why should anyone who finds the pope’s faith ridiculous and cruel respect him for having it? I won’t. And the thousands marching through London in rightful protest of the madness of Roman Catholic ethics and misdoings were rightly showing their disdain for something and someone that they do not and cannot respect. Why do Guardian leader writers get to tell people what they ought or ought not to respect? The very thought is ridiculous! It makes me want to go and smash windows in the Vatican, just to show how little respect I have for the tinpot patriarchs who presume to dictate morality for the world, and yet cover up, in a hideous criminal conspiracy, the rape of children — not to mention other shortcomings in their understanding of what is right and good.
I’m quite glad I didn’t get a chance to read that in the coffee shop this morning – bad enough as it is without freaking everyone else out with a cry of rage…
‘Militant opponents’? Did I miss the violence? Or is it just the editor getting slightly carried away, and forgetting to check his dictionary, his thesaurus or his brain? Quite apart from the fact that it is a deliberate insult to all who protested, and all who agree with the protest, I’m getting so hacked off with the sheer mendacity of that phrase.
As for linking the protest with anti-papist riots … again, where was the violence? And, correct me if I’m wrong, but weren’t there catholics (and members of other faiths) there – so what the hell are they talking about? Titus Oates never managed that. Also, it should be said that directing violence or a mob against anyone for any reason is far beyond a failure to afford respect to them – it’s utterly unacceptable.
Respect for sincere faith? I think this just means that we should only ever protest by sending in quiet, polite letters setting out our concerns in the most deferential manner possible … after all, we wouldn’t want any news organisation to have to cover an event like this and then publish mendacious, ill-thought, contradictory editorials which are an embarassment to them, would we?
I feel a bit better; just hope I made some sense.
Britain, of course — just to add an explanatory note — is marked by centuries of anti-catholic prejudice, and laws which disadvantaged catholics, much as laws disadvantaged black people in the US, so there’s a kind of sensitivity about it, since the Act of Settlement (I think that’s it) disallows marriage between an heir to the throne and a Roman catholic. So, there is a kind of racial tint to the idea of anti-catholicism, anti-papism. The old disparaging “Bog Irish” and “Black Irish” epithets are still of fairly recent memory, as are the IRA and RUC, so it touches a nerve in Britain that it doesn’t across the Atlantic. But still, the Guardian should be able to make the distinction, and doesn’t bother. Well, it’s time to recognise that, for all the prejudice that there used to be, there’s one thing that stands fast, and that is that all religion has its very questionable side — that is, practically all of it — and should be relegated to the strictly private sphere, where the religious can fulminate amongst themselves, and imagine that they are saying important things, and yet all their imaginings will do no harm to others.
Also, what Eric said.
In the States, this rule is generally observed by the mainstream press, often to embarrassing effects.
I saw that article and the word “traipsed” jumped out at me, too. Such a dismissive word. It suggests that the protesters were some sort of holiday-makers, skipping about in the sun when they should have been at theirs jobs – or whatever. It was Saturday and a lot of them were giving up their day off to say something important.
Stand under a waterfall you get wet.
The Guardian is reactionary read it and you’ll get sprayed with crap.
OTOH, Polly Toynbee’s column linked from the sidebar there was pretty good.
The umbrage taken at the word “traipsing” puzzles me a bit. Perhaps the London event lacked even a hint of levity; I have no idea. I’m most familiar with protests in San Francisco, where nearly any event, from a marathon to an anti-war march, takes on aspects of Halloween, as though anything worth taking seriously ought to be celebrated with fun and frivolity.
I’d recommend that approach, not least since the pope and the Catholic church are particularly deserving of ridicule, and their claims to deference are vulnerable to mockery. Expressions of humor and anger are no more incompatible than melon and prosciutto.
So the pope’s opponents were “militant” and did a lot of “traipsing.” Which has me wondering what it looks like when people traipse militantly. Surely “marching” or “storming” or “rampaging” would have been more “militant.” It’s hard for me to feel properly terrified at the immense dangers posed by anti-papist mobs who merely traipse, no matter how militant their traipsing may be.
Britain, of course — just to add an explanatory note — is marked by centuries of anti-catholic prejudice, and laws which disadvantaged catholics, much as laws disadvantaged black people in the US, so there’s a kind of sensitivity about it, since the Act of Settlement (I think that’s it) disallows marriage between an heir to the throne and a Roman catholic.
True, but if that’s still the law of the land, it seems a little absurd to point fingers solely at “anti-papist mobs of the past”. Sort of like if an US newspaper got all sniffy about “revolutionary mobs of the past”.
I like the combination of 11 and 12. Both true, both amusing.
The Daily Mail has been pissed off that atheists have been so rude to the Pope. He’s a foreigner, y’see, and should be treated with respect. The Daily Mail is well known for its xenophobia and Germanophobia. It’s amazing that the tabloids have rolled over like this. The slightest whiff of kiddy fiddling gets them wanting to chemically castrate everyone who has the slightest connection with it, including the second cousin of the headmaster who ran the school where it occurred. I think it is just the pleasure of seeing someone come out for old-fashioned moral values, those ones that kicked gays and kept women in their place which let them overlook what would once have been huge marks against a foreigner – a German at that – who had the cheek to lecture us and who had a whiff of being soft on paedophiles.
See Stephen Fry’s take on this.
http://www.stephenfry.com/2010/09/16/dailymailhate/
It’s worth pointing out, since the Act of Settlement came up, that Geoffrey Robertson QC, the evil mean nasty “anti-papist” human rights lawyer who penned The Case of the Pope about how the Pope could possibly be arrested… this same Robertson QC was involved in efforts to get the Act of Settlement repealed.
Because he’s a rabid anti-papist, y’know.
I do like the image of militant traipsing.
Goosestepping is soooo 20th century.
I hope we get fabulous outfits as well.