Spain Strengthens Her Alliance With The Islamic World - Can Anyone Say Andalucia?
Well, guys, I have some more information about the British answer to the demonstration of Muslim radicals in London, about the cartoons. It’s here -do not worry: the main part of it, it’s in English, the part in Spanish is the translation-
And today we have learnt President Rodríguez is going to receive Muslims protesting about cartoons. They also want to deep the cooperation that Spain has with the Islamic community, and have just assured that the relationship with Spain is very fluid. The President of the Islamic Committee has also added that they supported the Civilizations’ alliance of Rodriguez. [link is in Spanish]
Two days ago President Rodríguez published an article with Erdogan, Prime Minister of Turkey:
Spanish Socialist prime minister Jose Luis Rodríguez Zapatero yesterday published a letter to the International Herald Tribune, in which he made "a call for respect and calm," while "morally and politically rejecting" the publication of the controversial cartoons depicting Mohammed. Zapatero called for an "Alliance of Civilizations" to "stop hate," and weakly defended the freedom of expression by saying, "There are no rights without responsibility and respect for different sensitivities." Zapatero’s letter was also signed by Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
In the letter, Zapatero and Erdogan said, "Initiatives and instruments to put an end to this spiral of hate and obfuscation that threatens international peace and security are needed." Along with Iranian prime minister Khatami, Zapatero and Erdogan are two of the sponsors of the "Alliance of Civilizations" project, proposed by Zapatero at the UN in 2004. After the "unfortunate events" of the last several days, the two leaders reaffirmed their commitment "to the search for more support for this goal. Spain and Turkey have traditionally represented two decisive points in the East and the West. We are sure that contacts among different cultures can be enormously enriching, though at the same time they can set off destructive controversies." [...]
So in Spain they are questioning this approach to the problem by Spanish Prime Minister:
Spain’s current Prime Minister frequently forgets history -or at least the bits he thinks unimportant or that don’t advance his political agenda. He skips blithely over such historic moments for our nation and Western civilization as the battle of Lepanto, Spain’s great defeat of the Turks. Instead he pursues Erdogan, the Turkish Islamic leader to win support for his Alliance of Civilizations initiative. Curiously, Erdogan’s support depends on Zapatero defending Turkey’s entry to the European Union right when many Europeans, the French included, are clearly opposed to it.Now, Zapatero offers up an article co-written with Erdogan about the violent events taking place in the Muslim world in protest against cartoons of Mohammed published many months ago. The two agree on a basic but very debatable point: the blame for this explosive situation lies with the publishing of the cartoons, not with the violent response to them. Zapatero puts the cartoonist at the same level as some excited fanatic who attacks and burns European diplomatic posts.Zapatero’s cynicism brings him to ask everyone to respect Muslims’ religious feeling, forgetting his own total lack of respect for Catholics here in Spain. He has been harassing Catholics since he came to power, challenging the Church and provoking divisions on complex matters for religious minded citizens. [...]The Spanish Prime Minister’s schizophrenia is made obvious by asking a simple question: would he say the same thing if some Christian group in Spain had attacked PSOE’s headquarters protesting gay marriage? We would love to hear his answer to this.
And here the difference with Aznar:
Former prime minister Jose Maria Aznar yesterday harshly criticized the Iranian regime and called for a firm response from Europe to the wave of violence committed by extreme Islamists during a dinner with journalists in Washington, DC. He said that if Western countries apologize for the publication of caricatures of Mohammed, it will endanger the firmness of the democracies on subjects such as nuclear negotiations.
"If we apologize for some cartoons, how will they take us seriously when we negotiate about nuclear arms?" said Aznar. He related the situation caused by the publication of the cartoons to the negotiations underway to stop the Iranian regime from continuing with its nuclear program. Aznar said, "You are not more tolerant or sensitive because you give in," and added, "In general, essentially in Europe, there has been a doubtful reaction due to fear, and the reactions their have been to the extremists’ violent actions have been fairly lukewarm exceptions."
He declared, "Tolerance is respect for the law, that there are no privileges before the law. The difference between Western democratic regimes and Islamist theocracies is the existence of tolerance, which is due to freedom of opinion. Fear has circulated widely...it is the beginning of the end of respect for the law and freedom of opinion. If you don’t agree, you go to court. What you can’t do is attack embassies instead of respecting freedom of opinion and the law. The measuring stick under the rule of law must be this and nothing else, because if not it would mean justifying anything because somebody feels offended. The cartoon of Mohammed is a juvenile prank."
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