Altaf Ali and Why can't we all just get along?

September 14, 2008

Mr. Altaf Ali
@The Sun-Sentinel – OP ED
200 East Las Olas Boulevard
Fort Lauderdale, Florida 33301

RE: Freedom – A response to your OP-ED piece in today’s Sun-Sentinel

Mr. Ali,

Of the many hallmarks of Western Civilization – Western, not Far Eastern, mid Eastern, or Fertile Crescent based – is that “free men speak with free tongues”. Thus when I read your article this morning it was not extraordinary. In a calm manner you discussed several myths held by people who are not Muslims.

But always there is a persistent questioning about you religion and its practical effects.

I daresay that your article was published exactly as you wrote it. Can you name me one Muslim ruled country where I would be allowed to publish an article repudiating Islamic myths about Christianity? You are allowed to practice your religion as freely as anybody else in this country. Can you name one Muslim ruled country that would allow me to practice my religion as freely as you do so here? Do you think I could open a Catholic church in Mecca? There are mosques in Rome. Why aren’t there any non-Mosque houses of worship in Riyadh or Qom?

1300 years after the birth of Christ Dante wrote The Divine Comedy. In it he depicted some of the evil people and practices of Christianity. It’s been a bit more than 1300 years since Muhammad died. Can you name the Islamic equivalent of La Commedia? Can you identify the Islamic Dante?

At least once a day I listen to Mozart. Can you name one, just one, Islamic Mozart? If there aren’t any why is that so?

In this country there is a sculpture called “Piss Christ”. It shows a crucifix suspended in a vat of urine. It was partially funded by American taxpayers. There is a portrait, also tax payer supported, that shows a picture of the Blessed Mother. The artist has flung dung on it. There is a play, Corpus Cristi by Terence McNally, also tax payer supported, that says Jesus Christ and Judas Iscariot were homosexual lovers. Further, it says that the crucifixion of Jesus happened because of a lovers’ quarrel featuring Jesus and Judas. I find this, as a Roman Catholic, to be deeply offensive. My protests have gone unrequited. I have yet to kill anyone over this matter.

A few years ago a Danish cartoonist tried to publish some cartoons caricaturing Mohammed. The Muslim world went “barking mad” at this. Thousands of people, thankfully mostly Muslims, died. A Danish film maker, a Christian and a descendant of the great artist Van Gogh, was hacked to death on a public street by a Muslim outraged over his lack of respect for Mohammed. 1300 years after Mohammed appeared could you name one Muslim artist of the stature of Van Gogh? Of Michelangelo? We know that there are no Muslim Mozarts. How about an Islamic Bach? How about a Koran believing Cole Porter?

Are there any myths in what I have written? Are there any lies?

Incidentally, I have written to you some six times. I have never had the courtesy of a reply. Each of my previous letters has been as well reasoned and well mannered as this one. I address this one to the Sun-Sentinel. American newspapers are extremely sensitive to the “chilling effect” and “slippery slope” of prior restraint or censorship, be it self imposed or not.

Maybe they can get you to answer.

It is well to note that one of the charges being leveled against Governor Palin is that she “burned books”. There is no more serious charge for a modern American Liberal to make than that. That’s why the Sun-Sentinel has a permanent exhibit of those Danish cartoons on Mohammed in their lobby.

Just kidding.

By the way, how are the Muslims and the Hindus getting along?






KS


PS – Because I did not mention Aquinas or Haydn or Shakespeare or Hemingway or Madison doesn’t mean I have purposely excluded them from this conversation. If, should you so deign, to answer my questions could you include a list of Muslim contemporaries? I say contemporaries because they have no peers, regardless of religion.