Author: Ophelia Benson

Boris Johnson said a fatuous thing.

“There are valuable lessons people of all backgrounds can learn from Islam, such as the importance of community spirit, family ties, compassion and helping those less fortunate, all of which lie at the heart of the teachings of Ramadan.”

Obviously meant to be a very kind inclusive generous outreachy thing, but fatuous nevertheless, because if that were true, wouldn’t it show up somewhere? Wouldn’t there be at least one country run according to ‘Islamic principles’ or just plain sharia that was unusually good at compassion and helping those less fortunate? A city on a hill, a beacon to the rest of the world? Or at least a well-known and much-discussed example of compassionate and egalitarian governance? And as far as I know there isn’t. Do correct me if I’m wrong. Sudan? No. Pakistan? No. Afghanistan? Don’t make tasteless jokes. Malaysia? No. Northern Nigeria? No. Saudi Arabia? Please.

So the question becomes, what exactly are the ‘valuable lessons’ that ‘people of all backgrounds can learn from Islam’ about compassion and helping those less fortunate? I don’t dispute that there are words about compassion and helping those less fortunate in Islamic sources, but one, do they say anything unique to Islam? And two, have they made any difference to ‘Islam’ as it actually plays out in the world?

As far as I know the answer is no and no. Do correct me if I’m wrong. In the meantime I will go on wishing political figures would stop sucking up to religion in this way. Be kind and inclusive and generous and outreachy to people, by all means, but skip the religion-flattering.

Sultan Munadi.

Barry Bearak, South Asia Bureau Co-Chief, 1998-2002: “Mr. Munadi, as well as the other “translators” who have worked—and continue to work—for The Times in Afghanistan are also skilled journalists. They accompany Western reporters into the field, leading as much as following. They are a walking Who’s Who, historian, guide, lie detector, supply sergeant, master of logistics, taking equal the risks without equal the glory or pay. One more thing: “translators” like Mr. Munadi take responsibility for the reporter’s life…With the Taliban driven from Kabul, Sultan returned to his formal journalism studies while also working for The Times. When he was graduated, party was held at a newly-opened restaurant. I had the opportunity to talk with Mr. Munadi’s favorite professor. “Sultan was the very best of my students,” he told me.”

Amy Waldman, South Asia Bureau Co-Chief, 2002-2005: “My main memory of Sultan is laughing with him. He was extremely intelligent, scrupulous, honest, curious, dedicated, and fair, but he was also full of mirth – prepared to find almost anything funny, from a politician’s hypocrisy to the not-always-adept Afghan bureaucracy to my weak wisecracks.He had a very distinctive laugh – like a hard giggle, or a soft cackle, a hearty laugh from someone built like a beanpole…When I wanted to write about Afghan women, he helped me find women who could work with me to interpret. He took me home to meet his sister, who he felt, by virtue of being a woman, was too often trapped in the house…All of our interpreters, Sultan among them, were men in their 20s who had lost years to the Taliban, almost always leaving school or university and finding work to support their families.”

That’s just a sample – read the whole thing. It’s heartbreaking.

Tony Blair gets more sickening every day. Individualism, financial crisis, profit, communal good, deeper level, materialistic, my generation, urk urk urk.

The danger is clear: that pursuit of pleasure becomes an end in itself. It is here that faith can step in, can show us a proper sense of duty to others, responsibility for the world around us, and can lead us to, as the Holy Father calls it, caritas in veritate.

Ew? Ew ew ew ew EW!

What the hell does he mean ‘the Holy Father’? He’s not my fucking Holy Father! He may be Tony Blair’s Holy Father but he’s not mine, so he’s not ‘the.’ The arrogance of them – thinking there is such a thing as ‘the Holy Father’ and we’re all obliged to call it that. The me no the, Tony! Keep your holy pater to yourself.

And if you can’t manage to develop a proper sense of duty to others yourself without help from ‘faith’ then there’s something wrong with you – so go improve yourself instead of nagging everyone about your poxy ‘faith.’

The recent Papal Encyclical is a remarkable document in many respects…It puts God’s Truth at the centre of it. In one passage, it describes humanism devoid of faith as “inhuman humanism”: “Without God, man neither knows which way to go, nor even understands who he is.”

That’s nice – he approves a description of atheists as inhuman and then tells us we don’t know where to go or who we are because we don’t believe in his ‘God.’ Odd how nostalgic I feel for Alastair Campbell.