Two Sides of the Same Coin

By Charley Brady

He's one of those guys who gives me a desire to run screaming through the streets while pulling my own teeth out with a pair of rusty pliers.

Just back from a working holiday and catching up on the news, the first person that a malignant Fate directs my attention to is Britain's Archbishop of Canterbury - but of the appeaser Rowan Williams, more anon.

I've spent the last couple of weeks back in one of my favourite countries. Mexico - you know, the country that America stole California from and has probably wanted to give back since, ha ha.

This time around I was visiting wonderful Mérida, right in the heart of the Yucatan. This is a city (population, a million) that feels like a large rural town and has the warm welcome and feeling of safety about it that the best of rural towns have.

Indeed, it's not unlike the welcome you would have received in Ireland some twenty years back and which can still be enjoyed in certain parts of the country that we like to keep to ourselves. (The kind of welcome that French President Sarkozy needn't expect tomorrow.)

Perhaps, with the recession settling its feet comfortably by the fire-grate here we can now look forward to a return to the old values of hospitality and welcome.

It may just be an ill wind after all if it gets us out of the money-grubbing trap that we've fallen into.

I loved Mérida and its environs. There's that feeling of embracing outsiders and being curious about them and their own traditions.

Of course, for me one of the less palatable encounters and one that is as impossible to avoid as it is here is the dreaded shadow of religion.

Like Ireland, Mexico is an intensely Catholic country, giving rise to the usual contradictions.

Prior to arriving in the town I had been to some of the awesome ruins of the Mayan culture at Chichen Itza.

As with our own remarkable site at Newgrange the enormity of what these people achieved leaves the visitor humbled.

Looking around the cathedrals of Mérida the irony is thick when you consider that the trend of placing our modern religious monuments on originally pagan sites was also done here, except on Mayan sites.

Even the stones from the destroyed temples of another religion were used in building the cathedrals of the conquerors. How disrespectful.

Naturally, as with Ireland, images of pain are everywhere. I try to see the beauty of an ornate Catholic alter but above it hangs the figure of a tortured man.

He has been nailed to a death tree and blood flows from his mutilated hands and feet while from an entry wound caused by a spear above the rib- cage more blood flows down into the flimsy white cloth that covers the modesty of a man long past caring about such things.

At the Mayan temples the tourists mock-shudder at the images of severed heads and tales of human sacrifice.

Yet in the cathedrals the same tourists look on equally bloody images and claim to feel uplifted.

The same good people that shake their heads in bafflement at their children's enjoyment of Harry Potter and violent video games find solace in a weekly ritual of symbolic vampirism ("drink from me and live forever") and, through transubstantiation, the belief that they are literally swallowing the very flesh of the Christ in a weekly act of cannibalism.

I don't get it. Then again perhaps these images and beliefs have de-sensitised us just as it is spuriously claimed the images in the video games de-sensitise children.

After all, in Ireland we tolerated a bunch of so- called "freedom fighters" for decades. Sure, we might stick them in jail occasionally but can you imagine the cries of outrage if they had been excommunicated?

And here's something else I don't get - although of course I do, sadly. Back in my hotel room I heard there was an American channel showing an interview with Ingrid Betancourt, the lady who had just been rescued from the Marxist rebels who had held her captive in the South American jungle for six years.

I hadn't heard much about the rescue so was keen to watch.

What I saw was a woman who was composed, serene and articulate.

I can only hope that what this extraordinary lady has to tell us comes through in another interview because it certainly didn't in this one.

Not because of Ingrid Betancourt but because of the abrasive man in braces who was barking questions at her.

When he asked her inappropriately if she had been subject to physical attack, leaving no doubt as to the inference, she behaved with astonishing dignity in telling him that she was not prepared to answer certain questions.

I know this guy is regarded as an icon in the States, but was this really necessary? Even if it was his complete lack of empathy was nauseating.

He would tell her to hold her thoughts while he took a commercial break. To be honest, it was a miracle he didn't just growl: "Hold that anguished look for a moment. We'll be back after these important messages."

There's your real Gods right there - a dash of salaciousness seasoned with a good dollop of consumerism.

Back home to the Looking- Glass world: yes, it's Dr. Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury and self-appointed apologist for every time a follower of Islam has their tender feelings bruised.

I should be the last one to say this but it irritates me as to how many "alternative" comedians find the Catholic Church fair play when they would wet themselves at the thought of making a joke at the expense of our Moslem friends. The latter can be a mite touchy, you see.

In Britain walking on eggshells around the Muslim community has reached ludicrous proportions.

At the mere touch of criticism they're screaming "Islamophobe" and "racist".

Honest dialogue, badly needed, is impossible. My personal favourite at the moment is from a couple of weeks back when a young Moslem lady failed to get a job as a hairdresser. Well, she had made it quite clear that she would be keeping her head covered while she scissored away.

With justification the salon's owner evidenced some surprise that a woman who was so against the showing of hair would wish to work in the industry.

Off sped our intrepid job- seeker to the fair employment agency, no doubt yelling "Islamophobe" at the top of her lungs.

Naturally she was awarded £4,000 for - yes, you guessed it-"hurt feelings".

Remember that when Britain sneezes Ireland often gets a cold. So be afraid... be very afraid. After all, it's being quite openly stated now that at some point sharia law will have to play a role in British society.

One of their top Law Lords agrees with this. For crying out loud, WHY?

If it interferes with the law of the land then to hell with upsetting them.

We have to abide by their laws - as we saw in Dubai last week - so let them damned well respect the laws of the decadent West and if they don't, well, I'm sure that forward-thinking Dubai will be glad to have them.

Just don't tell Dr. Rowan Williams. He also argued this year that sharia law has a place in the West.

On a day in which Iran has sentenced eight men and women to be stoned to death for adultery that would be funny if it wasn't so absolutely stupid and appalling.

"But the Archbishop is an intellectual," I've been told. "His new 18-page letter to the Muslim leaders is well argued and thoughtful." Intellectual? So what?

History has littered us with well-meaning brain boxes who do more harm than good.

In his letter he is sympathetic to his Muslim readers over the fact that they are offended by the Christian belief in the Trinity.

They are offended because Christians believe in a Trinity of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost while they believe that there is only one God. So it's large apologies all round.

"'States of willed madness? Christianity? Islam?'" asks one character in JG Ballard's "Kingdom Come".

The answer: "'Vast systems of psychopathic delusion that murdered millions, launched crusades and founded empires. A great religion spells danger. Today people are desperate to believe, but they can only reach God through psychopathology. Look at the most religious areas of the world at present - the Middle East and the United States. These are sick societies, and they're going to get sicker. People are never more dangerous than when they have nothing left to believe in except God.'"

Take a bow, president Bush and Osama bin Laden.

The Archbishop also wagged his finger at the Bishop of Rochester who, interestingly, thought about as much of his lecture on sharia law as I did.

In fact he maintained that Christianity was central to British society, which seems reasonable.

As to that 18-page letter, sharia wasn't mentioned once this time. Funny, that.