La Défense or Notre Dame

I've just ordered from my pusher, Amazon, The Cube and the Cathedral: Europe, America and Politics without God. It was written a couple of years ago by George Weigel, an American Catholic, biographer of John-Paul II, and Founding President of the James Madison Foundation.

My defense of liberal democracy is basically a utilitarian one: it works better. Weigel thinks this is uninspiring and inadequate. Struck by the debate over whether the preamble to the European constitution should mention Christiantity, by the blank modernism of the Great Arch of La Défense, by the demographic suicide that Europe seems committed to, he has written this book to argue that liberal democracy needs God in order to survive.

There's a talk by Weigel and a short Q&A about the book here. It includes the following.

Can a political community established in an act of historical amnesia defend itself by giving an account of its commitments and its aspirations? Can a political community deliberately founded on principled skepticism about the human capacity to know the truth of anything give an account of its commitments to human rights, democracy, the rule of law, civility, and tolerance, beyond the very thin account that it works better, it's a less sloppy way to conduct public affairs, and things move more easily if we are all good to each other?

No risk

Claus Christian Malzahn, Berlin bureau chief for Speigel Online.

Anti-Americanism is hypocrisy at its finest. You can spend your evening catching the latest episode of "24" and then complain about Guantanamo the next morning. You can claim that the Americans have themselves to blame for terrorism, while at the same time calling for tougher restrictions on Muslim immigration to Germany. You can call the American president a mass murderer and book a flight to New York the next day. You can lament the average American's supposed lack of culture and savvy and meanwhile send off for the documents for the Green Card lottery.
Not a day passes in Germany when someone isn't making the wildest claims, hurling the vilest insults or spreading the most outlandish conspiracy theories about the United States. But there's no risk involved and it all serves mainly to boost the German feeling of self-righteousness.

No religion. No babies. No past. No future.

Benedict's speech to the European bishops gathered in Rome has got a lot of coverage. It's curious which aspects of the speech have been highlighted. In most of the English-language media, the big story was his fear of European demographic decline, and the articles then go on to give the figures for the various European states.

There is another side to Benedict's lament for the continent. It is Europe's refusal to acknowledge his Christian heritage as the second pillar of its culture. This was the main story in Corriere della Sera this morning, and Aljazeera didn't miss it either.

If on the 50th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome the governments of the union want to get closer to their citizens, how can they exclude an element as essential to the identity of Europe as Christianity, in which the vast majority of its people continue to identify.

It is no surprise that today's Europe, while it purports to be a community of values, seems to increasingly contest the existence of absolute and universal values.

Does not this unique form of apostasy of itself, even before God, lead it [Europe] to doubt its very identity?

[Obviously trying hard to compensate for the religious ignorance of its English-speaking audience, Aljazeera helpfully adds, "Apostasy is a total desertion of or departure from one's religion."]

Angela Merkel evidently wants references to Christianity in the boomerang EU constitution (coming back to hit you soon). Even the 2005 one was supposed to have a few words, but they were rejected by Jacques Chirac (who would have thought?).

Bernard Lewis interview

I have a lot of time for Bernard Lewis because he has a lot of respect for the culture he so often criticises. This long and very interesting interview with the Jerusalem Post is typical.

He's hard on the Iranian regime, but soft on the Iranian bomb. He wants regime change, but not an invasion of Iran. He draws good distinctions. On the bomb.

Look at it from the Iranian point of view: The Russians in the north have it, the Chinese in the east have it, the Pakistanis in the south have it, and the Israelis in the west have it. "Who is to tell us that we must not have it?"

However,

Previously it had some support, but it is now increasingly being realized that this is a method of strengthening the regime, which means that it is bad.

Is a closed system of government inherent in Islam?

No, it is not inherent in Islam. It is inherent in the kind of government under which they have lived for the last 200 years or so. In the earliest stages of Islam, the government was more open. Traditional Islamic governments devoted great importance to consultation, to content, to limited authority, to government under law; all these things are part of the traditional Islamic background.

This is a good question.

A Syrian philosopher published an article not long ago in which he said the only question about the future of Europe is: "Will it be an Islamized Europe or Europeanized Islam?"