King Charles bestowed his annual Christmas Day message upon the world on Thursday, and said pretty much exactly the kind of things you’d expect him to say: wow, look at how much we all have in common. Let’s all try to get along. Some people have courage. Be nice to other people. Let’s all have peace. Have a merry Christmas.
That was about it. It was, like all the other royal Christmas messages before it, bland, predictable, and utterly unremarkable, and it would be entirely forgotten by now were it not for the fact that the monarch went out of his way to emphasize the common values of the various religious traditions. And there is no doubt about it, bonny King Charlie is right: all religions do indeed have various things in common. They all deal with the divine, or at very least with the spiritual. They all teach moral values, and hold many of those values in common.
That’s all great, but many of the problems that beset contemporary Britain, and the West in general, these days stem from the fact that various religious traditions do not actually hold values in common. Yet our differences not only never become the subject of Christmas messages; they only rarely get discussed at all. It’s generally considered to be in poor taste even to point them out, much less to dwell upon them. The possibility that they might illumine various problems of contemporary Western societies, and show a way toward how best to solve those problems, is not considered.
And so King Charles, never one to lapse into poor taste, said: “A few weeks ago, The Queen and I were delighted to make a State Visit to the Vatican where we prayed with Pope Leo in a historic moment of spiritual unity.” He went on to generalize from this experience: “As I meet people of different faiths, I find it enormously encouraging to hear how much we have in common; a shared longing for peace and a deep respect for all life.”
Given the strife that the growing and restive Muslim community in Britain has caused in recent years, it’s not a stretch to think that Charles had them in mind in these meanderings about peace and respect for life. But he is not giving the world an informed opinion. Charles doesn’t know anything about Islam. He isn’t speaking of the results of his studies. He is speaking from the standpoint of what he wishes and hopes were true, because he wants multicultural Britain to be peaceful and successful.
He will be disappointed. In this connection, it is useful to recall this famous statement from the Ayatollah Khomeini:
Islam makes it incumbent on all adult males, provided they are not disabled or incapacitated, to prepare themselves for the conquest of [other] countries so that the writ of Islam is obeyed in every country in the world. . . . But those who study Islamic Holy War will understand why Islam wants to conquer the whole world. . . . Those who know nothing of Islam pretend that Islam counsels against war. Those [who say this] are witless. Islam says: Kill all the unbelievers just as they would kill you all! Does this mean that Muslims should sit back until they are devoured by [the unbelievers]? Islam says: Kill them [the non-Muslims], put them to the sword and scatter [their armies]. Does this mean sitting back until [non-Muslims] overcome us? Islam says: Kill in the service of Allah those who may want to kill you! Does this mean that we should surrender [to the enemy]? Islam says: Whatever good there is exists thanks to the sword and in the shadow of the sword! People cannot be made obedient except with the sword! The sword is the key to Paradise, which can be opened only for the Holy Warriors! There are hundreds of other [Qur’anic] psalms and Hadiths [sayings of the Prophet] urging Muslims to value war and to fight. Does all this mean that Islam is a religion that prevents men from waging war? I spit upon those foolish souls who make such a claim.
Does every Muslim see Islam in exactly the same way Khomeini did? Of course not. There are many who do, however, and no number of irenic Christmas messages will change that fact. These young Muslims will be heard from in the near future in Britain and all over the West, and Charles’ talk of a common desire for peace will look even more like foolish wishful thinking than it does now.
