Interesting Start the Week this morning. All Tom Sutcliffe’s guests have authored worthy tomes about religion and war.
Justin Marozzi’s well received “Baghdad” sounded fascinating, and so did Christopher Coker’s “Can War be Eliminated?”. But the primary focus of this episode was a book titled: “Fields of Blood: Religion and the History of Violence” written by a woman whom Suttcliffe addressed as “Keiron”. It was only when she gratuitously introduced “Israelis bulldozing Palestinian homes” that I realised that Keiron was in fact Karen - Karen Armstrong, the former nun who ‘wants us all to love Islam’.
I have to say that Tom Sutcliffe hastily distracted her from the bulldozing, but she did get away with this, towards the end of the programme:
“Look at some of the images of the prophets. Of Jerusalem at The End of Time, with all the... but it’s still, even there.....this is peace for Israel and other people are being subjugated.”
Anti-Israel polemicists have a particular way of saying “Israel”, somehow imbuing the “Is” with venom. I will always think of her as Keeran.
Well put, Sue.
ReplyDeleteJustin Marozzi and Christopher Coker were very interesting, though they did acquiesce slightly in Karen Armstrong's 'blame the West' policy.
Justin M told the grisly story of the founder of Baghdad, Caliph al-Mansur, giving the keys to his storeroom to his daughter-in-law on condition that she only opened it after his death. When he died she did so, expecting to find hidden treasure, but instead found a vast chamber full of corpses (from the very young to the very old) - all Shi'ites, descends of Ali and Fatima. And it's still going on now.
Incidentally, the daughter-in-law in that story was called Rita. Who knew they had Ritas in Baghdad back then?
I never knew Karen Armstrong's name was pronounced that way either. My auntie Doreen (Door-een) went through a phase once of having her name pronounced D'reeeen. Maybe Keeeran Armstrong is doing the same.