A "hideous insult" -- like the jihad against Europe
This pulpit is part of European history and heritage. The figure in the photo above is not even certainly Muhammad, but in any case if Muslims want to regard this as a "hideous insult," they should likewise regard the Ottoman invasions of Europe, and the broken siege of Vienna in 1683 that this pulpit may be commemorating, as insults as hideous or more hideous -- or doesn't regard for other faiths go both ways?
Of course it doesn't, for the Islamic supremacists.
Thomas Landen reports at Brussels Journal, May 13 (thanks to all who sent this in):
Belgian police is protecting a 17th century pulpit in the Flemish town of Dendermonde. The pulpit in the Catholic church of Our Lady dates from 1685, two years after the battle of Vienna when the Christian armies of the Polish King John III Sobieski defeated the Turks poised to overrun Europe. The sculpted wooden pulpit, made by Mattheus van Beveren, depicts a man subdued by angels and represents the triumph of Christianity over Islam. The man is generally thought to be Mohammed. He is holding a book which is generally assumed to be the Koran.Two years ago, on April 16, 2006, during the height of the Danish cartoon affair, this website published a photo of the pulpit to show that there is a long tradition of depicting Mohammed in European iconography. Last Friday the Turkish newspaper Yeniçag reprinted our picture on its front page with the caption “Stop this hideous insult.” Yeniçag demands that Belgium remove the pulpit. The paper writes that “We have had the crusades and now they are still trying to humiliate us. This is as bad as the Danish cartoons and Geert Wilders’s Fitna movie in the Netherlands. Even Pope Benedict does nothing to stop these humiliations.”
Since Friday, we have received threats while the authorities in Belgium, which has a large population of Turkish immigrants, fear that the pulpit and the church may be attacked. The Belgian press reported today that the police is guarding Dendermonde’s Our Lady church to prevent vandalism to church and pulpit.
Brian C. Ledbetter at Snapped Shot has some trenchant observations on this.
I prefer him with his entrails hanging out.
Do they think we will believe this grade school propaganda forever? Here's hoping you have some more crusades.
Perhaps someone will capitalize on this story and create replicas of this statue. I'd purchase a matching set to serve as the perfect adornment, bookends for my collection of anti-jihad books.
Yeah, I'd buy one too. Heck, I'd buy a fountain version for my front lawn if I could.
Re: the fresco also mentioned in the original article, in which Mohammed is depicted being tortured by demons in Hell.
Which one of them is Mohammed? My eyes keep being drawn to the demon at the bottom of the painting, that has somebody's big naked butt hanging out of his mouth ... is THAT supposed to be Mohammed??? (The butt, I mean ... I know how to identify a demon ...)
“We have had the crusades and now they are still trying to humiliate us."
Does anyone have an address for this paper, Yeniçag? I'd like to send them a thesaurus. I'm tired of "humiliate, humiliation, humiliated, humiliates", etc.
These fellows need a new word to describe the experience of being taken down a peg or two.
Karma?
And I'm insulted by oh, I don't know, maybe a crescent and star at the top of the Hagia Sophia in Turkey....
The Crusades (self defense against Islamic pillaging, looting, and enlavement of Christian pilgrims to the Holy Land) strikes such fear into the Muslim heart that it still reverberates today, as if it happened yesterday. It was a millinnium ago! That fear is nothing more than their collective guilt over 1400 years of pillaging, looting, and enslaving for the deceitful murderous Mohammad war cult of Islam, their vile Jihad. Let them quake. Their moon god Allah will not help them when the REAL Crusade begins.
Keep pushing us, you slime of mankind, and fear.
Yes Battle-of-Tours, it was a millinnium ago! But that is why I fear for the West and the USA especially. I cannot get my fellow actors to get interested in what happened to actors in Iraq LAST WEEK. Everything here is treated ancient history, "let's forgive" sans any remorse from the killers of course, all religions have their faults, move along, nothing to see here, yada yada. The enemy can think in centuries and we cannot hold a thought for more than 5 minutes. Real history is not taught in our schools; just pc drivel and victimology. IT IS LIKE THE ENTIRE USA HAS ATTENTION DEFICIT SYNDROME!
My comment in general about this pulpit though is that if the TRUTH were being preached loudly and clearly from that pulpit - true, vital, Catholic apologetics without apology, and the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass were being offered without inventions and VAT 2 embellishments, that Church would be guarded by the Catholics themselves and filled to the brim with the faithful. It would not be a museum piece like so many cathedrals of Europe are but a center of Christian prayer and worship. The place to begin a Crusade is first go to the foot of the Cross. KNOW YOUR FAITH. KNOW YOUR HISTORY and KNOW WHY YOU MUST FIGHT TO preserve them.
It would look great on a teeshirt! Is there a copyright?
Here's what the moronic Piet Buyse, mayor of Dendermonde, has to say, blaming the messenger:
"(he) told the media that he deplores that the pulpit “figures on websites which aim to provoke negative reactions from Muslims.” The mayor said that the depicted man represents an unbeliever and may also be Luther or Calvin."
This last is especially idiotic. The image of Martin Luther is widely known, as he was painted numerous times by several well-known artists during his lifetime, most notably Lucas Cranach. He is always depicted clean-shaven.
John Calvin was indeed bearded, but was rather gaunt and looked nothing like the figure on the pulpit.
The figure may or may not be intended to be an image of Mohammed per se, but there is no doubt that this figure clutching his book is meant to depict a Muslim grasping the Koran. Apart from a few Europeans self-conciously posing for portraits in exotic mufti, turbaned figures *always* indicated Muslims in European art. Certainly Luther and Calvin never wore turbans.
The pulpit was likely commissioned almost immediately after the decisive defeat of invading Muslim hoardes at Vienna. Belgium is far from Austria, but Europeans understood then--as they, sadly, seem incapable of understanding now--that the fall of Vienna would have threatened *all* of Christendom.
So Buyse is blaming the tourist who took the picture, and posted it on the web, and the bloggers who took note of it while defending freedom of speech--blaming everyone but the Muslims threatening violence. Maybe if they all lay low, the violent members of the "Religion of Peace" will not take notice. If backed into a corner, do not resist--just blame others and deny everything. I doubt even Buyse believes his own absurd assertion that this might be an image of Luther or Calvin.
It would scarcely be possible to find someone acting the dhimmi in a more craven fashion, short of actually handing his defenders over to his enemies.
Disgusting.
"Does anyone have an address for this paper, Yeniçag? ..."
Posted by: Abscedere
Their web site is http://www.yenicaggazetesi.com.tr/haberdetay.php?hit=7064 and as of the time of this post the pictures in question are still on the front page.
The site is in Turkish and I don't see a recognizable link to an English language version, so you're on your own.
Re the above link to the Turkish language site - If you're running Firefox you might try the Google web page translation via Google Toolbar. Go to http://www.google.com/tools/firefox/toolbar/FT3/intl/en/index.html to see how. It provides automatic web page translations from something like 80 different languages (...including Pig Latin and Klingon).
Concerned Citizen-
Dante placed Mohammed deep in The Inferno, split down the middle like a gutted fish, to represent a "Great Divider".
Auguste Rodin also did a vibrant sketch of the same Dantean image (livelier than William Blake's) but never got around to adding a bronze of it onto his monumental "Gate of Hell".
Some enterprising sculptural art student should complete Rodin's unfinished work.
And call it: "Mohammad- the Dis ...embowelled".
I'm sure all of the universities and art galleries that were thrilled with "Piss Christ" and the "Elephant Dung Madonna" would be glad to host such a daring, "Transgressive", and thought-provoking work.
I rather like this sculpture, at least the part I can see of it. How do I order a scaled-down copy to put in my livingroom?
And yes, it's true that Mohammad (Piss Be Upon Him) doesn't fare very well in Dante's Inferno, either. Perhaps the Islamofascists are still too semi-literate to be aware of that.
“... Belgian police is protecting a 17th century pulpit in the Flemish town of Dendermonde. The pulpit in the Catholic church of Our Lady dates from 1685, two years after the battle of Vienna when the Christian armies of the Polish King John III Sobieski defeated the Turks poised to overrun Europe. ...”
Has anybody asked the Turkish whiners how the figure depicted is/can be MuhamMAD. The siege at Vienna occurred long after his death.
BEVC
I agree with everything you said and the passion with which you said it. The only thing that I feel I need to clarify is the remarks about Vatican II. I'm not entirely sure what you meant, but just to clarify -- Vatican II didn't authorize many of the abuses of the Mass that many Catholics (myself being one of them) have experienced since Vatican II. Many clerics and lay faithful took Vatican II as an opportunity to make the changes that THEY wanted.
The documents of Vatican II are clear and they are consistent with both Vatican I and with the Council of Trent. Unfortunately, catechesis and Catholic education aren't what they should be and that leads some Catholics to not know the full facts (not saying that you are one of them).
However, I also want to parrot what you said in regards to Christian passion. If the Faith was fully lived in Europe, you would see pilgrims going to this Cathedral and, as you say, stand guard against the possible destruction of this beautiful work of art (and would fill the pews at the same time.)
Unfortunately, the post-modern attacks of the age have made it far to easy for Christians in Europe to think of their Faith as outdated and just another belief system.
I'm sure all of the universities and art galleries that were thrilled with "Piss Christ" and the "Elephant Dung Madonna" would be glad to host such a daring, "Transgressive", and thought-provoking work.
LOL!
More seriously, a few years back the custodians of the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, Spain, were planning to remove the statue of Santiago Matamoros (St. James the Moor-Slayer) because it untactfully showed the saint slicing off Saracenic heads. Fortunately, a public outcry led to a reversal of that decision.
Gustave Dore, in his great cycle of engravings illustrating the 'Divina Commedia', included an illustration of 'Mahomet in Hell' (Inferno, Canto 28.31, 'the sowers of discord', verses 22-63).
If you poke about online using google you will find digital images of this particular illustration.