“But it remains to be seen whether it will do anything to help bridge the growing divide between most French and the country”s 4 million Muslim residents during an especially tense time.” Yeah, I am sure this will fix everything right up.
Lord, what fools these kuffar be.
“Louvre’s new Islamic wing aims to bridge cultural divide,” by Valerie Gladstone for the Global Post, November 13:
PARIS, France “” The Louvre doesn’t do things on a small scale. When the world’s most famous and most popular museum “” it hosts more than nine million visitors a year “” decided to add a new Islamic art wing, it took $125 million and a decade to build.
Opened earlier this year, its 18,000 works of art have drawn eager crowds. But it remains to be seen whether it will do anything to help bridge the growing divide between most French and the country”s 4 million Muslim residents during an especially tense time….
Inside, masterpieces representing the Islamic world’s wide cultural reach from Spain to India and spanning the 7th to the 19th centuries fill 30,000 square feet and two floors of galleries.
“There is a zest for Islamic art that I think is fairly new,” Louvre president and director Henri Loyrette said before the wing’s opening in September. “Our task is to reveal the face of this radiant civilization.”
President Francois Hollande has called the new wing a “cultural” and “political” act of confidence and “peace.”
Economic disparities and accusations of racism have fuelled anger among Muslims that has sometimes bubbled over into riots, in a country that banned wearing the full-face veil last year.
Riot police were stationed around Paris during the gallery”s opening after a French weekly, Charlie Hebdo, said it would print satirical cartoons showing the prophet Muhammad. The publication followed a series of deadly riots in several Arab countries against a video privately produced in California that mocked Muhammad.
However, visitors said the Islamic wing largely succeeds in its mission. “It always helps to know more about other people’s cultures,” one woman said. “A comprehensive exhibition like this gives you something to study and appreciate, and widens your understanding. We need to be more open.”…