Big DUH at Foggy Bottom

If you think about this too much, it's kinda scary.

Jonathan Last concludes his column at OJ today, on the state-sponsored religious discrimination barring non-Muslims from Mecca and Medina, this way:

Even today, there are ways around the barrier. Occasionally nonbelievers will surreptiously enter the city in the company of Muslim friends. One Muslim confides: "I have some Christian friends who have visited Mecca in the last few years--also a Jewish friend."

Officially, the U.S. is unfazed by this state-sponsored segregation. A State Department official tells me that, while "Saudi Arabia is a candidate for designation as a 'country of particular concern' under the International Religious Freedom Act,. . . the most acute problems that non-Muslims in Saudi Arabia face concern the almost virtual prohibition on engaging in their own worship. We are not aware of many demands by non-Muslims to visit Islamic holy sites."

But even at the State Department, the ban rankles. "Every religion needs to have its own freedom of assembly and be able to protect the integrity of its holy places," said one State Department expert. "But it's just absurd that it goes to these great lengths. . . . Even if you don't care about lofty ideals like religious freedom or openness, we're starting to see some real connections between religious intolerance and terrorism."

In 1995, incidentally, Saudi money funded the building of an enormous, $50 million mosque in Rome, just a stone's throw from St. Peter's Square.

We're starting to see some real connections between religious intolerance and terrorism. Starting? Starting?

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Fri. 08/29/03 12:12:47 PM
Categorized as International.