The Pope and the President: the Dictatorship of Relativism

In a land where a doctor performing abortion runs the risk of elimination cannot taunt other nations for cultural relativism. A nation that does not feel shy over the use of water boarding( read, drowning torture) and extraordinary rendition cannot set examples of universality of human rights of man let alone of what is right and what is wrong. A man who can cause a war involving mammoth proportion of human suffering on the pretext of what is certainly a canard cannot point out the cultural relativism when his own is so flimsy. A chief of the armed forces of his country who can seduce people having served time in prison to join war to get permanent citizenship does not know cultural relativism of individual’s morals, or the public morality either.

But President George Bush chose words that are unmistakably barbed with familiar weltanchauung or world view of the west and thus no basis for a dialogue of civilizations, of mutual understanding and peace. He was still harping on April 16, 2008 as he welcomed Pope Benedict XVI, to the white house, what most in the world have already refused to believe. “In a world where some invoke the name of God to justify acts of terror and murder and hate, we need your message that "God is love." And embracing this love is the surest way to save men from "falling prey to the teaching of fanaticism and terrorism." …
“In a world where some no longer believe that we can distinguish between simple right and wrong, we need your message to reject this "dictatorship of relativism," and embrace a culture of justice and truth.”

The truth has emerged in the six years of war on Iraq that the people of Iraq had not fallen prey to the teachings of fanaticism and terrorism till the allied forces invaded it.
What simple right or wrong was there, say, in Iraq, that Bush invaded that unfortunate country which his father’s and then his own defence secretary Mr Donald Rumfeld had armed with deadly gas to confront the Shia insurgents in the South. Where did the notorious ‘Chemical’ Ali get the nerve gas and other deadly gases?
In response to President Bush, Pope Benedict quoted Pope Paul II that "in a world without truth, freedom loses its foundation." There are enough people in the United States who feel strongly that their foundation of freedom is shaken by a web of lies Bush and Blair had woven in their argument for going to war on Iraq. Universality of truth will prevail despite what the president castigated as the cultural relativism of others. Some lies are so often told that the golden opportunity of having the Holy Father around for confession goes in vain for the inveterate liar does not realize what truth is.
Debasing and discarding life in the view of the president is part of cultural relativism. “ In a world where some treat life as something to be debased and discarded, we need your message that all human life is sacred, and that "each of us is willed, each of us is loved" and your message that "each of us is willed, each of us is loved, and each of us is necessary." Thus the President addressed the Pope.
Who debased the human life through sanctions on Iraq where millions of children died of malnutrition and starvation because food and medicine were not allowed for the children and the sick? If at all, cultural specificity of this kind is the hallmark of the West as in the present day set up of the unipolar world. Who has made the prisoners of Abu Gharib jail stand naked with wire tapped to their sex, wear clothes with which they have wiped their feces and that of others, of being kept on leash with terrific dogs threatening to bite off their flesh any time? The night mare of Guatanaymo has become the symbol of human depravity. Is pedophilia the only crime the Americans recognize?



.

.