``Habemus Papam, Bello!``

IN THE year 1095 AD, Pope Urban II, (who was born French), stood in the French city of Clermont, and called for a HOLY WAR to free Jerusalem from Islamic domination.

In a passionate and convincing rhetoric, that echoed holiness, he succeeded in convincing Christians, (Catholics only then), that it was duty to God, to do so. He added the juice that there were more fertile lands in the hands of Moslems, than in congested Europe. So, go for it! Within months, Christian armies, (British, German, French, Dutch, Danish, Italian, Portuguese), everybody was en march, to Jerusalem!! The Crusades had begun.

The young Christian soldiers chanted on their way to the front, “Deus le volt”, “God wills it, it is God's will.”

The first conquest came in 1099, two weeks before the Pope passed away, and as there was no CNN then, the news did not reach him, “pre mortem”. Jerusalem had fallen into the hands of jubilating Christians; the first Crusade had been successfully executed. There were to be two more, and the third, which was favourably concluded by the Muslims under Saladin, (Salahudin), the then Governor of Egypt and Syria, was in the year 1199 AD, one hundred years after the invocation by Pope Urban II. It would go down in history as the “hundred-years-war.” You can guess the casualty figures on both sides.

On November 6, 2007, King Abdullah ibn Abdulaziz of Saudi Arabia, on his way home after a triumphant visit to Great Britain, both a private visit to “Her Majesty The Queen, Elizabeth II”, and at the same time, a state visit, paid Pope Benedict XVI a historical visit at the Vatican.

In an encounter, where both the Pope and the King had smiles on their faces, the Pope appealed to King Abdullah of the Wahabist Kingdom, “to let Religious Freedom come the way of 1.5 million non-Muslims living in his Kingdom.” Such an utterance had not come from any previous Pontius that I know of, or read of. A historic happening, indeed!

From “first-hand experience,” however, the Christian community in the world has tolerated for more than four decades, “dominance” of one religion, (Islam) until it has almost reached “a crash of civilizations.”

For example, at a conference in Sweden 15 years ago, I heard the call for prayer around mid-day from my room at the Royal Viking's Hotel in Stockholm, around mid-day. The Mosque isn't any distance from the Royal Palace, and hence also not far from the Cathedral, (formerly Roman Catholic), but since Martin Luther's Reformation, Protestant, Swedish monarchs are crowned in this Cathedral.

Almost next door is the Mosque, financed by the late King Fahd ibn Abdulaziz of Saudi Arabia. Western tolerance allows that to happen. Worship as you wish! You may build a Mosque, almost anywhere you wish. You may not worship at all. That too, is accepted.

It was the landing I did not particularly enjoy, for it was mid-day, and I had a window seat, from which I saw the desert terrain, but the beautiful city of Jeddah on the Red Sea coast was visible too, and with it the consolation, if you like. I had been enjoying cognac “intercalated” with the best of German beer all along, taking note of the fact that after landing, I wasn't going to be able to enjoy anything of the sort, until I might discover a source…

So, next was the immigration at the King Abdulaziz Airport, (in Saudi Arabia, everything is King X, King Y, or Prince X, and Y.). I had among other things, a copy of the Holy Bible in German inside one of my suitcases. The customs officer looked at it, then just groped through, but handed it back to me. People I later met, after a couple of weeks in Jeddah, were surprised it was given back to me. But, it was. The regime wasn't very much tolerant of things like that.

The Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) was the last prophet, and hence, if you believed in God, then you must be Muslim, simple. But, it was such that you could read your Bible, even sing hymns of whatever denomination, so long as it wouldn't get too loud to disturb, or arouse a neighbour, who might get the “Askari” (the police) to try and “take control.” If in the process it was discovered you were trying to “worship as a Christian”, you might get into trouble, and that could be imprisonment, or deportation. Most of the time, it was deportation. You may not worship freely. The “powerful nations” had an easier way around this ultra-rigid situation.

Get a Pastor to come in as a Diplomat, and then an arrangement such as a basket-ball hall, or an indoor football pitch, attached to the Embassy or mission. Fridays, it becomes a chapel. The compound had an entirely different connotation. It meant an enclosed housing area where hundreds of flats, (they preferred the name, villas) would exist, and only foreigners dwelled in such places. There, you date (otherwise forbidden), you imbibe any amount of alcohol (your pocket and tenacity), and you were a free man until you crossed the boundary.

“Crossing the boundary” was, for example, getting yourself into a vehicle, with a female passenger, who isn't married to you, nor is she your relative. It was worse if you had a bottle of whisky in your boot. But, that could be an advantage in disguise too. You could swap it by parting with the whisky to the gendarme, and you drive home a free man. You would all recollect the scenario recently, where a nineteen-year-old female got gang-raped, and she got more severely punished for riding in a car with seven young men, none of them her relatives, nor spouse. The entire world got disgusted, but except former 1st Lady Hilary R. Clinton and Senator B. Obama, who both contested the US presidential slot for Franklin D. Roosevelt's party (Democrats), no big man has raised any voice in support of the “poor victim”.

This is the way it has been since time immemorial. For the sake of business, “you cannot afford to hurt…” This is one reason why the Filipinos, traditionally a docile group, who will give you the left if you slap them on the right, all of a sudden got such applause by standing vigil when Sara Balabagan was to be executed by beheading in the Emirates for murdering her master. Her case, if you permit a reminder, was like this: The middle-aged employer would jump on the pretty teenage house-help almost every night. Protesting seemed not to change anything.

One “not so fine evening” for her employer, she had a long sharp kitchen-knife hidden in her bed. At the right time, she slit his neck open, the way it's done to goats. He died of his wound almost instantly. The Emirates, otherwise a very liberal enclave, sprang up to “demand what they called justice - Sara Balabagan's head.” Filipino tenacity and solidarity won the day. Sarah was set free, and she returned to the Philippines a free girl, and a heroine. She found a place in show business, and is believed to be doing well.

The present Monarch of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia ascended the thrown amidst gigantic flares of hope from the woman fold of his country, as the man who had come to usher in the long overdue reforms. A couple of years into his ascending the throne, that glimmer of hope seems to be dwindling. There is the notion emanating from intellectual circles, echoing that indeed, wanting the changes he may desire, he nevertheless seems powerless to override the same people who form the core of his power-base.

In the 7th Century AD, when Islam swept across from Arabia taking Egypt and the whole of North Africa, and the Southern parts of countries bordering the Mediterranean Ocean, it was a power and culture miles ahead of the “not so advanced” Western Europe. The Arabesque culture and religion were both to thrive in the Iberian Peninsula till the Crusades in the 10th and 11th centuries. The first medical schools were built under the tutelage of Muslims (Arabs). There was also co-operation with the Jews in the field of Medicine. Avicenna, Abucasis, Ibin Sina are a couple of examples. When did decadence so set in? No part of Islam could be cited, which underpins subservience of woman to man. God created him (Adam), so the Bible says in Genesis. Does this form the basis for the chaos?

The Quran's version isn't much different regarding servitude. Christians have made lots of mistakes in the past, but there is evidence of equality closing in fast. Germany, Argentina, Liberia have female heads of state. We nearly saw a new one in the mighty USA.

Indonesia, Bangladesh, Turkey and Pakistan have had female chief executives. The right to vote was given to women in Switzerland less than forty years ago. In the same period, men and women would be assigned to the same type of jobs in a factory, and women would be paid 30% less. That is in Germany. So, wherein lies the justification for the suppression? We have a good Pope, “Habemus Papam, Bello.” That should be the glimmer of hope.