Archbishops comment on offensive cartoons of Muhammad

By Fredrick Nzwili

ENS, SOURCES: Ecumenical News International, Lambeth Palace] Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu has apologized to the global Islamic community over cartoons in a Danish newspaper caricaturing the prophet Muhammad, but urged Muslims incensed over the publication to exercise tolerance and forgiveness in their protests.

“We would wish to send to the [Muslim] community the message of our distress, and hope they will be able ... in the end to forgive what has really upset them very deeply,” said Tutu while attending the dedication of an All Africa Conference of Churches ecumenical centre named after him in Nairobi on February 9.

In his message, Tutu, the former Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town, said Christians would be distressed if someone had portrayed Jesus in an offensive way, and Jews if the holocaust was depicted in a dismissive manner.

“We pray their hearts will be persuaded and if protests have to continue, we hope the protests would be peaceful and dignified, as it is befitting of people of faith,” said Tutu, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984 leading peaceful protests against South Africa’s racist apartheid system.

Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams made remarks about respect and civility at a February 7 dinner given by the Lord Mayor and Lady Mayor of London. “The controversies over free speech versus blasphemy and offence have cast quite a shadow over the prospects of increased trust between different cultures and faiths,” he said. “The Western World likes to think that it is inviting other cultures into a peaceful and enlightened atmosphere of civility. But the ‘strangers’ invited in may well be dismayed to discover that this peacefulness and enlightenment seems to include license to express some very unpeaceful and unenlightened attitudes to minorities of various kinds. Just what kind of ‘civility is this’ the newcomer could ask.”

Tutu appeals to Haitian protestors to stay calm following election

By Matthew Davies

[ENS] As thousands of protestors took to the streets of Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince, in response to the country’s February 7 presidential election, a crowd of 7,000 stormed the city’s Hotel Montana February 13 where former Archbishop of Cape Town, Desmond Tutu, and Executive Council member Louie Crew were guests. Both are safe and have now been transported from the hotel to Haiti’s airport.

Tutu, a Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, appealed to the crowd to remain calm and said that he was very proud of the way that they had responded peacefully to the election.

Speaking by telephone from Port-au-Prince February 14, Crew described the last two days as very dramatic.

“The 7,000 people broke the gate down after an hour and stormed into the front of the hotel,” said Crew, a member of the Diocese of Newark. “Archbishop Tutu spoke to some of them and pleaded for calm.”

Crew explained that, although the experience was harrowing, everyone remained relatively calm “because we didn’t sense that these people were trying to be destructive. They were just celebrating what they think is their victory.”

One of the reasons the protestors targeted the hotel, officials explained, was that members of the electoral council, which does not support leading presidential candidate Rene Preval, had contracted a conference room there.

Preval said February 14 that “gross errors and probably gigantic fraud” marred last week’s elections, but he urged supporters to protest peacefully, the Associated Press reported.

Tutu preached about peace and reconciliation at an ecumenical service at Sainte Trinite Episcopal Cathedral in Port-au-Prince, on Sunday, February 12, where worshippers included government officials, foreign diplomats and international electoral observers. The service marked the inauguration of Haiti’s “National Day of Peace and Tolerance.”

Under the leadership of Bishop Jean Zache Duracin, Eglise Episcopale D’Haiti is one of the Episcopal Church’s 12 overseas dioceses.

(— Matthew Davies is international correspondent/multimedia manager of Episcopal News Service.)