Church members have been holding daily prayer vigils at the site since late December, but Friday's gathering was the largest because many people from outside Hanoi had come to the capital to celebrate Cardinal Pham Dinh Tung's 90th birthday. No arrests were made and police did not break up the event.
"I haven't seen anything like this before," said parishioner Nguyen Ngoc Vinh, 70, who stood quietly in the rain as the marching band and a huge drum played. "We are not protesting, but we are just asking the government to give it back."
What does it mean that in this Communist country some people find the courage to stand up for themselves, while in Great Britain, they're pre-censoring the Three Little Pigs voluntarily? (Instacurtsy.) Mark Steyn observes in First They Came For Piglet,
Just for the record, it’s true that Muslims, like Jews, are not partial to bacon and sausages. But the Koran has nothing to say about cartoon pigs. Likewise, it is silent on the matter of whether one can name a teddy bear after Mohammed.This ridiculous deference to what Islam doesn't even say reminds me of a bit from the old Mel Brooks-Carl Reiner routine, the 2000-year-old man. I'm paraphrasing, but in the course of the 2000-yr-old man explaining the origins of religion, he describes the first prayer. There was a guy among the first inhabitants of earth who was a giant with a fierce temper: Phil.
So our first prayers were: Oh, Phil! Please do not step on us or squish us or stomp on our children!All this cowering and begging, please don't kill us or blow up our children. It seems to spring from an unpleasant premise about Muslims some might call prejudice. Do we believe in civilized Islam or no?
Omeyn.
