Hirsi Ali compares Islam and Catholicism to Nazism

Metro: Do you see any positive sides to Islam?

Hirsi Ali: That’s like asking if I see positive sides to Nazism, communism, Catholicism.

Comments

[Osman]

The things is, comparisons of anything to Nazism are one of frequently peddled arguments in Internet chatrooms. Her argument makes her look quite childish.

Why is anyone listening to her anyway?

[raashid]

There are people both in the US and the UK that will constantly evoke Nazi Germany in discussing there enemies be they real or imagined. I think a German official once scoffed at how the British establishment seem to have made there whole national identity around the mythology of there heroic struggle against the ultimate evil of Nazism.

[interested by stander]

What a small minded individual. And utterly ahistorical at that.

[aineliva]

Personally I have no problems with her comparison including Catholicism, I've never been a Muslim so I cannot make any comment on that.

[interested by stander]

So the faith I live by is Nazism.

And by extension in being a faithful catholic, I am a Nazi.

I did not know that.

[aineliva]

Really "interested by stander", my comment was about Catholicism in general and the institution. And being a Catholic and an Irish Catholic, I am well qualified to speak about that which I know to be true, and the betrayal by Catholic Institutions of the Irish people and thereby, if one is being realistic by the very people who supported and keep the faith in existence.

I was not speaking of you or individual Catholics.

Of course if you wish to take offence that option is open to you; as we live in a democratic society (I hope), actually that is a point. Catholicism - the Irish form - prevented many Irish from living in a democracy. The Catholic Church with it's involvement in, and stranglehold on the political life of my country for many years, thereby rendering us a theoracy, without any referendum being held on the issue.

And every week our donations to the Church helped shore up and finance it's facist behaviour. Ironic isn't it?

So yes, I agree with Hirsi Ali on this issue, and I believe that she has quite a clear and rational perspective on the whole issue of religion and it's effects on society. What we really need now is a "Catholic" Hirsi Ali. Actually, we did have one, Ivan Illich, but the Church silenced him.

[George Carty]

About the Catholic-Nazi comparisons, it must be admitted that the Catholic church did often support reactionary right-wing politicians between the World Wars (some of which did indeed become Nazi collaborationists).

I wonder if that's one of the reasons why Europe stayed so stubbornly secular after World War II, while the rest of the world started turning to religion again. (Well, that and the fact that the atheist communist Red Army did more than anything else to smash the Nazis...)

[interested by stander]

Thank you for your reply ainiliva.

Your nationality and upbringing are irrelevant to whether or not a catholic would find the label "nazi" offensive and wholly inaccurate. Catholics are not nazis and the Catholic church is not nazi. Catholicism views any form of racism as idolatry, setting up ethnic origin as a defining feature of a person or a guide to ordering society is abhorrent to catholic teaching.

If you want to discuss the church, warts and all, do so please , but we need to leave gratuitous insults aside.