The American Spectator

They say that the Lord works in mysterious ways. Last year’s remarks by Pope Benedict XVI — when he spoke of the Qur’an’s commands to spread Islam by the sword as incompatible with reason — were met with the usual rage from many in the Muslim community and their sympathizers. Though it did not immediately seem so, this might just have signaled a watershed event in the global struggle against those who are most willing to use that sword.

Soon after the Pope’s remarks, rare yet un-isolated cases of common sense seem to be breaking out all over and resistance, armed and otherwise, to the Islamist threat has manifested itself in some unexpected places. And although these voices still represent a woeful minority, they are no less welcome or hopeful.

p>When typical Islamist outrage threatened the cancellation of a Berlin staging of Mozart’s Idomeneo which depicted the severed head of the Prophet Muhammad — along with those of Jesus Christ, Buddha and the Greek god Poseidon — German politicos reacted swiftly. Said Berlin Mayor Klaus Wowereit , without naming names: br> /p>

Our ideas about openness, tolerance and freedom must be lived out on the offensive. Voluntary self-limitation gives those who fight against our values a confirmation in advance that we will not stand behind them.

br> But Bavarian state premier Edmund Stoiber went further, adding , “We must never give up our constitutional freedoms out of fear of Islamist thought-terrorism.” Quite a remarkable reaction and one that was partially responsible for newly scheduled performances of the opera — with the offending scene still included — taking place without incident this month. p>Meanwhile, deep in the heart of old Europe, Robert Redeker, a French philosophy professor, is still on the run in fear of his life from you know whom. His crime? An op-ed in the newspaper, Le Figaro