Muslims Killing Muslims Killing Muslims...

Hum log aikk doosray ko qat'l kertay thakhtay nahin. We never tire off killing each other. Lately there is a double whammy surfacing there again. First, as I recall it happened in Lahore many years ago. The zealots killed someone, and the the next day in the Qabristan, they shot and killed more mourners. Then couple of days back this was repeated in Swat. Muslims killing Muslims killing Muslims...

So when we read about clash of civilization it is but natural to smirk a little.

Will the Clash of Faiths Go on Forever?

By Daniel Lazare,

Under a policy known as "simultaneum," Catholics and Protestants in biconfessional (dual religious) cities even learned to share the same church. If this sounds unremarkable, consider what would happen today if some rabidly Zionist rabbi and a firebrand imam were required to share the same synagogue or mosque. In liberal Holland -- about which an English diplomat once remarked, "Religion may possibly do more good in other places, but it does less harm here" -- the problem was how to square the freedom of conscience guaranteed by the Union of Utrecht, the 1579 treaty that gave rise to the Dutch republic, with the religious monopoly of the Dutch Reformed Church. The treaty allowed the Dutch to believe in any religion they liked but to practice only one. What to do? With their usual pragmatism, the Dutch settled on a policy of official conformity and unofficial laxity, a policy exemplified by the tiny schuilkerken (literally, "house churches") that members of Holland's substantial Catholic minority were permitted to build in attics, backrooms and courtyards. Cozy and gemütlich, these were the antithesis of the grandiose Baroque structures springing up in Catholic territories. Lacking such outward displays as crosses, bells or towers, they were nonetheless richly outfitted with altars, galleries, organs and vaulted roofs. Since keeping a low profile was essential, one such schuilkerk entered into an elaborate agreement with the Amsterdam town fathers not to park sleds out front, not to allow crowds to congregate or parade through the streets and not to schedule services so that parishioners would interfere with crowds of Protestant worshipers heading off to their own churches.