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« Copyright contretemps | Main | Culture in Hartford » Friday, December 1, 2006Muslims vs. Kierkegaard?Here's something brought to my attention by another one of my favorite people, photo historian and writer Luc Sante ("Low Life," "The Factory of Facts," "Evidence"). I've never met Luc face to face but we've emailed for years, written for the same publications, and shared tips on finding rare books by obscure Belgian cartoonists. Now he writes this: I know Philosophywatch is on respite ... but I thought you might enjoy my favorite Brit blogger (Ian Penman)'s ruminations on this unexpected invocation of old S. K. I followed the link and here's the deal. As he was watching TV coverage of the Pope's visit to Turkey, the other day, Penman noticed a Muslim protester holding a beautifully constructed placard that read, simply: YOU SPIT ON TOMB OF JESUS What does this mean? I did some searching and though I did not get an answer to my question, I discovered that the BBC's Mark Mardell wondered the same thing. Writing about the protesters in Turkey, he noted: Other placards make more obscure points. "Have you read the Barnabas Bible?" takes a bit of working out. The said Bible turns out to be either a fake written in the 14th Century or the true gospel which predicts the coming of Muhammad, depending on your beliefs. But the one that has me truly baffled is apparently itself a quote: "'We spit on the tomb of Jesus' S Kikeerguard." None of those I speak to who are carrying the banner have even the slightest acquaintance with Danish existentialism or have a clue what the banner means. Can any one out there help decode? Mardell's version of the placard text is different than Penman's, but whether this is because they saw different signs or one of them transcribed it incorrectly, I do not know. A number of BBC readers wrote to Mardell (follow link above, to read their letters) to offer explanations of what the placard might mean, but none could positively identify the origin of the quote. If the quote has an origin. Is this something that Kierkegaard wrote, somewhere? Is it a bit of media pranksterism on the part of anti-Pope Turkish Muslims? Or what? Inquiring minds want to know. Posted by Joshua Glenn at 02:05 PM
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