Letter from a friend to SBD members about the Pope speech in Germany.

Dear Deng

There is a huge controversy going on in the Islamic world about the Pope's speech at a university in Germany.

A lot of rage and misunderstanding prevails for lack of direct reading of his words.

This is the most intellectual Pope that I have ever come to read for.

This speech is very deep and regards in particular "faith and reason". It is at once written to engage the Western world which seems to be embracing reason as its own religion without regard to faith, and at the same time a direct conversation with the Islamic world that seems to embrace an all transcending God whose commands supercede "reason" itself and hence justifies everything including "violence" which in this case is contrary to God's "rational" nature.

Many in Sudaneseonline claim "intellectualism", which have become very doubtful in my mind with regards to Sudanese in general, and Northerners in particular. Post the murder of Mahmound Mohammad Taha I believe that the North has began a fast falling downward spiral.

The Pope, contrary to the propaganda out there has not attacked Islam but quoted a medieval emperor. Nevertheless the theme of the argument propsed by the emperor are in the Pope's opinion correct and needs to be heeded by both the West and Islam.

For the west the message is " You can not have dialogue with very religious societies such as the Islamic world without including in the circle of "science" the rationality of faith in a Supreme being", and the for the Islamic world the message is the same as the emperor intended " Faith can not be imposed by force because it's contrary to the "eternal "soul of man which comes from the Divine, as well as to God whose nature is not violent but "rational".

That's it in a nutshell.

I know that you do not engage in religious discussions because it doesn't help the case of the "New Sudan", however, the above has nothing to do with religion and more to do with rational and intellectual dialogue. I hope there are still some Sudanese who can have a health "intellectual" discussions about matters so deep that are causing all kinds of destruction in the world. In our case 2 million dead, and in the case of Iraq an uncalled for destruction and carnage, for which the Iraqis have very little to gain from.

You may use this email from me as a prologue to placing the article in Sudaneseonline for review.