The story of my struggles: the memoirs of Arminius Vambéry, Volume 2Vámbéry, Ármin
History
The story of my struggles: the memoirs of Arminius Vambéry, Volume 2
Vámbéry, Ármin
Vámbéry, Ármin, 1832-1913
Remarkable and inexplicable it certainly remains why in Western lands,
with the prevailing scepticism in the cultured world, far more tolerance
or indifference is shown towards the freethinker than towards people who
hold different religious views from our own. In Asia the hatred of and
fanaticism against those of another creed are the outcome of strong
faith, and since these are fostered and upheld by the Government,
antagonistic feelings, though probably deeper rooted, do not express
themselves so vehemently or so frequently as with us. Our laws and our
notions of decency guard against the outbreak of passion, but they
cannot break the power of prejudice even in the breast of the most
cultured. When we consider the relations of the Christian West towards
the Moslemic East, it will strike us that the sympathies of Europeans,
however unprejudiced they may think themselves, when it comes to the
political questions of the day will always be more on the side of the
Christian than of the Mohammedan subjects of Turkey, although the
Mohammedan subjects of the Porte have to suffer more from the despotism
of the Government than the Christians under the protection of the
Western Powers. The European still looks upon the Mohammedan,
Brahmanist, Buddhist, &c., as an inferior being whose faith he ridicules
and blackens and whom he could not under any circumstances regard as his
equal, and in spite of the protection extended by our laws to those of
another creed, the follower of the doctrines of Mohammed, Buddha, and
Vishnu feels always uncomfortable, strange, and restricted in Western
lands. And the Jews do not fare much better, although they have adopted
the language, manners, and customs of the various lands of Europe.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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