Connect: 'I inform the proud Muslim people of the world that the author of the Satanic Verses book which is against Islam, the Prophet and the Koran, is sentenced to death." Do you remember Ayatollah Khomeini's "fatwa" against Salman Rushdie in February, 1989? Do you recall the justifiable outrage, indignation and discussions on religion and free speech it provoked?
Well, America's leading televangelist, 75-year-old Pat Robertson, emulated the late ayatollah this week. Speaking on his own Christian Broadcasting Network channel, he called for the assassination of Venezuela's president, Hugo Chávez. Killing Chávez "would be a whole lot cheaper than starting a war [ and] we [ the US] have the ability to take him out", Robertson told viewers.
"I think the time has come that we exercise that ability," he continued. Robertson called Chávez "a dangerous enemy to our south, controlling a huge pool of oil". He said Chávez could "hurt us very badly" and added that because "this is our sphere of influence, we can't let this happen". He concluded by recommending that "covert operatives do the job".
Dear, oh dear! "Take him out" and "do the job" are euphemisms for murder, plain old murder, Pat! Though Robertson later apologised for his remarks, the contempt for life shown by Khomeini and Robertson is breathtaking. In a sense, such calls can be dismissed as fanatics' ravings but these people have (or had) huge influence. What's to be done? Political censorship is unwelcome and in any case doesn't guarantee less influence.
In countries where church and state are separate - a theme these weeks, it seems - it's possible to prosecute people under incitement to hatred legislation. With Islam, this isn't always possible, of course, because Sharia law conflates religious and secular law. However, the fact that any person in the US can appear on TV to advocate murder and get away with it is alarming.
Then again, Robertson does not believe in separating church and state. "There is no such thing as separation of church and state in the Constitution," he told the American Centre for Law and Justice in 1993. "It is a lie of the left and we [ the Christian right] are not going to take it any more." He spouted this garbage despite the US Constitution's guarantee of freedom of religion.
The Christian right is now the muscle behind the Republican party so Robertson will get away with his thuggery.
Then again, perhaps he should forfeit any claim to be "Christian" because of his beliefs. This is, after all, a man who has said: "The feminist agenda is not about equal rights for women. It is about a socialist, anti-family political movement."
Furthermore, he added, feminism encourages women to "leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians". That's the world according to multi-millionaire, past US presidential candidate, Pat Robertson. There is a legitimate debate to be held about feminism. In fact, it has filled plenty of column inches this torpid month.
But when a man suggests that feminism drives women to infanticide, witchcraft, sabotage of the prevailing economic system, having sex with each other and to leave marriages, why should anyone - far less the reported seven million viewers (surely an exaggeration?) - listen to him? He's clearly deranged. But he's dangerous too and uncomfortably close to the Bush White House.
"I know this is painful for the ladies to hear, but if you get married, you have accepted the headship of a man, your husband," he said on his TV show. "Christ is the head of the household and the husband is the head of the wife, and that's the way it is, period," he added. Meanwhile, Bush voters speak about "liberating the women of cover in Afghanistan and Iraq".
Khomeini fundamentalism and Robertson fundamentalism appear to have fewer differences from each other than they have from the kind of humanism - secular or religious - that opposes them. In that sense, the current conflict between these extreme forms of Christianity and Islam can be viewed as a civil war of religious fundamentalism.
Anyway, Tony Blair's allying of the British government so closely with the George Bush side in this kind of a conflict has done huge damage to Britain's Labour Party. You could understand, if not approve of, Britain's Tories rowing in behind Bush, but Blair, when it came to it, chose historical power over principle. He's not the first and won't be the last politician to do that.
But his decision to put British trade union leaders and workers in the same camp as Pat Robertson certainly marks a moment. It could be argued that such an obvious mismatch is thoroughly postmodern. But then you think of recently deceased Labourites like Robin Cook and Mo Mowlam, and it's clear that Blair's price for power has been wrecking the Labour Party.
It was always a risk stealing Tory policies to win power. Who could have predicted, however, that within eight years the rot would mean "New Labour" is now on the same side as a man who advocates assassinating one of the world's few genuine left-wing leaders? Bizarre.