Another airy, breezy little piece from the BBC. Apparently Col. Gaddafi rounded up 200 young Italian women, in Rome, home of the Catholic church and one of Christianity's holy cities, and harangued them for two hours on the wonders of Islam, urging them to convert.
Of course, the BBC does its best to tell the story in a laugh-a-minute style (that Gaddafi, what a card!) But I wonder what headlines we'd be looking at now if a Western leader had seen fit to go to Mecca and round up 200 women and urge them to convert to Christianity? Flag burning? Riots? The looting of Christian quarters in certain middle-eastern cities? Ancient Catholic nuns in faraway places having their heads chopped off by enraged crowds? All of that, I fear. And the BBC's tone — well it would be rather different.
