The JMJ 2011 (Jornadas Mundiales de la Juventud) started yesterday in Madrid, and will last until Sunday. This is a religious Christian celebration where young people from all over the world have the chance to experience the universality of the Church and meet the Pope. It is know in English as World Youth Day, WYD.
Everything up to here is fine, even nice if you have religious inclinations. This event is held in a different country every three years. The problem with the celebration in Spain is that public funds finance the Pope visit in a country that is on the verge of bankruptcy, not to mention that the Spain government offers tax breaks to those companies that help the maintenance of the Catholic Church in Spain!
In any case, I am digressing here. It turned out that today there was also in Madrid a secular demonstration to protest against the Pope visit, and especially the money allocated by the government to support the JMJ. Over 5000 people attended the demonstration that was completely peaceful until the finish point in Puerta del Sol, where a number of pilgrims where waiting for them. This situation provoked confrontations among the two groups, and outbursts of violence that ended up with eight people detained and eleven injured. This piece of news had more buzz than the case of what we could call an extreme Christian terrorist detained yesterday. Well, police authorities arrested a 24 years old student from Mexico who planned to attack the demonstration with chemical gases similar to those who killed dozens of people in the Tokio metro system years ago. This man tried to recruit people on ultra Christian and proto fascists internet forums in which he encouraged people to use sarin gas to kill from 200 to 400 people.
My question is what if he would have been a Moslem from any Arab country? How much more repercussion would have had this arrest?
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