THE PRESS, Christchurch
Saturday, September 11, 2010 WORLD B7
FRANCE
‘Muslim’ gargoyle is
fruit of two traditions
A Muslim stone mason who
spent nearly four decades
helping to restore an ancient
Roman Catholic cathedral
has been immortalised, as a
winged gargoyle peering
from the facade of the edifice
with the inscription ‘‘God is
Great’’ at his clawed feet.
This sign of friendship
that spans religions is rooted
in the mediaeval tradition
and the French city of
Lyon’s links to its large
Muslim population. But a
widely publicised outcry
from a tiny extreme-Right
group has forced the diocese
into damage control.
‘‘This has nothing to do
with religion. It’s a sculptor
who wants to pay homage to
a construction site chief,’’
said Michel Cacaud, rector
of the cathedral. ‘‘That’s all.’’
France, where Islam is
the second religion, has
worked to get Muslims to
integrate into the French
culture, while at the same
time confronting cases of
Islamophobia, from
desecration of Muslim
graves to attacks on
mosques.
Ahmed Benzizine, a
practising Muslim born in
Algeria, a former French
colony, sees the gargoyle in
his image as ‘‘a message of
peace and tolerance’’.
‘‘When I started to work
in churches . . . exactly 37
years ago, it was considered
a sin that a Muslim enter a
place of worship other than
a mosque,’’ he said.
He has worked off and on
since 1973 at Saint Jean
Cathedral, which dominates
the old city of Lyon and has
been honoured as a Unesco
World Heritage site.
Benzizine is tickled to see
his likeness on the facade of
the cathedral, which dates to
the 12th to 14th centuries
and combines both Gothic
and Roman architecture.
‘‘It looks like me except
for the ears,’’ said the
59-year-old Benzizine.
‘‘They’re pointed like the
devil. But the sculptor told
me that angels have pointed
ears, too.’’
But he takes his celebrity
with humility.
‘‘I don’t like to stare at it
as people then say, ‘He’s the
gargoyle’,’’ Benzizine said.
But he said he liked the idea
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Sculptor’s homage: Ahmed Benzizine, a practising Muslim born in Algeria, a former French colony, sees the gargoyle in his image as ‘‘a message
of peace and tolerance’’.
that he’ll still be around, in
stone, when his friends are
long gone. ‘‘I tell my buddies
. . . I’m present in this stone
so I can tell them if the
neighbourhood has
changed,’’ he said, laughing.
For Emmanuel Fourchet,
the sculptor who
immortalised Benzizine in
stone, ‘‘it was an occasion to
pay tribute’’.
‘‘I’ve known him for more
than 20 years. He was
already working in churches
when I wasn’t even a stone
mason apprentice. This is an
acknowledgment.’’
Gargoyles, usually
grotesque creatures with
open mouths originally used
as water spouts, dot the
facades of the cathedrals of
France and elsewhere. The
sculptures, often part
animal, were popular in
mediaeval times.
Experts say that, beyond
their plumbing function,
they may have been used to
scare off evil. What is clear
is that Benzizine is not the
first artisan to find his
‘‘What we’re doing has no middle of the road.
You have to believe it is totally, totally God or
absolutely of the devil.’’ – United States pastor
Terry Jones on his plans to burn copies of the
Koran to mark September 11.
‘‘The Cuban model doesn’t even work for us
any more.’’ – Fidel Castro says Soviet-style
communism is unworkable.
‘‘She wanted to know. No. She can’t be
trusted.’’ – Australian independent MP Tony
Windsor on not telling his wife beforehand who he
was backing for prime minister.
‘‘They are given anti-depressants now and
then. But these people work like dogs for very
little money.’’ – John Simpson, the BBC’s world
affairs editor, comparing the corporation’s
employees to the trapped Chilean miners.
‘‘A celebrity is a person who works hard all
his life to become well known, then wears
dark glasses to avoid being recognised.’’ – Fred
Allen.
‘‘The average, healthy, well adjusted adult
gets up at seven-thirty in the morning feeling
just plain terrible.’’ – Jean Kerr.
‘‘Defining and analysing humour is a
pastime of humourless people.’’ – Robert
Benchley.
‘‘Life is a fatal complaint, and an eminently
contagious one.’’ – Oliver Wendell Holmes.
‘‘It’s kind of fun to do the impossible.’’ –
Walt Disney.
‘‘In archaeology you uncover the unknown.
In diplomacy you cover the known.’’ – Thomas
Pickering.
‘‘No man remains quite what he was when
he recognises himself.’’ – Thomas Mann.
‘‘Economics is extremely useful as a form of
employment for economists.’’ – John Kenneth
Galbraith.
‘‘Finance is the art of passing money from
hand to hand until it finally disappears.’’ –
Robert W Sarnoff.
‘‘I tend to live in the past because most of
my life is there.’’ – Herb Caen.
‘‘An ignorant person is one who doesn’t
know what you have just found out.’’ – Will
Rogers.
Michel Cacaud
rector of Lyon
cathedral
Mohammed,’’ the Muslim
prophet and founder of the
Islamic faith. He noted that
he works on all historic
monuments, be they
cathedrals, mosques or
synagogues.
The extreme-Right group,
Identity Youth of Lyon said
on its website that the
‘‘clearly symbolic’’
inscription is ‘‘the
manifestation of a
conquering Islam’’.
‘‘How many Ave Marias
are inscribed on how many
mosques?’’ it asked.
The diocese of Lyon is
quick to point out that the
small group stands alone in
criticising the gargoyle; the
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Terry Jones
‘
There is no
religion that
doesn’t say ‘God
is great’.
Rev Cacaud said
parishioners have not
complained. For the diocese,
the gargoyle named Ahmed
is actually the fruit of two
traditions: honouring
artisans in a cathedral’s
stone work, and embodying
the Christian-Islamic
dialogue that is part of
Lyon’s recent religious
history.
In France’s third-largest
city, a delegate of the
archdiocese is devoted to
relations with Islam. In 2007
Cardinal Philippe Barbarin,
archbishop of Lyon, and
local Muslim leader
Azzedine Gaci led a
pilgrimage to Tibhirine, an
Algerian village where
seven Trappist monks were
executed in 1996 by radical
Islamic insurgents.
‘‘There is no religion that
doesn’t say ‘God is great’, be
one Christian, Jewish,
Muslim,’’ said Cacaud. But
the gargoyle, he insisted, is a
way to honour a faithful
worker and ‘‘to say simply
AP
and solely ‘thank you’.’’
s
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QUOTE UNQUOTE
Fidel Castro
likeness on a cathedral, in
his case with wings and
clawed, bird-like feet.
‘‘It’s a long tradition, to
represent the artisans who
worked on a site . . . either
for humour, derision or to
pay them homage,’’ said
Cacaud, who ‘‘of course’’
gave his OK to adding
Benzizine to the cathedral’s
collection of gargoyles.
The Benzizine gargoyle
has been in place six
months, but until recently,
few people noticed.
However, a recent campaign
by a small extreme-Right
group denouncing the
likeness of a Muslim on a
Catholic institution and the
inscription proclaiming
‘‘God is Great’’ in French
and Arabic – Dieu est grand,
Allahu Akbar – has put
everyone on the defensive,
even Benzizine.
‘‘Just the fact that it’s
written in Arabic, it shocked
a minority,’’ because it
evokes Islam, he said. But,
Benzizine insisted, ‘‘God IS
great. It’s not talking about