This AP piece on the Muslim anti-Christian riots in Egypt, "Egypt's Christians, Muslims Clash Again," (thanks to Bryce), suggests by its headline and the lead paragraphs about the destruction of a Muslim's cafe that the violence is being perpetrated by both sides. Then you read on and find out that the Muslim protestors in Egypt destroyed this man's cafe, and what have the Christians been doing to provoke all this? Burning mosques? Assaulting Muslims? No: "mocking Islam."
ALEXANDRIA, Egypt -- Abu Abbas looked in disbelief around his ravaged cafe just a few yards from a Coptic Christian church. Its wooden chairs lay broken and strewn about and shattered glass from broken lamps littered the floor after his business was caught in the crossfire of Egypt's latest Christian-Muslim uproar.Abu Abbas' cafe is right next to St. George's, one of seven churches in two Alexandria neighborhoods attacked by thousands of Muslims on the night of Oct. 21. The protesters faced off against hundreds of riot police trying to protect the church. But in the melee, they shattered St. George's windows and destroyed Abu Abbas' cafe.
"The storm passed by my shop, and I had to escape from the shower of stones, tear gas and rubber bullets to save my life," said the bearded Abu Abbas, a 57-year-old Muslim, who refused to identify himself beyond his nickname because of tensions after the rioting.The violence was triggered by a play put on by Christians deemed offensive to Islam. The play had gone unnoticed when it was first performed at St. George's two years ago. Though it has not been performed recently, it caught Muslims attention when, according to security officials, Islamic extremists may have been distributing DVDs of it to raise tensions ahead of parliamentary elections next week.
But many feel the cause of the rioting goes far deeper, rooted in the growing enmity between Egypt's Muslims and Christians.
In Arabic chat rooms on the Internet, exchanges of insults between the two communities are routine. Christian satellite channels broadcast a heavy dose of hatred of Muslims and mockery of Islam is becoming commonplace among Egypt's Copts.
Meanwhile, small mosques, unmonitored by the government, have mushroomed across Egypt, depicting Christians as "apostates."...
Sitting at the headquarters of the Coptic Orthodox church in Alexandria, the cell phone of a Coptic community leader Kamil Sadiq rang constantly as frightened Christians called in to ask what they should do now....
The antagonism has swelled so much that after the riots, President Hosni Mubarak made a rare acknowledgment of the tensions. On Saturday, he told a gathering of Muslim scholars they need to promote "a religious discourse that cuts away intrigues and backbiting among Muslims and Christians -- to preserve Egypt's stability, social fabric and national unity."
"Teach young people that heaven's law prohibits spilling the blood of the innocent," he said. "Remind them always that religion is between them and God, and our nation is for everyone. Nobody has a monopoly on faith."
Good. Will they heed? Or declare that the Christians aren't innocent, just as some Muslim jurists have declared that no Israeli is innocent?
The Copts that were silent beyond all endurance since Sadat opened the floodgate of Islamism on the entire world in Egypt until the patience of mountains failed. The church discouraged Coptic reaction to the outrageous Islamic attacks on the community in every facet of life… The preoccupation of the Muslims seemed to be “What new ways can we come up with to ravage and humiliate the Copts and then rub their nose in it.
Since Egypt was the chasm that fomented the rise of the modern Islamist Jihadist groups and societies, the Copts though an unlikely candidate were thrust into the role of the first line of defenders of Christian and Western cultures, which they represented in the heart of the Ummah. The Copts could not and would not match the Muslims tit for tat, repaying Islamic violence, insults, and hate. However, the Copts were the first Christian group in the modern world to lunch a spiritual and intellectual counter-Jihad, managing to wrestle away former terrorists, Islamic clerics and professors out of the fold of Islam, humiliating and enraging Muslims to end. The cyber world and satellite television have become the new battle fronts against the aggression and the existential threat that the Muslims unceasingly lunch against the entire world. No other unwilling Dhimmis living under Islam, not even the Maronites, dared to challenge Islam itself, its ideology, cruelty, its imperialistic and parasitic nature, the character or lack of it of its founder, and the mother of all myth that there is such a thing as moderate Islam.
"Teach young people that heaven's law prohibits spilling the blood of the innocent," he said. "Remind them always that religion is between them and God..."
-- Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak
Taquiyya!
The quintessential differentiator between Islam and all other religions is that the workspace of infidel religions is between self and God; Islam's workspace is between the other and God, specifically between the infidel and his non-Allah God, which is absolutely unacceptable.
PBUH PBUH PBUH PBUH PBUH PBUH PBUH PBUH PBUH PBUH PBUH PBUH PBUH PBUH
Koran 01.06 Keep us on the right path.
Koran 01.07 The path of those upon whom Thou hast bestowed favors. Not (the path) of those upon whom Thy wrath is brought down, nor of those who go astray.
PBUH PBUH PBUH PBUH PBUH PBUH PBUH PBUH PBUH PBUH PBUH PBUH PBUH PBUH
So much tension. So much anger. So much... meddling.
Only Moslems would invent a pejorative (infidel) to belittle and threaten those who dare not maintain fidelity to their God.
So the Muslims feel their religion was "mocked" because the Copts produced a play about a Christian who was given financial inducement to convert and changed his mind. "Embarassment" is what they should have felt, but then this story is mild compared to the account a former/reformed Islamist (who converted to Christianity in the end, himself) gave of efforts to convert Christian females, particularly those from wealthy families. They are deliberately targetted, seduced and then treated as trash for having been soiled. The Islamists are rewarded for their successful conversions accordingly, the religious authorities put up the bounties and the Egyptian police are complicit in these acts. frontpagemag.com carried the account back in the summer.
Mocked and embarassed? What about past millions that have been so treated and forced to convert or pay the jizyah? What about our contemporaries that are going through the same process?
In the West we would call this a statement of hypocrisy, a dissembling that doesn't reflect a true feeling or belief. But, here's the kicker: Muslims believe that such behavior is not hypocritical but a mandate of the Koran, a repeat of the behavior of Mohammed and his immediate followers that grabbed up as bootyevery woman and child they could find, taking also their property. That wealthy Egyptian non-Muslim women are taken and treated as garbage should surprise no one that has studied history and current events.
This article by an AP reporter is incredibly frustrating and largely one-sided. Of course, the victim interviewed, no surprise, is a Muslim shop keeper. Whether they reside in Islamic countries, or in the West, Muslims are always the victims. The press makes sure of that continual portrayal. However, Egyptian Christians, who are second class citizens in their own country in every way, are painted as equally guilty of "tensions." This is a perfect example of mainstream press bias; if there is a Christian element to a story, the Christians are always the bad guys and trouble makers. The press fawns over Muslim minorities in the West, but never seems to notice the many difficulties and injustices of non-Muslim minorities in Islamic countries. It makes me wonder where overseas reporters hang out when they are not in front of their computers. Maybe the reporters in Islamic countries meet for drinks, only the soft kind in deference to Muslim feelings of course, with like-minded US State Department officials and a few Muslims deemed "progressive." It's probably safer that way and much easier to get the politically correct slant on issues too for the folks and bosses back home in the newsrooms.
Don't they have something better to do?
Like, GO TO WORK?
maryrose:
You make a good point vis the selectivity of the AP reporter -- the good old "Muslims are victims too" theme song, however subtly played.
La Mohammed
La Allah
No Mohammed
No Allah
Only
Prophet Geoff
BBUH
There. That insulting enough?
Muslims riot? Say it ain't so.
Evacuate Christians from Egypt. If you're any kind of Christian at all you should be storming your churches to organize that. But I write from the outside, so maybe I'm totally wrong and it's a good thing to have Christians enslaved, robbed, raped, and murdered by an intransigent Muslim horde who grow stronger and more emboldened daily.
Qur’an 8:39 “So fight them until there is no more Fitnah (disbelief) and all submit to the religion of Allah alone (in the whole world).”
Qur’an 9:5 “Fight and kill the disbelievers wherever you find them, take them captive, harass them, lie in wait and ambush them using every stratagem of war.”
Qur’an 9:29 “Fight those who do not believe until they all surrender, paying the protective tax in submission.”
Bukhari:V4B53N386 “Our Prophet, the Messenger of our Lord, ordered us to fight you till you worship Allah alone or pay us the Jizyah tribute tax in submission. Our Prophet has informed us that our Lord says: ‘Whoever amongst us is killed as a martyr shall go to Paradise to lead such a luxurious life as he has never seen, and whoever survives shall become your master.’”
I can't find where it says spilling blood is prohibited. Mubarak must have a very different copy of the Koran and traditions.
Strange how AP never mentioned the bible burning which took place as well.
They sure are quick to spread fables of koran flushing however.
Here is a link to vidio of muslim riots in Alexandria, church burning, bible burning, etc.
None of this is shown in Islamic terrorist loving MSM.
http://mychristianblood.blogspirit.com/archive/2005/10/23/muslim-blogger-comments-about-what-happened-in-alexandria.html
Where is the outrage??
Aparently, there are thousands of Christians protesting in Paris of all places, in front of the Egyptian embassy demanding freedom to practise all religion in Egypt.
http://mychristianblood.blogspirit.com/archive/2005/11/01/paris-thousands-protesting.html
Demonstration planned in New York
THE AMERICAN COPTIC ASSOCIATION (CHRISTIANS OF EGYPT) is planning a large demonstration in front of the United Nations
Location:
43 rd. ST. & 1 st. AVE. NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK.
Date:
Thursday, November 3, 2005 at 12:00 PM
Contact:
THE AMERICAN COPTIC ASSOCIATION
500 SUMMIT AVENUE
Union City, NJ 07087
TEL: 201-902-7999 FAX: 201-863-4111
For New Jersey residents you can take the :
Demonstration buses departing from :
Martin Luther King School (Across from C Town)
Bergen Avenue, Jersey city
At 10:00 AM
Good link Mullahmasher. Spread that sucker around, man!
Word from:
Prophet Geoff
BBUH
God bless the internet. If it hadn't been for cyberspace, the Copts probably never would have had access to the sort of news or chat forums that have made them more willing to address their situation. Having a place where they can tell Muslims what they really think of them without fear of retaliation. That must be a revolutionary thing, after 1,400 years of humiliation under the religion of peace.
Looks to me like they're getting more and more uppity to their Muslim mastuhs all the time. I don't think this is going to be the end of it.
Well it seems that Egyptians may not say anything good about Christianity even famous Egyptian born Omar Sharif is facing death threats and he is a Muslim.Did he insult them?Is this being printed in the AP ?Lets continue to ask the press for more info about the the threats to the Coptic pope Isn't that newsworthy?
Remember that Omar Sharif was BORN a Copt. Then, when he became a prominent actor in Egypt, he was told that someone so prominent, with such influence on the public, ought to be a Muslim. So he converted. Now, he played Peter or Giovanni Battista in a recent Italian movie. So his Muslim coreligionists are mad at him. He could be a second Rushdi.
Here's another news flash: Muslims mock Christians, AND NO ONE CARES!