Kirkuk Archbishop Louis Sako said that thieves repeatedly stabbed and strangled lay Christians Fadhila Naoum, 85, and Margaret Naoum, 79, after breaking into their house at 7:30 p.m. on Monday evening (March 26).Though a police official told The Associated Press that he had ruled out the possibility of attempted robbery, Sako said he believed the murders were motivated only by theft.
The main reason [for attacks on Christians] is money.
.......................Clergy in Baghdad told Compass that five of seven church leaders kidnapped in Iraq last year were likely targeted solely for money.
The organization [Open Doors] noted that Muslim extremists have worked to expel Christians from certain cities, but said that most Iraqi Christians are targeted because they own shops and are believed to have money. – from this news article
"murders...motivated only by theft."
"[t]the main reason....is money."
"likely targeted solely for money."
The archbishop commented that “chaos” in Iraq, not religious violence, was behind the killings."
How very insistent, very very insistent, over-insistent, are these Christian spokesmen, clerics, groups. They are very, very concerned not to alarm anyone by daring to point to the obvious.
Non-Muslims in a Muslim society have always been a source of wealth for the Muslims. The Jizyah of non-Muslims provided the money for the Muslim state. In the last 150 years, the payment of the Jizyah in the Ottoman Empire was, under pressure of European powers, supposedly done away with, though it lingered wherever Muslims thought they could get away with it, or was imposed in various disguised ways.
The situation has a familiar ring. Christians and Jews in Islamic lands have historically been treated as ready sources of money, just as in medieval Christendom, Jews were often exploited by monarchs as a source of funds, on pain of death, and even put to death in order to obtain possession of their property. (See, for example, "Simon de Montfort and His Cause," ed. Rev. W. H. Hutton, the accounts of Matthew Paris and especially that of Thomas Wykes on the mass murder of London's Jews in 1264, prior to the expulsion of England's Jews in 1297).
Would anyone think it fair to say that the mistreatment of Jews in medieval Europe, and the repeated seizures, in many places at many times, of their property, which was extorted or simply appropriated at the time of their expulsions, was merely a matter of "money," and unrelated to the cruelties and barbarity of antisemitism?
Similarly, does anyone think that the cruel mistreatment of Christians in present-day Iraq, and the attacks on them, is simply a "matter of money," as do the Christian spokesmen above, who are obviously too terrified to say otherwise? And these statements are made for public consumption both to calm down Christians and to avoid being attacked even more by Muslims who would be angered if the local Christians told the full truth about their situation and about Muslim behavior. That is humanly understandable, but it is nevertheless the case that the statements remain false. They are, however, not nearly as grotesquely false as those statements that are made by the terrified "Palestinian" Christians who are quick to publicly blame Israel for the attacks on them by Muslims -- because only the bravest or most foolhardy dare to tell the truth about the real source of their fear, which is Islam, which is Muslims.
Even as the Christians pack up and leave, as best they can, and head either for the comparative safety of some Assyrian villages in the north, or the slightly better conditions under Kurds rather than Arabs, or to Syria, where the Alawite dictatorship for reasons of its own offers greater protection to Christians because the Alawites themselves are threatened by Muslims who think of them as Infidels, they may continue to pretend that things were "fine." For how can they possibly say anything else, unless they are finally in the safety of the West? And even there, one wonders -- given the Muslim migration by the millions into the Lands of the Infidels -- will Middle Eastern Christians, find themselves able to stamp out any hint of "islamochristian" dhimmitude, and finally feel safe enough to openly tell the truth, and thereby help to warn the West, a West that badly needs such warning?
Hugh, how can Christians fleeing to the West be safe even after emigrating to US? What about that recent mass murder in NJ of Egyptian Copts -- an entire family -- for their anti-Muslim stance? It merely moves geographically, after all, the US doesn't see to want to call it what it is.
Well said, Hugh. Yes, money, stolen goods and stolen property are a symptom of a larger problem, the problem of Muslim hatred and contempt for anyone non-Muslim. The answer, of course, is to tell the truth, by non-Muslims who are safely in Western countries. But, the road to silence passes through the dark forest of "islamophobia," a place where even the bravest often get lost once the mainstream media gets involved.
Muslims hate individualism, capitalism, and prosperity....death to all to participate in trying to have a better life...
"Muslims hate individualism, capitalism, and prosperity..."
-- from a posting above
No they don't "hate...prosperity." Many are quite happy to accept the trillions that an accident of geology has made possible. And many others are intent on continuning to inveigle Western, Infidel donors out of as much aid, military and economic, as they can wangle -- always by insisting that "if they don't get this" or "they don't get that" then "the extremists may prevail" and so Egypt, and Pakistan, and Jordan, and the by-now utterly transparent Slow Jihadists of Fatah (that is, the "Palestinians" who differ from the Fast Jihadists of Hamas not in ultimate goals, but in tactics and timing) keep getting billions in Western aid heaped upon them, while the rich Arabs, with their trillions, are permitted to get away with donating nothing, of making it into a Western, Infidel, responsibility (if one assumes that for some reason the oil-poor Arabs are owed such aid -- they are the least deserving, the least worthy, of all the recipients of Western aid).
They want "prosperity." They just want it from the manna of oil and gas revenues, or the Jizyah of foreign aid from Infidels.
Nor can it be said with authority that they "hate..capitalism." An economic system need not be confused with the political freedoms, including emphasis on those recognized in the Bill of Rights, or in the Univresal Declaration of Human Rights. It is true that inshallah-fatalism makes it difficult for ecoomic activity at a level beyond the date-and-pistachio-and-spice market level, or the rugs in the souk, to be given much of a push. Inshallah-fatalism, and the corruption and bullying and tribalism and violence endemic in those societies most suffused with Islam, make real economic development difficult.
But where Islam has been thoroughly tamed, as in Kazakhstan (it helps to have a population that is 50% non-Muslim, and the remaining so-called "Muslims" be of the unbelieving "Muslim-for-identification-purposes-only" variety), or in Tunisia (thanks to Bourguiba and his Destour Party heirs, including the intelligently ruthless people who run Tunisia today, alert to the need to constrain, or crush, any opposition based on Islam), or in Turkey (Kemalism created a secular class, and that secular class in turn has managed to create, here and there, conditions for economic activity that, at this point, even those who take their Islam more seriously have been able to participate in, without recognizing themselves that it has been Kemalism that created the social, political, and economic conditions that allow even some Believers to participate in economic activities), or in Malaysia, where the existence of Chinese (and to a lesser extent Hindu) entrepreneurs has been responsible for Malaysia's economic success, but if the isalamization continues, those entrepreneurs may leave, and with it will go the Malaysian economy.
As for "individualism," instead of writing that "Muslims hate individualism" why not rephrase it thus: Islam is uninterested in the individual. It is a faith suffused with collectivism. One's loyalty must be to the Umma, the Community of Believers. One is treated as a recruit to the Army of Islam, and any attempt to leave that army is treated as treason: hence apostasy is not allowed.
That would be more accurate.
Muslims don't hate capitalsim and posperity as long as someone else is doing the dirty work for them. Do you believe that even one U.A.E. native as placed one rivet in a girder or soiled his hands builing the metropolis in Dubai?
Islam may not exactly hate prosperity and capitalism, but it is contrary to them in some important aspects. First the latter (and for individualism, Capitalism is individualism, albeit in the economic realm). Capitalism implies the freedom of people to pursue economic activities of their choice with minimal government interference, and does depend on a good moral foundation for a healthy existence (which partly explains why it's at such pains to become globally popular in Russia). So if you have Shariah laws against interest on loans, or in favor of Jiziya, then that is very inherently and intrinsically anti-capitalist: it's no more compatible with capitalism than Islam is with traditional values. For instance, in Malaysia, where the Bhumiputra system mandates that Malays sap off the work of Chinese and Tamils, the implication is that the Chinese and Tamils have to by law do things that they otherwise won't do - share their prosperity with Malays. That is inherently more compatible with Communism than it is with Capitalism.
As for prosperity, Islam is okay with prosperity, only as long as it's only Muslims who prosper. The idea of, say, Infidels too prospering, even if they are less prosperous than Muslims, is unpalatable to Islam. A microcosm of this was noted by John Agresto in his new book 'Mugged by Reality', where he noted that whenever a project that would benefit Iraqis looked like it would benefit all Iraqis, the support for it dropped precipitously. That's very much the opposite of being in favor of prosperity, where generally, one tends to be okay with regardless of who else might be a beneficiary.
"Do you believe that even one U.A.E. native as placed one rivet in a girder or soiled his hands builing the metropolis in Dubai?"
-- from a posting above
The pecking-order of wage slaves (and the noun here should be given special emphasis) in the oil-rich Arab countries goes something like this:
1) At the top, the white European and American wage-slaves. These include doctors and most medical personnel. They are treated like hired help. I know of one celebrated American cardiologist who, having been hired to come and help set up a clinic, became disgusted with his treatment by the arrogant Saudis -- who treated him as a merely a well-paid coolie -- and vowed never to return. The Saudis do not respect the people whose expert knowledge they rely on, and they rely on others for everything. As long as they have the money, and can pay for things, they have no apparent sense of embarrassment at how little they can do for themselves, at how unimpressive their country is, perhaps the most unimpressive place on earth, given its receipt, entirely undeserved, of between one and two trillion dollars, with a small, pampered population (leaving out the Shi'a of Hasa, and the "Yemenites" or imperfect "Saudis" of 'Asir and Najran).
Also at the top: all those in the professional clases, including engineers and others who actually run the oilfields, airline pilots (possibly sudden "reverts"), the uppper level of technicians, teachers in anything remotely resembling higher education. These positions are filled by Infidels from Western Europe and America. Financial finaglers and advisers of every sort can be Arabs or Arabic-speaking (a good job for Lebanese Christians and abroad some rich Arabs have been known for their own accounts to place funds not only with a Coptic Sarofim, but even with a Jewish Safra).
Lower down, there are the builders: South Koreans, in the main. Architects can be both Western and local, Saudi (Sami Agarwal may not be getting the government commissions, given his fierce criticism of the destruction of Mecca's history -- a destruction that did not begin, or end, with that Ottoman fort torn down a few years ago). The workmen are often from the subcontinent, Indians. And then there are all the assorted laborers and flunkies at the lowest level, from Sudanese and Somalis. One would not be surprised to discover that there were still, hidden from prying Western eyes, black eunuchs still tending the private harems of those primitive daggers-and-dishdashas Saudi magnates, each with his own high-walled palace or palacette.
And there are the slave-girls, from southeast Asia -- domestic slaveys, put to one use by the assorted Arab women, and by another use, if sufficiently attractive, by the menfolk. Indonesian, Filipino, Indochinese, Indian -- they seldom talk about their experiences, and their governments, eager not to offend the once and future employers of so many citizens, seldom make a fuss at the mistreatment, the cruelty, the unpunished crimes committed against these girls, by their Saudi, or Kuwaiti, or Emiratian masters.
That's that world. Occasionally the veil is lifted for a minute, when some Kuwaiti or Saudi in London or Washington, or perhaps "studying" in Denver or Los Angeles or New York, has his housegirl escape, or she is found at the bottom of some stairs, bleeding, and then there is an item in the paper, and then it is covered over by well-paid lawyers and public relations flacks in Saudi or Kuwaiti or other Arab pay, and everyone forgets until the next time, and then the same thing happens again, and then again.
It all sickens.
"Money can buy everything, except civilization."
"...he believed the murders were motivated only by theft...."
....just what you would expect from followers of a 7th century caravan raider....
This is par for the course, it seems.
I received a copy of Catholic Voice, as I do quite often since I am a Catholic and saw this article in it - I almost gagged.
'Scholar: Don't judge islam by actions of terrorists or Christians by Crusades'
Never mind the fact that the Crusades are over, and the jihadists/terrorists are going strong since the inception of islam. the Crusades were a call to stop the murder while the jihadists/terrorists are a call FROM islam to continue to murder for their god.
Yes, I am going to be responding to this article and am going to point them to these websites - dhimmiwatch.org also. I am going to ask them to start reading and am going to point out their errors in this article - at least some of them.
This is why islam progresses - we Christians and also the Jews - continually hide our heads in the sand while our brothers and sisters are slaughered. We are easily fooled by their taqiyya/kitman in dar al harb. I am disgusted that 'scholars' keep up the deception for the muslims while claiming they are 'scholars'. They don't know one iota about the history of islam, its violence, and its goals. They only know that they THINK that everyone is so agreeable to everyone while appearing so holy. I probably would have barfed if I saw them all talking together.
America is to blame for all the ills in Iraq. The yankees created the mess....
Hugh said
I could be wrong, but it seems another distinction, another simmering resentment, that could be used wisely by an intelligent leader. The vast majority of Islamic lands are (literally) dirt poor. If the Saudis and Kuwaitis and Emiratians were allowed to more fully flaunt their callgirls and indoor skiing ranges and dark-tinted limousines before their fellow Muslims (especially Shi'ites, and especially after one of the periodic Biblical disasters that strike Islamic lands), the results could be...interesting.
The half-Somali poster perhaps can enlighten us. How much money have the fabulously rich Saudis, or the inhabitatns of the Emirates, or of Kuwait, given to Somalia? How much do the rich Arabs swanning about Mayfair and Belgravia and Plantagenet hunting-lodges (see Prince Bandar) donate to help fellow members of the Umma in London itself?
You know perfectly well how they despite the Somalis and other non-Arabs, though they are happy, now and again, to take a good-looking Somali as a wife.
Here's some Suggested Reading for Abdullah A fellow Somali. Her anme is Ayaan Hirsi Ali. She is very intelligent. She has seen the world. She has cast a cold eye on Islam. Read her. Or go to www.faithfreedom.org. and see what others, through no fault of their own born into Islam, have to say about this vehicle for Arab imperialism -- linguistic, cultural, economic, political. See if any of it strikes a chord in your bosom. See if any of it makes sense.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali ran as fast as she could away from her Muslim husband, .... which is the most sensible thing a Somali woman can do....
........she was born into Islam, lived Islam, ....saw Islam for what it is...and saw nothing worthwhile....and left....smart woman....
......Muslims hate the truth....especially when infidels know it....
"America is to blame for all the ills in Iraq."
....It is the Muslims bombs and bullets that are killing the Iraqis....