There sure seems to be a lot of extremists in a lot of places for such a Tiny Minority. "Nigeria - Muslim extremists burn church building," from Compass Direct News, September 2:
ILORIN, Nigeria, September 2 (Compass Direct News) – Muslim extremists on Sunday (Aug. 31) set ablaze a church building in the Baboko area of this city in central Nigeria’s Kwara state.
The Rev. Samuel Ogowole told Compass that the extremists barred members of his Christ Apostolic Church (CAC) from getting to the building on Sunday, and the Town Planning Development Authority had sealed off the premises following pressure from area Muslims. The congregation had gone to a site on the outskirts of the city for worship when the Muslim extremists destroyed the church building, a 20 million naira (US$170,575) structure built four years ago.
Rev. Ogowole told Compass that area Muslims had complained that the church building is located near a mosque. Compass found that the church building was 500 meters from the Baboko mosque.
Muslim leaders had filed a complaint with an interfaith panel called the Inter-Religious Committee, established by the Kwara state government to mediate Muslim-Christian conflicts. Rev. Ogowole said the body initially ruled against the Islamists’ claim, but under Muslim pressure later issued a second resolution ordering the church to relocate.
“The Inter-Religious committee after investigating the issue explained that it is not true that our church is close to the mosque, and as such there is no justification of the claims of the Muslims,” he said. “But the Muslims still have not allowed us to worship here in peace.”
To appease the Muslim community, Rev. Ogowole said, the Kwara state government offered church leaders 3 million naira (US$25,580) and ordered the congregation to relocate. Church leaders rejected the order, saying they had spent nearly seven times that much to construct the church building.
Muslims had objected to the church building soon after construction began in 2001 on property that the church had legally purchased. Rev. Ogowole told Compass that Muslims initially applied pressure on town planning authorities in 2005.
“This ultimately resulted in a relocation notice, asking us to relocate the church out of the area in seven days,” he said. “However, we objected to the relocation order. Our position was that relocating to another place would mean creating hardship for our members here, who would have to travel many kilometers in order to worship.”...
So that the dhimmis "feel themselves subdued" (Qur'an 9:29)
This is exactly the kind of story that should be copied and kept, in order that it may be shared, whenever a jihadwatcher hears of any local authority in their own country - for example, in Australia, city and town and shire councils - who is worrying about whether or not to permit Muslims to build a mosque or, for that matter, an Islamic school.
Let our town and city, shire and county councillors and mayors see exactly how Muslims apply pressure and then, whenever they think they can get away with it, resort to open, blatant, ugly discrimination and violence against people of other faiths.
Every time Muslims do something like this, other Muslims in the kafir lands should be discovering that the mayor and city council of this or that American or European or Australian city has suddenly become a blank wall, and that that much-vaunted mosque project is simply NOT going to be given the go-ahead.
It can't be to close to the mosque, 'cause some of the faithful might "accidently" attend church and not go back to the mosque! The horror!
“The Inter-Religious committee after investigating the issue explained that it is not true that our church is close to the mosque, and as such there is no justification of the claims of the Muslims,”
Do they really imply that it have been justified to burn the church if it had been closer to the mosque?
"Rev. Ogowole told Compass that area Muslims had complained that the church building is located near a mosque. Compass found that the church building was 500 meters from the Baboko mosque."
-- from the article above
On the other hand, Muslims deliberately -- as an act of aggressive planting-the-flag -- choose to build their mosques, in Christian areas, as close to churches, often between them, and sometimes smack in the middle of a historic area. Muslims were delighted to have conned the Italians into giving them land in Rome, not a mile from the Vatican. They agitated to be allowed to build a mosque in Grenada, high on a hill, o'ertopping -- and drowning out with the sound of the Muslim muezzin's wail -- a nunnery beneath. They are always eager to build right in the middle of Christian areas, even in the Middle East.
For example, in Haleb (Aleppo), Syria's second city, for years there were well-defined areas: the Christian quarter, the Muslim quarter. On Sundays the Christians would go to their churches, under the protection of the Alawites who, for reasons of their own, have made sure that the Sunni Muslims do not behave as they would without that Alawite control of the army and security services. But in the last few decades, there has been systemtic building of mosques right in and around those churches. That means that Muslims, to attend those mosques, must march through Christian areas, and march through they do. They have deliberately chosen to build, in an area not peoopled by Muslims, to give themselves a natural opportunity to assert themselves, flaunt their numbers and their power, in a way that seems merely "natural" (they're just going to and from the mosque, after all), and so cannot easily be opposed by the Alawites.
This kind of thing happens all over. Ask Copts, ask Assyrians and Chaldeans -- especially those who have permanently severed their ties with the Middle East, sloughted off whatever islamochristian impulse they may once have felt, and a need -- a reflex of a lifetime of dhimmitude -- to protect Islam and Muslims from Infidel inquiry and criticism, but now, in the free West, they have ceased to be so wary and careful and inhibited, and are willing, manhy of them, to warn other non-Muslims about the nature of Islam, and even, in some cases, to help identify those who still exhibit that islamochristian behavior that, for example, is such a feature of many (not all) of those Christian Arabs who continue, comically, to identify themselves as "Palestinians."
Incidentally, when an innocent or fooled or tendentious fellow non-Muslim introduces you, in any context, to someone he calls (innocently, foolishly, tendentiously)
a "Palestinian," you should immedidately respond with a friendly smile and an innocent inquiry: "Oh, are you a Christian Arab or are you a Muslim Arab?" That will semaphor to your "Palestinian" Arab -- in a way not detectable by the innocent third-party introducer -- that he's not in your case dealing with one more terminally innocent American, willing merely to accept the self-definition or uncritical use of the term "Palestinian" and what's more, is going to show that not only is the important word "Arab" but that also of significance is whether or not one is Muslim, or Christian, and if the latter, a lively discussion can ensue once you have relievedly (and disingenuously) followed up with "Oh, good. And I certainly hope you're not one of those islamochristians." And let the discussion -- distinctly unexpected and unsettling and unpleasant for that self-designated "Palestinian" but he without the ability to either deny that he is an Arab, nor to deny that he is either a Muslim or a Christian and that that can be a matter of some consequence. You will rattle him, ideally in front of others, and raise issues that, at every point, should be raised -- not for youself, not for him, but for the innocent who introduced him, and for others who may be present.
Hugh - Perhaps when introduced to a "Palestinian", one might remark "So, you are from Jordan, then?". If you encounter hostility, you can apologize and remark that since 70 percent of Jordan is "Palestinian" your faux pas was a natural mistake.
Remember, several years ago, the "epidemic" of Black churches being burned all across the South, and the feeding frenzy of the news media and the left-wing politicians, who claimed there was some vast "right-wing" White conspiracy at work. Of course it turned out that there was no conspiracy; most of the fires were accidents due to bad wiring and/or space heaters, and many others were arson for insurance purposes. The media fell strangely silent.
And where are they now? When there is a real conspiracy of burning and vandalizing Christian churches, and killing or assaulting Christian clergy and parishioners? Not just in Nigeria, but also in Pakistan, the Sudan, Malaysia, Indonesia, and elsewhere. The media and our leftist politicians are strangely silent again. Is it because these crimes can't be blamed on white Americans?
Hugh - have you yourself had such entertaining encounters?