Over at FrontPage Magazine (via RaymondIbrahim.com), I discuss why Muslim persecution of Christians and other minorities is especially damaging to Islam's image:
Which of the following three headlines is most difficult for the media—including the usual array of liberal pundits, apologists, academics, and politicians—to whitewash or rationalize away? Which most exposes Islam’s inherent intolerance?Continue reading.A) “Allahu Akbar” screaming Muslims fire rockets into Israel
B) “Allahu Akbar” screaming Muslims riot and commit acts of violence in Europe
C) “Allahu Akbar” screaming Muslims torch a Christian church in a Muslim country
The answer is C—Christian persecution.
Why?
Because in both scenarios A and B, Muslims will always be portrayed and seen as the “underdogs”—and hence always exonerated for their behavior. No matter how violent or ugly, no matter how many Islamic slogans are shrieked—thus placing their behavior in a purely Islamic context—Muslim violence against the West and Israel will always be dismissed as a product of the weak and outnumbered status of Muslims—their status as underdogs, which the West tends to romanticize. And so they will always get a free pass, without further ado.
They may be screaming and rioting, firing rockets and destroying property—all while calling for the death and destruction of the “infidel” West and/or Israel to cries of “Allahu Akbar!” Still, no problem. According to the aforementioned array of pundits, apologists, academics, and politicians, such bloodlust is a natural byproduct of the frustration Muslims feel as an oppressed minority, “rightfully” angry with the “colonial” West and its Israeli proxy. Indeed, that is precisely how even the 9/11 attacks on the U.S. by al-Qaeda were rationalized away by many “experts”—even as al-Qaeda’s own words exposed their animus as a direct product of Muslim doctrine not temporal grievances.
But if Muslims get a free pass when their violence is directed against those currently stronger than them, how does one rationalize away their violence when it is directed against those weaker than them, those who have no political influence whatsoever? Consider the most obvious of these scenarios, the growing epidemic of Muslim persecution of Christians. From one end of the Islamic world to the other—whether in Arab lands, African lands, Asian lands, or Sinic lands, wherever Muslims are a majority—the largest non-Muslim religious group, Christians, suffer untold atrocities.
The rationalizations used to minimize Muslim violence against the West and Israel simply cannot work here—for now Muslims are the majority, and they are the ones violent and oppressive to their minorities, often in ways that would make the worst Israeli treatment of Muslims look kind and benevolent....
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Raymond, Raymond, Raymond, you are missing the point. Muslim persecution of Christian is not its Achilles heel, but the point at which the Leftist media and political movements secretly admire it. I suspect that when they see such persecution, they inwardly wish that they had the guts to do it themselves.
Obama,in his demanding that religious employers pay for abortion and contraceptive coverage hoped to take on the Roman Catholic Church and all those other smaller pro-life Protestant and other groups. He had good reason to believe that the MSM and other dens of the Left would watch his back.
Marx and Engels spoke warmly of how German critical thought in their day was criticism of Christianity. They spoke of that religion as a "rotting corpse".
Further, a spiritual revival of Christianity in Russia, eastern, and central Europe was one of the things that brought down the Soviet Bloc; while it is also one of the things that Mainland China and Viet Nam fear greatly. And, I'm sure, this is a reason why the academic Left, a former industry of Communist apologists, and others hate Christianity all the more and wish they had been bolder in attacking it. It is probably also a reason why the plights of Egypt's Copts,the Christians of Pakistan and Iran, and the uprooting of the ancient Church of the East in Iraq are going unreported.
A man of the Left like Eric Allen Bell, who was turned away from supporting the Tennessee Mega Mosque by the testimony of a Coptic immigrant cabbie is a very rare sort. Raymond Ibrahim, much as I like him and agree with him, is speaking to yesterday's decency, which a Leftist media and academia have effectively uprooted and trashed. Sometimes, I myself fear that the only reason why the Left does not unleash a persecution here is because they know that the Bible Belt is also the firearms belt, and that there are still too many of us who understand and accept the Augustinian just war theory and Calvinist theory of rebellion.