Not only has Italy banned the crucifix from a classroom — now they’ve thrown the Pope’s “Jubilee Cross” into the garbage.
The classroom crucifix ban accedes to the wishes of “Muslim activist” Adel Smith, who was offended by the thought of his daughter having to gaze in class at a “miniature cadaver.”
Smith pressed all the right buttons: “I have simply been granted the constitutional right that religious symbols not be on display in classrooms where my children study.” So one may argue that the Italian court’s ruling on this was not supine dhimmitude, but simple constitutional justice in a secular state.
But contrast this solicitude to recent events in Egypt, where 22 Christians have been arrested in the last week — many of them converts from Islam. It’s not illegal in “secular” Egypt to convert from Islam to another religion, but in Islamic law such a conversion carries a death sentence, and Egyptian officials are showing how influential that law remains in Egypt.
No one in Egypt is helpfully removing Islamic symbols from public places in order to avoid offending that country’s non-Muslim minorities. Ultimately, the Smith ruling in Italy and the harrassment and torture of ex-Muslims in Egypt are just two manifestations of the fact that, far from being a relic of the past, dhimmitude is alive and well, and growing in power. Both post-Christian secularists in Italy and radical Muslim thugs in Egypt seem to agree: relations between Christianity and Islam must not be characterized by mutual coexistence as equals, but by the supremacy of Islam and Muslims.