RUTHFULLY YOURS

by Fiamma Nirenstein

How can we stop the slaughter of Christians in the Islamic world, how can we prevent the next massacre in Iraq, Turkey, the Philippines, Nigeria, wherever Islamic groups may be? First of all, we should start calling things by their real name: this is not ideological «religious intolerance» and the perpetrators are not random «fundamentalist groups» or «some terrorist». If we look at the map, we can find examples in many countries: massacres, expulsions, kidnapping of women, acts of vandalism on churches… It is the entire Islamist world that is battering Christians with the terrible inexorability of its hatred, but all those who – opportunistically or for fear of reprisals against Christians – have kept silent, in hopes of appeasing the aggressors, share in the responsibility. The fact that as soon as the Pope protested, calling a spade a “spade”, namely calling Islam “Islam”, the Mufti of Al Azhar blasted him for «interference», says a lot about the paradoxical attitude of institutional Islam: what do a few murders matter? The perpetual Roman enemy has no right to speak out.

If we ask the theologian and professor Father Peter Madros, now in the Patriarcate of Jerusalem, formerly director for many years of the Frères College in Bethlehem, where he fought the decimation of Christians without making discounts to the Israelis either, he can clearly indicate the explanation in the text of the Quran: «After pages where the text explains that harmony must reign within the People of the Book, though with the subjection of Christians and Jews who (verse 9/29) must in any case pay Jizya (the tax for non-Muslims, ed.note) unless they convert to Islam, there is another revealing verse (5/51): do not allow either Jews or Christians to rule over you».

The heart of the problem is right here: the Islamist world is determined to build a world in which the other two main faiths are held in a state of cultural, religious and political subjection. And instead, in the last seven centuries the western world has been dominanting and, in the bigoted interpretation of vast organizations and even entire countries like Iran, this amounts to a declaration of war. This is the war that Islamism now wants to win. Not everyone in that world feels that way, but bombs make a lot of noise, while good will remains silent.

In 1919, the Egyptian revolution adopted a green flag with the crescent and the cross. Both Muslims and Christians participated in the nationalist revolution against British colonialism. But mostly since the assassination of Sadat, who had signed a peace agreement with Israel, the new élites left room to a process of gradual Islamization aimed at appeasing the most aggressive organizations, like the Muslim Brotherhood. The textbooks used in the schools today describe Egypt as an Islamic country only, and the children read also anti-Christian texts. As the Jerusalem Post writes, organ transplants between Muslims and Copts are prohibited by a decision of the physicians’ union. Labor unions indeed are often dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood. The government recently halted construction of a stairway in a Coptic church and Copts are under constant attack (8 were killed also a year ago). Despite being no less than 10 percent of the population, they have no political representation.

Mubarak, by acting this way, keeps the Brotherhood at bay, and thus succeeded to marginalize it in the last elections. This is the way that Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Syria, Jordan and Pakistan behave: they think they have tamed the tamer, who actually becomes stronger and stronger, thereby threatening even his leadership.

The Iranian, Lebanese and Turkish television have accused “Zionists” of the New Year’s massacre in Alexandria. Oh sure, let’s try to put at least some of the blame on the Jews once again! That is their style: from the Farhud pogrom of Baghdad in 1941, in which 180 Jews were killed, and then in Libya (130 dead) and also in Turkey (three attacks on the Nevè Shalom synagogue from 1986 to the present, with 47 dead), to all the violence that has caused the flight of almost all the Jews, the Islamic world has kicked out of the Arab countries between 800,000 and a million Jews. These are refugees that the U.N. has always refused to recognize, like the Christians in flight from the same countries, where the Christian population, once the native one and the majority, is now reduced to 6 percent. Leave your comment