Yesterday's heart-rending 'human rights' report of a father deprived of his daughter by a hit-and-run criminal was followed in the evening by a Newsnight video about the position of Christians in the Islamic World. The video highlighted the case of an abducted Christian daughter in Egypt.
The thread of the programme was "While the status of Muslims in Europe has become a major political issue, there has been less controversy, until recently, about the position of Christians in the Islamic World." One might have expected sympathy for the plight of Christians. Not a bit of it. In the discussion that followed the Islamist representatives played the victim card used so effectively, among others, by Women and the Church (WATCH) to deny any tolerance of traditionalist Christians in the Church of England.
The BBC screened a second video report, this time about the ban on new minarets in Switzerland. The charitable view must be that it was introduced for balance, completely ignorant of the fact that the scales are tipped against non-Muslims however 'reasonable' their apologists may appear. Any politico-religious system that encourages deception to further its cause must be treated with suspicion and extreme caution.
Ironically, while Pope Benedict was drawing attention to the plight of Christians BBC reporters were busy condeming critics of Islamicification as guilty of Islamophobia. Intolerance in Islamic countries was brushed aside because they are not democratic. What they omit to say is that democracy would not be permitted in a country under Sharia law but Islamists insist on their democratic rights to deprive non-Muslims of theirs.
To value democracy and protect Christian values is not Islamophobia, it is simply a struggle for survival. How is it that a programme about the oppressed is turned around to make the oppressors appear as the oppressed.?
Postscript
Christian Festivals have now been airbrushed from EU diaries leaving only Muslim, Hindu, Sikh, Jewish and Chinese festivities as well as Europe Day and other key EU anniversaries. My thanks to Goodnight Vienna's Blog for this tip.
It's the same logic that turns victims into criminals and lovers of one's own country into 'neo-nazi extremists' or 'little Englanders'. I agree with you - valuing democracy and protecting Christian values should not equate to 'islamophobia' or the 'far-right', yet that's the climate successive governments have created thanks to media compliance. To be proud to be English, Scottish, Irish or Welsh is not a crime, yet legislation has made it so for the English.
ReplyDeleteThe Archbishop has done nothing to help the CofE - he's chasing everyone away. I don't think many regular Anglican church-goers will embrace RC so it's sad days for Christianity and our Constitution. Our bedrock is shifting and falling. No wonder so many of us despair.
I think we need more than Psalm 121 (King James, of course) now.