Via BNP and Me, I find the horrific story of a Christian boy who was crucified in Iraq by Muslims, who were apparently unaware that "Islam is a Religion of Peace". A quick google search reveals that this took place last October, in Basra. The search also indicates that only two MSM sources have reported this atrocity. The thisislondon.co.uk website (the online version of the Evening Standard), mentioned it back in November, alongside the news of the torture and murder of a priest, Father Paul Alexander, in an apparent "Pope Rage" incident. And then last month Damian Thompson, writing in the Telegraph's "Holy Smoke" blog, also mentioned it. Other than that, I can only find deafening silence from the MSM.
I also discover that crucifixion has more than once been meted out by Muslims to Christians. In 2004 in the Sudan a Christian slave boy (yes, they still have slavery there - but you don't hear Rowan Williams complaining about that) was crucified by his owner for sneaking into a church service. Astonishingly, he survived, albeit that he is permanently scarred. And at the height of Pope Rage a Muslim cleric in Pakistan called for the Pope to be crucified, as a punishment for insulting Islam.
Why has the crucifixion in Basra received so little MSM attention? Well, presumably they don't consider the story sufficiently important to waste their time reporting. After all, it's not like someone smeared bacon over a Koran, is it? Or, horror of horrors, kicked a Koran. Or put a Koran in a toilet. Now those are all real atrocities, ones the MSM can really get their teeth into. And do, at great length. Because of course, those all feature the designated worldwide victim group being upset by something. By contrast Christians are a designated oppressor group. So mildly mistreating a book sparks cries of "Islamophobia", but no one pays any attention to real Christianophobia, even when that Christianophobia leads to torture and murder.
Postscript: There exists, somewhere in one of the darker recesses of the blogosphere, a nasty little site named "Islamophobia Watch", dedicated to ensuring that incidences of people criticising Islam, or harming books, are brought to public attention. Yet there exists no comparable "Christianophobia Watch" blog. I wonder if I should start one, to try and bring incidences of murder, torture, and institutionalised discrimination against Christians (real persecution, in other words, not just what paranoid Muslims think of as persecution) to public attention?
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8 comments:
Excellent analysis of the situation Fulham Reactionary...I like your blog and plan to blogroll you. You're certainly right about the MSM caring nothing about all this. So I guess it's up to us to broadcast it as loudly as we can. Some of us here in Australia are planning to go around to towns and speak in their halls to townspeople to let them know what's going on and perhaps enlist some more fighters.
God bless, and keep up the fight.
Id certainly link to it. A focused source such as you suggest would probably find itself a large readership quickly. I would say to try and keep it as focused as possible without opinions, to help launch it as a news source.
Nice one, FR. Should you want anyone else to help you out on the Christophobia Watch, I'd be happy to help out. Drop me a line sometime if it sounds good.
The short answer is "YES"!
The slightly longer answer is that some of this material is already being blogged, but not in a coherent way. Think of it as an aggregation of news from other sources, and I think you'll have it about right.
Hmm. Trying to respond to four related but slightly different comments. Okay, here goes:
Dee:
Thanks for your comments - I'll link back to you, in the 'International' section. Good luck with spreading the word in Australia. I think if we tried that here we'd end up getting arrested.
BNP Member and Jeff:
Yes, I would certainly want to keep such a blog limited to being a source for collating news, rather than an opinion blog. What Jeff says about the information being out there but not presented in a coherent way is quite right, and was the reason I had the idea in the first place. And, I thought, if I don't do it, who else will?
Mr Smith:
Thanks. If you want to be involved, that's great. Essentially, the more contributors the better, since more people are likely to pick up more stories. So if any other bloggers want to get involved, let me know.
A few general points:
I think that we need to keep the stories covered within tight limits. One of the reason cries of "Islamophobia" seem so ridiculous is that they go up over all sorts of things (most recently the bacon-smeared Koran), which are completely minor issues. Anything reported on Christianophobia Watch would, I think, need to pass some kind of test of importance. Something like "would a disinterested observer think that this was a genuine instance of discrimination?" Otherwise, it would just end up like a mirror for Islamophobia Watch, whining about unimportant issues, and thereby obscuring the important ones.
Also, should it be Christianophobia, or Christophobia? I've always favoured the former, since Christophobia sounds to me like prejudice against Christ rather than Christians, but Mr Smith favours Christophobia, and it seems that the majority of sources agree with him. Any thoughts?
I'm busy today, so don't have time to set anything up now, but will aim to do so tomorrow, or at the weekend at the latest. If anyone has any more ideas, or wants to be involved in any way, drop a comment in here.
Ill drop any news items i come across into the blog, though i would prefer to do it via the comments (as i dont want to make commitments and then not keep them)
On the topic of the name, what struck me when reading your thoughts is that it might be better to have a genuine Christian title such as "Christ is alive!" rather than a secular "Christianophobia". You could then have any number of tag lines under "Christ is alive!" but i wont put any down as my humour would just come across as blasphemy!
But yes it seems to me that as the news is going to be disseminated to a primarily Christian readership and is inherently Christian it should have a Christian name. Like the sort of site i linked to in one of Dee's latest posts;
http://www.breakingchristiannews.com/articles/display_art.html?ID=3838
I'm not sure about "Christ is Alive", in these circumstances. I think that sounds very much like a blog about religion itself, whereas this would be a blog, not so much about religion, as about persecution on the basis of religion. In some ways I think that a more secular title would be advantageous, since there are, presumably, plenty of non-Christians who would be disgusted by the idea of crucifying teenagers, but who might be put off by an overtly religious title. The aim is, after all, to bring this kind of event to as wide an audience as possible.
Also, I think that "Christianophobia Watch" has the virtue of being very direct and to the point. It says in two words precisely what the blog is for, whereas "Christ is Alive" could be all sorts of things.
Thanks for the idea, though.
Related to your point on the other thread, I'll put comment moderation on later tonight, for about 24 hours.
"Mr Smith favours Christophobia, and it seems that the majority of sources agree with him. Any thoughts?"
MrSmith expressed himself poorly. He meant to type 'Christianophobia' as he agrees with your reasoning and feels a bit of a numpty now.
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