It is generally recognized
in the media that Christians are having a hard time of it in pretty well all
Muslim-dominated countries, whether in Asia, Africa or Europe. I have drawn
attention to this in several posts in both this blog as well as in another blog
I operate under the name “My World—My Neighbour,” the latest being number 124.
Now that claim may smell
like Islamophobia to some, but that derisive term is over-used to cover almost
anything that is less than laudatory with respect to Islam. It means “fear of Islam,” which is a far cry
from disagreement with Islam. I have high respect for orthodox Islam and for
its adherents, but I disagree with them. If you want to know what exactly that
translates into, I refer you to my series Studies
in Christian-Muslim Relations on my website
< www.SocialTheology.com/Islamica
>. Even Muslims have praised me for the spirit pervading that series.
Disagreement? Yes. Phobia? No, not one
bit. So, let’s not have that misnomer stand in the way of the rest of this
post.
Today I discuss not mere
Muslim persecution of Christians, but genocide. According to one edition of
Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, it means “the deliberate and
systematic destruction of a racial, political or cultural group,” with the last
one, I take it, including religious groups.
It is much more specific than the more general term “persecution.” While
the latter is common place throughout the Muslim world, genocide is more local
and currently widely applied especially to ISIS, who are widely recognized to
consciously and officially be practicing Christian genocide.
You need details of this
recognition? Carl Anderson, the CEO of
the Knights of Columbus and a New York
Times bestselling author, together with
Archbishop Bashar Warda, a Chaldean Catholic Archbishop in Iraq
(A&W), wrote an article, “ISIS perpetrates genocide against Christians” (Vancouver Sun, Aug. 5, 2016, p. A11)
that is fully worth a serious read. They write:
Based on overwhelming
evidence, Christians have been included in genocide designations by the
European Parliament, the US State Department, the US Congress, parliaments and
officials of a number of European governments, as well as the Iraqi cabinet and
the Kurdish Regional Government.
In addition, according to
Barnabas Aid, certain members of the British House of Lords urged their Prime
Minister some months ago that, “jihadist attacks on Christians and other religions in the Middle
East should be classified as genocide.”
In other words, the UK Government hesitated to join the authorities in
the paragraph above. And they are not the only ones. The same Barnabas report
states that “The prosecutor of the International Criminal Court has said that
she ‘stands ready’ to begin a genocide enquiry but needs an order from the UN
Security Council.” So, the UN also
hesitates. Given its membership, that should be no surprise to anyone.
But coming closer to home,
our own Canadian Government also has rejected the call to declare a genocide on
the part of ISIS. A&W advocate that
Canada should take leadership on the question of genocide by ISIS, but it is
following the lead of the UN. The argument against the genocide issue turns on
a definition of a tax Islam calls “jizya”,
a tax Christians and others have historically paid to Muslim rulers for
protection instead of the traditional “convert or die” ultimatum. However,
according to A&W, ISIS has widened the definition of this protection so
that it includes even “kidnapping, rape and confiscation,” all actions from
which that tax is supposed to protect them. In fact, a former ISIS leader “publicly
revoked any special treatment of Christians years ago.” Its official magazine, Dabiq, has threatened to “conquer your Rome, break your crosses,
and enslave your women.”
The result of all this
violence? A&W tell us that the number of Christians in Iraq “has plummeted
by nearly 90 percent, Syria’s by almost 70 per cent. “In the land where it
first took root, Christianity could be stamped out entirely—within our
lifetime.” Such threats and actions
hardly represent the preferential treatment Jizya is supposed to offer, as
A&W put it.
And so I strongly support
the call of A&W and the campaign being waged by Barnabas Aid for both
Canada and the UN to become realistic. A&W urge, “It is time for both
Canada and the UN to join the international consensus, supported by a majority
of the Canadian people at a rate of two to one in our recent K of C-Leger
poll.” As a Canadian I will be extremely embarrassed if our Government were to
renege on this life-and-death issue for thousands of people. If there is no
change at this front, I will definitely campaign against the Federal Government
on basis of this offensive indifference during any future election. I will help
arouse the Christian community against them in my writings. It is one more
spike in the coffin of death with which the politicians of almost all parties
are saddling our country, the others being easy abortion and easy assisted
suicide along with the more general ones of poverty and injustice.
Though I am always wary of
one-issue politics, the matter of life and death trumps all other issues in
importance along with poverty and injustice.
Come to think of it, when you lump these “few” issues together, you’re
really talking a pretty wide umbrella of issues that can hardly be considered “single-issue”
stuff. I am aware this could leave me a political orphan without a party to
vote for. I may be left to vote for the least of all evils, a position that an
increasing number of Canadian Christians find themselves in.
Though I drift in this post
from the specific issue of genocide of Christians to more general politics,
what I want you to take away from it is first of all the genocide issue. That’s
my issue for today. It is more than an “issue”
for thousands of Christians in the Middle East; for them it is indeed literally
an issue of life and death that goes far beyond mere politics. We need to press the Government of Canada to
recognize and declare ISIS genocide of Middle Eastern Christians and others of
various persuasions. Does the pretty face of our current PM mask an
attitude of indifference to the lot of the most vulnerable and, thus, of an
underlying cruelty? I leave the answer to you.
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