Christmas: Holding Forth Justice

Post 20—:

This post is being written on Christmas Eve, 2010. The Christmas event is too large to just let it slip by without at least a nod. So, I am interrupting the flow of thought to offer you something Christmasy. I am going to place this post also on my other blog, .

I am offering you some quotes from the Old Testament Prophet Isaiah. This is a prophet of peace and justice. He repeatedly talks of the future in terms of hope for peace and justice. The Messiah whom the Jews had long been waiting for would introduce a new framework for society that was to be characterized by those two features, peace and justice. A new set of standards, if you like. To be sure, even Isaiah’s vision was an Old Testament one that allowed practices that we no longer approve today but have not yet been able to stem in our own lives and nations. And, of course, it is all written in terms of an ancient culture most of us no longer understand. Hence, it takes extra effort to understand it all. Don’t even try. Just go over these passages a few times and appreciate the emphasis on and the hunkering for peace and justice.

Of course, some readers will object that it is all very nice and idyllic, but tell me about it once Christians actually demonstrate or live up to this perspective. I fully understand the objection and am ashamed to admit that it is a reasonable one. Christians will be the first to admit their failure to live up to this picture. We believe in Jesus, in God, to save us from ourselves. We do not believe in ourselves, in our own capacity to make this all come true. We cannot create utopia. It is God who will one day turn this hope into reality. In the meantime, we struggle towards it as best as we can and ask for forgiveness where we fail.

Of course, you Muslims have the same challenge. You swear that yours is a religion of peace and quote the Qur'an left and right to prove it. In the meantime, your history is full of war and Muslim governments have been more oppressive than just and peaceful. Some of you make the distinction between what Islam teaches and what Muslims do--and they are not the same. So, if you object like readers in the above paragraph, you will have to answer for yourself and your own religion as well. We are in a similar boat in this respect.

There are more such prophecies in Isaiah and in other prophetic writings in the Old Testament. However, I am giving you perhaps more than you can or care to chew for one day. I will probably continue featuring such quotations next Christmas. In the meantime, here goes. Participate in the poetry; ponder the promise.

Isaiah 2--The Mountain of the LORD

1 This is what Isaiah son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem:
2 In the last days
the mountain of the LORD’s temple will be established
as the highest of the mountains;
it will be exalted above the hills,
and all nations will stream to it.
3 Many peoples will come and say,
“Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD,
to the temple of the God of Jacob.
He will teach us his ways,
so that we may walk in his paths.”
The law will go out from Zion,
the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.
4 He will judge between the nations
and will settle disputes for many peoples.
They will beat their swords into plowshares
and their spears into pruning hooks.
Nation will not take up sword against nation,
nor will they train for war anymore.
5 Come, descendants of Jacob,
let us walk in the light of the LORD.


Isaiah 9:5-7

6 For to us a child is born,
to us a son is given,
and the government will be on his shoulders.
And he will be called
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
7 Of the greatness of his government and peace
there will be no end.
He will reign on David’s throne
and over his kingdom,
establishing and upholding it
with justice and righteousness
from that time on and forever.
The zeal of the LORD Almighty
will accomplish this.

Isaiah 11:1-9

(Jesse is the father of King David and ancestor of Jesus.)

1 A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse;
from his roots a Branch will bear fruit.
2 The Spirit of the LORD will rest on him—
the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding,
the Spirit of counsel and of might,
the Spirit of the knowledge and fear of the LORD—
3 and he will delight in the fear of the LORD.
He will not judge by what he sees with his eyes,
or decide by what he hears with his ears;
4 but with righteousness he will judge the needy,
with justice he will give decisions for the poor of the earth.
He will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth;
with the breath of his lips he will slay the wicked.
5 Righteousness will be his belt
and faithfulness the sash around his waist.
6 The wolf will live with the lamb,
the leopard will lie down with the goat,
the calf and the lion and the yearling[a] together;
and a little child will lead them.
7 The cow will feed with the bear,
their young will lie down together,
and the lion will eat straw like the ox.
8 The infant will play near the cobra’s den,
the young child will put its hand into the viper’s nest.
9 They will neither harm nor destroy
on all my holy mountain,
for the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the LORD
as the waters cover the sea.


Isaiah 32:15-20

15 till the Spirit is poured on us from on high,
and the desert becomes a fertile field,
and the fertile field seems like a forest.
16 The LORD’s justice will dwell in the desert,
his righteousness live in the fertile field.
17 The fruit of that righteousness will be peace;
its effect will be quietness and confidence forever.
18 My people will live in peaceful dwelling places,
in secure homes,
in undisturbed places of rest.
19 Though hail flattens the forest
and the city is leveled completely,
20 how blessed you will be,
sowing your seed by every stream,
and letting your cattle and donkeys range free.

Isaiah 42:1-9 The Servant of the LORD

1 “Here is my servant, whom I uphold,
my chosen one in whom I delight;
I will put my Spirit on him,
and he will bring justice to the nations.
2 He will not shout or cry out,
or raise his voice in the streets.
3 A bruised reed he will not break,
and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out.
In faithfulness he will bring forth justice;
4 he will not falter or be discouraged
till he establishes justice on earth.
In his teaching the islands will put their hope.”
5 This is what God the LORD says—
the Creator of the heavens, who stretches them out,
who spreads out the earth with all that springs from it,
who gives breath to its people,
and life to those who walk on it:
6 “I, the LORD, have called you in righteousness;
I will take hold of your hand.
I will keep you and will make you
to be a covenant for the people
and a light for the Gentiles,
7 to open eyes that are blind,
to free captives from prison
and to release from the dungeon those who sit in darkness.
8 “I am the LORD; that is my name!
I will not yield my glory to another
or my praise to idols.
9 See, the former things have taken place,
and new things I declare;
before they spring into being
I announce them to you.”

Posted by Jan/John H. Boer at 4:48 PM 0 comments

Major Differences between Christianity and Islam

Post 19—:

Recently, the editor of Christian Courier (CC), a bi-weekly Christian newspaper published in Ontario, Canada ( www.christiancourier.ca ), asked me to write a series of six articles about Islam that would address the “faq” –most frequently asked questions--of their readers. Now, their readers are mostly Canadian Christians, as am I. I wrote those six articles. Some have already been published by CC, while others are still in the lineup. I plan to reproduce them in this blog in slightly edited form. The questions reflect the interests and concerns of Christian Courier’s constituency more than my own. Without these questions, I might not even address the issues of this series on my own. These posts then serve to satisfy their curiosity without reflecting my own preoccupation with Islam. My answer to today's question does not cover the entire subject. The women issue, for example, is one not covered today, but that is because there is a separate question on the subject that will be addressed in due time.

However, most of my experience with Muslims and most of my very extensive research on the subject has focused on Nigerian Islam, not Canadian Islam. My orientation, interests and response will definitely be coloured by my 30-year experience and 15 years of research in Nigeria. Some of the things I wrote and repeat in these posts may not fully reflect or apply to the majority of Canadian Islam or Muslims, but these articles reflect where I have been or am going. Every country’s Islam has its own local characteristics, sometimes even contradictory.

I was going to say that in spite of these local variations, the broad outlines are universal. But that would not be entirely true. Yes, the core of the religion, the five pillars, is indeed universal, but the relationship of Muslims to Christians, for example, varies widely from historical tolerance through different degrees of intolerance to outright and harsh persecution. While some Muslims consider the secularism or soft secularism adopted by Christians as the core relational difference between the two, other Muslims describe themselves calmly as secular. That difference even divides the Canadian Muslim community.

I encourage Muslim readers to correct me where they think I am wrong about their religion. It is the easiest thing for one describing a religion not his own to go in the wrong direction. So, please, be free. I will appreciate it.

The above comments are written as an introduction to each of the next six posts, including this one. Please remember them when you read the rest of the series. I promise to assist you by reminding you in each post in this series.

The first question: What are the differences between Christianity and Islam?

You can divide differences between these two religions in various ways. My favourite way is between the core differences that will always remain and cultural differences that have developed over time and could theoretically either change or be overcome. These changes could take place within either Christianity or Islam or within both.

The core difference between the two religions centres on a complex set of ideas about God, humanity, sin and salvation. Muslims fulminate against the notion of the Trinity and emphasize the unity of God exclusively. The thought of God having a son is the ultimate blasphemy to them. However, Jesus is a revered prophet, second only to Muhammad. They reject the notion of original sin—as do some major Christian traditions. They also reject the need for a mediating saviour. God just forgives—if He pleases. God has not bound Himself to any promises and is free to decide everyone’s ultimate destiny. He will weigh everybody’s deeds, but remains free to reject or accept each individual. Though there is no ground for assurance of salvation, in practice, Muslims do not seem to live in constant fear of hell. They emphasize that, though God is absolutely free, he is also the Merciful and Compassionate. These differences have been there from the beginning and will never disappear. This is where the basic antithesis resides. But there is more....

The Muslim attitude to sin is, compared to the Christian idea, superficial and often results in hypocrisy. I believe this helps explain why they seldom admit to wrongs. While they castigate the West for imperialism and intolerance, they seldom if ever recognize their own imperialism and intolerance and are not prone to apologize. They complain about intolerance in the West, while their (ancestral) home countries are shot through with it. They accuse the West of racism, while racism—or tribalism-- is rife on their ancestral turf. Some persecute Christians in their countries of origin and destroy churches, but demand freedom of religion for themselves in the West. Admittedly, they have no monopoly on hypocrisy; it just comes in different shapes and forms for different people. While the core differences are permanent, these results could potentially change due to internal shifts or to the influence of Western secular tolerance.

Then there is the core issue of church-state relations. While almost all Christian traditions support the separation of church and state-- not to be confused with the separation of religion from state/politics--, with the notable exception of minority secular Muslims, Muslims generally tend to insist on the unity of state and religion, including mosque. They see the state as the handmaiden of Islam that supports the latter’s institutions, pillars and mission, including financially. That is a major reason for violence in Nigeria. We don’t hear much of that emphasis in Canada, which does not mean it’s not there long-term in the minds of Muslim strategists.

As to historically conditioned differences, Muslims themselves often point to Western secularism as the most crucial difference. For today’s Western Christian, secularism is almost our “native air” with which we have grown up and become accustomed to. It has deeply penetrated our hearts and mind. Secularism confronted Muslims in the context of oppressive colonialism. Hence, to most Muslims it has always been a hostile and ungodly worldview. Although there are secular Muslims, most Muslims have resisted the influence of secularism much more than have Christians. Many have contempt for its adherents, especially for its Christian adherents. They hold secularism responsible for Western moral decadence and tend to be angry at Western attempts to impose this corrupt system on them in the context of imperialism and globalism. I do not consider this a core difference, for at its core Christianity is also anti-secular, even though most Christians have been unduly influenced by it.

Over against secularism, Islam is a wholistic, comprehensive religion that covers all of life, theoretically much like the Reformed Christian tradition. They are not shy about praying in public or dressing differently and are not averse to making public demands on issues that wimpy Western Christians have long surrendered to secularism or shoved with embarrassment into a hidden “religious” corner of life. Islam is a political religion that insists on using the organs of state, United Nations, corporations and all other structures, even its oil money, for its advance. Politics, economics, education—all of life is of one piece and all of it is to be harnessed to the global Islamic mission. In reaction to the aggressive push of Western secularism, Muslims have in recent decades revived and strengthened their wholism, while most Christians have at least partially cashed in theirs for a soft secularism. Christians can learn some powerful lessons from Muslims in this regard with respect to our politics, culture and personal lifestyles, including decreasing modesty in our dress codes and free-lance sex. Actually, not learn so much as to be reminded of what Christianity is meant to be about as well. Under the pressure of secularism, Christians have forgotten much and surrendered much that Muslims can remind them of.

The Muslim in You (2)

Post 18—

Remember the topic from the last post? The influence of Islam in you, influence that goes way back to the Middle Ages, but that has wormed its way deeply into Western culture, hearts and minds, including yours. I emphasized the Muslim philosophical heritage, but today I will point out another but related segment of culture where Islam has also left its mark on the West, a segment very closely related the philosophical. Sorry, I just can’t run away from that abstract world in you. But remember what I wrote in Post 17: This stuff is part of you and you cannot escape it even if you wanted to.

The topic of today is the influence of sharia or Muslim law on Western law, including British law that, in turn, has given shape to the laws of former British colonies, including Nigeria and Kenya. I find it very interesting to see how Christians in Nigeria and Kenya as well as leaders of some Christian organizations like the UK-based Barnabas Aid strongly oppose attempts to impose sharia, Muslim law, on Christians. Note that it is the how or the reason for their resistance that I find interesting. I understand their resistance as well as their reasons, but, in distinction of the resistance itself, I find their reasons for it partially wrong. For a very detailed example of that resistance I point you to volumes 7 and 8 of my series Studies in Christian-Muslim Relations, where I show the Nigerian Christian resistance. Though I fully sympathize with their resistance, I am advising them to change the parameters of the foundation on which they resist. They resist Muslim law in favour of colonial law they inherited from the British on basis of secular thinking that regards British law as neutral, objective and non-religious. I need to devote a post to that subject one of these days.

The issue here is that scholars tell us that Western law in its early beginning was influenced by the same Muslim philosophy referred to in the last post, the philosophy of Islam in general but especially the Andalusian or Spanish branch. How do you like that for an interesting twist? Joseph Schacht (1902-1969), a British-German orientalist scholar whom Muslims do not regard as their friend, is regarded by some as an important if not the most important Western authority of his day on sharia or Muslim law. In other words, he was a man you cannot ignore in the context of this issue. He regarded sharia or Muslim law as “one of the most important bequests which Islam has transmitted to the civilized world. It is a phenomenon so different from other forms of law that its study is indispensable….” Then he went on about its far-reaching influence on various non-Muslim peoples and cultures:

Several of its institutions were transmitted across the Mediterranean to medieval Europe and became incorporated in the law…. Another significant influence occurred in Islamic Spain. At the opposite end of the Mediterranean, Islamic law has exerted a deep influence on all branches of law of Georgia. There is finally the effect of Islamic law on the laws of the tolerated religions, the Jewish and the Christian. It is certain that the two great branches of the Oriental Christian Church, the Monophysites and the Nestorians, did not hesitate to draw freely on the rules of Islamic law

Schacht thus asserted a far-reaching influence of sharia in medieval Europe, where strands of it were incorporated into the culture and legal systems. Various branches of the ancient church drew freely on the rules of Islamic law. A more contemporary Nigerian Muslim scholar, Ibrahim Ado-Kurawa of Kano, came away from a conference in the UK making a similar claim. He wrote about “the earliest Islamic influences dating back to King Henry, who imported Islamic law from Muslim Spain and modified it into English Common Law.” (See my vol. 6, pp. 66-67, 121--note 33; vol. 8, pp. 351-352, 466-467, note29).

Sorry once again for the scholarly sound of the above, but the claim that Western law in its infancy was influenced by Muslim law and even incorporated aspects of Muslim law will be so startling to most Western and most Christian readers anywhere that it needs the support of serious scholars. This claim is not just picked up out of the clear blue sky; it has authoritative support we cannot ignore.

So, another aspect of the Muslim in you. There is more to come, but for the next week or so I do not have the time for the necessary research. So, for now this is it on this subject. Just realize that there is considerably more of Islam in you than touched upon so far and hopefully I will get back to the subject in due time.

The Muslim in You (1)

Post 17

Most people in the West think that there is little or no connection between Western cum Christian culture and that of Islam. They look down upon Islam as a religion cum civilization that is chaotic, destructive and that has never offered anything constructive to the cultures of the world in general or, more specifically, to Western culture as well as Western Christianity. Well, Westerners have heard plenty about the negative aspects of Islam, often in slanted and distorted form. Since we are now neighbours who daily rub shoulders with each other, it is useful to be aware of the positive contributions of Islam to the Western world so that we can also respect them.

Actually, the Muslim world has for centuries led in terms of cultural development and was far advanced in civilization compared to the primitive medieval West.
Syria’s Baghdad was the place to be. Especially medical students from the comparatively primitive West would study in Baghdad. Noah Gordon’s The Physician is a delightful novel that is relevant here. Published in 1986, a New York Times reviewer judged the book “surprisingly relevant in an age when fanatical fundamentalism and intolerance are…on the rise….” Its relevance is precisely its depiction of a high culture that could not possibly have arisen out of the negative and chaotic picture Westerners have of today’s Islam. A book I am currently reading is Stephen Glain’s Mullahs, Merchants, and Militants, in which he has a chapter on Syria that, chaotic as it is today and far behind in modern development, was at one time a major centre of international culture and economics.

In Spanish Andalusia, the underdeveloped West had a high Muslim culture right at its doorstep for some 700 years, during which time it developed a flourishing culture. Superior Muslim cultural spillover into the Christianizing West was inevitable. Andalusian culture itself was the product of centuries of multi-cultural interaction and fermentation in Asia between Muslims, Christians and Jews, going back many centuries. It was Christian Syriacs who translated Greek philosophy, especially Aristotelian works, into Arabic before Islam saw the light of day even. From those translations, Muslim scholars became familiar with that philosophical tradition, interacted with it and was influenced by it.

As Islam moved westward, Muslim scholars translated these works into the language of the West, Latin. It was from there that the West learned about Greek philosophy and developed its own interaction with it. Christian theologians and philosophers also interacted with their Muslim counterparts, some in agreement, while some developed their own in opposition to Islamic philosophy, but they were all influenced by it one way or another. Then the various Christian philosophers, influenced as they were by their Muslim counterparts, interacted and discussed among themselves, but again in ways that can not be fully understood or appreciated without recognizing that Muslim background. Much of pre-Reformation theology and philosophy was heavily indebted to that culture and religion. (For a scholarly summary of this development I refer you to Frederick Copleston’s A History of Philosophy, volume 2, part iv.) Though today the residue of that background has become increasingly difficult to trace, it is only a lack of historical awareness and prejudice against Islam that have combined to produce gross ignorance of the Islamic foundational roots of our current culture.

You may agree with the above summary of philosophical developments, but dismiss it as irrelevant. So what if these abstract philosophers were influenced by Islam? What does that have to do with you, the reader of this blog or with the man/woman on the streets of Vancouver or Toronto? In short: the common sense of today in the West is the product of centuries of philosophizing that trickled down into the consciousness of the common person. “Trickle down” may not always work in economics, but it surely does in philosophy. Even if you know nothing about these ancient philosophers, they are woven into the fabric of your common sense.

I will continue with more of “The Muslim in You” in my next blog. Stay tuned. If things get too philosophical or abstract for you, let me know by writing a comment. I am trying to shift back and forth between abstract and more “practical” realities.

That is a distinction I make only halfheartedly, for in fact there is nothing more practical than philosophy, for the philosophy of yesterday becomes the “common sense” on tomorrow’s streets via the university. Today, you are thinking and doing as you are because of what abstract philosophers wrote over the past few centuries. Ideas, as they say, have legs. You may not know their names or have read their books, but they are part of you. They are in your veins, not to say DNA. Muslims are among your cultural ancestors. Welcome them back into your psyche and into your world, though, being a Christian, I step back from encouraging you to become a Muslim. I am, after all, Christian missionary.

The Other Side of the Coin

Post 16—

Dr. Aliyu Tilde is formidable Nigerian Muslim journalist whose columns can be found on < www.Gamji.com >, a Nigerian news website. He is fiercely critical of corruption and oppression wherever he sees it in Nigeria, whether perpetrated by Muslims or Christians or those who merely claim such epithets for themselves. Some of my Christian friends in Nigeria dislike him, for they strongly disagree with his stance on the violence that has racked Nigeria’s Plateau State and its capital Jos, a city I have lived in for two decades. Yes, they strongly disagree with him, for you can only react strongly to his equally strongly worded columns, whether you agree or disagree. In the case of Plateau State, he is squarely on the Muslim side. Having come to know him a bit more personally through recent correspondence, I should re-read his articles on the Plateau situation. Sometimes knowing a person personally can bring a change in interpreting him.

Recently Tilde published a column under the title “Poor Northerners!(2), referring to Nigerian Northerners, mostly Muslims. He unhesitatingly admitted that “countries in the Muslim world are not democratic and they represent perhaps some of the worst living specimen of tyranny and oppression.” But then he goes on to explain how this situation arose. While most Westerners are convinced that the reasons are internal to Islam, Tilde shows the other side of the coin and locates the cause in the hypocritical and oppressive behaviour of Western nations. Listen to him:

“However, that is neither the tenet of Islam nor the choice of its Muslim citizens. It is the practice of their puppet leaders in strong collaboration with the western powers that support them with aid, intelligence, equipments of torture, guns, etc. Take Saudi Arabia for example. That kingdom is a monarchy which, in the first place, could not have come into existence without the support of the British or survived this long without deploying American might. In fact this is the root cause of the terrorism that America so much complains about these days. The same thing applies to Egypt and other tyrannical regimes in the Muslim world. Let America and the Western world support the democratization of the Muslim world by withdrawing its support for those oppressive regimes and you will see them collapse in less than five years. But the West cannot risk that because of its entrenched strategic and economic interests.”

I largely agree with Tilde that this Western behaviour is a major cause of the situation we all bemoan. A major cause; not the only one. Forty years ago I might have disagreed with him, but since then I wrote a doctoral dissertation on colonialism and was forced by the facts to recognize the nefarious and oppressive nature of Western colonialism. It was an eye opener for me. The facts that I unearthed had been carefully hidden from me by a domesticated educational process right through undergraduate university as well as post-graduate theological seminary. What I leaned was not pretty. If you turn to volumes 2, 4, 6 and 8 of my Studies in Christian Muslim Relations, you can find it all there as well. (You can access these free of charge by typing < Jan H Boer> in the opening page of < www.lulu.com >.)

Yes, the pre-Renaissance/Enlightenment internal Muslim factors play the other major part. Note that I said “Muslim” factor, not necessarily Islamic factor. They are no more the same as are “Christian” and “nominal Christian.” Both these internal and external factors need to be recognized and admitted by both sides. Writing as a Christian, we must heed the word of Jesus Christ who warned us to first take out the beam in our own eyes, before we reach for the splinter in the eye of the other.

(ForTilde’s article turn to his columns on www.Gamji.com and check Discourse 308, November 2010.)

Canadian Press Owns up to Muslim Persecution of Christians

Post 15—

While the media, especially the Canadian press, is quick to publish reports and discussions about discrimination against Muslims in Canada itself, the USA or in Europe, that same press is remarkably silent about discrimination or, worse, persecution of Christians in Muslim-majority countries. Sometimes such persecution is due to government policy; sometimes, simply to the local citizens, often with the connivance of government agencies like police and court. Today, such persecution is due to Muslim angry reactions to Western violation of their sovereignty and interference in their affairs. Whatever the reason, no one can deny that such persecution is widespread in these countries, for in the previous two posts we record government acknowledgements of this tragic phenomenon.

So, it is a relief to note that there are signs the media may be opening up to reports about the persecution of Christians. The past few posts seem to indicate that there is some relief in this area. Another recent indication is a guest editorial in the Vancouver Sun (Nov. 17, 2010) borrowed from The Calgary Herald. The opening salvo: “Respect for religious beliefs is supposedly a universal value applicable to all faiths, making the world’s silence on recent attacks directed at Christians so puzzling, and so very unacceptable.” Then: “This lack of action is especially lopsided considering the willingness of governments and organizations to attack anyone offering insults to Muslims.” The article then goes on to catalogue a whole series of cases of persecution against Christians by Muslim. I should really summarize each case the article reports on, but I will spare my Muslim friends the embarrassment. The writer of the editorial writes, “Not one of these incidents has garnered even a fraction of the attention the proposed Qur’an burning caused. This begs the question: Why?” Indeed, why?

He suggests that perhaps this situation is “because Christians rarely riot in difficult circumstances.” Glad that the word “rarely” qualifies the assertion, for I know of circumstances where Christians have rioted—in Nigeria, for example. And if in the USA Christians do not usually riot, ultra-rightists and fundamentalists have loudly demonstrated and elicited Muslim violence by threatening to burn Qur’ans. In Canada, of course, Christians are far "too polite" to go beyond occasional domesticated demonstrations. Or would "too scared" be a more accurate description?

The Calgary writer ends his piece with a strong statement: “By cherry-picking causes for concern, governments and groups expose the hollowness and hypocrisy of their vaunted values. It’s justice for all or justice for none.” Hooray! Thumbs up for the writer and the Herald for bringing this situation to the attention of the general public as well as for the Sun for picking it up. That’s pretty courageous for main stream media. The last post contains reference to an article about Christian persecution printed in Vancouver’s other daily, The Province. Thank you, reporters and editors. Is there is change in the wind? Keep it up!

Of course, if the main stream media have (consciously?) suppressed such stories, there are agencies that exist for the very purpose of reporting on such developments on their websites., while others collect funds to support the victims of such persecution. For some reason they have not managed to penetrate the main stream media, at least, not in North America. It is time the general public become aware of them. This is not the day for me to bring them to you attention, but it is on my agenda for the near future.

The next post will feature a Nigerian Muslim columnist who uses some tough language to explain the lack of democracy in most Muslim countries and their oppressive practices. So, hang around. I’ll be back.