Iraqi Govt to Protect Christian Minority

Post 14

A few days ago, I read an encouraging news item about the Iraqi government promising to repatriate Iraqi Christians who have fled their country because of persecution and discrimination. The report was something similar to that in the previous post about Pakistan. Statistics tell us that Iraqi is emptying of Christians, who have lived there as minorities since the beginning of Christian history. I read the following report from the UK-based Barnabas Aid for November 14, 2010:--

Praise God for encouraging news from an Iraqi ambassador to a European state, who said that his government is committed to assisting Iraqi Christians who have fled their homeland because of the anti-Christian violence. He said that the government will assist Christians who return to Iraq with jobs, money and land to build houses. He also affirmed the possibility of creating a semi-autonomous region for Christians, similar to what Kurds in Iraq have, should the Christians with it. Pray that the Iraqi government will have the will and the ability to carry out these pledges and protect Christians from Islamic militants.

That is indeed an encouraging report. However, since Barnabas does not reveal the identity of the man nor the country to which he is assigned, it seems they must have felt it necessary to hide the identity of this ambassador, which makes me wonder whether he truly spoke the mind of his political masters. It was at least an official acknowledgement that Christians are fleeing his country and that his country is producing Christian refugees. But was he sincere? Did he represent official policy?

I ask such questions because I also read a story today that totally contradicts the above promise. A short report in today’s Province, a Vancouver daily (Nov. 11/2010), tells of continuing attacks on Christians:--

Baghad—A string of anti-Christian bombings has cost six more lives in the wake of a Baghdad church bloodbath, sowing panic in Iraq’s 2000-year-old minority on Wednesday, many of whom now want to flee. “Since Tuesday evening, there have been 13 bombs and two mortar attacks on homes and shops of Christians,” a Defense Ministry official said. The attacks come less than two weeks after 44 Christian worshippers, two priests and seven security personnel died in the seizure of the Baghdad church by Islamist gunmen and the ensuring shootout.

Some readers may argue that you need to give the government time to implement its new policy. You need to realize that Barnabas reports always come some months after the matter reported. There’s been time to implement the ambassador’s promise.

As in the case of Pakistan, we keep hoping….

Pakistan Govt. to Recognize and Protect Christians

Post 13

Pakistan is a Muslim country with a very small percentage of Christians. At one time, it was held up as an example of healthy inter-religious interaction and its legal system was considered an example for other multi-religious nations. But so was Sudan! During the time Nigeria was preparing for independence (1960), a group of Nigerian and British specialists were sent to these two countries to observe how they managed their inter-religious situation. Today, neither of these two nations are thought of as shining examples of religious tolerance, if you don't mind a slight understatement! We are all aware of Sudan's atrocious and cruel wars. Many people are not so aware of the high level of anti-Christian discrimination practiced by the Muslim people of Pakistan. I tended to think it was the Muslim citizens who were guilty of this religious outrage, rather than the legal system. However, recently a newly-appointed Minister for Minority Affairs--not sure I have the correct label here--, a Muslim himself, admitted to the prevailing legal discrimination against Christians and promised to correct the situation.

Apart from a final "P.S.," the rest of this post consists of an article by Sheraz Khurram Khan in which he reports on the new dynamic Minister Shahbaz Bhatti is trying to introduce. Now that article was published in February, 2009, a year and a half ago. I invite readers familiar with the Pakistani situation to write in and tell us about whether any real improvements have been made and experienced by Christians. Here's Sheraz Khan:--

============
"NCCP awards Pakistan Government Minister Shahbaz Bhatti."

The award was presented to Mr. Bhatti in a ceremony the representative body of all churches and missions in Pakistan held in his honor.

The reception was largely attended by Church leaders from the various denominations including Archbishop of Lahore Lawrence Saldanha, Mr. Victor Azariah Secretary NCCP, Dr. Arthur James, the Principal of the Gujranwala Theological Seminary, Colonel Yousaf, Salvation Army, Sister Pillar, Principal of the Convent of Jesus & Mary, Azera Shuja, Advocate, Lahore High Court, and other eminent people from the Christian community, who admired Shahbaz Bhatti's level of "dedication and appreciated his unfaltering commitment to attain equal rights for religious minorities in Pakistan."

"In the fields of health and education the services of Christian community are meritorious and in the social sector too Christians have been second to none," said Bhatti.

"In the Armed Forces of Pakistan outstanding performances and exceptional levels of professionalism have been attained by Christian officers," he maintained.

He said previous governments had neglected the rights of religious minorities, discriminatory laws were imposed in the past and under the rigidity of these draconian laws the minorities have suffered tremendously.

He said that safeguarding minorities' rights was the present government's top priority. The government, he claimed, is committed to the vision of Qaid-i-Azam, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, to empower the religious minorities and is working towards their uplift.

The Minister went on to say that the government has announced a 5% job quota for religious minorities.

He told the audience that religious festivals of minorities will be celebrated on a national level.

"Minority prisoners will be provided with separate place for worship within the jails," he went on to say.

"All laws that discriminate against minorities especially the blasphemy laws, under which numerous minority members have wrongly been implicated would be reviewed in consultation with minority representatives, religious clerics and scholars."

Mr. Bhatti said that these laws have hampered the efforts of interfaith harmony and national unity and he stated that the blasphemy laws have been misused by the extremists to victimize the minorities.

The Federal Minister said that the bill has been drafted for minority representation in the Senate and increase of reserved seats in the National and Provincial Assemblies, which will soon be tabled in parliament.

Commenting on the current security situation of the country, Bhatti stressed that "terrorism can be defeated through tolerance, national unity and interfaith harmony."

The Federal Minister for Minorities said he has devoted his entire life for the oppressed and marginalized religious minorities of Pakistan and is committed to raise a voice for the voiceless and does not seek any personal benefits or privileges.

His only objective is to bring "justice and equality to the downtrodden suffering minorities of Pakistan."

The Archbishop of Lahore said he appreciated the efforts of the Federal Minister and praised his "courageous and bold stand" on minority issues.

He said that the Churches and Christian community stand by him in his efforts to uplift and empower the minorities of Pakistan. He also mentioned that the discriminatory laws were creating disharmony in the country.

Mr. Victor Azraiah said that minorities have always served the country whole heartedly but in return they have always been neglected. He stated that some of the countries top leadership has been produced by Christian institutions.

He appreciated the Federal Minister's efforts for the rights of Minorities and assured him complete support of all the churches and Christian community of Pakistan. He emphasized the need for Christian representation in the Senate.

Azra Shujaat, advocate, said that the Federal Minister as Chairman APMA has been advocating the cases of victims of the discriminatory laws and has always stood by the oppressed and marginalized, he appreciated his commitment dedication.

===========End Article

PS--Vancouver's daily, The Province, reported on Nov. 12, 2010, that a Pakistani court in Punjab has just "sentenced to death a Christian mother of five for blasphemy, the first such conviction of a woman. As the story goes, Asia Bibi "went to fetch water and Muslim women labourers objected, saying that as non-Muslim, she shouldn't touch the water bowl. From there the incident somehow convoluted into a blasphemy charge. Hmm.

Muslim Canadian Congress and Secularism

Post 12

This current discussion started some posts ago and has dwelt on the issue of violence. The discussion continues in this post, but violence now takes a back seat.

I mentioned in Post 11 that there is a contradiction in MCC’s rejection of violence and its embrace of secularism. It uses a secular perspective to reject violence. This stance stands in sharp contradiction to that of millions of other Muslims. I have written an 8-volume work on Christian-Muslim relations in Nigeria, where violence has erupted time and again against secularism. Nigeria is by no means the only country where this is the case. It is more common among Muslims throughout the world to regard secularism as their enemy than as an inspiration for tolerance and non-violence.

This is not to say that all Muslims opposed to secularism are violent. I, a Christian, am also opposed to secularism, but I am not violent and do not intend ever to engage in it. The same is true by far for most anti-secularist Muslims, though it may be fair to say that all militant Muslims are anti-secularist, with perhaps a few unusual exceptions. That MCC is at odds with that other Canadian national Muslim organization, Canadian Islamic Congress, does not surprise me, even though at this point I am not sure of the exact nature of their friction. I do need to look into that one of these days.

So, the stance of MCC contradicts that of the world’s Muslim majority.

There is an additional contradiction in the stance of MCC. They are a Canadian organization that has adopted a liberal and secular stance in the Canadian context. They want to contribute to that context in a positive way, an admirable goal that can only be lauded. Their embrace of the alleged Canadian secular ethos is part of that programme. That’s the way to get accepted by the Canadian establishment. A Muslim organization embracing such values is sure to get plenty of kudos from the Canadian populace and media. Wonderful!

However, the Canadian secular establishment really amounts to the establishment of one worldview called “secular” at the expense of other equally Canadian worldviews, especially if these other Canadian worldviews are of an overt religious nature. They may actually have deeper and longer roots in Canadian history, but the upstart liberal-secular establishment has managed to upstage it and assign it a small niche best described as comprising of church, family and the personal. As long as the groups with other worldviews agree to that assigned restrictive place, they are considered good boys and girls. But once they object to that assigned position, you will have the media on your neck and you run the great risk of having all the powers of human right commissions firing their canons of political correctness at you in ways that can legitimately be described as legal violence. You may even be described as, mother of all horrors, a vile stooge of American fundamentalism, surely the worst of all possible Canadian castigations!

MCC, by having adopted this establishment perspective, has in fact allied itself with a very intolerant worldview that may not shoot with the gun but with the weapons of scorn and political correctness that guide the dubious legal interpretations of human rights commissions. Though that establishment uses such great words like “liberal,” “tolerant,” etc., those words hardly catch the venomous spirit with which it operates.

I have let one of my cats out of the bag in this post. I have not defended my allegations, but I will do so as time allows in succeeding posts, though not necessarily in succession to each other. So, if you want to pursue my line of reasoning or have become curious about my Calvinistic-Kuyperian worldview, you’re just gonna have to stick with me for a while. Good luck—a very unCalvinistic parting!

Muslim Canadian Congress Denounces Violence

Post 11

Yes, more on violence. Are you getting tired? Well, this post is different from the previous ones. I am going to introduce you to a Canadian Muslim organization that opposes and condemns all manner of violence and terrorism. For the name, see title of this post. I will refer to it as MCC, with apologies to that other MCC, namely, world-wide renowned Mennonite Central Committee.

I introduce MCC with a few statements of their own so you know what they are about.

As Muslims we believe in a progressive, liberal, pluralistic, democratic, and secular society where everyone has the freedom of religion.

We believe in the separation of religion and state in all matters of public policy. We feel such a separation is a necessary pre-requisite to building democratic societies, where religious, ethnic, and racial minorities are accepted as equal citizens enjoying full dignity and human rights enunciated in the 1948 United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

We believe that fanaticism and extremism within the Muslim community is a major challenge to all of us. We stand opposed to the extremists and will present the more humane and tolerant face of our community.


I introduce MCC not because I agree with all of its philosophy. In fact, I don’t. But I want to let you know that Muslims speak up against violence and terrorism more than many of us realize. The Organization of Islamic Conferences (OIC), the world’s largest international body, speaks up against it frequently. I invite you to check out their statements on their own website or go to Volume 8-2 of my Studies in Christian-Muslim Relations and check out the OIC with the help of the Index. But MCC is more local; it is Canadian and proudly so. It has published many articles denouncing violence and terrorism in newspapers and in their own published documents. Please verify this by going to their website.

Below follows a sample of titles of their published documents that will give you a good flavour of how strongly they reject violence and terrorism in all shapes and forms. Here we go:

“MCC Condemns Islamic Extremism”

“Muslims Should Speak out”

“Don’t Be Silenced by Extremists”

“MCC Condemns Burning of Churches in Nigeria and Pakistan”

“No Need for Force, Violence”

“MCC Condemns Bombing in Bumbay as Crime….”

“Muslims Must Denounce Terror Forcefully”

“MCC Condemns Islamic Extremism”

“Muslims Must Speak Out”

“MCC Condemns London Bombing as Barbaric and Cowardly”


I encourage you to go and read at least some of them. If you’ve laboured under the impression that Muslims do not condemn these activities, reading this material should disabuse you of this false impression. You might still argue that Muslims don’t do enough of it. Even MCC President Farsana Hassan has admitted as much: “The near absence of such movements is hurting Muslims more. Their silence in not denouncing acts of terrors as forcefully as they should is consequently exacerbating Islamophobia.” However, I am sure you will find more if you do some surfing on the internet.

Fair is fair. Just thought you would want to have your attention drawn to MCC and their work. It’s just too bad that it is secular Muslims who publish such anti-violent declarations, for there is a built-in contradiction between their embrace of secularism and denunciation of violence. I will address that in the next blog.

The Frequency of Violence by Muslims

Post 10

I am a busy man and hence sometimes make silly mistakes. One of these is that the content of Post 9 should have come at least two posts after this one. Well, consider it a humorous break from the subject of violence. You deserve such a break.

Please refresh your memory re. the closing of post 8. There is this “but….” that needs to be cleared.

Let me be clear once again, that I am writing about violence and terrorism committed by individuals or groups, not by governments or nations. That would be a different story.

Before you read any further, note also that the title of this post is not “The Frequency of Muslim Violence,” but “The Frequency of Violence by Muslims.” I hope you catch the difference. I am not talking here of Muslim or Islamic violence, but of violence committed by individuals or groups who are Muslims. Herewith I am suggesting that this violence does not emerge from core Islam. As per our jurist Verkouteren in Post 3, I have no way of proving that this violence emerges from the bowels of Islam. In the case of violence committed by Christians, I know theirs does not come from core Christianity. On what logical basis would I determine otherwise for Muslims?

Nevertheless, my Muslim friends, that “but….” keeps tugging away at me. I wrote at the end of the last post that violence or threats of violence by Muslims are common these days. If we cannot blame it on their religion, then, what of their culture? Violent Muslims come from many different cultures, including Western cultures where they are in a minority. Unless we could agree that every culture is violent by nature, I would not go there either.

Well, then, what of social class? Can it be said that one social class is more violent than another? I don’t think I want to go there either. For some time, it was argued that terrorists and other violent folk must come from the underprivileged strata of society, but it soon became clear that terrorists are often well heeled and well educated. Another brick wall.

I want to turn elsewhere. First of all, there is the historical fact that the West has over the past centuries treated the Muslim world with disdain and a strong sense of superiority, all the time trying to control and exploit them for their own Western purposes. It is called “colonialism” and “imperialism.” During that period, serious attempts were made to pry Muslims loose from their religion, mostly by the inculcation of secularism through education and the legal system. It almost worked. Muslims did not turn from their religion, but the more they were subjected to secular education, the more secular they became in their thinking about the world of business, science, politics and government, while they often continued to practice the five pillars. The Muslim world went into a spiritual coma, a process that went largely unnoticed by the victim communities.

Then, suddenly Ayatollah Khomeini burst on to the scene with his angry and strident demands for a rejection of secularism and a revival of classical wholistic Islam. The Shah of Iran and all that represented the secular West had to be wiped off the face of the earth, especially from Muslim territories. Khomeini fired the imagination of the dormant Muslim community, stirred up the entire Muslim world and turned them into an indignant umma. I experienced it all in northern Nigeria and have described it in some detail in my series Studies in Christian-Muslim Relations, especially in Volume 2. (You can find it by typing in the appropriate box in
< www.lulu.com >.) Khomeini may have triggered a dynamic that went further than he could foresee or that I approve of, but as I observed it from my Nigerian perch, I could only applaud in principle this awakening of Nigerian Muslims from their stupor and breaking the secular chains that had bound them.

They became angrier than hell, millions of Muslims did. They realized they had been had. They had been tricked and sidelined. A virus had been inserted in the soul of the umma that now needed to be excised. They had swallowed the poison pill of secularism. They went back to their main source, the Qur’an, for renewed inspiration and a new beginning--and in their anger now took it in a very raw and literal sense, for that gave them an excuse to take revenge. Kill the bastards! A, yes, so many verses supported that kind of aggressive action. With joy, glee and enthusiasm they stirred up each other to this new liberating mission. With Allah on their side, history would be on their side as well. They were sure of victory.

And so they proceeded, millions of them. And who can deny that currently most non-governmental violence and terrorism comes from the Muslim side?

In many places it turned pretty ugly for Christians. Where Muslim majorities had at least tolerated Christians, they now became hostile and associated their local Christian neighbours with the hated West. One reads of so many situations where former friendly relations turned sour. Christians are accused of all kinds of crimes without proof in many countries, especially the “crimes” of apostasy and blasphemy. Stories are simply cooked up and the victims taken to court. Even when declared innocent, they feel so threatened by their accusers, they often escape to neighbouring countries. Some of them end up as refugees in the West. My archives are full of such stories. Simply beyond belief and reason. And even if these situations are not officially approved by governments or their agents, they often simply stand by and let it happen. Sometimes they connive with the perpetrators. Churches and Christian properties burnt. Families broken up. Careers cut short. Jobs lost., In Middle Eastern countries where some of the oldest Christian communities have lived in relative peace for centuries, their numbers are fast depleting by Christians escaping to neighbouring countries. They simply cannot take it anymore.

The West has done its thing. Whether Western colonialism was as bad as the Islamizing process of the Middle East and North Africa centuries earlier may be worth a debate. The Muslims are still there and now standing up for themselves. The same cannot be said of the earlier Christians supplanted by Muslims. They have largely vanished, while those remaining live under severe stress.

The time has come to put and end to this spiral of violence. Muslims know that Allah is the Compassionate and Merciful one. He forgives. Does Islam not promote forgiveness and reconciliation? Similarly, the Bible calls upon Christians to forgive. It is here that leaders of both religions must make their influence felt. People like Howitt and Cooper from the previous post are right in calling upon Muslim leaders to apologize. The non-governmental perpetrators of violence of today are mostly Muslims, even if they are not guided by a right understanding of the Qur’an. Their leaders must take a much stronger public stand against violence than they have. Arar seems to be either blind to the violence Muslims commit or he is trying to deny it. Given its widespread nature, that is rather foolish and makes him appear dishonest in my eyes. Arar and other Muslims should realize that the hesitation of the Muslim community at large to openly recognize and acknowledge the widespread violence among them constitutes a serious barrier to the Islamic da’wa or mission in God’s world.

One of these days I will give you a peek at the Nigerian situation where you have two equal majorities of 65 million plus of each of the two religions. That’s a dynamic that calls for a totally unique strategy for reconciliation and moving forward together from the rampant religious violence in that country. For those who are curious, check out the e-book version of my studies as I showed you above.

"Humour" from the Left

Post 10--

I want to share with you some humorous attitudes of the so-called “left” in the US towards Muslims. First, the very interesting insights of Laurence Elder, a syndicated columnist, from a copyrighted article of his. That means I can describe the article, I can summarize it, I can interpret it, but I cannot reproduce it in this forum. But it’s so interesting and, really, sort of humorous, that I will take the trouble to describe/ summarize part of it for you. The title of the article is “Australian Muslim cleric calls for beheading -- who cares?”

He refers to two incidents: (1) an Australian Muslim cleric’s call for the head of Dutch alleged anti-Muslim politician Geert Wilders and (2) the threat of the American pastor Terry Jones to burn the Qur’an. The first evoked hardly any reaction from anywhere, while the other provoked “an international outcry” from the highest authorities in the land, if not the world. Actually, these are three incidents, with the first being two in one—a Muslim cleric and a Dutch politician.

The Australian, Feiz Muhammad, was already infamous for other pranks. He allegedly called for the radicalization of young children and held rape victims responsible for their misfortune. As to Wilders, "(De Telegraaf, the Netherlands' largest newspaper) posted an English-language audio clip in which he [Muhammad]refers to Wilders as 'this Satan, this devil, this politician in Holland' and explains that anyone who talks about Islam like Wilders does should be executed by beheading....”

Elder reports that “civil libertarian groups vigorously defended Muhammad’s vile but protected speech,” while they were completely silent about events surrounding Wilders, who was attacked for his rather wild but also protected speeches against Muslims. He asks, “Where are the free-speech groups denouncing the prosecution of Wilders for making abrasive comments?” Put more clearly, how come those same libertarians do not defend Wilders’ right to free speech? Elder continues, “If a proposed Quran burning generates international news and condemnation, isn't the call by an Australian Muslim cleric for the beheading of a democratically elected European politician worthy of a few moments on the network nightly news?” Should that Muslim call for Wilders’ head not evoke similar indignation from those same libertarians?

Elder wonders why offensive acts by Muslims provoke calls for sensitivity and understanding” from the left without anyone defending Wilders’ right to free speech. Barbarous statements and acts by Muslims in the name of Islam generate indifference. Wilders can be attacked for his anti-Muslim statements with the same libertarians merely standing by with folded arms. And then, of course, the leftist uproar about Pastor Jones. His threat to burn the Qur’an evoked fearful and fierce antagonism from many quarters, including the highest authorities in the land right along with that from our libertarian goons. Elder wonders why the contradiction. Indeed, why? Why the double standard?


Humorous lob-sidedness on the part of these libertarians. Who has the liberty to do or say what? Within that community, why can some say what they want, no matter how vile, while others have their mouths sown shut or are attacked? Extremist Muslims must be protected and treated with sensitivity and understanding. A radically right Western politician, may be vilified and prosecuted for expressing his political beliefs, the job for which he was legitimately voted into office. As to that ludicrous call to burn the Qur’an, well, it goes without saying that, in view of the Muslim violence this would provoke and the added danger this would create for Americans abroad, this is scandalous. I am happy that libertarian leftists were so eager to protect the American establishment and its soldiers out on Asian adventures! Unusual, to be sure, but appreciated—and humorous! Or was there some other motive? Mmm.

The Elder article continues on to other things, but somewhere along the line he provides an explanation for this kind of leftist attitude. He comments, “Barbarity in the name of Islam is not even remotely condemned [by these leftists] to the degree that the West condemns insensitivity by cartoonists, politicians and anti-Islam clerics." Why? A denunciation of Muslim practices suggests a superiority of American values and culture, something the left finds a very objectionable notion.

Elder also refers to an article by Fred Gottheil from the University of Illinois, who in another context came to the same conclusion. He wrote, "If leftist 'progressives' really cared about women, gays and lesbians, then they would be fighting for their rights in places where such rights are really violated -- like under Hamas in Gaza and under the mullahs in Iran. But doing so would legitimize their own society and its values and therefore completely cripple their entire identity and life purpose, and so their purported concern for women, gays and lesbians has to go out the window."

It has not always been so. The US-based Egyptian Muslim Leila Ahmed, in her book A Border Passage (1999), expressed her absolute shock when she first entered the world of American university feminists. She remembers being openly besieged with “furious questions and declarations openly dismissive of Islam.” She would be attacked about the veil and clitoridectomy when these were far removed from the subject at hand. She encountered an atmosphere of outright hostility and sheer ignorance on the part of her fellow feminists who, by implication, demanded that she and others in similar situations abandon their culture because it was “intrinsically, essentially, and irredeemably misogynist and patriarchal.” They were expected to give up on their culture and adopt that of their American colleagues. While the entire enterprise of these feminists was to critique, destroy all their own cultural traditions and restructure their own society, suddenly, when it came to Muslims, the latter were expected to join and adopt the very culture they so vehemently vilified! Go figure.

Today, the attitude of these feminists would, of course, lean in quite different directions. Apart from the veil and clitoridectomy issues, they would likely mirror the image of the first crowd of libertines in this article—the very opposite of what they once advocated. Or would they now possibly defend the veil and clitoridectomy in the name of sensitivity and understanding?

I just wanted to draw your attention to “leftist” humour when it comes to Islam. But the humour does not stop here. I was kind of horrified when Ahmed referred to these American feminists as Christian and amazed that she expected them to have any knowledge of Christianity at all, apart from utter negativity. Now we run into the Muslim tendency to regard everything in the West as Christian. Ahmed was shocked at the ignorance of her colleagues about Islam; I am shocked at the ignorance of Ahmed about the West. Humour has no bounds, it appears!

I guess one of these days, in order to be "fair" and "balanced," I should write about rightist humour. Not sure there is such a thing, but if I dig deep and long enough.... Who knows.

(Note: Since I write about leftists and rightists, you may be wondering where I live. I use these terms only because those are the ones used in popular discussions. Though I have little choice in the use of this vocabulary, I do not identify with either. I am a Calvinist with different parameters. You can find me all over the place, then here, then there, not because I am a wavering person, but because Calvinism simply does not fit those categories.)

The Question of Violence and Apology

Post 8

This post being the 8th, this is a rather new blog. But already quite a few posts have been devoted to violence in a blog devoted to Christian-Muslim relations. I am in no way trying to convey that violence is the main characteristic of Christian-Muslim relations. I argued that no religion is violent by nature. Instead, violence inheres potentially in every human being. All we need is the right trigger and there we go, if not as individuals, then as groups, nations—or religions.

So, then, why do I keep writing about violence in this blog? Have I been carried away by the prevalence of discussions and reports on violence featured in the media? Probably. Who can resist the media's influence 100%? As Qamarul Huda of the US Institute of Peace wrote recently, "It is nearly impossible to speak about contemporary Islam without referring to the subject of violence." It is such a popular discussion and one so often derailed, that it is a good thing if you have something that helps diffuse the subject. Sometimes I think I have. I believe my idea of tracing the root of violence to human nature instead of religion should lead us to look in a different direction for the causes of violence and not blame any religion so automatically or quickly.

This brings me to the issue of apologies. Maher Arar, publisher of the online Canadian magazine Prism, criticizes Muslim leaders and organizations who seem so ready to apologize for all Muslims when some Muslims are arrested for alleged terrorist acts, even before they have been tried and judged guilty. Why should they? he asks. When Catholic priests are abusive, no one speaks of “Christian abuse” or “Catholic abuve,” for all know that both Christianity and its Catholic version vehemently reject abusive behaviour. But when some Muslims engage in terrorism, it immediately is touted as “Muslim terrorism.” What accounts for the difference? Arar suggests it is fear called up by sensational journalism that constantly interprets such acts as the natural product of core Islam, its logical outcome. Remember the statement by Verkouteren, that Dutch jurist in Post 3 of this blog, who insisted that you cannot blame the misbehaviour of an individual on his religion, unless you can prove it to be the natural result of that religion’s core beliefs. Arar’s argument is the same.

Of course, not all readers accept Arar’s argument. Bruce Howitt from Vancouver, referring to the readiness with which Germans today apologize for the Holocaust, asks rhetorically, “Is it too much to ask Maher Arar and other Muslim spokespeople to take a lesson from them [Germans] and apologize for the mayhem and destruction of lives and property caused by Muslims in the name of jihad and religion?” Alan Cooper, another Vancouverite, does not accept Arar’s critique of Muslim leaders. He finds that the Canadian Council of Imams is doing the right thing by their condemnations of Muslims involved in terrorism. Their statements tell us that being a “decent Muslim requires vocal condemnation of so-called radical Islam.” Herewith he urges Arar to get out there and apologize when Muslim leaders fail to prevent terrorism on the part of Muslims or “disgraceful treatment of women by others.”

So what gives? Who is right? The answer, I suggest, depends on the situation these writers either imply or assume. Arar’s argument seems to imply or assume that violence and terrorism by individual Muslims or by Muslim groups is a rarity. It seldom happens. That being the case, why blame their religion if some isolated group of extremist Muslims goes off the deep end? Howitt and Cooper imply or assume that such violence and terrorism occur frequently, so frequently in fact, that people have begun to think of it as common to Muslims and is a result of their religion.

I guess I need to give some direction here. A question: Is violence/terrorism by Muslims rare or frequent? I wish I could say “rare” and be done with the question. Unfortunately, the facts force me to admit it is a frequent occurrence.

I really would like to leave the issue of violence for a while, as if that were the only issue between Christians and Muslims. But there is this “but….” that still needs to be cleared away.