Foreign Affairs
I previously noted the recent atrocities committed by Egyptian Muslims against Coptic Christians. Some Egyptian Mulsims have now taken a stand for their Christian brethren. Muslim intellectuals and activists have called upon Egyptian Muslims across the nation to attend Coptic Christmas Eve masses as a show of solidarity with the Coptic minority and to serve as "human shields" against an attack by Islamist militants.
Many Egyptians have nobly and courageously spoken out against the Islamic murders - but most express their regret with a tragic sense of hopelessness. Murderous militantism is deeply embedded in Islam - or, murderous militants are deeply invested in employing Islam as their vehicle of propaganda and terror - and Islamic political parties are often in a race to the bottom to appease highly organized Islamic extremists.
Moderate Muslims and all those living under the tyranny of Islamic extremism have a hard road ahead.
At least Islamic murderers aren't insensitive enough to use a target icon superimposed on a map. Now that would be unacceptable.
On a more serious note, I understand the point you're making. Throughout history there have been people of good character who wish to resist evil but are overwhelmed by numbers. Good hearted Germans during Nazi rule ... sensible conservatives in the heinous tyranny of Obama.
Now wait ... surely I'm not drawing a moral equivalency between Obama and Hitler? Why ... that would be unprecedented in modern political discourse.
Murderous militantism is deeply embedded in Islam - or, murderous militants are deeply invested in employing Islam as their vehicle of propaganda and terror - and Islamic political parties are often in a race to the bottom to appease highly organized Islamic extremists.
I would refer you to Alistair Horne's A Savage War of Peace. The Islamic strain of political thought among Algeria's Arabs and Berbers was, during the period running from 1933 to 1962, the least consequential. He only mentioned it in passing. Militancy in the Near East and the rest of the Arab World in the years running from 1949 to 1978 lost interest in parliamentary institutions and was praetorianist and fascist in character.
Earlier, I was reading Mira">Mira">https://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704739504576067714082910994.html?mod=rss_opinion_main&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+wsj%2Fxml%2Frss%2F3_7041+%28WSJ.com%3A+Opinion%29&utm_content=My+Yahoo">Mira Sethi on events in Pakistan. She says, "Late last week, when Taseer's assassin was presented at an antiterrorism court, no public prosecutor showed up out of fear for his safety. Instead, a throng of shouting lawyers and activists, bearing garlands for the assassin, crowded the streets hailing the killer as a hero." The assassin said he had acted out of love of Mohammad. Pakistanis love him for it. They think he is courageous.
Sethi says the killer has multiple Facebook fan pages. I note from one of the articles linked above "Youssef created the crescent and cross logo with the slogan 'A nation for all' - that was adopted during the past couple of days by many of Egypt’s 4 million Facebook users as their profile picture." What a weird time we live in.
People of good character overwhelmed by numbers, murderous militancy: last semester a student wrote a paper on how Islamic extremists alone were responsible for violence and not supported by ordinary Muslims. "The media" he said, is responsible for the false American idea that Islam is militant; his Comparative Religion teacher had convinced him. "We are promoting their extremists," but I don't think they care what we think.
"Moderate Muslims and all those living under the tyranny of Islamic extremism have a hard road ahead." and so do we all, since the world has become smaller.
Iran has arrested about 70 Christians since Christmas in a crackdown
To me the big news is that Iranian authorities are cracking down because they are upset at the growth of private house churches.
"Islamic political parties are often in a race to the bottom to appease highly organized Islamic extremists."
Hmmm.... something about that seems so familiar to me...