Tea at Trianon: Christianophobia and Islamophobia

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Tuesday, March 26, 2019

Christianophobia and Islamophobia

From Crisis:

The attack on the mosques in New Zealand took place on March 14 and received intensive worldwide coverage. Yet four days earlier, two Muslim suicide bombers tried to blow up a church in Adamawa State in Nigeria. Six days earlier, on March 4, Muslim Fulani tribesmen killed 23 Christians with machetes and gunfire in Benue State. And on March 10 and 11, Fulani herdsmen killed 85 people in three communities in Kaduna State. A month prior to that, Boko Haram militants killed 60 people and burned hundreds of structures in the Nigerian town of Rann.

Judging by the lack of international news coverage, one is forced to the conclusion that the media considers the ongoing slaughter of Christians to be a low-priority matter. In some instances, the Christians can’t even count on local coverage. International Christian Concern ends a report on a Boko Haram attack with these words: “The church leader regrets that these attacks are rarely reported on by the local media anymore. As a result, their people continue to suffer in silence, with minimal help from others.”

I mention these killings because they occurred close in time to the New Zealand attack. But they are only part of a bigger picture. In many parts of Africa, Asia, and the Middle East, attacks on Christians by Muslims are routine. These include attacks on Christians at worship. For example, in Alexandria, Egypt, 45 people were killed in church bombings on Palm Sunday 2017. According to Open Doors, at least 4,305 Christians were murdered for their faith by Muslims in 2018.

Apparently, the incidence of global Christianophobia is far greater than the incidence of Islamophobia. Yet, by slanted and selective news coverage, the media attempts to convince us otherwise. In his press conference remarks, Nihad Awad spoke of skyrocketing attacks on mosques, and the media was quick to echo the claim. Except for occasional incidents of spray-painting—regrettable as that is—attacks on mosques in the Western world are extremely rare. What Awad and the press also fail to mention is that the vast majority of deadly attacks on mosques and on Muslim pilgrims are committed by other Muslims. (Read more.)