"Why Can't A Christian Be More Like A Muslim? Revisited
August 13, 06
william Warda,
staff writer of the christiansofiraq.com
I received an email from Ms. Sally Bashai the Editor-In-Chief of the www.xculturemag.com who after complementing the www.christiansofiraq.com web-site wrote she knowns Sara Ghora and flet that Raman Michael in reply to an article by her titled; "Why Can't A Christian Be More Like A Muslim?" had misunderstood what she had in mind. Raman She suggested it would be helpful for the readers of the Christiansofiraq.com to read the original story which is posted at: sara ghora's blog
Since then Sara has added a new article to her blog titled; "When An ID Card Is a Life Sentence." After reading it I was convinced that Raman Michael must have misunderstood here intentions in her previous writing. Judging by her latest article Sara sounds like an educated fair minded person who judges both the good and the bad on both sides and is not afraid to criticize here coreligionsts when they are unjust which few Muslims dare to do publically. Criticizing Islamic practices are considered blasphemy by Muslim clergies and their supporters.
Her "Why Can't A Christian Be More Like A Muslim?" However was not written in the same spirit. Her perspective about the relationship between Muslims and Christians sounds unrealistic to the rest of us.
Her claim that "many Muslims actually do a better job of being generous and not holding grudges than do many Christians." is contrary to all facts.
She writes "Also, while the Bible actually teaches love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control, while Christians are told to love their enemies and turn the other cheek, it is Muslims, particularly those in the west, who oftentimes reek of kindness and generosity."
While treatment of their own and others by the Christians leaves much to be desired when compared to the stabdards of the New Testament one has to wonder on what basis Sara thinks "Muslims, particularly those in the west, reek of kindness and generosity"?
It is well known that millions of Muslims who have migrated to the west in recent decades have been welcomed with open arms, yet the Christians of the Middle East because of prejudice, discrimination, and outright persecutions have been driven out of their homeland in Iran, Turkey, Iraq, Syria, Jordan, palestine and Egypt. In Sudan hundreds of thousands of Christians have been massacred, others sold into slavery.
Does Sara know that a million and a half Christians including Armenians and Assyrians were massacred in Turkey, Persia, and the mountains between the two countries during world war one? Does she know that since 2003, seven hundred fifty thousand Assyrians have been driven out of Iraq because of their religion? Various Fatwas have been declared against them by the Muslim clergies demanding they should convert to Islam, abandon their homes, jobs and flee. Their churches have been bombed, their women are ordered to wear the Hijob or be attacked, their businesses have been burned, owners killed, their sons and daughters have been kidnapped, tortured and ransoms for as much as $150 thousands dollars are demanded for their release.
Does she know that Christians in Iran because of their religion are treated as unclean by the religiously devote Muslims. If they touch anything in a grocery store they are expected to buy it, or it would be considered as defiled? They can not work in any profession which requires touching food or any muslim? The Molahs are telling their followers not to buy christian produce or property because once the christians are forced out Muslims can own them for free. Christians are not allowed to build new churches in most Muslim countries while there is no such restrictions for building mosques in the West.
One has to shudder to think what would have happened to a christian community in any Muslim country if few of its members had carried out an act similar to the destruction of the twin towers in New York. A year or so ago a christian palestinian was falsely accused of having put pictures of naked Muslim women on the internet. The small christian town where he lived was attacked, businesses were ransacked and people were beaten up. This can hardly be considered as kind or generous.
Muslims are in fact much more inclined to hold grudges than any other people. For example the crusades is treated by them as if it happened yesterday. While attempts by the Christians of the west to free Jerusalem is branded as the greatest sin, the conquest of the Christian lands by Arabs out of Saudi Arabia, four centuries earlier, and the imposition of Islam on the population is considered as perfectly proper.
There is no equivalent in any other society to the Islamic suicide bombers who consider it their religious duty to wear explosive belt to blow themselves up so that they can murder dozens of others, or to blow up planes out of the sky killing thousands of unsuspecting travellers in hope that the bombers will end up in paradise to claim 72 virgins on 72 beds in 72 mansions.
It is true that the majority of Muslims are kind ad fair minded but Islamic societies are often dominated by the extremist, supported by militant factions determent to impose their prejudices, hatred and religious beliefs on the rest, to punish anyone who objects. The civil war between the Sheia and Sunies in Iraq, the rise of the Ayatolas in Iran, the Talibans in Afganistan, the Hezballahs in Lebanon are the obvious examples of such reality.
Sara believes that Christians of the Middle East would be better off identifying themselves simply as Christians instead of Assyrian, Chaldean, Copt. She goes on to say: "It is more likely that people [who] are loyal until death to Islam because they see it as an all-encompassing foundation of their lives. They don't say "I am Saudi Wahabbi" or "an Egyptian Sunni," but simply "I am a Muslim. At the end, it is not wrong to be proud of one's ethnic affiliation, but it is wrong to place religion in a less-prominent section of one's life."
I fail to see any positive advantage to this state of mind, in fact it is such attitude that has caused the death of million and continues to wreck havoc on Christians and Muslims alike. Every conflict between a Muslim and non-Muslim community, at any cornner of the world, is treated as a religious war woldwide by the Muslims. It is this kind of thinking which compels young men born and raised in England from Pakistani descent to plan the death of thousands of American air travelers in retaliation for conflicts between Israel and the Hezballah or the Palestinians.
It is this sate of mind which prompts the Islamic Republic of Iran to wish the manufacturing of the atomic bomb in hope to use it in the future to obliterate the Jews in Israel, or as the weapon of terror against the Christians of the west, a possibility which might cause the destruction of wide areas and the death of millions, Christians and Muslims alike. Even such outcome is welcomed by the Muslim extremists because they believe it will hasten the return of the twelfth prophet and the day of judgment.
When religion is considered as "all-encompassing foundation of a people's life" and various religious practices are often in conflict , each side believes its form of worship is ordained by the creator, however, all others are damned, worst yet, deserve to die for not worshipping "the right way", the result is the death and destruction which we have come to witnessed over centuries.
---- |
