The other day I received a circular from a British organisation called Christian Voice. It was a true cri de coeur, loud enough to draw attention to another massacre in the making.
“If Mr Hague has his way and Assad falls, the Christians in Syria (10% of its population) will face a bloodbath. The signs are there right now, and only Russian and Chinese resistance to ‘the West’ is keeping the Syrian church from complete extermination,” says the circular, adding, “Thank God for the Russians.”
Right analysis, wrong conclusion. The Russians and the Chinese aren’t out to save Middle Eastern Christians – they’re pursuing their own interests, and these are in the long run even deadlier to Christendom, what’s left of it.
But one can understand those who are desperate to avert a catastrophe. Betrayed by their own government, not knowing where to turn, they’d form a pact with the devil, not just the Russians, if this could save the lives of Christians and Jews.
As ever, the root of the problem is close to home. The asinine policy inspired by American neocons and avidly pursued by the US government, with Britain in the role of the proverbial poodle, is encouraging the radicalisation of Islam, a religion that doesn’t really need such prodding.
A creed founded not by a crucified martyr but by a warrior, Islamic civilisation is by its very nature radical and aggressive. It has to be those things for it’s doctrinally committed to proselytising, and history has taught Muslims that the only way they can spread their faith is by violence. Like all other civilisations, Islam has its peaks and troughs: at some times it’s more impassioned, and therefore radical, than at others. This is all basic.
What’s less so is the West’s response at this time, when the amplitude of Islamic passion is clearly at its peak. As a direct manifestation of this, Christians are being persecuted all over the Muslim world.
Sri Lanka is about to make Christian conversion a criminal offence. Christianity is illegal in Saudi Arabia, and anyone caught with a Bible, or with the Cross around his neck will be thrown into prison.
In Pakistan, churches are burned down every week. Recently, a thirteen year old girl was taunted for being a Christian by five Muslim youths who then raped her. The rapists were not charged.
A man is currently on trial for his life in Egypt for converting to Christianity. In Sudan, Somalia, Mali, Nigeria – all over Africa – Christians are being dispossessed and slaughtered. The Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt aims to wipe out all the Coptic Christians who have been there since the second century.
And the Western – or, to give credit where it’s due, American – response? To mastermind and engineer the fall of those Middle Eastern regimes that are all of them unsavoury but none of them Islamic radical. The Americans, with us in tow, commit this criminal outrage in the name of democracy – even though in this context ‘democracy’ is wholly synonymous with ‘Islamic radicalism’ and all it entails.
Fundamental to our response to this is the understanding that, when conducting their policy of democracy über alles, the Americans don’t really mean it. ‘Democracy’ for them is a desemanticised equivalent of our own erstwhile ‘white man’s burden’, something to inscribe on the banners of a budding global empire. Americans too are proselytisers, and, when Coke and McDonald’s don’t quite do the job, their ‘democracy’ acquires a laser-guided aspect. In short, ‘democracy’ has become nothing but a neocon trick.
As I write this, ‘Arab Spring’ is in real danger of turning into nuclear winter. Radical Islamic regimes of wild-eyed fanatics committed to the destruction of Israel and the massacre of Christians and Jews, have taken over in North Africa and Iraq, and are about to do so in Afghanistan. Assad is tottering, and Messrs Obama and Cameron are only too happy to provide the final push. Once they’re victorious, the so-called ‘rebels’ will unleash a tribal and religious civil war and, should chemical weapons fall in their hands, will be perfectly willing to use them.
Middle Eastern Christians and Israel, the only recognisably civilised and genuinely pro-Western country in the region, are in grave danger of a holocaust. Israel, the only country in the world denied by the progressivist consensus the right to defend itself, will respond to such a menace with every means at its disposal, nuclear weapons if need be. Is this what the State Department and the Foreign Office want? Possibly; I woudn’t put anything past them.
If the Middle Eastern Christians and Jews are indeed massacred, their blood won’t just be on the hands of Muslim fanatics. Our own governments won’t come out unsullied either. They are selling the Judaeo-Christian soul for a mess of pottage, or, to be more up-to-date about it, a barrel of oil. And all we can do is scream off the rooftops, hoping our voice will be heard.