The Left’s blind eye to non-Western suffering

FRONTPAGEMAGAZINE

Last Thursday, Voice of America reported one of the saddest stories of the last few years: about half of all girls in Kenyan slums apparently give their bodies to older men in trade for sanitary napkins.  As health educator Lydiah Njoroge, a field officer for the Freedom for Girls Program, explained,

The least [expensive] in the market is 40 shillings … a packet that has eight pieces in it.  So, because this girl cannot afford 40 shillings – their mother, their parents are poor, they have other things to provide food and shelter – sanitary towels are not a priority.  So the girl just goes [and] has sex with an older man, most of the time not the same man – they would have one this month, another one next month, so they are very, very at risk of having HIV.

This story was largely buried in the media.  Instead, the media focused on issues like Israel’s “occupation” of Palestinian Arab-populated areas; Rick Santorum’s opinions on birth control; and, of course, the evils of those GOPers who didn’t want to extend the payroll tax cut.  Can you say priorities, anyone? 

The left’s incessant self-criticism of Western society has two major effects.

First, it undermines the pride and power of Western civilization, opening it to attacks from barbarians at the gates.  Second, it forces focus to Western civilization, leaving those suffering in other parts of the world to suffer their fates in silence.  When we worry about whether Catholic churches in American should have to pay for the pill in the United States, that’s attention we should be spending on the need for better education – and hell, cheap tampons – in Kenya.  When we agonize over Susan G. Komen’s funding of Planned Parenthood, that’s focus we could be directing at serious world problems.

Barack Obama was correct when he stated during his 2008 campaign that Americans are self-centered.  But even his criticism of Americans was self-centered.  Here’s how he put it:  

We can’t drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times … and then just expect that other countries are going to say OK. That’s not leadership. That’s not going to happen.

But Obama, like the rest of the left, has it exactly backwards.  Of course people in other parts of the world think about their own material situations.  But they don’t think about whether Barack Obama is keeping his home heated. They think about their lack of tampons, and whether they need to trade their bodies to keep clean.  Obama suggests that the West has sinned by having a high living standard; in fact, the West has sinned by beating itself up for high living standards, when its real goal should be extending those living standards abroad

But here’s the dirty little secret of the left: they don’t want our living standards extended abroad.  They think we’re sinning against the planet. By maintaining these standards.

They also know that the only way to extend American standards abroad can only be found in extension of capitalist principles and liberal modes of government abroad.

Take a look at Kenya, where these girls are having sex in exchange for Kotex.  No matter how many boxes of Kotex we ship over there, these girls will never see them– the corrupt government will steal them and sell them, bulking up personal bank accounts in the Caymans.  Honest and transparent – truly limited – government is a hallmark of the West, and it must be implemented before living standards can be raised.

When the British were last in charge of Kenya, during the period 1950-55, life expectancy at birth for females was 44.2 and 40.5 for males.  Today, life expectancy at birth in Kenya is a mere 55 years.  Over the past 55 years, life expectancy has risen just 15 years. British rule was sometimes racist, and marked by poverty and turmoil.  But take a look at another British colony, Hong Kong.  In 1950-55, life expectancy in Hong Kong was 61 years; today, it’s 82.7 years.  Hong Kong hasn’t had a great government the last several years, but it was ruled by the West for nearly all of that time.

But here’s the dirty little secret of the left: they don’t want our living standards extended abroad.  They think we’re sinning against the planet. By maintaining these standards.

They also know that the only way to extend American standards abroad can only be found in extension of capitalist principles and liberal modes of government abroad.

Take a look at Kenya, where these girls are having sex in exchange for Kotex.  No matter how many boxes of Kotex we ship over there, these girls will never see them– the corrupt government will steal them and sell them, bulking up personal bank accounts in the Caymans.  Honest and transparent – truly limited – government is a hallmark of the West, and it must be implemented before living standards can be raised.

When the British were last in charge of Kenya, during the period 1950-55, life expectancy at birth for females was 44.2 and 40.5 for males.  Today, life expectancy at birth in Kenya is a mere 55 years.  Over the past 55 years, life expectancy has risen just 15 years. British rule was sometimes racist, and marked by poverty and turmoil.  But take a look at another British colony, Hong Kong.  In 1950-55, life expectancy in Hong Kong was 61 years; today, it’s 82.7 years.  Hong Kong hasn’t had a great government the last several years, but it was ruled by the West for nearly all of that time.

If we want to solve serious problems around the world, the first step is to stop beating ourselves up, pretending that we are the problem.  We aren’t.  We’re the solution.  Millions around the globe beg for us to apply the Western solution rather than wasting our time in useless self-flagellation.

Islamic religious persecution goes unnoticed

The Top Ten List for countries trying to eradicate Christianity. Disgracefully, the mainstream media rarely, if ever, cover this kind of ethnic cleansing. One possible reason: anti-Christian bias among Western elites.

Over the past year there have been several reports of Christians being violently persecuted in the Middle East, Africa, and other Muslim nations. Most were wire service stories, or reports from religious media outlets like Catholic News Service.

There was little follow-up or editorial outrage over what is now being called religious genocide, religious cleansing, or the next holocaust by human rights and religious groups alarmed at the fast spreading persecution.
One of the bedrock principles of America is religious freedom. People have an unalienable right to openly and publicly practice their faith or not.

All are protected, accepted and respected.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali wrote in her Newsweek article, that there is a “conspiracy of silence” over mass religious persecution of Christians in Muslim nations. Christians are being killed in the Islamic world because of their religion. It is a rising genocide that ought to provoke global alarm. 

It is more than a conspiracy of silence. It is a conspiracy of political and media apathy. There is no political or journalistic will to continually publicize and condemn religious persecution by extremist Muslims or Islamic dictatorships.

This silence and apathy create an implied consent for religious persecution.

Over the past year there have been several reports of Christians and animists being violently persecuted in the Middle East, Africa, and other Muslim nations. Most were wire service stories, or reports from religious media outlets like Catholic News Service.

There was little follow-up or editorial outrage over what is now being called religious genocide, religious cleansing, or the next holocaust by human rights and religious groups alarmed at the fast spreading persecution.

This conspiracy of silence and political apathy is nothing new. From Hitler’s rise through the early stages of World War II the treatment of Jews and others by Nazi Germany, and the eventual holocaust claiming almost 15 million lives, was largely ignored by governments, the media, and international service groups like the Red Cross. The treatment of Jews and others by the Nazi regime was well known in international circles.

No one wanted to make the baby cry in the case Adolf Hitler.

No one wants to make the baby cry in the case of intolerant, fanatic, or extremist Muslims or Islamic dictatorships.

There are intolerant extremists in every society and religion. Christianity and Judaism are no exceptions. These extremists create prejudice, fear, and hatred. Fortunately the extremists are inconsequential small fringe groups. Most people abhor them.

Yet, there is no public abhorrence of Christian persecution by Muslims, who are either the majority group or rule the theocratic dictatorships where religious persecution exists.

The persecution, in some regions genocide, of Christians and other religious groups is the most important international human rights issue willfully ignored by the American media and our government.

Why can’t we, as a nation, come together to abhor and condemn Islamic religious persecution? Why don’t we demand Islamic religious and government leaders to repudiate religious persecution, prosecute the persecutors, and put an end to it?

Will it take another genocide or holocaust before we finally speak up? Why are we, the government and media, participating in the conspiracy of silence and apathy?

Our self-proclaimed Christian President has not publicly addressed this issue, nor have the supposed Christians in our legislature. Our Christian Secretary of State has been mute. But, they continue to dole out foreign, military, and humanitarian aid to countries that practice or allow inhumane persecution.

The supposed Christian presidential candidates, who blather about their faith, are silent on this issue.

Our government, which claims to promote freedom throughout the world, is not standing with people of faith and conscience who are being violently persecuted, turned into refugees, or mass murdered.

"Internationally, all believers are in the crosshairs of fanatics around the world. Somewhere, someplace, somebody's being persecuted to the point of blood because of their faith and we need to stand together in defense of those people… It is time for both faith groups to face realistically the common threat we have from fanatics, especially in the Islamist community." Stressing that fanatics do not represent "pure, noble Islam." (Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York)

Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, president of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue writes “The lack of religious freedom is taking center stage in many places, calling our attention to those members of our human family exposed to bias, prejudice, hate propaganda, discrimination and persecution on the basis of religious affiliation."

Some examples:

• In Egypt Coptic Christians are being persecuted and murdered. 100 thousand Christians fled Egypt since the Mubarek regime collapsed in what the Egyptian Union of Human Rights is calling a “mass exodus.” Our president helped depose Hosni Mubarek in the cause of freedom.  
  
• In Iraq, where we shed our blood treasure allegedly for the cause of freedom, Christians are being violently persecuted, murdered, and churches are being bombed, as seen in the above photo.
  
• In the West Bank and Gaza, where Palestinians are in control, Christians are being persecuted. Justus Reid Weiner of Hebrew University claims 1,000 Palestinian Christians left the West Bank city of Bethlehem, the historic birthplace of Jesus. Our government wants to negotiate with people who persecute religion to supposedly bring peace, and that freedom thing, to the region.
  
• In Pakistan it is illegal to convert to any religion but Islam. They have a blasphemy law with the death penalty. We give foreign aid and military assistance to Pakistan. Pakistan is a tenuous ally in the region.
  
• CNN reported in Nigeria, 12,000 Christians and animists were killed over the past decade in a religious purge.
  
• SAUDI ARABIA: 35 Ethiopian Christians still in jail for praying in a private home
  
  

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Bomb near car explodes in Nigeria, wounding 5

A bomb planted by an abandoned car exploded outside a church in the middle of a worship service Sunday near Nigeria's capital, wounding five people amid a continuing wave of violence by a radical Islamist sect, authorities and witnesses said.

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Kuwaiti legislators call for ban on construction of churches

A Kuwaiti parliamentarian is set to submit a draft law banning the construction of churches and non-Islamic places of worship in the Gulf state, it was reported at the weekend.

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Confronting the teachings of Islam

Islam is a religio-political doctrine, thus the policies of the State are only half of the intellectual arsenal needed to address its cold war with the West. For our civil society to survive the advance of Islam, we must confront it head on to block its efforts to subjugate all forms of government to Shariah law and to destroy all other forms of faith. We must use both political and religious strategies to successfully defeat Islamic supremacism.

In the domain of politics, there exists an unfortunate failure of imagination by our government elite to confront Islam ideologically. There are a few brave Western politicians who have acknowledged the fundamental threat posed by political Islam, but the large body of our elected officials has, to its discredit, refused to accept the fact that Islam’s codified doctrines promote an incessant march toward world hegemony.

In a similar manner, it is tragic that the Christian Church has neither fully recognized nor embraced its role as the spiritual defender of Western Civilization. In many ways the Church has actually aided and abetted our enemies through its unwillingness to stand up for its own values in the name of the dubiously noble ideals of diversity, tolerance, and inter-faith dialogue. Now is the time for the Christian Church to stop its dance with the devil, and she must don her spiritual armor to prepare for a confrontation of ideas with Islam.

If not thwarted, Islam will do to the West what many other tyrannical ideologies have attempted and at times succeeded in doing: Crush all other systems of belief and dominate the culture at large. By its own admission, Islam wishes to conquer the world, at least in part, through the destruction of all other belief systems:

Qur'an 8:39 "And fight with them (ie--the unbelievers) until there is no more persecution and religion should be only for Allah."

This passage should serve as a warning to all of us. The Qur'an, which Islam regards as the perfect, immutable words of Allah, literally teaches Muslims to fight unbelievers indefinitely until theirreligion reigns supreme. If the Church has any true conviction that its heritage is worth protecting, it must pick up its intellectual and spiritual arms and stand in the gap like the Mighty Men of David. The Church must embrace the fact that Western Civilization was built on the Judeo-Christian ethic, and that Islam is dedicated to destroying that ethic. If the Church truly believes that God did indeed endow all people with the rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, she will defend Western Civilization against Islam's anti-freedom manifesto. 

Our Founding Fathers recognized precisely that the government of the United States of America would only be suitable, as John Adams put it, to rule over a “moral and religious people” and it was Biblical morals in large measure that gave men like Adams, Jefferson, and Madison the ideological firepower to fight for our divine and inalienable rights. The Church, then, must with great conviction counteract the advance of Islam by asserting the goodness of its own values and decrying the Islamic values that are incompatible with our society. The Church simply cannot sit by silently ignoring that Islamic doctrine treats violence, oppression, and hatred by Muslims toward the rest of the world as holy behaviors.

Let us take a moment to look at the example of history. In the first three centuries after the time of Christ, the two most significant threats to the Christian community were 1) physical persecution by the pagan state of Rome and 2) the ideological poison of heretical doctrine propagated by false teachers. The ultimate objective of these persecutors was the destruction of the Church and the culture it was promoting. The pagan persecution meant suffering and death by the sword, with the intent to drive the Church into submission to the state. The purveyors of religious heresy concurrently sought to destroy the Church by drawing believers into unorthodox belief systems. It was up to the pastors of the Early Church to protect their congregations from these persecutions and topromote the values of Judeo-Christianity in the culture at large.

The Early Church Fathers, to their credit and unlike today’s politically correct elites in both religious and secular circles, did not shrink back from taking strong positions to defend their faith and the culture that it was creating. These martyrs were unashamed and were emboldened to advance their faith even when facing violent opposition. They actively chose to contradict false doctrines thrown at the Church, because they believed wholeheartedly in their own. The modern Church would do well to follow the example of her religious forbears in this regard.

In the confrontation with modern paganism, embodied by various forms of collectivism, the contemporary Church is indeed fighting back against the destructive by-products of those ideologies. When it comes to religious threats, however, the modern Church has lost its spine. The strength that the early Christians had in fighting toxic religious doctrine has largely disappeared. It is rare to find a Christian who can articulate why his religious values are so effective and why those of Islam are not. As such, the Church must reach into its history and learn a lesson or two, in order to battle Islam as the heresy it is.

The Church must stand up for its values because it is within societies based on Biblical traditions that freedom in all its forms has flourished. The Church needs to boldly tell the world that it stands for liberty for all people, because freedom is a divinely ordained right of mankind. The Church must repudiate Islam, which defines Allah with the worst qualities of man’s image, complete with a nature of deception, violence, hatred, and so forth, as a heretical doctrine that undermines the tenets of liberty.

The Christian community must acknowledge the threat of Islam—with its holy calls to kill unbelievers wherever they are found (Qur’an 9:5), its oppression of women (Qur’an 4:32-34), and its dehumanization of unbelievers (Qur’an 98:6). The Church must go head-to-head with Islam on the religious front, call out its false doctrines, and diminish its power of persuasion in the marketplace of ideas. As an active and unapologetic Christian, I am calling my spiritual brethren to action. It is time for the Christian devout to engage Islam much like the primitive Church did in confronting the dangerous heresies that threatened its existence and seek to win a victory for its ideals – those that form the basis of Western Civilization.

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Saudi officials pressure Ethiopian Christian prisoners to convert to Islam

A group of Christians from Ethiopia said to be unlawfully imprisoned in Saudi Arabia has been facing increased pressure to convert to Islam, a Christian human rights advocacy group informed The Christian Post.

According to International Christian Concern (ICC), an advocacy group based in Washington, D.C., and with agents in countries where Christians experience persecution, the 35 Christian Ethiopian men and women were violently arrested on Dec. 15 during a prayer meeting at a private home in Jeddah, a city on the western coast of the country. The group was reportedly arrested for holding a meeting in which both men and women were present, which is frowned upon in the conservative Muslim country. But ICC told CP that the prisoners claim they are being persecuted because of their faith.

The agency has previously reported that the prisoners were physically harassed by prison officials after their arrest – the men were allegedly assaulted and the women humiliated by a sexually inappropriate strip search. Human Rights Watch confirmed that report. The men and women have also reportedly been complaining of insufficient care.

Now, while still in prison, the Christian group is reportedly experiencing pressures to convert to Islam.

"The Muslim preacher [that was sent by officials to speak to the prisoners] vilified Christianity, denigrated the Bible and told us that Islam is the only true religion," one of the female prisoners said, according to ICC. "The preacher told us to convert to Islam. When the preacher asked us, we didn't deny about our Christian faith.
"I was so offended with her false teachings that I left the meeting," the woman added.

The prisoner also expressed fear that the teaching sessions might incite Muslim prisoners to harass and even attack the group, ICC said in a statement.
The detained Christians are reportedly still in the dark about their legal status.

"Why don't they release us? We want to go back to our country and worship freely," the female prisoner told the agency.

Ethiopian Christian women report being assaulted after arrests

Saudi Arabian authorities are adding sexual assault to their routine for processing prisoners when they are Christian women, according to a new report that is imploring the international community to pressure the restrictive Islamic nation on basic human rights.

International Christian Concern’s Jonathan Racho says the 35 women prisoners were arrested for meeting for a prayer time, and they are reporting that they were molested.

“The female prisoners have told us about how they were sexually harassed. When the Saudis arrested them, they knew the Ethiopians were Christians,” Racho said.

“They took off the women’s clothes and touched them. When the strip searching was going on, the officers were touching the women,” Racho said.

Racho adds that some of the details are graphic.

“They were using gloves to strip search and they were putting their fingers into their genitals,” Racho said.

“This is a very, very serious accusation of harassment and we want the international community to look into this,” Racho said. “The Saudis have to stop harassing these Christians.”

Racho adds that the treatment of the Christians is the opposite of Saudi public statements.

“The Saudis in the past have publicly said that they want religious tolerance and dialogue between the people of faith,” Racho said. “The Saudi king and the Saudi government have been very active in promoting peaceful existence and religious freedom.”

WND reported in December that Saudi authorities raided the mostly Ethiopian prayer meeting in Jeddah and charged all 35 with “Illicit Mingling.”

Members of the group were taken into custody and moved to an undisclosed location.

Racho says the Christians have been behind bars for over a month, but ICC is not content to let the incarceration continue.

“ICC has been working hard to highlight the plight of the Christian prisoners. We’ve been issuing press releases and asking our supporters to call the Saudi Embassy,” Racho said.

“We’ve been gathering petitions to ask the Saudi Arabian government to release the prisoners,” Racho said.

He also says his organization has spoken with members of Congress and to the State Department.

State Department spokeswomen Molly Lynn Westrate says the department has been pressuring the Saudi regime.

“Absolutely we have. We call on the Saudi government to recognize religious freedom and to permit private worship in individual’s homes,” Westrate said.

The Saudi government has not responded to WND’s request for an interview.
WND reported in January that Open Doors’ America’s “World Watch” puts Saudi Arabia as the third worst country for religious persecution. Muslim nations lead the pack.

Nine of the 10 worst nations for persecution of Christians are run essentially under Islamic law, and the “Arab Spring” across parts of northern Africa has led to a surge of repression, according to the global assessment.

“The top 10 in this year’s report are in order, North Korea, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Iran, the Maldives, Uzbekistan, Yemen, Iraq and Pakistan,” the story said.

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Muslims enslaving Africans “The Veiled Genocide”

The Book about the Muslim Enslavement of Africans called “The Veiled Genocide”(2008)

Tidiane N´Diaye is a Muslim and an African,a Senegalese intellectual who has written “The Veiled Genocide”. He shows the cover-up of the Arab-Muslim slave trade by Muslims and yes, by Africans also, denounces the attempt to place all of the blame for slavery on Western countries, and calls the atrocities committed by Muslims to Africans as genocide.

An Overview of Slavery in Africa

1.It existed for hundreds of years among Africans before the legal European slave trade of 1450-1810,and the illegal one,which lasted till 1860.

2.The great majority of Africans were not captured by Europeans but sold to them by other Africans.

3.Some 10-12 million Africans were taken to the Americas,with a death rate of 10-12% across the Atlantic.About 66% of those taken were men,and their life expectancy was 7 years in the sugar plantations of Brazil and the Caribbean.

The Different Nature of the Muslim Slave Trade

1.It lasted alot longer.Muslims engaged in the enslavement of Africans from the 7th century till the late 19th century and enslaved more Africans than the Europeans.

2.About 66% of Africans were women,to be used as sex slaves.

3.It could be 120 million black Africans died to produce the 17-20 million Africans slaves used by Muslims in over 1300 years,with an 80-90% death rate in 4 weeks across the Sahara desert,plus those killed in raids to capture slaves.

4.Most of the African men were castrated to serve as eunuchs in the harems.A harem was a collection of non-Muslim women who served as sex-slaves for rich Muslim men.

One source

Here it gives the reasons why they calculate 270 million Hindus,African animists,Christians and Buddhists have been killed by Muslims.
http://www.politicalislam.com/tears/pages/tears-of-jihad/

The book by African and Christian John Alembillah Azumah about Islam and Slavery

It is called “The Legacy of Arab-Islam in Africa” (2001) and tells of the Muslim enslavement of Africans.It states:

1.Muslims considered Black males such a potential sexual threat to Muslim women that they had Black male slaves doubly castrated. To be explicit, not only were the testicles cut off, but the penis was cut off at the base too.

2.The mortality (death) rate from this operation was estimated at 70 to 80%.

3.The transport survival rate was less than 1 in 3, Dr. John Alembellah Azumah estimates that perhaps 50 to 80 million more died along the way.

The Koran does allow Freeing Slaves but make it Conditional

If the master thinks the slave deserves it he frees a slave.
Chapter 24:33:

“And let those who find not the means to marry be abstinent till God enriches them of His bounty.

1.Those your right hands own (Note:slaves) who seek emancipation, contract with them accordingly

2.If you know some good in them (Note:if you think the slave deserves freedom)

And give them of the wealth of God that He has given you. And constrain not your slave-girls to prostitution, if they desire to live in chastity, that you may seek the chance goods of the present life. Whosoever constrains them, surely God, after their being constrained, is All-forgiving, All-compassionate.”

It is also made implicit in this verse:
Chapter 8:70:

“O Prophet, say to the captives (Note:people made slaves in war) in your hands:
1. “If God knows of any good in your hearts (Note:if you deserve it)
2.He will give you better than what has been taken from you
(Note:they had just been made slaves,their freedom had been taken away) ,
and He will forgive you; surely God is All-forgiving, All-compassionate.” ”