By Elizabeth Kendal
Islam is a materialistic, imperialistic and political religion. Its aim is to achieve dominance -- demographically or through military or political conquest -- so that Muslims might rule and Sharia (Islamic Law / the law of Allah) might be applied.
Where Islam is dominant, atheists and polytheists have two choices: convert to Islam or die. Jews and Christians (the People of the Book), however, have a third choice: dhimmitude -- i.e. they may pay for their "protection" (i.e. right to life) with "jizya" / tax / protection money (religiously santioned extortion) and by submitting to Islamic rule and Sharia law in total subjugation and abject humiliation (Sura 9:29).
The subjugated peoples are known collectively as the dhimma (singular: dhimmi). The state of subjugation -- a state of immense insecurity, vulnerability, perpetual anxiety and psychological trauma -- is known as dhimmitude. The rules under which the dhimma must live are codified in the dhimma pact. If at any time, the dhimma violate the dhimma pact, then "protection" is withdrawn and jihad (Islamic holy war) resumes -- meaning the dhimmis may be killed and their properties plundered.
Europe's rise and Islam's decline -- commencing in the late 17th Century and culminating in defeat for Islam in the 20th Century's two world wars -- saw dhimmitude wane. Today, however, Islam is back and so too is dhimmitude. And nowhere is this more evident than in Egypt.
This is unsurprising considering the results of a recent survey by Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies. For according the the study, while 61 percent of those living in cities support a civil state, 48.5 percent of rural residents support an Islamic state. When asked what state they wished to see Egypt resemble, 48.9 percent of rural Egyptians and 31.5 percent of urban residents named Saudi Arabia. Turkey was a distant second with 11.9 percent of urban residents looking to it as a model, and only 6.5 percent of rural residents. Further to this, some 40.1 percent of Egyptians classified themselves as Islamists. As one observer remarked: "I think Egypt has become more Islamized than we realized."
See:
Al-Ahram Center releases extensive political survey.
Tuesday Aug 23, 2011
Talking about secularism when Egypt looks to Saudi Arabia as a model
Hurriyet Daily News (Turkey), Monday, October 17, 2011
It is little wonder that some 93,000 Coptic Christians have left Egypt since 19 March. This figure comes from a report by the Egyptian Federation of Human Rights (EFHR). Furthermore, Naguib Gabriel, the head EFHR, estimates that the figure could increase to 250,00 by the end of 2011.
NGO report: 93,000 Copts left Egypt since March
Almasry Alyoum, 25 Sept 2011
The Maspero Massacre
In Elmarinab village in Egypt's Aswan Province on 30 September, thousands of Muslims went on a pogrom after having been incited in their mosques during Friday prayers. The military watched on without intervening while the Muslims destroyed St. George's church and other properties owned by Coptic Christians. Subsequently the state-run media whitewashed the incident. [NOTE: the Copts are the indigenous people of Egypt; the true descendents of the Pharoahs. They have been Christian for 2,000 years.] The Muslim pogrom was launched in response to church renovations. Though the Christians had legal permission to repair their dangerously dilapidated church, church repair is nevertheless prohibited by the dhimma pact, for the Christians must not only be humiliated, they must be seen to be humiliated lest they become a source of fitna (strife / temptation / anything that could shake the faith of a Muslim and thereby cause "chaos").
On Sunday 9 October, around 1,000 Christians, plus numerous sympathetic Muslims, peacefully protested outside Cairo's Maspero building -- the home of Egyptian state television and radio -- calling for an end to religious discrimination and sectarianism. However, to demand equity and justice instead of accepting subjugation and humiliation is yet another violation of the dhimma pact. This time the reprisal came first and formost from the Egyptian military.
See:
Egypt On Edge After Army Kills 20 Coptic Christians At Protest
Associated Press, Sun, 10/16/2011
The night Maspero turned into a war zone: A firsthand account
Reem Abdellatif, October 16, 2011
Violence and Bloodshed in Egypt: An Eyewitness Account
Sharif Abdel Kouddous, for the Pulitzer Center, Cairo, Egypt, October 10, 2011
Maspero survivors finally testify: army shot at unarmed demonstrators without provocation
Multiple eyewitness survivors of 'Bloody Sunday' at Maspero answer SCAF [Supreme Council of the Armed Forced], say military police shot at unarmed Coptic and Muslim demonstrators, APC's [Armoured Personnel Carriers] crushed people repeatedly, and afterwards police searched for 'Christians'.
Nada Hussein Rashwan, Thursday 13 Oct 2011
Stunned by bloodshed, Egyptians torn over army
By SARAH EL DEEB - Associated Press | AP – Sat, Oct 15, 2011
As violence escalated outside Maspero, state media falsely reported that armed Coptic protesters had attacked the military, killing three soldiers. The state media urged loyal Muslims to rise up in defence of their military, an appeal to which thousands of angry Muslims responded.
Egypt's State Media Implicated In Violence Against Christian Demonstrators
AINA, 13 Oct 2011
The Maspero Massacre left 26 dead and more than 300 wounded. On Sunday 16 Oct. Magdy Fahim Mosaad became they 27th Christian protestor to die when he succumbed to the injuries he received on Sunday 9th when he was run over by an armored personnel carrier.
Eye witnesses have testified that police and military shot, beat and chased Christians who they abused as 'infidels' and 'sons of dogs'. And so that truth could not be reported, the military attacked the studios of al-Hurra ('The Free One'), a United States-based Arabic-language satellite TV channel funded by the U.S. Congress, targeting Christian reporters and forcing its closure.
While the state media did apologise for its false report (blaming a 'nervous reporter') the military publically denied that they had killed any Christians -- this despite volumes of video and mobile phone footage showing armoured vehicles ploughing through the protesting Christians, running them over, crushing and tearing them, to cries of 'Allahu Akbar' (Allah is great).
Furthermore, a committee of "experts" appointed by the Minister of Information himself, Osama Heikal (who has praised the state media's coverage of the Maspero violence), has determined that while state television may have committed "professional errors" it did not intentionally incite violence against unarmed protesters.
Committee: State TV's Maspero coverage did not incite violence
Nada Hussein Rashwan, Monday 17 Oct 2011
And so we have yet more whitewashing and impunity.
By Monday 17 Oct. Egyptian newspapers were shifting the blame, from the military, onto Coptic priests and leaders. "Coptic religious leaders, clergy and intellectuals are responsible not only for the Maspero violence but also for threatening national unity, according to several papers."
Monday's papers: Editorial pages shift Maspero blame
Almasry Alyoum, 17 Oct 2011
Though an independent civilian prosecutor had begun looking into the Maspero Massacre, the military has now taken over the investigation. Military officials claim that the army must conduct the investigation on its own and in private due to the sensitivity of the clashes and in order to preserve troop morale. The head of the military judiciary, General Adel El-Morsi, has called for all evidence to be handed to the military.
Egypt military takes over inquiry of Coptic unrest
By AYA BATRAWY - Associated Press | AP – Thu, Oct 13, 2011
SCAF alone to investigate Maspero clashes
The head of military judiciary said Thursday armed forces alone will investigate Sunday's deadly clashes . . .
Ahram Online , Thursday 13 Oct 2011
No doubt the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) will call for "reconciliation" -- by which they mean the military will agree to make peace with the Christians in exchange for the Christians dropping all charges. Such "reconciliation" has been standard practise in Egypt since mid 2007. It provides the ruling regime with a win-win solution, for while it deceives and appeases the West it is actually a consession to politically powerful Islamists who insist on upholding the Islamic order which instutionalises legal discrimination / religious aparthide by prohibiting Christians / dhimmis from testifying against Muslims in court.
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The West's reluctance to challenge the immoral religious aparthide inherent in Islam is both immoral and short-sighted. If the West truly believes in the principle of universal human rights, then religious and cultural rights can never trump human rights. Furthermore, silence in the face of Islamic religious aparthide is discriminatory; for why should these victims be less worthy of our moral outrage? Anyone who maintains that the systematic religious aparthide inherent in Islam is the religious right of Muslims, is clearly no defender of universal human rights.
See also:
A Double-Bind Upon the Copts: dhimmitude in action.
Rev Dr Mark Durie, Monday, October 10, 2011
Quote: "The Copts are in a double bind. If they protest against the abuses brought upon their heads by the dhimma system, they are treated as rebels, and the value of their blood and possessions discounted accordingly: the more they protest, the less right they have under Islamic law even to exist. On the other hand, the more they acquiesce, the more voracious and emboldened their persecutors will become. [. . .] The international community will be held accountable if they do not act swiftly on the brutal attacks towards Egypt’s Coptic Christians who are suffering under a modern day form of apartheid where institutionalised discrimination and deadly attacks have a become a way of life for Egypt’s 15 million Copts."
The forgotten Christians of the East
By Caroline B. Glick, Jerusalem Post, 10 Oct 2011
Quote: "JUST AS the Jews of the Islamic world were forcibly removed from their ancient communities by the Arab rulers with the establishment of Israel in 1948, so Christians have been persecuted and driven out of their homes. Populist Islamic and Arab regimes have used Islamic religious supremacism and Arab racial chauvinism against Christians as rallying cries to their subjects. These calls have in turn led to the decimation of the Christian populations of the Arab and Islamic world. [. . .] It is unclear what either Western governments or Western churches think they are achieving by turning a blind eye to the persecution and decimation of Christian communities in the Muslim world. As Sunday’s events in Egypt and other daily anti-Christian attacks by Muslims against Christians throughout the region show, their behavior is not appeasing anyone. What is clear enough is that they shall reap what they sow."
Showing posts with label dhimmitude. Show all posts
Showing posts with label dhimmitude. Show all posts
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
Monday, July 12, 2010
Bekasi, West Java (Indonesia): dhimmitude or death
Many analysts are warning that the situation in Bekasi, West Java, threatens to deteriorate into religious war similar to that which convulsed Central Sulawesi and Maluku between January 1999 and February 2002. It must be noted though that those conflicts occurred on Indonesia's periphery where the Muslim-Christian demographic is around 50-50. If war/jihad against Christians erupts in Bekasi, which is 98 percent Muslim and only 15km east of Jakarta in densely populated West Java, it will be a totally different scenario altogether. This is a most serious situation. Tensions are rising and preparations are in motion. All it awaits is a trigger.
As noted in my post of 30 June 2010, Fitna and Apostaphobia in Bekasi, on Sunday 27 June Islamic fundamentalist leaders at the Bekasi Islamic Congress demanded the city administration of Bekasi, West Java, enact Sharia (Islamic) laws so as to 'limit' apostasy. They also proposed that every mosque in Bekasi establish its own paramilitary unit ('laskar') that can be quickly mobilised for war against Christians if "Christianisation" is not halted in line with Muslim demands.
Like the Laskar Jihad before it, the Islamic Defenders Front reportedly has TNI (Indonesian military) support.
On Monday 28 June, militants belonging to the Islamic Defenders Front (FPI) raided a restaurant in Banyuwangi, East Java, where legislators were running a health bill familiarisation program. FPI secretary general, Awit Mashuri, defended the FPI's actions, telling TVOne that the FPI is not a law unto itself and always "coordinates" with state apparatus before taking any action. According to Awit, on this occasion the FPI's intelligence came from a "district military intelligence unit". The FPI claimed the raid was necessary to destroy an illegal meeting of "Communists".
See: FPI admits military’s role in Bayuwangi raid
The Jakarta Post, Jakarta, Friday 2 July 2010.
Outraged Indonesian legislators called for the FPI to be banned. However, others simply recommended rule of law, noting that if the FPI is banned other groups will just emerge in its place. The legislators demanded that police, with strong support from the president, must act decisively to apprehend all lawbreakers. Furthermore, full investigations must be conducted in the event of any militia-related attacks, and the investigations must be kept open to the public. They also recommended that any politicians or businessmen found orchestrating these attacks must face punishment.
This issue, of whether or not the government is prepared to enforce the law in the face of rising Islamic fundamentalism, belligerence and "talibanisation", is the watershed issue on which the future of Indonesia balances.
According to Eva Kusuma Sundari, an Indonesian MP with the Democratic Party of Struggle, "There is information saying the FPI is a pet of the TNI [Indonesian military], and the police hesitate to deal face-to-face with the military, because police consider the armed forces their elder brother"' Of course the Defence Ministry spokesman Brig. Gen. I Wayan Midhio denied the allegation, maintaining that all TNI were "professional soldiers who obey the law".
Eva Kusuma Sundari has also learned that the FPI was registered and listed as a "mass organisation" in 2006 under Home Ministry Decree No. 69/ D111.3/VIII/2006, so it cannot be banned without an appeal to the Supreme Court. "This means the ministry also has blood on their hands," she said.
See: Legislator: FPI has the military backing
By Hans David Tampubolon and Bagus BT Saragih, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta, 30 June 2010
Muslim militias prepare for war
Associated Press reports that on Saturday 3 July some 100 jihadist recruits turned out for an inaugural military training exercise in an open field in Bekasi. "We're doing this because we want to strike fear in the hearts of Christians who behave in such a way," said Murhali Barda, who heads the local chapter of the Islamic Defenders Front, which pushes for the implementation of Islamic-based laws in Bekasi and other parts of the archipelagic nation. "If they refuse to stop what they're doing, we're ready to fight."
One Bekasi mosque has erected an enormous banner that reads "Death penalty for Andreas Dusly Sanau . . ." and pictures the young local Protestant pastor with his head in a flaming noose.
"The government must protect all citizens from anarchist action as mandated by the constitution," said Priest Andreas Yewangoe, a chairman of the Communion of Indonesian Churches told the Associated Press.
But the government of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono is reluctant to act against the Islamic fundamentalists because it is dependent upon the support of Islamic parties in the parliament. With the Islamic parties holding the balance of power, nobody, especially the ruling party, can afford to be deemed "un-Islamic".
"I really see this as a threat to democracy," said Arbi Sanit, a political analyst analyst at the University of Indonesia. "Being popular is more important to them [politicians] than punishing those who are clearly breaking the law."
Catholic news agency Fides agrees: "Radicals of the FPI ('Front Pembela Islam,' Islamic Defense Front), are exploiting the fact that the weak, corruption-wracked central government is dependent upon Muslim support and fearful of Islamic belligerence."
Fr. Emmanuel Harja, priest of the Diocese of Jakarta and Director of the Pontifical Mission Societies in Indonesia told Fides: "It's often violent militants who openly encourage hostility against all Christians. We ask the government to stop them and ensure freedom of religion and faith in all religious communities. It's a matter of justice and respect for fundamental rights."
Blaming Protestant "fanatics"
Jesuit Fr. Ignazio Ismartono is the director of the Indonesian Bishops' Crisis Reconciliation Service Conference told Fides: "The Church's line is this: not to react on her own to the provocation by radicals, but to always seek ecumenical fellowship and full harmony and cooperation of other religious leaders, starting with Muslims. . ."
However, according to Fr. Ismartono -- who, in 2007, Fides described as "the vice president of the Bishops' Commission for Interreligious Dialogue and a tireless builder of Muslim-Christian relations" -- the root cause of the problem is "the relationship between Islamic groups and Protestant Christian groups, within their spheres of action and influence. At the basis of it is the question of human relationships and respect for others. Every religious community should not propagate their faith so fanatically. This approach only leads to a reaction of fanaticism in other communities. It's a vicious circle that we must emerge from. Today, the important thing is to let tensions cool down and hope that through common sense, everything can get back on the track of peaceful coexistence."
Fr Ismartono is doubtless trying to distance the Catholic Church from the Protestants with whom the Islamic fundamentalists have taken issue. But what is he saying exactly? This seductive, fine-sounding statement deserves closer scrutiny.
Firstly he is saying that we must accept that religions have established (albeit unspoken and unofficial) "spheres of action and influence". According to Islam, Christians have no right to witness to Muslims, for once a person is officially recognised as Muslim they belong to Islam's sphere of influence and have no automatic right to hear any other truth claim or choose their own religion (i.e. no religious liberty). Meanwhile, the scriptures say: "And Jesus came and said to them, 'All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.'" (Matthew 28:18-20 ESV) It appears that the Bishop has adopted the Islamic model.
Concerning Fr Ismartono's implication that Christian should have respect for "others", we can only assume that he asking the Protestants to respect the demands of the apostaphobic dictators of Islam. Of course Christ's ambassadors are motivated by respect. It is this respect, indeed compassionate love, for Indonesia's lost Muslim masses -- many of whom who have worldviews more aligned to Christianity than Islam to start with -- that compels these Protestants to share the gospel of grace despite the risks (2 Corinthians 5:11-6:2).
If Fr Ismartono is going to accuse the Protestants -- who are now threatened with death by jihad -- of "fanatic" propagation of their faith, and blame the crisis on them, then he might need to define "fanatic" and furnish us with some examples as evidence that this "fanaticism" actually exists as a serious problem. I would suggest that Fr Ismartono's definition of a "fanatic" might turn out to be someone who is resisting dhimmitude (subjugation under Islam) and persisting in Christian freedom in the face of Islamic totalitarianism.
Fr Ismartono also implied that the Muslim fanaticism that is threatening to shed Christian blood in Bekasi is only a reaction to Protestant fanaticism with the gospel. The reality however, is that the Islamic fanaticism surfacing in Bekasi is merely part of the global revival of intolerant, jihadist and revolutionary, fundamentalist Islam.
Fr Ismartono needs to explain how then should Christians live? What should Christians do so as to enable "peaceful coexistence"? What should Christians do so as to avoid invoking Islamic fanaticism against the church?
Mind you, the answers might read like a Middle Ages handbook for dhimmitude. And this is the problem with so much Muslim-Christian Dialogue -- it tends to revolve around Christians, responding to unspoken threats of terror, making concessions towards dhimmitude in the hope that the Muslims won't kill them.
But dhimmitude is not the solution.
"For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery." (Galatians 5:1 ESV)
As noted in my post of 30 June 2010, Fitna and Apostaphobia in Bekasi, on Sunday 27 June Islamic fundamentalist leaders at the Bekasi Islamic Congress demanded the city administration of Bekasi, West Java, enact Sharia (Islamic) laws so as to 'limit' apostasy. They also proposed that every mosque in Bekasi establish its own paramilitary unit ('laskar') that can be quickly mobilised for war against Christians if "Christianisation" is not halted in line with Muslim demands.
Like the Laskar Jihad before it, the Islamic Defenders Front reportedly has TNI (Indonesian military) support.
On Monday 28 June, militants belonging to the Islamic Defenders Front (FPI) raided a restaurant in Banyuwangi, East Java, where legislators were running a health bill familiarisation program. FPI secretary general, Awit Mashuri, defended the FPI's actions, telling TVOne that the FPI is not a law unto itself and always "coordinates" with state apparatus before taking any action. According to Awit, on this occasion the FPI's intelligence came from a "district military intelligence unit". The FPI claimed the raid was necessary to destroy an illegal meeting of "Communists".
See: FPI admits military’s role in Bayuwangi raid
The Jakarta Post, Jakarta, Friday 2 July 2010.
Outraged Indonesian legislators called for the FPI to be banned. However, others simply recommended rule of law, noting that if the FPI is banned other groups will just emerge in its place. The legislators demanded that police, with strong support from the president, must act decisively to apprehend all lawbreakers. Furthermore, full investigations must be conducted in the event of any militia-related attacks, and the investigations must be kept open to the public. They also recommended that any politicians or businessmen found orchestrating these attacks must face punishment.
This issue, of whether or not the government is prepared to enforce the law in the face of rising Islamic fundamentalism, belligerence and "talibanisation", is the watershed issue on which the future of Indonesia balances.
According to Eva Kusuma Sundari, an Indonesian MP with the Democratic Party of Struggle, "There is information saying the FPI is a pet of the TNI [Indonesian military], and the police hesitate to deal face-to-face with the military, because police consider the armed forces their elder brother"' Of course the Defence Ministry spokesman Brig. Gen. I Wayan Midhio denied the allegation, maintaining that all TNI were "professional soldiers who obey the law".
Eva Kusuma Sundari has also learned that the FPI was registered and listed as a "mass organisation" in 2006 under Home Ministry Decree No. 69/ D111.3/VIII/2006, so it cannot be banned without an appeal to the Supreme Court. "This means the ministry also has blood on their hands," she said.
See: Legislator: FPI has the military backing
By Hans David Tampubolon and Bagus BT Saragih, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta, 30 June 2010
Muslim militias prepare for war
Associated Press reports that on Saturday 3 July some 100 jihadist recruits turned out for an inaugural military training exercise in an open field in Bekasi. "We're doing this because we want to strike fear in the hearts of Christians who behave in such a way," said Murhali Barda, who heads the local chapter of the Islamic Defenders Front, which pushes for the implementation of Islamic-based laws in Bekasi and other parts of the archipelagic nation. "If they refuse to stop what they're doing, we're ready to fight."
One Bekasi mosque has erected an enormous banner that reads "Death penalty for Andreas Dusly Sanau . . ." and pictures the young local Protestant pastor with his head in a flaming noose.
"The government must protect all citizens from anarchist action as mandated by the constitution," said Priest Andreas Yewangoe, a chairman of the Communion of Indonesian Churches told the Associated Press.
But the government of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono is reluctant to act against the Islamic fundamentalists because it is dependent upon the support of Islamic parties in the parliament. With the Islamic parties holding the balance of power, nobody, especially the ruling party, can afford to be deemed "un-Islamic".
"I really see this as a threat to democracy," said Arbi Sanit, a political analyst analyst at the University of Indonesia. "Being popular is more important to them [politicians] than punishing those who are clearly breaking the law."
Catholic news agency Fides agrees: "Radicals of the FPI ('Front Pembela Islam,' Islamic Defense Front), are exploiting the fact that the weak, corruption-wracked central government is dependent upon Muslim support and fearful of Islamic belligerence."
Fr. Emmanuel Harja, priest of the Diocese of Jakarta and Director of the Pontifical Mission Societies in Indonesia told Fides: "It's often violent militants who openly encourage hostility against all Christians. We ask the government to stop them and ensure freedom of religion and faith in all religious communities. It's a matter of justice and respect for fundamental rights."
Blaming Protestant "fanatics"
Jesuit Fr. Ignazio Ismartono is the director of the Indonesian Bishops' Crisis Reconciliation Service Conference told Fides: "The Church's line is this: not to react on her own to the provocation by radicals, but to always seek ecumenical fellowship and full harmony and cooperation of other religious leaders, starting with Muslims. . ."
However, according to Fr. Ismartono -- who, in 2007, Fides described as "the vice president of the Bishops' Commission for Interreligious Dialogue and a tireless builder of Muslim-Christian relations" -- the root cause of the problem is "the relationship between Islamic groups and Protestant Christian groups, within their spheres of action and influence. At the basis of it is the question of human relationships and respect for others. Every religious community should not propagate their faith so fanatically. This approach only leads to a reaction of fanaticism in other communities. It's a vicious circle that we must emerge from. Today, the important thing is to let tensions cool down and hope that through common sense, everything can get back on the track of peaceful coexistence."
Fr Ismartono is doubtless trying to distance the Catholic Church from the Protestants with whom the Islamic fundamentalists have taken issue. But what is he saying exactly? This seductive, fine-sounding statement deserves closer scrutiny.
Firstly he is saying that we must accept that religions have established (albeit unspoken and unofficial) "spheres of action and influence". According to Islam, Christians have no right to witness to Muslims, for once a person is officially recognised as Muslim they belong to Islam's sphere of influence and have no automatic right to hear any other truth claim or choose their own religion (i.e. no religious liberty). Meanwhile, the scriptures say: "And Jesus came and said to them, 'All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.'" (Matthew 28:18-20 ESV) It appears that the Bishop has adopted the Islamic model.
Concerning Fr Ismartono's implication that Christian should have respect for "others", we can only assume that he asking the Protestants to respect the demands of the apostaphobic dictators of Islam. Of course Christ's ambassadors are motivated by respect. It is this respect, indeed compassionate love, for Indonesia's lost Muslim masses -- many of whom who have worldviews more aligned to Christianity than Islam to start with -- that compels these Protestants to share the gospel of grace despite the risks (2 Corinthians 5:11-6:2).
If Fr Ismartono is going to accuse the Protestants -- who are now threatened with death by jihad -- of "fanatic" propagation of their faith, and blame the crisis on them, then he might need to define "fanatic" and furnish us with some examples as evidence that this "fanaticism" actually exists as a serious problem. I would suggest that Fr Ismartono's definition of a "fanatic" might turn out to be someone who is resisting dhimmitude (subjugation under Islam) and persisting in Christian freedom in the face of Islamic totalitarianism.
Fr Ismartono also implied that the Muslim fanaticism that is threatening to shed Christian blood in Bekasi is only a reaction to Protestant fanaticism with the gospel. The reality however, is that the Islamic fanaticism surfacing in Bekasi is merely part of the global revival of intolerant, jihadist and revolutionary, fundamentalist Islam.
Fr Ismartono needs to explain how then should Christians live? What should Christians do so as to enable "peaceful coexistence"? What should Christians do so as to avoid invoking Islamic fanaticism against the church?
Mind you, the answers might read like a Middle Ages handbook for dhimmitude. And this is the problem with so much Muslim-Christian Dialogue -- it tends to revolve around Christians, responding to unspoken threats of terror, making concessions towards dhimmitude in the hope that the Muslims won't kill them.
But dhimmitude is not the solution.
"For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery." (Galatians 5:1 ESV)
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
EGYPT: keeping the Copts subjugated
Date: Tuesday 29 May 2007
Subj: Egypt: keeping the Copts subjugated
To: World Evangelical Alliance Religious Liberty News & Analysis
From: WEA RLC Principal Researcher and Writer, Elizabeth Kendal
On 11 May, Muslims in the village of Bimha (or Bamha) in Ayat district (around 70 kilometres south Cairo) left their mosques after Friday prayers, armed and zealous for jihad against the indigenous Coptic Christian community and their solitary, partially built church.
The violent Muslim pogrom in Bimha bears the same features of other anti-Christian pogroms of the past decade. These familiar elements indicate that the security situation for Egypt's indigenous Copts (who are Christian) is growing increasingly tenuous. For every time violence is rewarded with impunity it is emboldened.
As with other Muslim pogroms over the past decade, the pogrom in Bimha was premeditated, organised, very violent and perpetrated not by members of militant organisations ("extremists" and "outsiders") but by local "ordinary" Muslims who had been incited in local mosques during Friday "prayers" to wage jihad and terror against their Christian neighbours in order to ensure their subjugation.
As with other pogroms over the past decade, Egyptian security forces were at best tardy, and at worst complicit and actively involved in the violence; and the imposed settlement was designed to appease Muslims, not secure justice or true and lasting peace. The "reconciliation" agreement of Bimha disregards the Christians' legal and human rights, advancing only their status as "dhimmis".
The tragedy in Bimha takes Egypt another step backwards into religious apartheid as it further reinforces Egypt's indigenous Christian Copts not as equal citizens, but as a subjugated people – dhimmis. It also presents Egyptians with yet another precedent which demonstrates that Copts (Egypt's remnant indigenous peoples, the descendants of the Pharaohs, Christians for nearly 2000 years) can be terrorised, robbed and killed with impunity.
MUSLIMS RAMPAGE AFTER FRIDAY PRAYERS
Despite the fact that the Christians of Bimha had been threatened on the Thursday and had alerted the police that an attack might be launched after Friday prayers, security was not tightened. Al-Ahram reports: "Observers have claimed that tardy responses are typical of the security forces' strategy, which seems to involve a wait and see approach to sectarian violence, after which they move in, but only after the violence has abated. Then, they begin to attempt to clean up the mess." (Link 1)
A report by "Free Copts" paints a more serious picture: "Bamha's Christians were shocked to discover that electricity, water supplies and phone lines were cut starting at 11:00 am [Friday morning], in spite of the police officials' knowledge of the expected riots. The police and security forces only acted after the burning and destruction of the Christians' properties ended. They
blocked the only bridge that leads to Bamha and established a cordon around the village, preventing journalists and correspondents from reaching it to cover the situation. While Muslims are free to dwell across the village, a curfew has been imposed on the Christians, who are either forced to stay inside their homes, or to remain on the streets in front of their destroyed houses." (Link 2: this report includes the names of those Copts hospitalised, and the names of those Muslims the Copts accuse of being the instigators and organisers of the violent rampage.)
Al-Ahram is unequivocal about this being a premeditated act: "The sectarian violence that erupted on Friday in the village of Bimha, in the Ayat district 70 kilometres south of Giza, seemed less a spontaneous outburst fuelled by wrangling among villagers than a premeditated act. Pamphlets had been distributed throughout the village before a mob, armed with everything from machetes to containers of kerosene, ran amok through the village. Within 40 minutes, 36 houses belonging to Christians had been burned and seven shops looted. Ten villagers were in hospital, two in a critical condition. At the time of going to press 35 alleged perpetrators were being questioned while another ten remain at large. A Christian man was subsequently detained,
charged with throwing a plastic bag filled with inflammable liquids into a Muslim prayer area on Sunday.
"Pamphlets distributed ahead of the violence called on Muslim villagers who wanted to 'protect' their religion to gather after Friday prayers, in order to stop the construction of a church in their village. The pamphlet included the rumoured location of the church and concluded by saying that the time to act had come: 'there must be no more laxity, no more laziness... it is necessary that every Muslim protects his religion otherwise all is lost.'"
Al-Ahram spoke with local Copt Raouf Abdallah, who was working in his fields when he heard women screaming in the village. He ran to his brother's house but was restrained by two Muslim men while his home was looted and then torched. "The mob, said Abdallah, comprised all age groups, from the very young, to elderly men. 'The ghafar [local guards] were also among rioters, they used their rifles to whip people,' he says. . .He also reports that in some incidents, Muslims tried to protect the property of their Christian neighbours."
Free Copts adds: "Copts accuse the village's mayor, as well as the member of the Egyptian parliament Ali el-Saudi, of promoting these attacks against Christians and by boasting about preventing Copts from extending and renovating their church.
"It is noteworthy that Ali el-Saudi was also accused by the Copts of the Wassef Ghali village to have encouraged the attacks that took place in their village a year and half ago, and which left many Christians injured."
THE CHURCH OF SAINT THEODORE
The Muslim violence against the Christians of Bimha was supposedly in defence of Islam, which was allegedly under immense and imminent threat on account of a church – the Church of St Theodore – Bimha's half-built solitary church in this village of 13 mosques.
Al-Ahram reports: "Bimha's Christian families had long gathered in the home of fellow congregation members Atif and Arian Youssef in order to worship. Following negotiations between the [Muslim] clergy and security forces, it was agreed that a place of worship could be built, though without any domes or crosses which might anger the local community. After the first floor of the building was completed in 2005, construction was halted by security officials
after complaints raised by local residents.
"Subsequently a compromise was reached, with Christians allowed to pray in their old place of worship, the home of Atif and Arian Youssef. To compensate the two congregation members, whose home would henceforth be a dedicated space for worship, Atif was to receive money and land, while Arian opted to finish the church's partially constructed building and make it his home."
According to Al-Ahram, during the Friday 11 May rampage some 2,000 people converged on the partially constructed building and attempted to demolish it.
According to Free Copts, the security forces have since circulated a fabricated story, claiming the Copts were attempting to enlarge the church complex over a disputed piece of land. "The Copts, however, reject this version of the story, insisting that the land is by no means disputed, and that it belongs to the church. Furthermore, the Copts of the village of Bamha accuse the Egyptian police of faking this story in order to cover up the human rights abuses that took place against the village's Christians."
"RECONCILIATION" ISLAMIC STYLE
The most soul-destroying aspect of this saga might be the subsequent "reconciliation" event held on Wednesday 16 May in the Ayat Sporting Club. Justice and rule of law were irrelevant and the Copts were pressured, under the shadow of terror, to submit to unreasonable and unjust terms.
Manar Ammar, writing in Cairo for All Headline News (AHN) reports: "Fifty Muslim sheikhs from the Ministry of Religious Affairs shook hands and smiled at 50 Coptic priests Wednesday in Ayat, about 30 minutes south of Cairo. . . Security forces were heavily present at the session." (Link 3)
AHN reports that a reconciliation committee ordered that the village's Muslim elders pay compensation to the church. However Coptic leaders, reluctant to accept any money from Muslims that could be used as leverage against them at a later date, declined to accept compensation.
Al-Ahram reports:"'Three people from each side sat together and calculated that the losses incurred by Christian villagers amounted to LE500,000. Then Father Hanna Makin, the parish priest, announced that the families concerned would waive their claims as a gesture of good will,' said Ali El-Soudi, Ayat's representative in the People's Assembly. The delegates also resolved that Bimha's Christian community should continue to worship in the homes of Atif and Arian Youssef as happened in the past." (Link 4)
According to Al-Ahram, "The majority of Bimha's Christians say they support the decision of the church leadership not to accept compensation. 'How can I accept money from someone who beat me and burned my house? It would be like being paid for the abuse. At the end of the day we all live together and we will continue to do so for generations to come.'" (Link 4)
The Copts also had to agree to not press charges against their attackers. Al-Ahram reports: "'Our Christian brethren have forfeited their complaints in the spirit of forgiveness, and we will take steps to release 20 detained Muslims'," said El-Soudi, who also gave assurances that all criminal charges would be dropped in order to pacify the village further.
As noted by Nabil Abdel-Fattah, deputy director of Al-Ahram's Centre for Political and Strategic Studies, this is no way to handle sectarian conflict. "'It [a local "reconciliation" effort whereby disputes are settled by elders and community leaders in a way that lacks due legal perspective and simply reflects the balance of power on the ground] effectively prevents the implementation of the rule of law." Abdel-Fattah insists wrong-doers must be held legally accountable if others are to be deterred from taking similar actions. (Link 4)
According to AHN, the Copts accepted the deal because, in the words of Annabious Jacoub, the high priest of Ayat's Church of the Virgin Mary, ". . they are afraid to be called the starters of sectarian tensions."
Photographs taken in the aftermath.
PERSISTENT PERSECUTION
The Catholic News Agency comments on research that clearly demonstrates how serious and persistent the persecution of Egypt's indigenous Coptic Christians has been over the last four decades. "The Ibn Khaldoun Research Center [which is headed by the human rights advocate Saad Eddin Ibrahim] has documented over 120 major attacks on the Copts during this period. Another study estimated that over 4,000 Copts were killed or injured in this period. They have also suffered material losses in the tens of millions of dollars." (Link 5)
The primary perpetrators of violence against Copts used to be militants from Islamic organisations seeking the establishments of an Islamic state. Their strategy was to use terrorism to extract political concessions from the government. During the last decade however, the trend has been for attacks to be incited in the mosques and perpetrated by "ordinary Muslims" who have become more and more intolerant and hostile as radicalistation and Islamic zeal have increased. Along with mosque sermons, media and the education curriculum are also sources of radicalisation and incitement.
"Researchers believe the violence takes place under the influence of hate propaganda emitted through the media, the education system and mosque preaching. They report that Egyptian authorities have yet to adequately punish a single Muslim perpetrator." (Link 5)
"'We ask all freedom-loving governments, Human Rights organizations and individuals of the world to intervene on behalf of the Coptic Christians of Egypt,' said the Coptic Christians press statement. 'The reprehensible failure of Egypt to guarantee religious freedom, justice and accountability towards the Copts simply amounts to an invitation to continue the same (violence) against them in the future.'" (Link 6)
And according to Free Copts, Muslims have warned Bimha's Christians that "what is to come will be much worse".
Elizabeth Kendal
rl-research@crossnet.org.au
Links
1) Fanning the flames
Al-Ahram. 17 - 23 May 2007. Issue No. 845
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2007/845/eg5.htm
2) Another episode of attacks against Copts in Egypt
Written by The Free Copts Saturday, 12 May 2007
http://freecopts.net/english/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=505&Itemid=9
3) Muslims, Copts Hold Reconciliation Session Over Sectarian Clashes
By Manar Ammar, Cairo, Egypt (AHN) 19 May 2007
http://www.allheadlinenews.com/articles/7007393089
4) Damage limitation
Al-Ahram, 24 - 30 May 2007. Issue No. 846
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2007/846/eg11.htm
5) Egypt: Coptic Christians Call for End of Religious Persecution
Catholic Information Service for Africa. 25 May 2007. Cairo
http://allafrica.com/stories/200705250716.html
6) Protect Us, Say Egyptians Christians
http://www.aina.org/news/2007052394922.htm
Subj: Egypt: keeping the Copts subjugated
To: World Evangelical Alliance Religious Liberty News & Analysis
From: WEA RLC Principal Researcher and Writer, Elizabeth Kendal
On 11 May, Muslims in the village of Bimha (or Bamha) in Ayat district (around 70 kilometres south Cairo) left their mosques after Friday prayers, armed and zealous for jihad against the indigenous Coptic Christian community and their solitary, partially built church.
The violent Muslim pogrom in Bimha bears the same features of other anti-Christian pogroms of the past decade. These familiar elements indicate that the security situation for Egypt's indigenous Copts (who are Christian) is growing increasingly tenuous. For every time violence is rewarded with impunity it is emboldened.
As with other Muslim pogroms over the past decade, the pogrom in Bimha was premeditated, organised, very violent and perpetrated not by members of militant organisations ("extremists" and "outsiders") but by local "ordinary" Muslims who had been incited in local mosques during Friday "prayers" to wage jihad and terror against their Christian neighbours in order to ensure their subjugation.
As with other pogroms over the past decade, Egyptian security forces were at best tardy, and at worst complicit and actively involved in the violence; and the imposed settlement was designed to appease Muslims, not secure justice or true and lasting peace. The "reconciliation" agreement of Bimha disregards the Christians' legal and human rights, advancing only their status as "dhimmis".
The tragedy in Bimha takes Egypt another step backwards into religious apartheid as it further reinforces Egypt's indigenous Christian Copts not as equal citizens, but as a subjugated people – dhimmis. It also presents Egyptians with yet another precedent which demonstrates that Copts (Egypt's remnant indigenous peoples, the descendants of the Pharaohs, Christians for nearly 2000 years) can be terrorised, robbed and killed with impunity.
MUSLIMS RAMPAGE AFTER FRIDAY PRAYERS
Despite the fact that the Christians of Bimha had been threatened on the Thursday and had alerted the police that an attack might be launched after Friday prayers, security was not tightened. Al-Ahram reports: "Observers have claimed that tardy responses are typical of the security forces' strategy, which seems to involve a wait and see approach to sectarian violence, after which they move in, but only after the violence has abated. Then, they begin to attempt to clean up the mess." (Link 1)
A report by "Free Copts" paints a more serious picture: "Bamha's Christians were shocked to discover that electricity, water supplies and phone lines were cut starting at 11:00 am [Friday morning], in spite of the police officials' knowledge of the expected riots. The police and security forces only acted after the burning and destruction of the Christians' properties ended. They
blocked the only bridge that leads to Bamha and established a cordon around the village, preventing journalists and correspondents from reaching it to cover the situation. While Muslims are free to dwell across the village, a curfew has been imposed on the Christians, who are either forced to stay inside their homes, or to remain on the streets in front of their destroyed houses." (Link 2: this report includes the names of those Copts hospitalised, and the names of those Muslims the Copts accuse of being the instigators and organisers of the violent rampage.)
Al-Ahram is unequivocal about this being a premeditated act: "The sectarian violence that erupted on Friday in the village of Bimha, in the Ayat district 70 kilometres south of Giza, seemed less a spontaneous outburst fuelled by wrangling among villagers than a premeditated act. Pamphlets had been distributed throughout the village before a mob, armed with everything from machetes to containers of kerosene, ran amok through the village. Within 40 minutes, 36 houses belonging to Christians had been burned and seven shops looted. Ten villagers were in hospital, two in a critical condition. At the time of going to press 35 alleged perpetrators were being questioned while another ten remain at large. A Christian man was subsequently detained,
charged with throwing a plastic bag filled with inflammable liquids into a Muslim prayer area on Sunday.
"Pamphlets distributed ahead of the violence called on Muslim villagers who wanted to 'protect' their religion to gather after Friday prayers, in order to stop the construction of a church in their village. The pamphlet included the rumoured location of the church and concluded by saying that the time to act had come: 'there must be no more laxity, no more laziness... it is necessary that every Muslim protects his religion otherwise all is lost.'"
Al-Ahram spoke with local Copt Raouf Abdallah, who was working in his fields when he heard women screaming in the village. He ran to his brother's house but was restrained by two Muslim men while his home was looted and then torched. "The mob, said Abdallah, comprised all age groups, from the very young, to elderly men. 'The ghafar [local guards] were also among rioters, they used their rifles to whip people,' he says. . .He also reports that in some incidents, Muslims tried to protect the property of their Christian neighbours."
Free Copts adds: "Copts accuse the village's mayor, as well as the member of the Egyptian parliament Ali el-Saudi, of promoting these attacks against Christians and by boasting about preventing Copts from extending and renovating their church.
"It is noteworthy that Ali el-Saudi was also accused by the Copts of the Wassef Ghali village to have encouraged the attacks that took place in their village a year and half ago, and which left many Christians injured."
THE CHURCH OF SAINT THEODORE
The Muslim violence against the Christians of Bimha was supposedly in defence of Islam, which was allegedly under immense and imminent threat on account of a church – the Church of St Theodore – Bimha's half-built solitary church in this village of 13 mosques.
Al-Ahram reports: "Bimha's Christian families had long gathered in the home of fellow congregation members Atif and Arian Youssef in order to worship. Following negotiations between the [Muslim] clergy and security forces, it was agreed that a place of worship could be built, though without any domes or crosses which might anger the local community. After the first floor of the building was completed in 2005, construction was halted by security officials
after complaints raised by local residents.
"Subsequently a compromise was reached, with Christians allowed to pray in their old place of worship, the home of Atif and Arian Youssef. To compensate the two congregation members, whose home would henceforth be a dedicated space for worship, Atif was to receive money and land, while Arian opted to finish the church's partially constructed building and make it his home."
According to Al-Ahram, during the Friday 11 May rampage some 2,000 people converged on the partially constructed building and attempted to demolish it.
According to Free Copts, the security forces have since circulated a fabricated story, claiming the Copts were attempting to enlarge the church complex over a disputed piece of land. "The Copts, however, reject this version of the story, insisting that the land is by no means disputed, and that it belongs to the church. Furthermore, the Copts of the village of Bamha accuse the Egyptian police of faking this story in order to cover up the human rights abuses that took place against the village's Christians."
"RECONCILIATION" ISLAMIC STYLE
The most soul-destroying aspect of this saga might be the subsequent "reconciliation" event held on Wednesday 16 May in the Ayat Sporting Club. Justice and rule of law were irrelevant and the Copts were pressured, under the shadow of terror, to submit to unreasonable and unjust terms.
Manar Ammar, writing in Cairo for All Headline News (AHN) reports: "Fifty Muslim sheikhs from the Ministry of Religious Affairs shook hands and smiled at 50 Coptic priests Wednesday in Ayat, about 30 minutes south of Cairo. . . Security forces were heavily present at the session." (Link 3)
AHN reports that a reconciliation committee ordered that the village's Muslim elders pay compensation to the church. However Coptic leaders, reluctant to accept any money from Muslims that could be used as leverage against them at a later date, declined to accept compensation.
Al-Ahram reports:"'Three people from each side sat together and calculated that the losses incurred by Christian villagers amounted to LE500,000. Then Father Hanna Makin, the parish priest, announced that the families concerned would waive their claims as a gesture of good will,' said Ali El-Soudi, Ayat's representative in the People's Assembly. The delegates also resolved that Bimha's Christian community should continue to worship in the homes of Atif and Arian Youssef as happened in the past." (Link 4)
According to Al-Ahram, "The majority of Bimha's Christians say they support the decision of the church leadership not to accept compensation. 'How can I accept money from someone who beat me and burned my house? It would be like being paid for the abuse. At the end of the day we all live together and we will continue to do so for generations to come.'" (Link 4)
The Copts also had to agree to not press charges against their attackers. Al-Ahram reports: "'Our Christian brethren have forfeited their complaints in the spirit of forgiveness, and we will take steps to release 20 detained Muslims'," said El-Soudi, who also gave assurances that all criminal charges would be dropped in order to pacify the village further.
As noted by Nabil Abdel-Fattah, deputy director of Al-Ahram's Centre for Political and Strategic Studies, this is no way to handle sectarian conflict. "'It [a local "reconciliation" effort whereby disputes are settled by elders and community leaders in a way that lacks due legal perspective and simply reflects the balance of power on the ground] effectively prevents the implementation of the rule of law." Abdel-Fattah insists wrong-doers must be held legally accountable if others are to be deterred from taking similar actions. (Link 4)
According to AHN, the Copts accepted the deal because, in the words of Annabious Jacoub, the high priest of Ayat's Church of the Virgin Mary, ". . they are afraid to be called the starters of sectarian tensions."
Photographs taken in the aftermath.
PERSISTENT PERSECUTION
The Catholic News Agency comments on research that clearly demonstrates how serious and persistent the persecution of Egypt's indigenous Coptic Christians has been over the last four decades. "The Ibn Khaldoun Research Center [which is headed by the human rights advocate Saad Eddin Ibrahim] has documented over 120 major attacks on the Copts during this period. Another study estimated that over 4,000 Copts were killed or injured in this period. They have also suffered material losses in the tens of millions of dollars." (Link 5)
The primary perpetrators of violence against Copts used to be militants from Islamic organisations seeking the establishments of an Islamic state. Their strategy was to use terrorism to extract political concessions from the government. During the last decade however, the trend has been for attacks to be incited in the mosques and perpetrated by "ordinary Muslims" who have become more and more intolerant and hostile as radicalistation and Islamic zeal have increased. Along with mosque sermons, media and the education curriculum are also sources of radicalisation and incitement.
"Researchers believe the violence takes place under the influence of hate propaganda emitted through the media, the education system and mosque preaching. They report that Egyptian authorities have yet to adequately punish a single Muslim perpetrator." (Link 5)
"'We ask all freedom-loving governments, Human Rights organizations and individuals of the world to intervene on behalf of the Coptic Christians of Egypt,' said the Coptic Christians press statement. 'The reprehensible failure of Egypt to guarantee religious freedom, justice and accountability towards the Copts simply amounts to an invitation to continue the same (violence) against them in the future.'" (Link 6)
And according to Free Copts, Muslims have warned Bimha's Christians that "what is to come will be much worse".
Elizabeth Kendal
rl-research@crossnet.org.au
Links
1) Fanning the flames
Al-Ahram. 17 - 23 May 2007. Issue No. 845
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2007/845/eg5.htm
2) Another episode of attacks against Copts in Egypt
Written by The Free Copts Saturday, 12 May 2007
http://freecopts.net/english/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=505&Itemid=9
3) Muslims, Copts Hold Reconciliation Session Over Sectarian Clashes
By Manar Ammar, Cairo, Egypt (AHN) 19 May 2007
http://www.allheadlinenews.com/articles/7007393089
4) Damage limitation
Al-Ahram, 24 - 30 May 2007. Issue No. 846
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2007/846/eg11.htm
5) Egypt: Coptic Christians Call for End of Religious Persecution
Catholic Information Service for Africa. 25 May 2007. Cairo
http://allafrica.com/stories/200705250716.html
6) Protect Us, Say Egyptians Christians
http://www.aina.org/news/2007052394922.htm
Friday, February 16, 2007
Yemen: Shi'ite rebellion resurfaces - Yemeni Jews threatened
Date: Friday 16 February 2007
Subj: Yemen: Shi'ite rebellion resurfaces - Yemeni Jews threatened
To: World Evangelical Alliance Religious Liberty News & Analysis
From: WEA RLC Principal Researcher and Writer, Elizabeth Kendal
YEMEN: SHI'ITE REBELLION RESURFACES - YEMENI JEWS THREATENED
As noted in the recent WEA RLC News & Analysis posting Religious Liberty Trends 2006-2007, "Part 3 - RL Trend: Shiite Ascendancy" (link 1) any Shiite vs Sunni conflict will impact Jews and Christians. This is because in a Shiite vs Sunni conflict, Sunni extremism intensifies and is advanced resulting in increased persecution of Shiites, Jews and Christians, while Shiites (usually the minority sect) attempt to deflect Sunni hate and unite the sects in battle against their common "enemies": Jews, Israel, Christians and US-allied Arab governments.
The Sunni vs Shiite struggle for supremacy is escalating in Yemen and followers of Shiite rebel Al Houthi have renewed their insurgency against the government of President Ali Abdullah Saleh. Before the Shiite rebels re-launched their insurgency they issued a public threat against the local
Jewish community.
JEWS THREATENED AND EXPELLED
On 10 January the 45 Jews of al Haid, Sa'ada (north Yemen), received letters from a Shiite rebel militia. The letters accused them of promoting vice and demanded that they leave the province. According to the Yemen Observer, the 45 Jews have been forced to flee their homes in fear of their lives. While they have since been given refuge in a hotel at the expense of a compassionate local sheik, they are reportedly living in appalling conditions. Shiite militants have since threatened to bomb the hotel.
The Yemen Observer reports: "Most of Yemen's Jews were brought over to Israel during Operation Magic Carpet in 1949-50, following the 1948 Muslim riots that destroyed the Jewish community in Aden and killed 82 people. There were about 63,000 Jews in Yemen in 1948. Now, only about 400 Jews remain in the country, most of who are living in Raida, in the Amran province." (Link 2)
A copy of the threatening letter was faxed to the Yemen Observer. It reads: "After an accurate surveillance of the Jews who are residing in Al Haid, it has become clear to us that they were doing things which serve mainly Zionism, which seeks to corrupt the people and distance them from their principles, their values, their morals, and their religion, and spread all kinds of vice in the society. Our religion ordered us to fight the corrupt people and expel them."
The newspaper reports that the hand written letter concluded with the words: "Allah is Greater, Death to America, Death to Israel, Curse to Jews, and Victory to Islam," and explains that the words form the slogan of the slain Shiite cleric, Hussein Badr Al Deen Al Houthi. The letter was then signed by Yahya Sad Al Khudhair, who described himself as the leader of Al Houthi supporters in Al Salem.
Dawoud Yousef Mousa, one of the displaced Jews, told the Yemen Observer: "We are a total of 45 Jews, from Al Salem, we left our houses in Al Haid area in Sa'ada to a hotel here in the city of Sa'ada, after we received warnings to leave our country, Yemen, within 10 days from the date of the threat letter,"
According to Mousa, on Wednesday 17 January, he was with a group of Jews when they were approached by four masked men who threatened to slaughter them if they did not leave on Al Salem by Friday 19 January. "They told us, 'No one will protect you, Jews, from us, not even [President] Ali Abdullah Saleh." And they were warned that if they did not leave their homes in two days "they will only have themselves to blame" for the consequences, which will include abductions and looting.
The Yemen Observer reports that the local authorities and tribal sheikhs in Sa'ada held meetings to discuss the complaints from the Yemeni Jews. However the meetings only resulted in oral reassurances for the Jews, who were told to ignore the threats and go back to their villages, something the Jews were not prepared to do.
The Jews have appealed to the governor of Sa'ada for protection. In their submission they wrote: "It is not a secret that we are "Themmies" [dhimmis] (free non-Muslims, enjoying the Muslims' protection [definition by Yemen Observer]), we are in the protection of the Prophet Mohammed, and in the protection of President Ali Abdullah Saleh. We [are in] your protection. We would rather die than leave our homes."
SHI'ITE INSURGENCY
Yemen did not exist as a unified state until May 1990. Before then there was North Yemen which was 60 percent Shiite, and South Yemen which was 99 percent Sunni. Historically Zaydi (Shia) Imams had ruled over North Yemen as absolute monarchs. Then in 1962 the Imamate of Muhammad al-Badr was overthrown in a military coup led by Ali Abdullah Saleh. Civil war erupted between republicans backed by Egypt, and royalists backed by Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Britain. After years of conflict and political see-sawing, North Yemen emerged as the Yemen Arab Republic (YAR). Ali Abdullah Saleh became the President of the YAR in 1978 after another military coup.
In December 1989 the parliament of South Yemen voted unanimously in favour of unifying the two states. Meanwhile, in North Yemen 25 of the more religiously fundamentalist Shiite members of the of North Yemen parliament boycotted the vote, recognising that upon unification, the Shiites of North Yemen would go from being a majority to a 30 percent minority. Unification went ahead and Ali Abdullah Saleh was elected president of the unified Republic of Yemen on the votes of both houses of parliament. The president of South Yemen became the Vice President.
In June 2004 a Shiite insurgency erupted against the government of Ali Abdullah Salih. The Shiite rebels were "protecting Islam" and protesting the government's alliance with the US in its War on Terror. The government claimed the rebels were fighting for the restoration of the Zaydi imamate, though the rebels denied this. President Ali Abdullah Saleh is a Zaydi Shiite, but like many other Zaydis he is a republican.
On 13 July 2004 the Christian Science Monitor reported on the Shiite insurgency: "The revolt is led by Hussein al-Houthi, an anti-US Shiite cleric who runs a religious school and heads a group called Al Shabab al-Moumin, the Youthful Believers.
"Houthi's rebels have been flying the flag of the Iranian-backed Hizbullah organization and the militant cleric has been paying his followers $100." (Link 3)
The government unleashed the full force of its military against the Shiite rebels and the insurgency only lasted ten weeks. Rebel leader Zaydi cleric Hussein al-Huthi was killed in the fighting.
The July 2004 CSM article actually raised the issue of al Qaeda infiltration into Yemen and questioned whether Iran was sponsoring a Shiite revival amongst the Yemeni Zaydis to counter a Wahhabi revival amongst the Sunnis. It concluded with a quote from Professor Hamzeh: "'It seems that Al Qaeda has been successful in radicalizing the Shafi Sunnis,' he says. 'I can definitely see a future clash between the Zaidi Shiites and the newly mobilized Shafi Sunnis.'"
After Al-Houthi's father, Badr al-Din al-Huthi, assumed leadership of the rebel group, fighting resumed in March 2005. Once again, the government unleashed the military against the rebels. Shiite leaders in both Iran and Iraq protested the "persecution" of Yemeni Shiites. By May 2005 the rebels had retreated into the mountains and the fighting had ceased.
On 27 January 2007 Shiite rebels in the northern province of Sa'ada (where the Jews are being persecuted) launched a mortar attack on a security building, killing six soldiers. In early February Yemen's parliament authorised its military to launch a full-scale assault against the rebels. Stratfor estimates that around 80 Shiite al-Houthi rebels and around 40 Yemeni government soldiers have died in fighting over the past two weeks. The Yemen Times puts the figure at 32 rebels and 15 soldiers.
Some Yemeni MPs and political commentators suspect that Iran and Libya are interfering in Yemen; Iran to bolster the Shiites to counter al Qaeda and the revival of Wahhabi ideology; and Libya to bolster the Wahhabis for the purpose of destabilising Saudi Arabia.
Clearly Yemen is a fertile field for a Sunni vs Shiite contest. If the radicalisation of both Shiites and Sunnis is not effectively countered then the future is bleak, not only for Yemeni Jews and Christians, but for a united Republic of Yemen.
Elizabeth Kendal
Links
1) RL Trend: Shiite Ascendancy
2) Threatened Yemeni Jews appeal for protection
By Nasser Arrabyee Jan 22, 2007, 19:38 Yemen Observer
http://www.yobserver.com/cgi-bin/2007/exec/view.cgi/23/11554
3) Are Iran and Al Qaeda vying for influence in Yemen?
At least 200 dead in Yemeni battle against radicals.
By Nicholas Blanford. The Christian Science Monitor 13 July 2004
http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0713/p11s01-wome.html
BBC profile: YEMEN
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/country_profiles/784383.stm
Profile: Ali Abdullah Saleh http://lexicorient.com/e.o/saleh_a.htm
Subj: Yemen: Shi'ite rebellion resurfaces - Yemeni Jews threatened
To: World Evangelical Alliance Religious Liberty News & Analysis
From: WEA RLC Principal Researcher and Writer, Elizabeth Kendal
YEMEN: SHI'ITE REBELLION RESURFACES - YEMENI JEWS THREATENED
As noted in the recent WEA RLC News & Analysis posting Religious Liberty Trends 2006-2007, "Part 3 - RL Trend: Shiite Ascendancy" (link 1) any Shiite vs Sunni conflict will impact Jews and Christians. This is because in a Shiite vs Sunni conflict, Sunni extremism intensifies and is advanced resulting in increased persecution of Shiites, Jews and Christians, while Shiites (usually the minority sect) attempt to deflect Sunni hate and unite the sects in battle against their common "enemies": Jews, Israel, Christians and US-allied Arab governments.
The Sunni vs Shiite struggle for supremacy is escalating in Yemen and followers of Shiite rebel Al Houthi have renewed their insurgency against the government of President Ali Abdullah Saleh. Before the Shiite rebels re-launched their insurgency they issued a public threat against the local
Jewish community.
JEWS THREATENED AND EXPELLED
On 10 January the 45 Jews of al Haid, Sa'ada (north Yemen), received letters from a Shiite rebel militia. The letters accused them of promoting vice and demanded that they leave the province. According to the Yemen Observer, the 45 Jews have been forced to flee their homes in fear of their lives. While they have since been given refuge in a hotel at the expense of a compassionate local sheik, they are reportedly living in appalling conditions. Shiite militants have since threatened to bomb the hotel.
The Yemen Observer reports: "Most of Yemen's Jews were brought over to Israel during Operation Magic Carpet in 1949-50, following the 1948 Muslim riots that destroyed the Jewish community in Aden and killed 82 people. There were about 63,000 Jews in Yemen in 1948. Now, only about 400 Jews remain in the country, most of who are living in Raida, in the Amran province." (Link 2)
A copy of the threatening letter was faxed to the Yemen Observer. It reads: "After an accurate surveillance of the Jews who are residing in Al Haid, it has become clear to us that they were doing things which serve mainly Zionism, which seeks to corrupt the people and distance them from their principles, their values, their morals, and their religion, and spread all kinds of vice in the society. Our religion ordered us to fight the corrupt people and expel them."
The newspaper reports that the hand written letter concluded with the words: "Allah is Greater, Death to America, Death to Israel, Curse to Jews, and Victory to Islam," and explains that the words form the slogan of the slain Shiite cleric, Hussein Badr Al Deen Al Houthi. The letter was then signed by Yahya Sad Al Khudhair, who described himself as the leader of Al Houthi supporters in Al Salem.
Dawoud Yousef Mousa, one of the displaced Jews, told the Yemen Observer: "We are a total of 45 Jews, from Al Salem, we left our houses in Al Haid area in Sa'ada to a hotel here in the city of Sa'ada, after we received warnings to leave our country, Yemen, within 10 days from the date of the threat letter,"
According to Mousa, on Wednesday 17 January, he was with a group of Jews when they were approached by four masked men who threatened to slaughter them if they did not leave on Al Salem by Friday 19 January. "They told us, 'No one will protect you, Jews, from us, not even [President] Ali Abdullah Saleh." And they were warned that if they did not leave their homes in two days "they will only have themselves to blame" for the consequences, which will include abductions and looting.
The Yemen Observer reports that the local authorities and tribal sheikhs in Sa'ada held meetings to discuss the complaints from the Yemeni Jews. However the meetings only resulted in oral reassurances for the Jews, who were told to ignore the threats and go back to their villages, something the Jews were not prepared to do.
The Jews have appealed to the governor of Sa'ada for protection. In their submission they wrote: "It is not a secret that we are "Themmies" [dhimmis] (free non-Muslims, enjoying the Muslims' protection [definition by Yemen Observer]), we are in the protection of the Prophet Mohammed, and in the protection of President Ali Abdullah Saleh. We [are in] your protection. We would rather die than leave our homes."
SHI'ITE INSURGENCY
Yemen did not exist as a unified state until May 1990. Before then there was North Yemen which was 60 percent Shiite, and South Yemen which was 99 percent Sunni. Historically Zaydi (Shia) Imams had ruled over North Yemen as absolute monarchs. Then in 1962 the Imamate of Muhammad al-Badr was overthrown in a military coup led by Ali Abdullah Saleh. Civil war erupted between republicans backed by Egypt, and royalists backed by Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Britain. After years of conflict and political see-sawing, North Yemen emerged as the Yemen Arab Republic (YAR). Ali Abdullah Saleh became the President of the YAR in 1978 after another military coup.
In December 1989 the parliament of South Yemen voted unanimously in favour of unifying the two states. Meanwhile, in North Yemen 25 of the more religiously fundamentalist Shiite members of the of North Yemen parliament boycotted the vote, recognising that upon unification, the Shiites of North Yemen would go from being a majority to a 30 percent minority. Unification went ahead and Ali Abdullah Saleh was elected president of the unified Republic of Yemen on the votes of both houses of parliament. The president of South Yemen became the Vice President.
In June 2004 a Shiite insurgency erupted against the government of Ali Abdullah Salih. The Shiite rebels were "protecting Islam" and protesting the government's alliance with the US in its War on Terror. The government claimed the rebels were fighting for the restoration of the Zaydi imamate, though the rebels denied this. President Ali Abdullah Saleh is a Zaydi Shiite, but like many other Zaydis he is a republican.
On 13 July 2004 the Christian Science Monitor reported on the Shiite insurgency: "The revolt is led by Hussein al-Houthi, an anti-US Shiite cleric who runs a religious school and heads a group called Al Shabab al-Moumin, the Youthful Believers.
"Houthi's rebels have been flying the flag of the Iranian-backed Hizbullah organization and the militant cleric has been paying his followers $100." (Link 3)
The government unleashed the full force of its military against the Shiite rebels and the insurgency only lasted ten weeks. Rebel leader Zaydi cleric Hussein al-Huthi was killed in the fighting.
The July 2004 CSM article actually raised the issue of al Qaeda infiltration into Yemen and questioned whether Iran was sponsoring a Shiite revival amongst the Yemeni Zaydis to counter a Wahhabi revival amongst the Sunnis. It concluded with a quote from Professor Hamzeh: "'It seems that Al Qaeda has been successful in radicalizing the Shafi Sunnis,' he says. 'I can definitely see a future clash between the Zaidi Shiites and the newly mobilized Shafi Sunnis.'"
After Al-Houthi's father, Badr al-Din al-Huthi, assumed leadership of the rebel group, fighting resumed in March 2005. Once again, the government unleashed the military against the rebels. Shiite leaders in both Iran and Iraq protested the "persecution" of Yemeni Shiites. By May 2005 the rebels had retreated into the mountains and the fighting had ceased.
On 27 January 2007 Shiite rebels in the northern province of Sa'ada (where the Jews are being persecuted) launched a mortar attack on a security building, killing six soldiers. In early February Yemen's parliament authorised its military to launch a full-scale assault against the rebels. Stratfor estimates that around 80 Shiite al-Houthi rebels and around 40 Yemeni government soldiers have died in fighting over the past two weeks. The Yemen Times puts the figure at 32 rebels and 15 soldiers.
Some Yemeni MPs and political commentators suspect that Iran and Libya are interfering in Yemen; Iran to bolster the Shiites to counter al Qaeda and the revival of Wahhabi ideology; and Libya to bolster the Wahhabis for the purpose of destabilising Saudi Arabia.
Clearly Yemen is a fertile field for a Sunni vs Shiite contest. If the radicalisation of both Shiites and Sunnis is not effectively countered then the future is bleak, not only for Yemeni Jews and Christians, but for a united Republic of Yemen.
Elizabeth Kendal
Links
1) RL Trend: Shiite Ascendancy
2) Threatened Yemeni Jews appeal for protection
By Nasser Arrabyee Jan 22, 2007, 19:38 Yemen Observer
http://www.yobserver.com/cgi-bin/2007/exec/view.cgi/23/11554
3) Are Iran and Al Qaeda vying for influence in Yemen?
At least 200 dead in Yemeni battle against radicals.
By Nicholas Blanford. The Christian Science Monitor 13 July 2004
http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0713/p11s01-wome.html
BBC profile: YEMEN
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/country_profiles/784383.stm
Profile: Ali Abdullah Saleh http://lexicorient.com/e.o/saleh_a.htm
Tuesday, September 19, 2006
Bosnia and Herzegovina: Religious tensions rising.
Date: Tuesday 19 September 2006
Subj: Bosnia and Herzegovina: Religious tensions rising.
To: World Evangelical Alliance Religious Liberty News & Analysis
From: WEA RLC Principal Researcher and Writer, Elizabeth Kendal.
This comprehensive posting on the rising ethnic-religious tensions in Bosnia and Herzegovina consists of two parts: an examination of the present situation, and an overview of the history that has created its context.
While the recent religious incidents that triggered this posting might seem to be fairly insignificant, the issues and their potential to inflame conflict are not. In fact the issues emerging in Bosnia and Herzegovina today are reminiscent of those that led to war in 1992. When sparks appear in the midst of an incendiary environment, then regardless of how small they appear, they must be taken seriously and investigated thoroughly with the goal of preventing an explosion.
This posting submits that Bosnia and Herzegovina warrants the immediate, diligent attention of religious liberty monitors, advocates and intercessors, as well as peace-makers who can recognise romanticism, embrace realism, and care more about protecting flesh-and-blood than illusory political ideals.
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BOSNIA: RELIGIOUS TENSIONS RISING
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On 11 August, an explosion damaged the tomb of Bosnia's 1992-1995 war-time Muslim President, Alija Izetbegovic.
While portrayed by his Western allies as a moderate, Izetbegovic was actually an up-front Islamist backed by Iran. His "Islamic Declaration", first published in 1970, was republished in Sarajevo in 1990 just as Yugoslavia was starting to break apart. Izetbegovic was awarded the King Faisal Award in 1994 and the Figure of the Year in the Islamic World in 2001.
Izetbegovic's Islamic Declaration clearly expresses his worldview: "There can be no peace or coexistence between Islamic faith and non-Islamic faith and non-Islamic institutions. The Islamic movement must and can take power as soon as it is morally and numerically strong enough, not only to destroy the non-Islamic power, but to build up a new Islamic one." And, "Panislamism always came from the very heart of the Muslim peoples, nationalism was always imported stuff."
This is doubtless why, as conflict was escalating in Croatia and Yugoslavia was tearing apart, Izetbegovic withdrew his signature on 28 March 1992 from the 18 March 1992 Lisbon Agreement that had been constructed to prevent conflict in Bosnia by dividing the state into three autonomous entities: Bosniac, Croat and Serb. Two days after withdrawing his signature Izetbegovic illegally called for a referendum on secession despite the objections of the Bosnian Serb minority.
For a critique of Alija Izetbegovic and his role in instigating the Bosnia conflict see "Alija Izetbegovic, 1925-2003", by Damjan de Krnjevic-Miskovic, a Senior Fellow at the Institute on Religion and Public Policy. (Link 1)
Izetbegovic's tomb is located in the Kovaci (Martyrs) Cemetery in Sarajevo's Old Town. Nobody was injured in the bombing, which occurred a little after 3 am, and damage to surrounding buildings was slight. Dejan Anastasijevic reported from Belgrade for TIME magazine (29 August), "Most Muslims blamed the Serbs, who for their part insisted that Muslims staged the explosion; the ongoing investigation has so far proved fruitless."
The following week, a group of Muslims forced their way into a Serbian church which has been built on the site of a mosque in eastern Bosnia. (Link 2)
MINOR INCIDENTS - SIGNIFICANT ISSUES
The issues fanning tensions in Bosnia and Herzegovina today bear a striking resemblance to the issues of 1992 that triggered the Bosnian war. In 1992, war was triggered by calls from Bosnian Islamists, led by Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovic, for Bosnia to secede from Yugoslavia and become an independent, single, undivided state. This would have placed some 1.3 million Bosnian Serb Christians of the Eastern Orthodox tradition under Muslim and Croat domination in what Islamist openly planned would become an Islamic State. Serb resistance was met with jihad. Fighting was halted through the Dayton Accords (December 1995) which created the independent state of Bosnia and Herzogovina, but divided it into two autonomous entities: the Muslim-Croat Federation and the Republika Srpska (Serb Republic), each with its own government, parliament, army and police.
The issue today is that the West led by the US is agitating for Constitutional reform in Bosnia that will strengthen the central (Muslim dominated) government at the expense of the entities. Ekrem Krasniqi in Brussels and Anes Alic in Sarajevo, wrote for ISN Security Watch in November 2005, "In essence, the constitutional changes aim to reverse the international community's quick-fix measures to end the war, which entailed making ethnic division a political reality - a reality that is no longer feasible in a country hoping to join the EU." (See ISN's "Redefining Bosnia": Link 3)
While the US is not calling for the dismantling of the Republika Srpska, some Bosnian Muslim leaders are. Nicholas Wood reports for the the New York Times, "Haris Silajdzic, a Muslim, a former foreign minister and a presidential candidate, has campaigned against the proposed changes, saying they would leave the Serbian republic in place. The Serbian entity should be abolished and absorbed into a stronger Bosnian state, he contends. That idea, diplomats here say, is unrealistic, but it appeals to nationalist Muslim voters." (Link 2)
Prime minister of Republika Srpska (RS), Milorad Dodik, has said he will never agree to reform police and security forces as demanded by the European Union as a condition for EU association talks. Serb leaders have responded to Islamist calls for the abolition of RS by saying that if moves are made to dissolve RS, then RS will hold a referendum on secession. It is estimated that around 90 percent of Serbs in RS would vote to secede from Bosnia if a referendum were held.
Sulejman Tihic, the Muslim member of Bosnia's three-man rotating presidency said that Serbs wanting to secede could pack their bags and leave but they could not take one inch of Bosnian territory with them.
AKI reports: "RS Prime Minister Milorad Dodik retorted that Tihic's statement represented a drastic example of 'hate and chauvinism' which will only further inflame ethnic passions in Bosnia. 'In Tihic's statement one can easily recognise an Islamic concept which sees Bosnia as its exclusive right,' said Dodik. 'Serbs are constituent people in Bosnia [and] claim the same right to the country and to live in it,' said Dodik." (Link 4)
The Islamist principle that "Islamic lands" cannot be seceded is why Bosnian Islamists regard any RS move towards a referendum or secession as unacceptable and doubtless as grounds for jihad. As in 1992, the Serbs would rather face jihad rather than be returned to dhimmitude (the subjugated state of non-Muslims living under Islamic domination).
CONSTITUTIONAL REFORM
The stated aim of the Constitutional reform is to move Bosnia from "stabilisation" to "transition". The Dayton Accords which ended the 1992-1995 war stabilised Bosnia by separating warring constituents into two entities: the Muslim-Croat Federation and the Republiska Srpska. Now, the West alleges, it is time for Bosnia to transition toward EU membership by strengthening its State institutions at the expense of the entities.
While the Islamists are anxious not to cement any degree of Serb autonomy, the Serbs are anxious not to lose their autonomy. Most Serbs are concerned that the Constitutional reform could simply be a slow road towards the dissolution of RS.
The appeal of Mr Dragan Cavic, the President of Republika Srpska, is simply that the stability brought by the Dayton Accords' division of Bosnia should not be sacrificed in the transition process. "We are committed to success [of transition into Europe] and we need success, but a clear prerequisite of our support should be keeping the Dayton's Entity Status of the Republic of Srpska within Bosnia and Herzegovina . . . European phase can not replace the Dayton phase. . . . These two cannot confront each other, they can supplement each other." (Link 5)
While economics is the primary subject being openly discussed by EU and US advocates of constitutional reform, behind the scenes the talk is equally of unity, democracy, eliminating ethnic divisions, religious tolerance and other fine-sounding ideals.
ECONOMICS
Bosnia's present set up of two autonomous entities, each with its own parliament, government administration, courts, police force and services, as well as a central government makes for a very expensive system. In fact, around 60 percent of Bosnia's GDP is spent simply maintaining state and entity apparatus, and this is contributing significantly to the weakness of the Bosnian state.
IDEALISM
The less talked about reason behind the US-led drive for constitutional reform in Bosnia and Herzegovina is more idealistic. The West still has a desire to "prove" that Muslims and Christians can live together in harmonious, tolerant, democratic, golden Islamic societies, as allegedly in history(!) and in Lebanon(!). And as they will in the new Iraq! It is important to Europe and the US that this human experiment, which is little more than a forced marriage, not fail. If the Bosnia experiment fails, then the prospects for London, Paris and other multicultural, pluralist democracies with rapidly growing Muslim populations are grim.
A hugely important address on this subject was given by Bat Ye'or on 31 August 1995 at the International Strategic Studies Association's Symposium on the Balkan War - "Yugoslavia: Past and Present". Bat Ye'or's address, entitled, "Myths and politics: Origins of the Myth of a Tolerant Pluralistic Islamic Society", is essential reading for understanding the politics of and international ideals behind Bosnia and Herzegovina. (Link 6)
While intended to unite Bosnian Muslims (Bosniacs), Croats and Serbs under Bosnian nationalism, the proposed constitutional reforms are actually dividing the constituent peoples. A March 2006 nation-wide survey conducted by the International Institute for Middle-East and Balkan Studies (Ljubljana, Slovenia) revealed that only 29.3 percent of those surveyed supported the constitutional amendments while 59.8 percent disapproved. (Link 7)
Serbs in the Republika Srpska generally reject the reforms as they strengthen the Muslim-dominated central authority at the expense of the entities, lessening Serb autonomy. The Croats also reject the reforms and are voicing their preference to carve out their own autonomous ethnic entity. Most Bosniac Islamists either support the reforms or want them to be more radical because they conform to Islamist aspirations to strengthen the central (Muslim-dominated) government and extend its powers to all corners of Bosnia.
But Bosniac Islamists who advocate the forcible abolition of the Republika Srpska do not do this with shouts of jihad or with the language of Islamic imperialism. They do this by denouncing ethnic and religious separation and by extolling the virtues of unity, tolerance and democracy, in much the same way that Arab nationalism did. They do this by crying victim and saying the murderous, evil, demonic Serbs should not have any right to self- rule on "Bosnian" (read "Muslim") land.
PARLIAMENTARY ELECTIONS: 1 OCTOBER
The proposed constitutional reforms failed to pass a vote in the Bosnian parliament on 27 April, so further discussion has been put off until after the 1 October 2006 parliamentary elections. However, constitutional reform is now an election issue. As the tension and rhetoric escalates, international voices are calling for calm. (Link 8)
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CREATING CONTEXT: HISTORY'S WEDGES
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ISLAMIC ERA
From the early 14th Century to the early 20th Century the Serbs and other Southern Slavs lived as persecuted dhimmis, cruelly subjugated under the Islamic imperialism of the Ottoman Empire. During that era most Bosnian Slavs converted to Islam.
As the Ottoman Empire started to crumble Christian Slavs fought for and won their liberation from Islamic rule through the Balkan Wars of 1912-1913. Yugoslavia was created in 1918 as a Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes - all Southern Slavs. But the long history of Islamic repression and persecution and the trauma of the bloody wars that brought it to an end left a wedge between Christian Slavs and Muslims.
(Muslim Slavs live predominantly in Bosnia and Herzegovina. They accounted for 8.9 percent of Yugoslavia in the 1981 census but are around 44 percent in modern-day Bosnia.)
WORLD WAR TWO
World War Two saw Yugoslavia split apart. The Axis powers annexed modern-day Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovenia, creating the fascist state of Croatia. They also occupied Serbia which was aligned with the Allies. The "lesser races" - the Serbs, Jews and Gypsies (Romas) - were targeted by the Nazis for extermination.
Some two million Serbs lived in Croatia at the beginning of WW2. Of that number, around one million were killed, around half the remainder were expelled while the other half were forcibly converted to Roman Catholicism under threat of death. Of the Serbs killed, multitudes were murdered by the 20,000-strong Waffen-SS "Handschar" (scimitar) division. This was established in Bosnia by SS head, Heinrich Himmler, and the Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Muhammad Amin al Husseini, and consisted of Bosnian and some Albanian Muslims.
Around 390,000 Serbs were murdered by the fascist Croat "Ustasa", while between 300,000 and 700,000 Serbs, Jews and Romas, including 20,000 known, named children, were executed by Croat forces in Camp Jasenovac .
The barbarity and horror of the WW2 holocaust in Yugoslavia is concisely documented at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum (with an excellent search engine). The terror of those days created a deep wedge between Serbs, and Bosnian Muslims and Croats. Nowhere is this wedge more evident than in Bosnia where Muslims, Croats and Serbs have lived interspersed for centuries.
Most Bosnian Serbs have been raised by parents or influenced by grandparents who are remnant survivors of the Bosniac-Croat attempted genocide of Serbs during the World War Two holocaust in Yugoslavia.
COMMUNIST ERA
After WW2, Josip Broz Tito's Partisans, a Communist-led, anti-Axis resistance movement, recreated Yugoslavia as a federal republic. Tito drew the Bosniacs into his Communist Partisan forces and fostered the creation of Bosnia and Herzegovina as a separate Muslim republic.
Serbs were by far the largest ethnic group in Yugoslavia and Tito, a Croat, was determined to destroy Serb hegemony. While Tito was hailed for uniting the warring Slavs under Communism, he actually carved up Yugoslavia, primarily along ethnic lines, but in a way that deliberately weakened the Serbs by ensuring that the republics had large Serb minorities. In fact 42 percent of Serbs were left outside Serbia proper. As Tito advanced his policy of decentralisation, Serb minorities grew anxious. Tito's carve-up of Yugoslavia deliberately created artificial, geographical wedges between Serbs.
ISLAMIST ASCENDENCY
In the early days of the Bosnian war, terrorism expert Yossef Bodansky and Vaughn S Forrest wrote "Iran's European Springboard?", a report for the task force on terrorism and unconventional warfare, the House Research Committee. This report is as hugely significant and relevant today as it was in September 1992. (Link 9)
Bodansky and Forrest describe in detail how Tito's pro-Arab policies unintentionally contributed to the radicalisation of Bosnian Muslims as early as the 1970s. After the Iranian Islamic Revolution, Izetbegovic "renewed his call to implement his Islamic Declaration, began organising an Islamist political movement, and within a few years was thrown in jail for subversion." By the 1980s Palestinian, Syrian and Iranian groups were using Yugoslavia as a base of operations, and Bosniacs were undergoing terrorist and ideological training in Lebanon and Iran.
"Meanwhile," wrote Bodansky and Forrest in 1992, "Iran has also consolidated a Muslim leadership network supportive of Tehran's world view. At the centre of the Iranian system in Europe is Bosnia-Hercegovina's President, Alija Izetbegovic, 'a fundamentalist Muslim and a member of the Fida'iYan-e Islam organisation,' who is committed to the establishment of an Islamic Republic in Bosnia-Hercegovina."
According to Bodansky and Forrest, Izetbegovic developed close cultural and economic ties with Iran. Bodansky and Forrest described the Bosnia War as " . . a proxy battlefield for the future and fortunes of the growing Muslim community of Western Europe".
Terrorism experts including Bodansky assert that the Balkans is integral to Islamist plans for escalation of conflict against Israel, Europe and the USA. According to the experts, Muslim Slavs are being recruited to a "white al-Qaeda" (also known as "white devils") that can be easily deployed for terror operations in the West. (Link 10)
THE CONSEQUENCE OF UNHEALED WEDGES: DIVORCE
It was the deep and valid fear that Serb minorities had of Muslim and Croat domination that led Serb minorities in Croatia and Bosnia to react against Croatian and Bosnian calls for independence and secession. As Yugoslavia broke apart in the early 1990s, around 2 million Serbs faced the prospect of living as minorities under Muslim and Croatian rule.
Civil war erupted as Serbs sought to guarantee their future liberty and security by redrawing the borders to form a Greater Serbia. The Bosniacs and Croats, not believing a Greater Serbia had a right to exist, fought against the Serbs to ensure no territory was lost. As is common in war, atrocities and criminal acts were committed by all sides.
For a Bosniac Islamist such as President Alija Izetbegovic the fight was not primarily about nationalism but about Islamic lands. This was a jihad for which they had the support of their allies in Iran, Saudi Arabia and al-Qaeda. According to Bodansky, on 29 July 1992, Iran's Ayatollah Ali Hussayn Khamene'i gave a sermon in which he described the war in Bosnia as a US-led Western/Christian campaign "against the Islamic wave throughout the world", and he exhorted Muslims worldwide to mobilise and join the jihad for Islam in Europe.
And join they did, by the thousands. The Dayton Accords gave the foreign mujahideen 30 days to leave Bosnia. However, it appears that multitudes of mujahideen did not leave but instead were granted citizenship.
Today a Bosnian state commission is reviewing 1,500 citizenships granted post-war to foreign mujahideen. The commission head, Vjekoslav Vukovic, says many names on the list are linked to al-Qaeda and international terrorist organisations. So far 400 of the 1,500 names have been reviewed and 50 citizenships have been revoked. AKI reports, "Kadrija Kolic, a lawyer for several naturalised citizens, has said that it was a 'crime' to revoke the citizenship of the former fighters, as they had been granted by the wartime government of Bosnia's late president Alija Izetbegovic." (Link 11)
DEMONISATION: A WEDGE WITH THE WORLD
The Serbs as a people have been collectively demonised. This has resulted in a pervasive anti-Serb mindset that is irrational and unjust. Much like modern anti-Semitism, anti-Serbism has been built on the exaggerations, lies, disinformation, conspiracy theories and propaganda professionally churned out by expert Islamist PR and media agents to lazy, gullible, predominantly left-wing journalists.
It was primarily through strategic disinformation and propaganda the Islamists also managed to win the support of a US regime that was keen, (according to the opinion of some analysts), to repay debts incurred to Iran after supporting Iraq in the Iran Iraq war.
According to Bodansky and Forrest, the Serb siege on Sarajavo caused Izetbegovic to become convinced "that it was necessary to undertake drastic measures of a kind that had long been advocated by Tehran. The Iranians had argued that before any escalation in the fighting could take place, it was imperative to either gain the sympathies of the West or at the least to ensure that there existed a legitimate excuse that would enable the presentation of any action undertaken by Muslim forces as justifying revenge for Serbian atrocities.
"To that end, beginning in May 1992, a special group of Bosnian Muslim forces, many of whom had served with Islamist terrorist organisations, began committing a series of atrocities, including 'some of the worst recent killings,' against Muslim civilians in Sarajevo 'as a propaganda ploy to win world sympathy and military intervention.'
"A UN investigation concluded that several key events, mostly strikes against civilians, that had galvanised public opinion and governments in the West to take bolder action in Bosnia- Hercegovina, were in fact 'staged' for the Western media by the Muslims themselves in order to dramatise the city's plight. Investigations by the UN and other military experts count among these self-inflicted actions the 'bombing of the bread queue' (May 27), the 'shelling' of Douglas Hurd's visit (July 17), the 'explosion in the cemetery' (August 4), and the killing of ABC producer David Kaplan (August 13). In all these cases, Serbian forces were out of range, and the weapons actually used against the victims were not those claimed by the Bosnian authorities and the Western media."
The popular narrative of Srebrenica is just as fictional. "The Srebrenica Report" is essential reading for those seeking to understand Srebrenica, "the politics of war crimes" and how Islamists have turned strategic disinformation into both a weapon of war and an art form. It is a high-level report conducted over three years by professional researchers and former UN officials. The following information comes from various reports on their site. (Link 12)
According to General Sefer Halilovic, Commander of the Army of Bosnia-Herzegovina, 5,500 soldiers of the Muslim Army's 28th Division were stationed at "safe-haven" Screbrenica with sophisticated arms, including anti-tank weapons. He also confirmed to The Hague Tribunal that when the Serb force of some 200 men and five tanks entered the town on 11 July it was nearly empty.
In the weeks before the Serb capture of Srebrenica, the Bosnian government of President Izetbegovic in Sarajevo withdrew Srebrenica's most significant Islamist militant leaders (including the infamous mass-murderer, Naser Oric, who liked to be filmed torturing, beheading and mutilating his Serb victims) and sent them for retraining in Zenica. This left the 28th Division virtually leaderless.
Muslim soldiers were then ordered to launch provocations against surrounding Serb villages. When the Serbs responded, advancing from the south, the Muslim soldiers retreated north. Former UN Deputy Director of UN Monitors, Carlos Martins Branco, reports: "Muslim forces did not even try to take advantage of their heavy artillery . . . Military resistance would jeopardise the image of 'victim' which had been so carefully constructed, and which the Muslims considered so vital to maintain." Many UN and other observers concluded that Izetbegovic sacrificed the town for political purposes.
The Muslim claim that 8,000 unarmed civilian Muslim men and boys had been executed in Srebrenica by Serb soldiers triggered the American and NATO bombing raids on the Serbs. This in turn gave motivation for the Muslim-Croat alliance which effected - with US sanction - the August 1995 ethnic cleansing of up to 250,000 Serbs from western Bosnia in Operation Storm.
Today, 11 years after the Srebrenica massacre, that claim still stands despite the fact that the figure of 8,000 was only the Red Cross' list of "missing", the majority of whom were simply displaced. After 11 years of searching and of forensic investigations led by teams of international experts around 2,000 bodies have been found buried in Srebrenica, and that number is made up of victims of US and NATO bombs, Muslim Bosnian Army soldiers who died of battle wounds, Serbs, and Muslim victims of execution-style killing. (Between 200 and 300 blindfolds and ligatures were exhumed with bodies.)
Quoting former UN Civilian Affairs Co-ordinator Phillip Corwin, the senior UN civilian official in Bosnia at the time of the capture of Srebrenica, "What happened in Srebrenica was not a single large massacre of Muslims by Serbs, but rather a series of very bloody attacks and counterattacks over a three-year period which reached a crescendo in July 1995. Moreover it is likely that the number of Muslim dead was probably no more than the number of Serbs that had been killed in Srebrenica and its environs in the three preceding years by Naser Oric and his predatory gangs. But my point here is not to argue equivalence, but to expose distortion."
According to Corwin, the official version of events at Srebrenica has been a "campaign of disinformation that has all but buried the facts along with the bodies".
The American government perpetuates the myth of a massacre of unparalleled evil to justify its alliance with Islamist forces. It is highly probable though, that if the Islamic terror attacks of 11 September 2001 had occurred a decade earlier the US may have been less hasty to enter a conflict as allies of Iran and al-Qaeda- backed Islamists. They may have been less quick to bomb European Eastern Orthodox Christians based primarily on reports churned out by the same Islamist propaganda machines that have since given us "Genocide in Jenin" and other tall tales.
CONCLUSIONS
While the sectarian incidents that triggered this posting seem relatively insignificant, the issues are in fact highly significant and reminiscent of those that led to war in 1992.
If Tito's borders are inviolable and a Greater Serbia is not to be, then the Serbs of Republika Srpska need the assurance that they can maintain a high degree of autonomy in this forced marriage and not be returned to dhimmitude. They will face jihad (again) rather than be returned to dhimmitude.
The strategy of the Islamists on their road to the creation of an Islamic State, is to use disinformation to collectively demonise the Serbs so as to isolate them from those who should be their friends and allies. The Islamist aim is to ensure the world regards Serb peace as undeserved and Serb suffering as justice, establishing the foundation for Western support of the Islamist agenda.
Elizabeth Kendal
rl-research@crossnet.org.au
Links
1) Obituary: Alija Izetbegovic, 1925-2003
by Damjan de Krnjevic-Miskovic, The National Interest, 22 October 2003
2) Ethnic tensions rising as Bosnian vote nears
By Nicholas Wood, The New York Times. 27 August 2006
http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/08/27/news/bosnia.php
BOSNIA: late Muslim leader's tomb blown up. Sarajevo, 11 August (AKI)
http://www.adnki.com/index_2Level_English.php?cat=Security&loid=8.0.329887870&par=
3) Redefining Bosnia. 15 Nov 2005
By Ekrem Krasniqi in Brussels and Anes Alic in Sarajevo for ISN Security Watch.
http://www.isn.ethz.ch/news/sw/details.cfm?ID=13521
4) BOSNIA: Serbs deem Muslim leader's comments 'irresponsible'. Sarajevo, 25 August 2006 http://www.adnki.com/index_2Level_English.php?cat=Politics&loid=8.0.334008026&par=0
5) Welcoming speech of The President of the Republic of Srpska,
Mr. Dragan Cavic, At the opening of the Scientific Meeting,
"The Republic of Srpska - 10 years of the Dayton Peace Accords" 12 May 2005 http://www.predsjednikrs.net/engleski/stranice/govori/Dayton-2005.htm
6) BAT YE'OR, 31 August 1995
Myths and Politics: Origin or the Myth of a Tolerant Pluralistic Islamic Society
For the International Strategic Studies Association
Symposium on the Balkan War - "Yugoslavia: Past and Present"
http://www.srpska-mreza.com/History/pre-wwOne/Ye_Or.html
7) B-H Constitutional changes without citizens' support!
Author: IFIMES. Uploaded: Tuesday, 25 April, 2006
http://www.bosnia.org.uk/news/news_body.cfm?newsid=2193
8) BOSNIA: Top envoy appeals for calm ahead of poll. Sarajevo, 18 August 2006 http://www.adnki.com/index_2Level_English.php?cat=Politics&loid=8.0.331777836&par=0
9) IRAN'S EUROPEAN SPRINGBOARD?
Yossef Bodansky and Vaughn S. Forrest. 1 September 1992
Task force on terrorism and unconventional warfare, House Republican Research Committee,
10) Terrorism: Local manpower key to new al-Qaeda strategy, expert. Belgrade, 30 August 2006
http://www.adnki.com/index_2Level_English.php?cat=Terrorism&loid=8.0.334824252&par=0
Terrorists from Balkans could reach into Europe. 13 Sept 2006
http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=51954
11) 50 Al-Qaeda sympathizers lose citizenship. 5 Sept 2006
http://www.adnki.com/index_2Level_English.php?cat=Politics&loid=8.0.336787118&par=0
Bosnia rules to revoke citizenships
By Anes Alic in Sarajevo for ISN Security Watch (14/07/06)
http://www.isn.ethz.ch/news/sw/details.cfm?ID=16390
12) Srebrenica and the Politics of War Crimes
Findings of the Srebrenica Research Group into the allegations of events and the background leading up to them, in Srebrenica, Bosnia & Herzegovina, in 1995.
http://www.srebrenica-report.com/
Subj: Bosnia and Herzegovina: Religious tensions rising.
To: World Evangelical Alliance Religious Liberty News & Analysis
From: WEA RLC Principal Researcher and Writer, Elizabeth Kendal.
This comprehensive posting on the rising ethnic-religious tensions in Bosnia and Herzegovina consists of two parts: an examination of the present situation, and an overview of the history that has created its context.
While the recent religious incidents that triggered this posting might seem to be fairly insignificant, the issues and their potential to inflame conflict are not. In fact the issues emerging in Bosnia and Herzegovina today are reminiscent of those that led to war in 1992. When sparks appear in the midst of an incendiary environment, then regardless of how small they appear, they must be taken seriously and investigated thoroughly with the goal of preventing an explosion.
This posting submits that Bosnia and Herzegovina warrants the immediate, diligent attention of religious liberty monitors, advocates and intercessors, as well as peace-makers who can recognise romanticism, embrace realism, and care more about protecting flesh-and-blood than illusory political ideals.
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BOSNIA: RELIGIOUS TENSIONS RISING
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On 11 August, an explosion damaged the tomb of Bosnia's 1992-1995 war-time Muslim President, Alija Izetbegovic.
While portrayed by his Western allies as a moderate, Izetbegovic was actually an up-front Islamist backed by Iran. His "Islamic Declaration", first published in 1970, was republished in Sarajevo in 1990 just as Yugoslavia was starting to break apart. Izetbegovic was awarded the King Faisal Award in 1994 and the Figure of the Year in the Islamic World in 2001.
Izetbegovic's Islamic Declaration clearly expresses his worldview: "There can be no peace or coexistence between Islamic faith and non-Islamic faith and non-Islamic institutions. The Islamic movement must and can take power as soon as it is morally and numerically strong enough, not only to destroy the non-Islamic power, but to build up a new Islamic one." And, "Panislamism always came from the very heart of the Muslim peoples, nationalism was always imported stuff."
This is doubtless why, as conflict was escalating in Croatia and Yugoslavia was tearing apart, Izetbegovic withdrew his signature on 28 March 1992 from the 18 March 1992 Lisbon Agreement that had been constructed to prevent conflict in Bosnia by dividing the state into three autonomous entities: Bosniac, Croat and Serb. Two days after withdrawing his signature Izetbegovic illegally called for a referendum on secession despite the objections of the Bosnian Serb minority.
For a critique of Alija Izetbegovic and his role in instigating the Bosnia conflict see "Alija Izetbegovic, 1925-2003", by Damjan de Krnjevic-Miskovic, a Senior Fellow at the Institute on Religion and Public Policy. (Link 1)
Izetbegovic's tomb is located in the Kovaci (Martyrs) Cemetery in Sarajevo's Old Town. Nobody was injured in the bombing, which occurred a little after 3 am, and damage to surrounding buildings was slight. Dejan Anastasijevic reported from Belgrade for TIME magazine (29 August), "Most Muslims blamed the Serbs, who for their part insisted that Muslims staged the explosion; the ongoing investigation has so far proved fruitless."
The following week, a group of Muslims forced their way into a Serbian church which has been built on the site of a mosque in eastern Bosnia. (Link 2)
MINOR INCIDENTS - SIGNIFICANT ISSUES
The issues fanning tensions in Bosnia and Herzegovina today bear a striking resemblance to the issues of 1992 that triggered the Bosnian war. In 1992, war was triggered by calls from Bosnian Islamists, led by Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovic, for Bosnia to secede from Yugoslavia and become an independent, single, undivided state. This would have placed some 1.3 million Bosnian Serb Christians of the Eastern Orthodox tradition under Muslim and Croat domination in what Islamist openly planned would become an Islamic State. Serb resistance was met with jihad. Fighting was halted through the Dayton Accords (December 1995) which created the independent state of Bosnia and Herzogovina, but divided it into two autonomous entities: the Muslim-Croat Federation and the Republika Srpska (Serb Republic), each with its own government, parliament, army and police.
The issue today is that the West led by the US is agitating for Constitutional reform in Bosnia that will strengthen the central (Muslim dominated) government at the expense of the entities. Ekrem Krasniqi in Brussels and Anes Alic in Sarajevo, wrote for ISN Security Watch in November 2005, "In essence, the constitutional changes aim to reverse the international community's quick-fix measures to end the war, which entailed making ethnic division a political reality - a reality that is no longer feasible in a country hoping to join the EU." (See ISN's "Redefining Bosnia": Link 3)
While the US is not calling for the dismantling of the Republika Srpska, some Bosnian Muslim leaders are. Nicholas Wood reports for the the New York Times, "Haris Silajdzic, a Muslim, a former foreign minister and a presidential candidate, has campaigned against the proposed changes, saying they would leave the Serbian republic in place. The Serbian entity should be abolished and absorbed into a stronger Bosnian state, he contends. That idea, diplomats here say, is unrealistic, but it appeals to nationalist Muslim voters." (Link 2)
Prime minister of Republika Srpska (RS), Milorad Dodik, has said he will never agree to reform police and security forces as demanded by the European Union as a condition for EU association talks. Serb leaders have responded to Islamist calls for the abolition of RS by saying that if moves are made to dissolve RS, then RS will hold a referendum on secession. It is estimated that around 90 percent of Serbs in RS would vote to secede from Bosnia if a referendum were held.
Sulejman Tihic, the Muslim member of Bosnia's three-man rotating presidency said that Serbs wanting to secede could pack their bags and leave but they could not take one inch of Bosnian territory with them.
AKI reports: "RS Prime Minister Milorad Dodik retorted that Tihic's statement represented a drastic example of 'hate and chauvinism' which will only further inflame ethnic passions in Bosnia. 'In Tihic's statement one can easily recognise an Islamic concept which sees Bosnia as its exclusive right,' said Dodik. 'Serbs are constituent people in Bosnia [and] claim the same right to the country and to live in it,' said Dodik." (Link 4)
The Islamist principle that "Islamic lands" cannot be seceded is why Bosnian Islamists regard any RS move towards a referendum or secession as unacceptable and doubtless as grounds for jihad. As in 1992, the Serbs would rather face jihad rather than be returned to dhimmitude (the subjugated state of non-Muslims living under Islamic domination).
CONSTITUTIONAL REFORM
The stated aim of the Constitutional reform is to move Bosnia from "stabilisation" to "transition". The Dayton Accords which ended the 1992-1995 war stabilised Bosnia by separating warring constituents into two entities: the Muslim-Croat Federation and the Republiska Srpska. Now, the West alleges, it is time for Bosnia to transition toward EU membership by strengthening its State institutions at the expense of the entities.
While the Islamists are anxious not to cement any degree of Serb autonomy, the Serbs are anxious not to lose their autonomy. Most Serbs are concerned that the Constitutional reform could simply be a slow road towards the dissolution of RS.
The appeal of Mr Dragan Cavic, the President of Republika Srpska, is simply that the stability brought by the Dayton Accords' division of Bosnia should not be sacrificed in the transition process. "We are committed to success [of transition into Europe] and we need success, but a clear prerequisite of our support should be keeping the Dayton's Entity Status of the Republic of Srpska within Bosnia and Herzegovina . . . European phase can not replace the Dayton phase. . . . These two cannot confront each other, they can supplement each other." (Link 5)
While economics is the primary subject being openly discussed by EU and US advocates of constitutional reform, behind the scenes the talk is equally of unity, democracy, eliminating ethnic divisions, religious tolerance and other fine-sounding ideals.
ECONOMICS
Bosnia's present set up of two autonomous entities, each with its own parliament, government administration, courts, police force and services, as well as a central government makes for a very expensive system. In fact, around 60 percent of Bosnia's GDP is spent simply maintaining state and entity apparatus, and this is contributing significantly to the weakness of the Bosnian state.
IDEALISM
The less talked about reason behind the US-led drive for constitutional reform in Bosnia and Herzegovina is more idealistic. The West still has a desire to "prove" that Muslims and Christians can live together in harmonious, tolerant, democratic, golden Islamic societies, as allegedly in history(!) and in Lebanon(!). And as they will in the new Iraq! It is important to Europe and the US that this human experiment, which is little more than a forced marriage, not fail. If the Bosnia experiment fails, then the prospects for London, Paris and other multicultural, pluralist democracies with rapidly growing Muslim populations are grim.
A hugely important address on this subject was given by Bat Ye'or on 31 August 1995 at the International Strategic Studies Association's Symposium on the Balkan War - "Yugoslavia: Past and Present". Bat Ye'or's address, entitled, "Myths and politics: Origins of the Myth of a Tolerant Pluralistic Islamic Society", is essential reading for understanding the politics of and international ideals behind Bosnia and Herzegovina. (Link 6)
While intended to unite Bosnian Muslims (Bosniacs), Croats and Serbs under Bosnian nationalism, the proposed constitutional reforms are actually dividing the constituent peoples. A March 2006 nation-wide survey conducted by the International Institute for Middle-East and Balkan Studies (Ljubljana, Slovenia) revealed that only 29.3 percent of those surveyed supported the constitutional amendments while 59.8 percent disapproved. (Link 7)
Serbs in the Republika Srpska generally reject the reforms as they strengthen the Muslim-dominated central authority at the expense of the entities, lessening Serb autonomy. The Croats also reject the reforms and are voicing their preference to carve out their own autonomous ethnic entity. Most Bosniac Islamists either support the reforms or want them to be more radical because they conform to Islamist aspirations to strengthen the central (Muslim-dominated) government and extend its powers to all corners of Bosnia.
But Bosniac Islamists who advocate the forcible abolition of the Republika Srpska do not do this with shouts of jihad or with the language of Islamic imperialism. They do this by denouncing ethnic and religious separation and by extolling the virtues of unity, tolerance and democracy, in much the same way that Arab nationalism did. They do this by crying victim and saying the murderous, evil, demonic Serbs should not have any right to self- rule on "Bosnian" (read "Muslim") land.
PARLIAMENTARY ELECTIONS: 1 OCTOBER
The proposed constitutional reforms failed to pass a vote in the Bosnian parliament on 27 April, so further discussion has been put off until after the 1 October 2006 parliamentary elections. However, constitutional reform is now an election issue. As the tension and rhetoric escalates, international voices are calling for calm. (Link 8)
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CREATING CONTEXT: HISTORY'S WEDGES
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ISLAMIC ERA
From the early 14th Century to the early 20th Century the Serbs and other Southern Slavs lived as persecuted dhimmis, cruelly subjugated under the Islamic imperialism of the Ottoman Empire. During that era most Bosnian Slavs converted to Islam.
As the Ottoman Empire started to crumble Christian Slavs fought for and won their liberation from Islamic rule through the Balkan Wars of 1912-1913. Yugoslavia was created in 1918 as a Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes - all Southern Slavs. But the long history of Islamic repression and persecution and the trauma of the bloody wars that brought it to an end left a wedge between Christian Slavs and Muslims.
(Muslim Slavs live predominantly in Bosnia and Herzegovina. They accounted for 8.9 percent of Yugoslavia in the 1981 census but are around 44 percent in modern-day Bosnia.)
WORLD WAR TWO
World War Two saw Yugoslavia split apart. The Axis powers annexed modern-day Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovenia, creating the fascist state of Croatia. They also occupied Serbia which was aligned with the Allies. The "lesser races" - the Serbs, Jews and Gypsies (Romas) - were targeted by the Nazis for extermination.
Some two million Serbs lived in Croatia at the beginning of WW2. Of that number, around one million were killed, around half the remainder were expelled while the other half were forcibly converted to Roman Catholicism under threat of death. Of the Serbs killed, multitudes were murdered by the 20,000-strong Waffen-SS "Handschar" (scimitar) division. This was established in Bosnia by SS head, Heinrich Himmler, and the Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Muhammad Amin al Husseini, and consisted of Bosnian and some Albanian Muslims.
Around 390,000 Serbs were murdered by the fascist Croat "Ustasa", while between 300,000 and 700,000 Serbs, Jews and Romas, including 20,000 known, named children, were executed by Croat forces in Camp Jasenovac .
The barbarity and horror of the WW2 holocaust in Yugoslavia is concisely documented at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum (with an excellent search engine). The terror of those days created a deep wedge between Serbs, and Bosnian Muslims and Croats. Nowhere is this wedge more evident than in Bosnia where Muslims, Croats and Serbs have lived interspersed for centuries.
Most Bosnian Serbs have been raised by parents or influenced by grandparents who are remnant survivors of the Bosniac-Croat attempted genocide of Serbs during the World War Two holocaust in Yugoslavia.
COMMUNIST ERA
After WW2, Josip Broz Tito's Partisans, a Communist-led, anti-Axis resistance movement, recreated Yugoslavia as a federal republic. Tito drew the Bosniacs into his Communist Partisan forces and fostered the creation of Bosnia and Herzegovina as a separate Muslim republic.
Serbs were by far the largest ethnic group in Yugoslavia and Tito, a Croat, was determined to destroy Serb hegemony. While Tito was hailed for uniting the warring Slavs under Communism, he actually carved up Yugoslavia, primarily along ethnic lines, but in a way that deliberately weakened the Serbs by ensuring that the republics had large Serb minorities. In fact 42 percent of Serbs were left outside Serbia proper. As Tito advanced his policy of decentralisation, Serb minorities grew anxious. Tito's carve-up of Yugoslavia deliberately created artificial, geographical wedges between Serbs.
ISLAMIST ASCENDENCY
In the early days of the Bosnian war, terrorism expert Yossef Bodansky and Vaughn S Forrest wrote "Iran's European Springboard?", a report for the task force on terrorism and unconventional warfare, the House Research Committee. This report is as hugely significant and relevant today as it was in September 1992. (Link 9)
Bodansky and Forrest describe in detail how Tito's pro-Arab policies unintentionally contributed to the radicalisation of Bosnian Muslims as early as the 1970s. After the Iranian Islamic Revolution, Izetbegovic "renewed his call to implement his Islamic Declaration, began organising an Islamist political movement, and within a few years was thrown in jail for subversion." By the 1980s Palestinian, Syrian and Iranian groups were using Yugoslavia as a base of operations, and Bosniacs were undergoing terrorist and ideological training in Lebanon and Iran.
"Meanwhile," wrote Bodansky and Forrest in 1992, "Iran has also consolidated a Muslim leadership network supportive of Tehran's world view. At the centre of the Iranian system in Europe is Bosnia-Hercegovina's President, Alija Izetbegovic, 'a fundamentalist Muslim and a member of the Fida'iYan-e Islam organisation,' who is committed to the establishment of an Islamic Republic in Bosnia-Hercegovina."
According to Bodansky and Forrest, Izetbegovic developed close cultural and economic ties with Iran. Bodansky and Forrest described the Bosnia War as " . . a proxy battlefield for the future and fortunes of the growing Muslim community of Western Europe".
Terrorism experts including Bodansky assert that the Balkans is integral to Islamist plans for escalation of conflict against Israel, Europe and the USA. According to the experts, Muslim Slavs are being recruited to a "white al-Qaeda" (also known as "white devils") that can be easily deployed for terror operations in the West. (Link 10)
THE CONSEQUENCE OF UNHEALED WEDGES: DIVORCE
It was the deep and valid fear that Serb minorities had of Muslim and Croat domination that led Serb minorities in Croatia and Bosnia to react against Croatian and Bosnian calls for independence and secession. As Yugoslavia broke apart in the early 1990s, around 2 million Serbs faced the prospect of living as minorities under Muslim and Croatian rule.
Civil war erupted as Serbs sought to guarantee their future liberty and security by redrawing the borders to form a Greater Serbia. The Bosniacs and Croats, not believing a Greater Serbia had a right to exist, fought against the Serbs to ensure no territory was lost. As is common in war, atrocities and criminal acts were committed by all sides.
For a Bosniac Islamist such as President Alija Izetbegovic the fight was not primarily about nationalism but about Islamic lands. This was a jihad for which they had the support of their allies in Iran, Saudi Arabia and al-Qaeda. According to Bodansky, on 29 July 1992, Iran's Ayatollah Ali Hussayn Khamene'i gave a sermon in which he described the war in Bosnia as a US-led Western/Christian campaign "against the Islamic wave throughout the world", and he exhorted Muslims worldwide to mobilise and join the jihad for Islam in Europe.
And join they did, by the thousands. The Dayton Accords gave the foreign mujahideen 30 days to leave Bosnia. However, it appears that multitudes of mujahideen did not leave but instead were granted citizenship.
Today a Bosnian state commission is reviewing 1,500 citizenships granted post-war to foreign mujahideen. The commission head, Vjekoslav Vukovic, says many names on the list are linked to al-Qaeda and international terrorist organisations. So far 400 of the 1,500 names have been reviewed and 50 citizenships have been revoked. AKI reports, "Kadrija Kolic, a lawyer for several naturalised citizens, has said that it was a 'crime' to revoke the citizenship of the former fighters, as they had been granted by the wartime government of Bosnia's late president Alija Izetbegovic." (Link 11)
DEMONISATION: A WEDGE WITH THE WORLD
The Serbs as a people have been collectively demonised. This has resulted in a pervasive anti-Serb mindset that is irrational and unjust. Much like modern anti-Semitism, anti-Serbism has been built on the exaggerations, lies, disinformation, conspiracy theories and propaganda professionally churned out by expert Islamist PR and media agents to lazy, gullible, predominantly left-wing journalists.
It was primarily through strategic disinformation and propaganda the Islamists also managed to win the support of a US regime that was keen, (according to the opinion of some analysts), to repay debts incurred to Iran after supporting Iraq in the Iran Iraq war.
According to Bodansky and Forrest, the Serb siege on Sarajavo caused Izetbegovic to become convinced "that it was necessary to undertake drastic measures of a kind that had long been advocated by Tehran. The Iranians had argued that before any escalation in the fighting could take place, it was imperative to either gain the sympathies of the West or at the least to ensure that there existed a legitimate excuse that would enable the presentation of any action undertaken by Muslim forces as justifying revenge for Serbian atrocities.
"To that end, beginning in May 1992, a special group of Bosnian Muslim forces, many of whom had served with Islamist terrorist organisations, began committing a series of atrocities, including 'some of the worst recent killings,' against Muslim civilians in Sarajevo 'as a propaganda ploy to win world sympathy and military intervention.'
"A UN investigation concluded that several key events, mostly strikes against civilians, that had galvanised public opinion and governments in the West to take bolder action in Bosnia- Hercegovina, were in fact 'staged' for the Western media by the Muslims themselves in order to dramatise the city's plight. Investigations by the UN and other military experts count among these self-inflicted actions the 'bombing of the bread queue' (May 27), the 'shelling' of Douglas Hurd's visit (July 17), the 'explosion in the cemetery' (August 4), and the killing of ABC producer David Kaplan (August 13). In all these cases, Serbian forces were out of range, and the weapons actually used against the victims were not those claimed by the Bosnian authorities and the Western media."
The popular narrative of Srebrenica is just as fictional. "The Srebrenica Report" is essential reading for those seeking to understand Srebrenica, "the politics of war crimes" and how Islamists have turned strategic disinformation into both a weapon of war and an art form. It is a high-level report conducted over three years by professional researchers and former UN officials. The following information comes from various reports on their site. (Link 12)
According to General Sefer Halilovic, Commander of the Army of Bosnia-Herzegovina, 5,500 soldiers of the Muslim Army's 28th Division were stationed at "safe-haven" Screbrenica with sophisticated arms, including anti-tank weapons. He also confirmed to The Hague Tribunal that when the Serb force of some 200 men and five tanks entered the town on 11 July it was nearly empty.
In the weeks before the Serb capture of Srebrenica, the Bosnian government of President Izetbegovic in Sarajevo withdrew Srebrenica's most significant Islamist militant leaders (including the infamous mass-murderer, Naser Oric, who liked to be filmed torturing, beheading and mutilating his Serb victims) and sent them for retraining in Zenica. This left the 28th Division virtually leaderless.
Muslim soldiers were then ordered to launch provocations against surrounding Serb villages. When the Serbs responded, advancing from the south, the Muslim soldiers retreated north. Former UN Deputy Director of UN Monitors, Carlos Martins Branco, reports: "Muslim forces did not even try to take advantage of their heavy artillery . . . Military resistance would jeopardise the image of 'victim' which had been so carefully constructed, and which the Muslims considered so vital to maintain." Many UN and other observers concluded that Izetbegovic sacrificed the town for political purposes.
The Muslim claim that 8,000 unarmed civilian Muslim men and boys had been executed in Srebrenica by Serb soldiers triggered the American and NATO bombing raids on the Serbs. This in turn gave motivation for the Muslim-Croat alliance which effected - with US sanction - the August 1995 ethnic cleansing of up to 250,000 Serbs from western Bosnia in Operation Storm.
Today, 11 years after the Srebrenica massacre, that claim still stands despite the fact that the figure of 8,000 was only the Red Cross' list of "missing", the majority of whom were simply displaced. After 11 years of searching and of forensic investigations led by teams of international experts around 2,000 bodies have been found buried in Srebrenica, and that number is made up of victims of US and NATO bombs, Muslim Bosnian Army soldiers who died of battle wounds, Serbs, and Muslim victims of execution-style killing. (Between 200 and 300 blindfolds and ligatures were exhumed with bodies.)
Quoting former UN Civilian Affairs Co-ordinator Phillip Corwin, the senior UN civilian official in Bosnia at the time of the capture of Srebrenica, "What happened in Srebrenica was not a single large massacre of Muslims by Serbs, but rather a series of very bloody attacks and counterattacks over a three-year period which reached a crescendo in July 1995. Moreover it is likely that the number of Muslim dead was probably no more than the number of Serbs that had been killed in Srebrenica and its environs in the three preceding years by Naser Oric and his predatory gangs. But my point here is not to argue equivalence, but to expose distortion."
According to Corwin, the official version of events at Srebrenica has been a "campaign of disinformation that has all but buried the facts along with the bodies".
The American government perpetuates the myth of a massacre of unparalleled evil to justify its alliance with Islamist forces. It is highly probable though, that if the Islamic terror attacks of 11 September 2001 had occurred a decade earlier the US may have been less hasty to enter a conflict as allies of Iran and al-Qaeda- backed Islamists. They may have been less quick to bomb European Eastern Orthodox Christians based primarily on reports churned out by the same Islamist propaganda machines that have since given us "Genocide in Jenin" and other tall tales.
CONCLUSIONS
While the sectarian incidents that triggered this posting seem relatively insignificant, the issues are in fact highly significant and reminiscent of those that led to war in 1992.
If Tito's borders are inviolable and a Greater Serbia is not to be, then the Serbs of Republika Srpska need the assurance that they can maintain a high degree of autonomy in this forced marriage and not be returned to dhimmitude. They will face jihad (again) rather than be returned to dhimmitude.
The strategy of the Islamists on their road to the creation of an Islamic State, is to use disinformation to collectively demonise the Serbs so as to isolate them from those who should be their friends and allies. The Islamist aim is to ensure the world regards Serb peace as undeserved and Serb suffering as justice, establishing the foundation for Western support of the Islamist agenda.
Elizabeth Kendal
rl-research@crossnet.org.au
Links
1) Obituary: Alija Izetbegovic, 1925-2003
by Damjan de Krnjevic-Miskovic, The National Interest, 22 October 2003
2) Ethnic tensions rising as Bosnian vote nears
By Nicholas Wood, The New York Times. 27 August 2006
http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/08/27/news/bosnia.php
BOSNIA: late Muslim leader's tomb blown up. Sarajevo, 11 August (AKI)
http://www.adnki.com/index_2Level_English.php?cat=Security&loid=8.0.329887870&par=
3) Redefining Bosnia. 15 Nov 2005
By Ekrem Krasniqi in Brussels and Anes Alic in Sarajevo for ISN Security Watch.
http://www.isn.ethz.ch/news/sw/details.cfm?ID=13521
4) BOSNIA: Serbs deem Muslim leader's comments 'irresponsible'. Sarajevo, 25 August 2006 http://www.adnki.com/index_2Level_English.php?cat=Politics&loid=8.0.334008026&par=0
5) Welcoming speech of The President of the Republic of Srpska,
Mr. Dragan Cavic, At the opening of the Scientific Meeting,
"The Republic of Srpska - 10 years of the Dayton Peace Accords" 12 May 2005 http://www.predsjednikrs.net/engleski/stranice/govori/Dayton-2005.htm
6) BAT YE'OR, 31 August 1995
Myths and Politics: Origin or the Myth of a Tolerant Pluralistic Islamic Society
For the International Strategic Studies Association
Symposium on the Balkan War - "Yugoslavia: Past and Present"
http://www.srpska-mreza.com/History/pre-wwOne/Ye_Or.html
7) B-H Constitutional changes without citizens' support!
Author: IFIMES. Uploaded: Tuesday, 25 April, 2006
http://www.bosnia.org.uk/news/news_body.cfm?newsid=2193
8) BOSNIA: Top envoy appeals for calm ahead of poll. Sarajevo, 18 August 2006 http://www.adnki.com/index_2Level_English.php?cat=Politics&loid=8.0.331777836&par=0
9) IRAN'S EUROPEAN SPRINGBOARD?
Yossef Bodansky and Vaughn S. Forrest. 1 September 1992
Task force on terrorism and unconventional warfare, House Republican Research Committee,
10) Terrorism: Local manpower key to new al-Qaeda strategy, expert. Belgrade, 30 August 2006
http://www.adnki.com/index_2Level_English.php?cat=Terrorism&loid=8.0.334824252&par=0
Terrorists from Balkans could reach into Europe. 13 Sept 2006
http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=51954
11) 50 Al-Qaeda sympathizers lose citizenship. 5 Sept 2006
http://www.adnki.com/index_2Level_English.php?cat=Politics&loid=8.0.336787118&par=0
Bosnia rules to revoke citizenships
By Anes Alic in Sarajevo for ISN Security Watch (14/07/06)
http://www.isn.ethz.ch/news/sw/details.cfm?ID=16390
12) Srebrenica and the Politics of War Crimes
Findings of the Srebrenica Research Group into the allegations of events and the background leading up to them, in Srebrenica, Bosnia & Herzegovina, in 1995.
http://www.srebrenica-report.com/
Tuesday, February 7, 2006
The Persecution of Palestinian Christians
Date: Tuesday 7 February 2006
Subj: Palestinian Territories - 1.
The Persecution of Palestinian Christians.
To: World Evangelical Alliance Religious Liberty News & Analysis
From: WEA RLC Principal Researcher and Writer, Elizabeth Kendal.
A detailed and scholarly description of the suffering of Palestinian Christians can be found in a recently published work entitled: "Human Rights of Christians in Palestinian Society" by Prof. Justus Reid Weiner, under the auspices of the Jerusalem Centre for Public Affairs. (The monograph may be downloaded freely from this site, but it is also available through Amazon.)
Professor Weiner commences his monograph with a brief look at the wider issue of "Christians living in a Muslim world". He notes, "Despite the liberal and secular trends that gained strength from the middle of the nineteenth century, this statute [Islam] continues, to this day, to influence cultural, social, and legal practices. Moreover, the recent resurgence of Islamic fundamentalism entails a reversion to historical, cultural, and religious traditions that do not reflect modern social standards."
Pros. Weiner then narrows his focus to examine the plight of Christians under Palestinian Authority (PA) rule. He notes that the Palestinian Authority's Draft Constitution declares that "...in the State of Palestine... the religion of Islam will be the official religion", and "the Sharia will be the primary source of legislation".
As Weiner explains, the PA's promotion of Sharia (Islamic Law) immediately placed Christians in a precarious position, as Sharia does not afford them equality before the law. Escalating hardship and lawlessness, combined with the inequity of Sharia, makes Palestinian Christians exceedingly vulnerable, and their life increasingly unbearable. According to Prof. Weiner, while the intifada and the economy are significant factors forcing Christians to flee the Palestinian Territories, religious persecution at the hands of increasingly intolerant Muslims is the primary catalyst.
Prof. Weiner's research indicates that the present high rate of Christian emigration out of the Palestinian Territories is not normative, but a response to a phenomenon. He believes that the phenomenon that is driving Palestinian Christians from their homeland is the escalating hostility and persecution they are experiencing due to the dramatic escalation of Islamic extremism in the PA-administered territories. He says this is a direct result of the systematic and pervasive radicalisation of Palestinian Muslim society.
School curriculum in PA-run schools is infamous for its glorification of suicide bombers, its radical Islamic fundamentalism, its denial of Israel's right to exist, and its denigration of non-Muslims. As a pre-election Hamas video boasts, "We succeeded, with Allah's grace, to raise an ideological generation that loves death like our enemies love life." (Link 1)
For more information on the what Palestinian children and youths have been fed through PA-run schools and media, see links below.
Weirner describes the persecution of Christians as "diverse and widespread", adding that "institutionalised discrimination pervades virtually all realms of life and has become an inexorable part of Palestinian Christian existence".
In his monograph Prof. Weirner details the various forms this diverse, widespread, institutionalised discrimination and persecution takes. In summary, Christian communities and individuals suffer the following:
MARGINALISATION
The deliberate and strategic marginalisation of Christians in the Palestinian Territories is achieved by means of gerrymanders combined with Muslim immigration that alter the demographics of a formerly majority Christian area. This of course has drastic implications for local elections.
Bethlehem is a classic case. In 1990 Bethlehem was 60 percent Christian. After the PA acquired control of Bethlehem in 1994, Chairman Arafat extended the city's municipal borders to include the 30,000 Muslims living in nearby refugee camps. He also encouraged Muslims in Hebron to immigrate to Bethlehem. After nine Christians members of the Bethlehem City Council were driven to resign their posts in protest of Islamisationist policies, Arafat appointed a Muslim from Hebron as Governor of the Bethlehem District. The entire political structure of Bethlehem was then gradually cleansed of Christians. Christians are leaving. By 2001, Bethlehem was only 20 percent Christian.
BOYCOTTS AND EXTORTION
Christians suffer economic hardship as Muslims boycott their businesses. Islamic militants have also forced some Christians to close their businesses. The practice of extortion of Christian businesses is so widespread that one Christian businessman interviewed told Prof. Weiner, "There isn't a Christian businessman exempt." He said that around 90 percent of Christian businesses in Bethlehem have been forced to close. Those that remain in business are paying protection money to militants.
Christians in business in the Palestinian Territories are also harassed, beaten and robbed by PA police (Weiner cites examples). They are targeted simply because they are Christian. Refusal or inability to pay bribes can lead to torture and even death. These atrocities are committed with impunity.
NO PROPERTY RIGHTS
Prof. Weiner also explains that, in violation of international human rights norms, Palestinian Land Law prescribes the death penalty to anyone selling land to Jews. According to Weiner, Jerusalem's Arafat-appointed mufti, Sheikh Ekrima Sabri has issued a fatwa to the effect that death will be the penalty to anyone selling land to any non-Muslim. This law extends to Christians, so that they cannot sell land to each other.
In addition, adds Weiner, "...internationally recognised holy sites in the West Bank are threatened, being vandalised and desecrated by the PA without consequence." The impunity granted to those who attack Christians and Christian property only encourages Muslim criminals to break in to churches and monasteries to steal valuable items.
RAPE OF CHRISTIAN WOMEN
According to Weiner's research, violence against Christian women in the Palestinian Territories was rare before the PA took control. Christian women testify that before 1993, security was such that they could walk the streets in safety. However, after the PA took control, Christian women could be attacked with impunity. Weiner gives several reasons for the sharp rise in sexual violence against Christian women since the PA took control of the Palestinian Territories: the rise is Islamist attitudes (such as Muslim superiority and contempt of infidels); the denigration and relegation of Christians to dhimmi (second class citizen) status with limited rights and no equality before the law; combined with the PA's inaction, regardless of whether that is due to lack of authority or lack of will. Once again, Muslim criminals know they can rape Christian women without fear of retaliation or legal consequence.
Weiner reports that many Christian girls are being advised to dress as Muslims to avoid problems. "The abuse of Palestinian Christian women," writes Weiner, "extends well beyond verbal harassment and intimidation. The widespread occurrence of rape by Muslim men against Christian women exemplifies perhaps the most blatant denial of basic human rights as a result of religious identity."
One Palestinian Christian girl (aged 23) told Prof. Weiner that Muslim men often rape Christian women purely to render them undesirable to Christian men. "She can't get married, at all, after that," she said.
According to Weiner, Christian girls are also being forced into marriages with Muslim men. He retells the story of a wealthy Christian family man who had to resort to force to protect his daughter. A Muslim family came to his home, their son dressed for a wedding and accompanied by a sheikh and 15 Muslim men. They demanded that he hand his daughter over for marriage. After opening fire on the Muslim entourage, the Christian family had to immediately flee the Palestinian Territories. Other girls are less fortunate. There are even reports of PA officials leveling death threats at Christian families to force them to hand over their daughters for marriage to a Muslim.
PERVASIVE PA INCITEMENT
Prof. Weiner's research makes it clear that the negative attitudes held by Palestinian Muslims against their Christian counterparts are supported by the overwhelmingly Muslim PA leadership. Mosques broadcast sermons that drive home the Quranic injunction not to partner with, trust or befriend Jews or Christians, providing Muslims with religious justification for their religious intolerance.
Weiner quotes Joseph Farah, a Lebanese-American Christan editor of the WorldNetDaily online, as saying of Christians under the PA, "They are being driven out. They are being murdered. They are being raped. They are being systematically persecuted. They are being harassed. They are being intimidated." Weiner reports that Palestinian Christians under PA authority are discriminated against "...in the field of education, the receipt of medical benefits, and other government aid". A Lutheran pastor told Weiner, "...if food aid is brought in from Saudi Arabia, Christians are told that they are not entitled to receive any because they are not Muslims."
PA POLICE
According to Prof. Weiner, PA security personnel frequently combine ignorance of the law with Islamist sentiment to become persecutors rather than protectors. Christians are often imprisoned on trumped up charges of collaborating with Israel. Apostates can expect to be punished mercilessly through torture in PA prisons. Weiner writes, "The attitude of the police toward Christians constitutes one of the most egregious forms of institutional persecution... When subjected to harassment and worse by Muslim extremists, Palestinian Christians usually opt not to report incidents to the PA police... Palestinian Christians remain silent because they consider the PA police to be hostile to them."
ABUSE OF CHRISTIAN SITES
As has been well documented before, Islamic militants frequently choose to launch their attacks on Israel from Christian churches and homes, in order to draw the Israeli response to those sites.
CHRISTIAN DENIAL
Prof. Weiner's monograph contains material that will help people understand why Palestinian Christians are often quick to deny their suffering. Some Christian leaders deny the sufferings of Christians in order to retain privileges from the PA: for example, access to the media, or permission to travel – privileges that are granted in exchange of the dissemination of PA propaganda. Some deny the sufferings of Christians because they are simply blinded by Palestinian nationalist aspirations. But most are simply acting (or rather, not acting) out of fear of violent retribution – they are paralysed into silence by threat of terror, crippled by dhimmitude.
Weiner reports that one Christian cleric in Jerusalem compared the behaviour of Christian dhimmis to that of battered wives and children. A vulnerable, trapped, battered wife knows she cannot afford to provoke her abuser's wrath. For the victim it is easier, psychologically, to blame oneself (or to gain the approval of the abuser, blame the abuser's "enemy") and it is easier, physically, to avoid confrontation all together.
PALESTINIAN CHRISTIANS: "SACRIFICIAL PAWNS"
Weiner recounts one horrific case of a Palestinian apostate and persistent evangelist named Ahmad El-Achwal, a married father of eight, who struggled for seven years with persecution that included severe torture in PA prisons (the horror of which is described in Weiner's text), as well as frequent severe beatings and death threats from Hamas. Ahmad El-Achwal was murdered on his doorstep by Islamic militants, on 21 January 2004. US State Department officials, who were fully informed, had persistently refused to address his case.
Weiner regards Palestinian Christians as the sacrificial pawns of the Middle East peace process. He writes, "The importance of monitoring the PA's record, even during the ongoing violent intifada, cannot be overstated... The future of the Palestinian Christian community and any other religious minority living under the PA will rest on the potential for religious tolerance...," something Weiner fears is unlikely, at least in the short term.
Elizabeth Kendal
Links
Teach Kids Peace. http://www.teachkidspeace.com/
Teach Kids Peace is affiliated with Middle East Media Watch. It
monitors and documents progress in children's education for peace.
This site contains analysis of Israeli and PA educational materials.
ALSO
2003 Palestinian Authority Textbook Calls for Jihad and Martyrdom
http://memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?Page=archives&Area=sr&ID=SR2203
Incitement in the Palestinian Authority After the Aqaba Summit
http://memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?Page=archives&Area=sr&ID=SR2003
Subj: Palestinian Territories - 1.
The Persecution of Palestinian Christians.
To: World Evangelical Alliance Religious Liberty News & Analysis
From: WEA RLC Principal Researcher and Writer, Elizabeth Kendal.
A detailed and scholarly description of the suffering of Palestinian Christians can be found in a recently published work entitled: "Human Rights of Christians in Palestinian Society" by Prof. Justus Reid Weiner, under the auspices of the Jerusalem Centre for Public Affairs. (The monograph may be downloaded freely from this site, but it is also available through Amazon.)
Professor Weiner commences his monograph with a brief look at the wider issue of "Christians living in a Muslim world". He notes, "Despite the liberal and secular trends that gained strength from the middle of the nineteenth century, this statute [Islam] continues, to this day, to influence cultural, social, and legal practices. Moreover, the recent resurgence of Islamic fundamentalism entails a reversion to historical, cultural, and religious traditions that do not reflect modern social standards."
Pros. Weiner then narrows his focus to examine the plight of Christians under Palestinian Authority (PA) rule. He notes that the Palestinian Authority's Draft Constitution declares that "...in the State of Palestine... the religion of Islam will be the official religion", and "the Sharia will be the primary source of legislation".
As Weiner explains, the PA's promotion of Sharia (Islamic Law) immediately placed Christians in a precarious position, as Sharia does not afford them equality before the law. Escalating hardship and lawlessness, combined with the inequity of Sharia, makes Palestinian Christians exceedingly vulnerable, and their life increasingly unbearable. According to Prof. Weiner, while the intifada and the economy are significant factors forcing Christians to flee the Palestinian Territories, religious persecution at the hands of increasingly intolerant Muslims is the primary catalyst.
Prof. Weiner's research indicates that the present high rate of Christian emigration out of the Palestinian Territories is not normative, but a response to a phenomenon. He believes that the phenomenon that is driving Palestinian Christians from their homeland is the escalating hostility and persecution they are experiencing due to the dramatic escalation of Islamic extremism in the PA-administered territories. He says this is a direct result of the systematic and pervasive radicalisation of Palestinian Muslim society.
School curriculum in PA-run schools is infamous for its glorification of suicide bombers, its radical Islamic fundamentalism, its denial of Israel's right to exist, and its denigration of non-Muslims. As a pre-election Hamas video boasts, "We succeeded, with Allah's grace, to raise an ideological generation that loves death like our enemies love life." (Link 1)
For more information on the what Palestinian children and youths have been fed through PA-run schools and media, see links below.
Weirner describes the persecution of Christians as "diverse and widespread", adding that "institutionalised discrimination pervades virtually all realms of life and has become an inexorable part of Palestinian Christian existence".
In his monograph Prof. Weirner details the various forms this diverse, widespread, institutionalised discrimination and persecution takes. In summary, Christian communities and individuals suffer the following:
MARGINALISATION
The deliberate and strategic marginalisation of Christians in the Palestinian Territories is achieved by means of gerrymanders combined with Muslim immigration that alter the demographics of a formerly majority Christian area. This of course has drastic implications for local elections.
Bethlehem is a classic case. In 1990 Bethlehem was 60 percent Christian. After the PA acquired control of Bethlehem in 1994, Chairman Arafat extended the city's municipal borders to include the 30,000 Muslims living in nearby refugee camps. He also encouraged Muslims in Hebron to immigrate to Bethlehem. After nine Christians members of the Bethlehem City Council were driven to resign their posts in protest of Islamisationist policies, Arafat appointed a Muslim from Hebron as Governor of the Bethlehem District. The entire political structure of Bethlehem was then gradually cleansed of Christians. Christians are leaving. By 2001, Bethlehem was only 20 percent Christian.
BOYCOTTS AND EXTORTION
Christians suffer economic hardship as Muslims boycott their businesses. Islamic militants have also forced some Christians to close their businesses. The practice of extortion of Christian businesses is so widespread that one Christian businessman interviewed told Prof. Weiner, "There isn't a Christian businessman exempt." He said that around 90 percent of Christian businesses in Bethlehem have been forced to close. Those that remain in business are paying protection money to militants.
Christians in business in the Palestinian Territories are also harassed, beaten and robbed by PA police (Weiner cites examples). They are targeted simply because they are Christian. Refusal or inability to pay bribes can lead to torture and even death. These atrocities are committed with impunity.
NO PROPERTY RIGHTS
Prof. Weiner also explains that, in violation of international human rights norms, Palestinian Land Law prescribes the death penalty to anyone selling land to Jews. According to Weiner, Jerusalem's Arafat-appointed mufti, Sheikh Ekrima Sabri has issued a fatwa to the effect that death will be the penalty to anyone selling land to any non-Muslim. This law extends to Christians, so that they cannot sell land to each other.
In addition, adds Weiner, "...internationally recognised holy sites in the West Bank are threatened, being vandalised and desecrated by the PA without consequence." The impunity granted to those who attack Christians and Christian property only encourages Muslim criminals to break in to churches and monasteries to steal valuable items.
RAPE OF CHRISTIAN WOMEN
According to Weiner's research, violence against Christian women in the Palestinian Territories was rare before the PA took control. Christian women testify that before 1993, security was such that they could walk the streets in safety. However, after the PA took control, Christian women could be attacked with impunity. Weiner gives several reasons for the sharp rise in sexual violence against Christian women since the PA took control of the Palestinian Territories: the rise is Islamist attitudes (such as Muslim superiority and contempt of infidels); the denigration and relegation of Christians to dhimmi (second class citizen) status with limited rights and no equality before the law; combined with the PA's inaction, regardless of whether that is due to lack of authority or lack of will. Once again, Muslim criminals know they can rape Christian women without fear of retaliation or legal consequence.
Weiner reports that many Christian girls are being advised to dress as Muslims to avoid problems. "The abuse of Palestinian Christian women," writes Weiner, "extends well beyond verbal harassment and intimidation. The widespread occurrence of rape by Muslim men against Christian women exemplifies perhaps the most blatant denial of basic human rights as a result of religious identity."
One Palestinian Christian girl (aged 23) told Prof. Weiner that Muslim men often rape Christian women purely to render them undesirable to Christian men. "She can't get married, at all, after that," she said.
According to Weiner, Christian girls are also being forced into marriages with Muslim men. He retells the story of a wealthy Christian family man who had to resort to force to protect his daughter. A Muslim family came to his home, their son dressed for a wedding and accompanied by a sheikh and 15 Muslim men. They demanded that he hand his daughter over for marriage. After opening fire on the Muslim entourage, the Christian family had to immediately flee the Palestinian Territories. Other girls are less fortunate. There are even reports of PA officials leveling death threats at Christian families to force them to hand over their daughters for marriage to a Muslim.
PERVASIVE PA INCITEMENT
Prof. Weiner's research makes it clear that the negative attitudes held by Palestinian Muslims against their Christian counterparts are supported by the overwhelmingly Muslim PA leadership. Mosques broadcast sermons that drive home the Quranic injunction not to partner with, trust or befriend Jews or Christians, providing Muslims with religious justification for their religious intolerance.
Weiner quotes Joseph Farah, a Lebanese-American Christan editor of the WorldNetDaily online, as saying of Christians under the PA, "They are being driven out. They are being murdered. They are being raped. They are being systematically persecuted. They are being harassed. They are being intimidated." Weiner reports that Palestinian Christians under PA authority are discriminated against "...in the field of education, the receipt of medical benefits, and other government aid". A Lutheran pastor told Weiner, "...if food aid is brought in from Saudi Arabia, Christians are told that they are not entitled to receive any because they are not Muslims."
PA POLICE
According to Prof. Weiner, PA security personnel frequently combine ignorance of the law with Islamist sentiment to become persecutors rather than protectors. Christians are often imprisoned on trumped up charges of collaborating with Israel. Apostates can expect to be punished mercilessly through torture in PA prisons. Weiner writes, "The attitude of the police toward Christians constitutes one of the most egregious forms of institutional persecution... When subjected to harassment and worse by Muslim extremists, Palestinian Christians usually opt not to report incidents to the PA police... Palestinian Christians remain silent because they consider the PA police to be hostile to them."
ABUSE OF CHRISTIAN SITES
As has been well documented before, Islamic militants frequently choose to launch their attacks on Israel from Christian churches and homes, in order to draw the Israeli response to those sites.
CHRISTIAN DENIAL
Prof. Weiner's monograph contains material that will help people understand why Palestinian Christians are often quick to deny their suffering. Some Christian leaders deny the sufferings of Christians in order to retain privileges from the PA: for example, access to the media, or permission to travel – privileges that are granted in exchange of the dissemination of PA propaganda. Some deny the sufferings of Christians because they are simply blinded by Palestinian nationalist aspirations. But most are simply acting (or rather, not acting) out of fear of violent retribution – they are paralysed into silence by threat of terror, crippled by dhimmitude.
Weiner reports that one Christian cleric in Jerusalem compared the behaviour of Christian dhimmis to that of battered wives and children. A vulnerable, trapped, battered wife knows she cannot afford to provoke her abuser's wrath. For the victim it is easier, psychologically, to blame oneself (or to gain the approval of the abuser, blame the abuser's "enemy") and it is easier, physically, to avoid confrontation all together.
PALESTINIAN CHRISTIANS: "SACRIFICIAL PAWNS"
Weiner recounts one horrific case of a Palestinian apostate and persistent evangelist named Ahmad El-Achwal, a married father of eight, who struggled for seven years with persecution that included severe torture in PA prisons (the horror of which is described in Weiner's text), as well as frequent severe beatings and death threats from Hamas. Ahmad El-Achwal was murdered on his doorstep by Islamic militants, on 21 January 2004. US State Department officials, who were fully informed, had persistently refused to address his case.
Weiner regards Palestinian Christians as the sacrificial pawns of the Middle East peace process. He writes, "The importance of monitoring the PA's record, even during the ongoing violent intifada, cannot be overstated... The future of the Palestinian Christian community and any other religious minority living under the PA will rest on the potential for religious tolerance...," something Weiner fears is unlikely, at least in the short term.
Elizabeth Kendal
Links
Teach Kids Peace. http://www.teachkidspeace.com/
Teach Kids Peace is affiliated with Middle East Media Watch. It
monitors and documents progress in children's education for peace.
This site contains analysis of Israeli and PA educational materials.
ALSO
2003 Palestinian Authority Textbook Calls for Jihad and Martyrdom
http://memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?Page=archives&Area=sr&ID=SR2203
Incitement in the Palestinian Authority After the Aqaba Summit
http://memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?Page=archives&Area=sr&ID=SR2003
Wednesday, October 26, 2005
Egypt: Riots, threats and a stabbing in Alexandria.
Date: Wednesday 26 October 2005
Subj: Egypt: Riots, threats and a stabbing in Alexandria.
To: World Evangelical Alliance Religious Liberty News & Analysis
From: WEA RLC Principal Researcher and Writer, Elizabeth Kendal.
Massive Muslim riots, Islamist web threats, and the stabbing of a Coptic nun have forced Egyptian authorities to place an armed guard around St George (St Girgis) Coptic Orthodox Church in Muharram Bik, Alexandria on the Egyptian Mediterranean coast. The sudden eruption of aggression against the Church demonstrates the extremely fragile nature of religious harmony in Egypt where Muslim hostility and contempt towards the Christian minority simmers just below the surface and very little provocation is required to make the volcano blow. In this case, the provocation consisted of totally unsubstantiated reports that a theatrical production performed in St George Coptic Orthodox Church had defamed Islam.
As the Egyptian weekly 'Al-Ahram' explains, "...the sectarian tension in Alexandria began in much the same way previous Muslim-Christian disputes had: with the publication of a tabloid story. This time, the newspaper in question -- Al-Midan -- published an article about a church play that defamed Islam." (Link 1)
According to Al-Ahram, "Waleed Orabi, the journalist who wrote the Al-Midan story, said he had obtained a CD of the performance from a source inside the Alexandria church where the play took place. He refused to provide any other details on the matter." Orabi goes on to describe Muharram Bek, where the protests took place, as "a hotbed of Islamism".
INCITEMENT
On Friday 14 October, the day after the article was published, a group of Muslims allegedly from Cairo entered the neighbouring mosque with copies of the article and incited the worshippers to protest. Al-Ahram describes what happened: "An angry crowd of about 100 people promptly marched towards the neighbouring church. As word spread around, the crowd got bigger, with some 3,000 people eventually taking part. Some were there to support the demonstrators' demands, while others were just curious about the goings on. Local police were quickly deployed in the hundreds; and by three in the morning, had dispersed the angry demonstrators."
Adnkronos International (AKI) reports that the protesters shouted slogans such as, "Oh Islam, we will defend you with our body and soul!", and "Christians and Jews, the army of Mohammed will return". Jihad groups linked to al-Qaeda posted video footage of the protest on their websites along with exhortations to follow this example and attack Christians. (Link 2)
On 18 October, the Islamist group "mujahadeen of Egypt", which claimed responsibility for the Sharm el-Sheikh bombings, posted a notice on the Internet inciting Muslims to take action against Christians in revenge for the alleged offence against Mohammed.
AKI reports, the mujadadeen described their posting on the Internet as, "an urgent message to the followers of the cross living in Egypt". The message made specific reference to the "crusaders' church", which it deemed guilty of staging a theatre performance offending the Prophet Muhammed. According to AKI, the "mujahadeen of Egypt" decided to destroy the church, but found the security too tight to perpetrate an attack. As the militants explain in their Internet statement: "After hearing this news, we had decided without hesitation to destroy that church. The mujahadeen prepared themselves but found what they were expecting. The ... police, secret services and internal security forces had surrounded the area of Muharram Bik, protecting the church. If those responsible for the offence do not admit their guilt, then every Christian holding a sermon in the incriminated church will become a target of the mujahadeen." (Link 3)
NUN STABBED
On 19 October, the day after the incitement from "mujahadeen of Egypt", a Muslim student in his early 20s entered St George Church as a prayer service was finishing. He shouted "Allah akbar" (God is great) and stabbed a novitiate nun in the chest with a knife. The nun, aged in her mid-40s, required surgery for her wounds. One other worshipper, Ali al-Jani, was wounded as he intervened to protect the nun. Father Augustinous, head of St George Church was not present during the attack. However, it was reported to him by eye witnesses that after stabbing the nun, the attacker knelt and prayed "as if he was thanking God for finishing a task". (Link 4)
MASSIVE DEMONSTRATION AND MOUNTING ANGER
Following Friday prayers on 21 October, after the ultimatum demanding an apology from Coptic Pope Shenouda III had expired, more than 5,000 angry Muslims demonstrated outside the front of St George Church. They brandished sticks and threw rocks. Around 90 people were injured as police fired tear gas and fought to disperse the angry crowd. Twenty police officers were amongst those injured. Two protesters and two policemen died in the violence – one protester being trampled to death. Nine cars and seven Christian-owned businesses were torched and a gold store was looted. (Link 5)
Seven churches in Alexandria were attacked by a violent mob of Muslim youths that Friday evening. Reports are coming from Alexandria that tell of significant damage to church property, including broken gates, doors, windows, and furniture. Pews were reportedly burned and Bibles were thrown into the street to be trampled by angry crowds. Families, especially pastoral families who live in the churches, have been traumatised. Many from the congregations were too afraid to meet on Sunday.
New York Times (NYT) reports, "In Alexandria, several shopkeepers and pedestrians spoke of their waning patience for their Christian neighbors, and of a sense that their tolerance has been taken for granted and abused." (Link 6)
Ahmed Ali Mahmoud, 25, a pharmacist whose shop is opposite St George's Coptic Orthodox Church told the NYT , "People are very, very provoked. They are boiling. Did we make plays that insult the Christians? They will pay the price in terms of their security, comfort, and now no priest will be able to walk in the streets."
NYT also spoke to a shoemaker who said his name was Muhammad Abdo. He said that police first fired tear gas into the crowd, which only served to anger those in the streets. They then went wild, turning over cars and setting them on fire, smashing storefronts and looting a gold shop. " 'No one will stop until they give a formal apology,' Mr. Abdo said, adding that he heard the play denied a central tenet of the Islamic faith - that Muhammad was God's prophet."
THE PLAY
The play which Muslims allege defamed Islam is called, "I Was Blind but Now I See". It was based on a 1990s movie called The Terrorist, which starred Egyptian comedian Adel Imam. It is the story of a poor Coptic University student who converts to Islam after a group of Muslim men offer him money to do so. However, the young convert becomes disillusioned after the local sheikh exhorts him to kill priests and destroy churches. Abused and maltreated by the sheikh and his group, the young man eventually abandons Islam and returns to Christianity. His apostasy enrages the Islamists who then seek to kill him. His life, however, is ultimately saved by his faithful Muslim friend.
According to Coptic leaders, the play was a statement against extremism and radicalism. However, Islamic voices are claiming that the play "defamed" Islam. Osama Gado, of the Muslim Brotherhood claimed the play "clearly harms the image of Islam". Tamer Harfush also lambasted the play saying, "The play compares Islam and Christianity, Jesus and Prophet Muhammad, presenting the first as a man who sacrificed his life and the second as more preoccupied with earthly pleasures." (Link 7)
The most critical thing about this play is that it was performed once, TWO YEARS AGO!
QUESTIONS
Apart from the standard questions: "Does this defame Islam?" (the dictionary defines "defame" as: To damage the reputation, character, or good name of by slander or libel), and "Why riot?", the most obvious question is: Why now? Considering the play was performed once, TWO YEARS AGO, why is this sectarian hatred, specifically anti-Copt hatred, being whipped up now?
1) ELECTIONS
Legislative elections commence on 9 November. Already the trouble in Alexandria has driven Maher Khella, the local Coptic candidate of the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP), to withdraw from the parliamentary race "to defuse tensions". Maher Khella was one of only two Copts amongst the 444 candidates fielded by the ruling NDP. (Link 7)
According to Al-Ahram, Al-Midan is not the only newspaper inflaming Islamic sentiments. Al-Ahram reports, "Sameh Fawzi, the editor of Watani (My Nation), a prominent Coptic newspaper, says that 'reading a number of tabloid newspapers will clearly reveal how a sensitive topic like religion is often manipulated to pit Muslims and Christians against each other.' Several newspapers, for instance, have recently been running stories claiming that churches are doing intensive missionary work among university students across the country."
On Thursday 20 October, supporters of the banned Muslim Brotherhood marched in Cairo in an effort to encourage Egyptians to vote for their Islamist candidates in next month's parliamentary elections. As noted by Reuters, the Muslim Brotherhood sidesteps its ban by fielding candidates as independents. As they marched they chanted "Islam is the Solution" as well as other slogans such as "We make the pledge and guard the dhimma...".(Link 8)
2) COPTIC CONFERENCE IN WASHINGTON
Al Ahram reports, "A US-government sponsored conference on Coptic grievances in Egypt is scheduled for 16 November in Washington. Participants will reportedly press for the Egyptian government to provide more freedoms for Copts. They will also demand the amendment of a constitutional article that considers Islam 'Egypt's official religion and main source of legislation'. The meeting is seen as a means for Washington to exercise more pressure on the Egyptian government, and for Copts to extract more concessions at home."
Some analysts believe that State Security Forces have orchestrated the Alexandria protests in order to embarrass and discredit the Copts at home and abroad before the Washington Conference so as to limit, or even cripple, its effectiveness.
INCENDIARY SITUATION
Even though more than one hundred rioters have been detained for 15 days pending investigations, Christians in Alexandria are afraid and are staying home indoors.
Several facts indicate that this situation has potential to escalate and spread like wildfire:
Elizabeth Kendal
--------------------------------------------------
For an excellent and most insightful comment, see:
Alexandria, Yesterday and Today
By Mona Eltahawy, 25 October 2005
---------------------------------------------------
Links
1) One step forward, two steps back
Mustafa El-Menshawy, in Alexandria
Al-Ahram Weekly 20 - 26 October 2005. Issue No. 765
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2005/765/eg6.htm
2) Web video incites attacks against Christians. 21 October 2005.
http://www.adnki.com/index_2Level.php?cat=Terrorism&loid=8.0.221749664&par=0
3) New Threats Against Coptic Community. Cairo, 18 October 2005.
(AKI)http://www.adnki.com/index_2Level.php?cat=Religion&loid=8.0.220123440&par=0
4) Stabbing of nun sparks tension in Alexandria
By Maamoun Youssef, 20 October 2005
http://www.int.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=85&art_id=qw1129782066324B221
5) Christian DVD sparks riot. Saturday, 22 October 2005
http://edition.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/africa/10/21/egypt.church.riot.ap/index.html
ALSO
Three killed in Egypt church riot. Saturday, 22 October 2005.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4366232.stm
6) Egyptian Police Guard Coptic Church Attacked by Muslims
By. Michael Slackman in Alexandria, Egypt. 22 October 2005
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/23/international/africa/23egypt.html
7) Coptic Play Shadows Egypt’s Legislative Polls
ALEXANDRIA, Egypt, 23 October 2005
http://www.islam-online.net/English/News/2005-10/23/article05.shtml
SEE ALSO
Deadly protest adds to grievances of Egypt's
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&categ_id=2&article_id=19561
8) Islamists hit streets in Egypt election campaign
By Tom Perry in Cairo. REUTERS. 24 October 2005
http://aawsat.com/english/news.asp?section=1&id=2348
Subj: Egypt: Riots, threats and a stabbing in Alexandria.
To: World Evangelical Alliance Religious Liberty News & Analysis
From: WEA RLC Principal Researcher and Writer, Elizabeth Kendal.
Massive Muslim riots, Islamist web threats, and the stabbing of a Coptic nun have forced Egyptian authorities to place an armed guard around St George (St Girgis) Coptic Orthodox Church in Muharram Bik, Alexandria on the Egyptian Mediterranean coast. The sudden eruption of aggression against the Church demonstrates the extremely fragile nature of religious harmony in Egypt where Muslim hostility and contempt towards the Christian minority simmers just below the surface and very little provocation is required to make the volcano blow. In this case, the provocation consisted of totally unsubstantiated reports that a theatrical production performed in St George Coptic Orthodox Church had defamed Islam.
As the Egyptian weekly 'Al-Ahram' explains, "...the sectarian tension in Alexandria began in much the same way previous Muslim-Christian disputes had: with the publication of a tabloid story. This time, the newspaper in question -- Al-Midan -- published an article about a church play that defamed Islam." (Link 1)
According to Al-Ahram, "Waleed Orabi, the journalist who wrote the Al-Midan story, said he had obtained a CD of the performance from a source inside the Alexandria church where the play took place. He refused to provide any other details on the matter." Orabi goes on to describe Muharram Bek, where the protests took place, as "a hotbed of Islamism".
INCITEMENT
On Friday 14 October, the day after the article was published, a group of Muslims allegedly from Cairo entered the neighbouring mosque with copies of the article and incited the worshippers to protest. Al-Ahram describes what happened: "An angry crowd of about 100 people promptly marched towards the neighbouring church. As word spread around, the crowd got bigger, with some 3,000 people eventually taking part. Some were there to support the demonstrators' demands, while others were just curious about the goings on. Local police were quickly deployed in the hundreds; and by three in the morning, had dispersed the angry demonstrators."
Adnkronos International (AKI) reports that the protesters shouted slogans such as, "Oh Islam, we will defend you with our body and soul!", and "Christians and Jews, the army of Mohammed will return". Jihad groups linked to al-Qaeda posted video footage of the protest on their websites along with exhortations to follow this example and attack Christians. (Link 2)
On 18 October, the Islamist group "mujahadeen of Egypt", which claimed responsibility for the Sharm el-Sheikh bombings, posted a notice on the Internet inciting Muslims to take action against Christians in revenge for the alleged offence against Mohammed.
AKI reports, the mujadadeen described their posting on the Internet as, "an urgent message to the followers of the cross living in Egypt". The message made specific reference to the "crusaders' church", which it deemed guilty of staging a theatre performance offending the Prophet Muhammed. According to AKI, the "mujahadeen of Egypt" decided to destroy the church, but found the security too tight to perpetrate an attack. As the militants explain in their Internet statement: "After hearing this news, we had decided without hesitation to destroy that church. The mujahadeen prepared themselves but found what they were expecting. The ... police, secret services and internal security forces had surrounded the area of Muharram Bik, protecting the church. If those responsible for the offence do not admit their guilt, then every Christian holding a sermon in the incriminated church will become a target of the mujahadeen." (Link 3)
NUN STABBED
On 19 October, the day after the incitement from "mujahadeen of Egypt", a Muslim student in his early 20s entered St George Church as a prayer service was finishing. He shouted "Allah akbar" (God is great) and stabbed a novitiate nun in the chest with a knife. The nun, aged in her mid-40s, required surgery for her wounds. One other worshipper, Ali al-Jani, was wounded as he intervened to protect the nun. Father Augustinous, head of St George Church was not present during the attack. However, it was reported to him by eye witnesses that after stabbing the nun, the attacker knelt and prayed "as if he was thanking God for finishing a task". (Link 4)
MASSIVE DEMONSTRATION AND MOUNTING ANGER
Following Friday prayers on 21 October, after the ultimatum demanding an apology from Coptic Pope Shenouda III had expired, more than 5,000 angry Muslims demonstrated outside the front of St George Church. They brandished sticks and threw rocks. Around 90 people were injured as police fired tear gas and fought to disperse the angry crowd. Twenty police officers were amongst those injured. Two protesters and two policemen died in the violence – one protester being trampled to death. Nine cars and seven Christian-owned businesses were torched and a gold store was looted. (Link 5)
Seven churches in Alexandria were attacked by a violent mob of Muslim youths that Friday evening. Reports are coming from Alexandria that tell of significant damage to church property, including broken gates, doors, windows, and furniture. Pews were reportedly burned and Bibles were thrown into the street to be trampled by angry crowds. Families, especially pastoral families who live in the churches, have been traumatised. Many from the congregations were too afraid to meet on Sunday.
New York Times (NYT) reports, "In Alexandria, several shopkeepers and pedestrians spoke of their waning patience for their Christian neighbors, and of a sense that their tolerance has been taken for granted and abused." (Link 6)
Ahmed Ali Mahmoud, 25, a pharmacist whose shop is opposite St George's Coptic Orthodox Church told the NYT , "People are very, very provoked. They are boiling. Did we make plays that insult the Christians? They will pay the price in terms of their security, comfort, and now no priest will be able to walk in the streets."
NYT also spoke to a shoemaker who said his name was Muhammad Abdo. He said that police first fired tear gas into the crowd, which only served to anger those in the streets. They then went wild, turning over cars and setting them on fire, smashing storefronts and looting a gold shop. " 'No one will stop until they give a formal apology,' Mr. Abdo said, adding that he heard the play denied a central tenet of the Islamic faith - that Muhammad was God's prophet."
THE PLAY
The play which Muslims allege defamed Islam is called, "I Was Blind but Now I See". It was based on a 1990s movie called The Terrorist, which starred Egyptian comedian Adel Imam. It is the story of a poor Coptic University student who converts to Islam after a group of Muslim men offer him money to do so. However, the young convert becomes disillusioned after the local sheikh exhorts him to kill priests and destroy churches. Abused and maltreated by the sheikh and his group, the young man eventually abandons Islam and returns to Christianity. His apostasy enrages the Islamists who then seek to kill him. His life, however, is ultimately saved by his faithful Muslim friend.
According to Coptic leaders, the play was a statement against extremism and radicalism. However, Islamic voices are claiming that the play "defamed" Islam. Osama Gado, of the Muslim Brotherhood claimed the play "clearly harms the image of Islam". Tamer Harfush also lambasted the play saying, "The play compares Islam and Christianity, Jesus and Prophet Muhammad, presenting the first as a man who sacrificed his life and the second as more preoccupied with earthly pleasures." (Link 7)
The most critical thing about this play is that it was performed once, TWO YEARS AGO!
QUESTIONS
Apart from the standard questions: "Does this defame Islam?" (the dictionary defines "defame" as: To damage the reputation, character, or good name of by slander or libel), and "Why riot?", the most obvious question is: Why now? Considering the play was performed once, TWO YEARS AGO, why is this sectarian hatred, specifically anti-Copt hatred, being whipped up now?
1) ELECTIONS
Legislative elections commence on 9 November. Already the trouble in Alexandria has driven Maher Khella, the local Coptic candidate of the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP), to withdraw from the parliamentary race "to defuse tensions". Maher Khella was one of only two Copts amongst the 444 candidates fielded by the ruling NDP. (Link 7)
According to Al-Ahram, Al-Midan is not the only newspaper inflaming Islamic sentiments. Al-Ahram reports, "Sameh Fawzi, the editor of Watani (My Nation), a prominent Coptic newspaper, says that 'reading a number of tabloid newspapers will clearly reveal how a sensitive topic like religion is often manipulated to pit Muslims and Christians against each other.' Several newspapers, for instance, have recently been running stories claiming that churches are doing intensive missionary work among university students across the country."
On Thursday 20 October, supporters of the banned Muslim Brotherhood marched in Cairo in an effort to encourage Egyptians to vote for their Islamist candidates in next month's parliamentary elections. As noted by Reuters, the Muslim Brotherhood sidesteps its ban by fielding candidates as independents. As they marched they chanted "Islam is the Solution" as well as other slogans such as "We make the pledge and guard the dhimma...".(Link 8)
- (Dhimmis are second-class citizens in historic, orthodox Islam, with limited rights and no equality before the law. Dhimmitude (see http://www.dhimmitude.org/ ) is based on Islamic theology and is an Islamic form of religious apartheid. Historically, in the context of Islamic imperialism, it has permitted the preservation of Jews and Christians for the purpose of exploitation. To receive and maintain "protection"/right to life, dhimmis must live in subjugation and submission, eternally grateful for and humbled by the "protection" afforded them.)
2) COPTIC CONFERENCE IN WASHINGTON
Al Ahram reports, "A US-government sponsored conference on Coptic grievances in Egypt is scheduled for 16 November in Washington. Participants will reportedly press for the Egyptian government to provide more freedoms for Copts. They will also demand the amendment of a constitutional article that considers Islam 'Egypt's official religion and main source of legislation'. The meeting is seen as a means for Washington to exercise more pressure on the Egyptian government, and for Copts to extract more concessions at home."
Some analysts believe that State Security Forces have orchestrated the Alexandria protests in order to embarrass and discredit the Copts at home and abroad before the Washington Conference so as to limit, or even cripple, its effectiveness.
INCENDIARY SITUATION
Even though more than one hundred rioters have been detained for 15 days pending investigations, Christians in Alexandria are afraid and are staying home indoors.
Several facts indicate that this situation has potential to escalate and spread like wildfire:
- The approaching legislative elections will arouse further sectarian zeal and tension, especially as media provocation and the Alexandria riots have already ignited hostility and fractured unity.
- In the light of the troubles and controversies in Alexandria, the Washington Conference on Coptic grievances will doubtless now receive more attention on the street in Egypt than it otherwise might have, and the Muslim response will probably be further anger and resentment.
- The involvement of al-Qaeda linked organisations with their calls for jihad against Christians and churches is extremely worrying.
- and Ramadan, which because of the fasting and restrictions required can tend to raise Islamic zeal and cause frustration and irritability to overpower tolerance, is not over yet!
Elizabeth Kendal
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For an excellent and most insightful comment, see:
Alexandria, Yesterday and Today
By Mona Eltahawy, 25 October 2005
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Links
1) One step forward, two steps back
Mustafa El-Menshawy, in Alexandria
Al-Ahram Weekly 20 - 26 October 2005. Issue No. 765
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2005/765/eg6.htm
2) Web video incites attacks against Christians. 21 October 2005.
http://www.adnki.com/index_2Level.php?cat=Terrorism&loid=8.0.221749664&par=0
3) New Threats Against Coptic Community. Cairo, 18 October 2005.
(AKI)http://www.adnki.com/index_2Level.php?cat=Religion&loid=8.0.220123440&par=0
4) Stabbing of nun sparks tension in Alexandria
By Maamoun Youssef, 20 October 2005
http://www.int.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=85&art_id=qw1129782066324B221
5) Christian DVD sparks riot. Saturday, 22 October 2005
http://edition.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/africa/10/21/egypt.church.riot.ap/index.html
ALSO
Three killed in Egypt church riot. Saturday, 22 October 2005.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4366232.stm
6) Egyptian Police Guard Coptic Church Attacked by Muslims
By. Michael Slackman in Alexandria, Egypt. 22 October 2005
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/23/international/africa/23egypt.html
7) Coptic Play Shadows Egypt’s Legislative Polls
ALEXANDRIA, Egypt, 23 October 2005
http://www.islam-online.net/English/News/2005-10/23/article05.shtml
SEE ALSO
Deadly protest adds to grievances of Egypt's
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&categ_id=2&article_id=19561
8) Islamists hit streets in Egypt election campaign
By Tom Perry in Cairo. REUTERS. 24 October 2005
http://aawsat.com/english/news.asp?section=1&id=2348