Christophobia

Ayaan Hirsi Ali was born in Mogadishu, Somalia, and escaped an arranged marriage by immigrating to the Netherlands in 1992. She served as a member of the Dutch parliament from 2003 to 2006 and is currently a research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. Her autobiography, “Infidel,” was a 2007 New York Times bestseller. She wrote a very compelling lead article in Newsweek Feb. 2, 2012, on the rise of Christophobia, which you can read for yourself online at  http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/02/05/ayaan-hirsi-ali-the-global-war-on-christians-in-the-muslim-world.html. She begins “We hear so often about Muslims as victims of abuse in the West and combatants in the Arab Spring’s fight against tyranny. But, in fact, a wholly different kind of war is underway—an unrecognized battle costing thousands of lives. Christians are being killed in the Islamic world because of their religion. It is a rising genocide that ought to provoke global alarm.… The media’s reticence on the subject no doubt has several sources. One may be fear of provoking additional violence. Another is most likely the influence of lobbying groups such as the Organization of Islamic Cooperation … and the Council on American-Islamic Relations. Over the past decade, these and similar groups have been remarkably successful in persuading leading public figures and journalists in the West to think of each and every example of perceived anti-Muslim discrimination as an expression of a systematic and sinister derangement called “Islamophobia.” But a fair-minded assessment of recent events and trends leads to the conclusion that the scale and severity of Islamophobia pales in comparison with the bloody Christophobia currently coursing through Muslim-majority nations from one end of the globe to the other. The conspiracy of silence surrounding this violent expression of religious intolerance has to stop.“  She concludes her article by saying “Instead of falling for overblown tales of Western Islamophobia, let’s take a real stand against the Christophobia infecting the Muslim world. Tolerance is for everyone—except the intolerant.” What is amazing is the reaction to this article which has labeled the author as an Islamaphobe. Case in point is Anthony Alessandrini (an English prof at a community college in Brooklyn) and his article in the ezine Jadaliyya (http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/4291/ayaan-hirsi-alis-war). As the Brits would say, this guy is “hoist with his own petard.” I’m not exactly sure what that means, but I think he is exposed by his own argument. We should stand against any form of discrimination or harassment based on one’s religion no matter where it exists. (I doubt we will see protests against religious discrimination at the NATO meeting in Chicago this weekend, even though Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Turkey will be represented.) We should protect Muslim minorities in our country from intolerance and we should insure that they can worship, live, and work without fear. That is the beauty of a free society. However, those who speak out against the persecution of Christians (or anyone) in the Muslim world should never be viewed as phobic nor skewed as intolerant. “Tolerance is for everyone—except the intolerant.”