Muslims are a favourite target
Re: “Christians being persecuted into extinction” Sept. 13.
Leslie Maltin’s response to my guest column of Sept. 8, though well written and thoughtful, seems like a bull’s reaction to the matador’s red cape. He reacts to one sentence from my article: “The favourite target these days seems to be immigrants from Muslim countries.” Apparently the word ‘Muslim’ sets him into a sputtering rage.
My guest column was not intended as a defence of the Muslim religion. It was intended rather as a sad commentary on the need for so many of us to express hatred. Muslims being amongst the latest group of newcomers, is a favourite target. This cannot be debated, as a quick look at Facebook will attest.
Mr. Maltin’s collection of ‘facts’ clearly shows that in many parts of the world Christians are under attack. This is not debatable, but many other religious minorities are also persecuted — the Uighars (Muslims in Communist China), and the Rohingya (Muslims in Buddhist Myanmar) are two current and tragic examples.
It is also clear that much of the persecution of Christians and other minorities that Mr. Maltin references is carried out by radical Islamists like ISIS or Boko Haram in Nigeria, and mainly in places beset by civil wars, failed governments, and economic desperation. Civil disintegration, not Muslim doctrine, is the root of these atrocities.
The vast majority of mainstream Muslims abhor the work of the radical Islamists, denounce their perverse interpretations of the Qur’an, and actively disassociate themselves from the acts of violence done by these groups.
One Muslim writer, Kabir Helminskistates “… in the city of Jerusalem, which has been ruled by Muslims for most of the last 13 centuries, the sacred sites of Jews and Christians have been protected, and those communities themselves have for the most part been able to live in peace together with Muslims. The assertion that Islam or the Qur’an inherently call for a “war on unbelievers” is sheer fallacy and fantasy” (The BeliefNet Guide to Islam).
Consider for a moment, that groups like ISIS are Muslim in the same way that the Ku Klux Klan or Donald Trump are Christian. The vast majority of Christians, I believe, would be very reluctant to have either one of these ‘christians’ as their poster boy to the world. Likewise, Mr. Maltin’s undifferentiated use of the word ‘Muslim’ as his locus of evil drains his argument and his ‘facts’ of any meaning.
Let me close this letter with the same sentence I used to close my previous article. “As humans we should be trying to lessen pain in the world, not adding to it.” That, rather than fear mongering, would be a Christian response.
Peter Mueller Medicine Hat