The media’s silence about Christian persecution

Yesterday’s post featured an article by Toby Westerman, publisher and editor-in-chief of International News Analysis (INA) Today, on the history of Communist propaganda in the West.

In a January 2010 article, ‘Silent Holocaust of Christian Martyrs — a Warning of Things to Come?’ he provides us with a selection of Christian persecutions around the world in Marxist and other totalitarian countries.  Excerpts follow, emphases mine.

A silent holocaust of Christian martyrs is taking place around the world. While individual instances of murder and mayhem are sometimes reported, the general pattern of violence is ignored by the media, the United Nations, and most national governments. The perpetrators belong primarily to one of two groups: fundamentalist Islamists or Communist-controlled governments.

Despite ideological differences, Islamic militants and Communist ideologues share a characteristic hostility to Christianity. Muslim fundamentalists cannot abide any worship of God but their own, and the various brands of Communists, reformed and otherwise, recognize the threat posed by Christians who profess God as the center of their lives, not a totalitarian police state.

The burning of several Catholic Churches in Malaysia, the deaths of Coptic Christians shot following midnight Mass outside their church, police raids in Saudi Arabia against private prayer groups, all testify to the type of “toleration” employed by Muslim fundamentalists.

The stated cause in each of the instances noted above was different, but every attack had the same result: death and mayhem …

The Coptic Church traces its roots back to St. Mark, and the word Coptic goes back to the Greek term for Egyptian. The Coptic Christians are the remnant of the original population of Egypt before the Arab Muslim conquest in 641 A.D. Egypt was once a Christian nation with a large population served by 50 bishops spread across the nation.

The Copts are acknowledged to be a small percent of Egypt’s present population, but the exact number is unknown. Political pressure from fundamentalist Muslims prevents the Egyptian government accurately counting the Copts, a tactic which assures that Egypt’s Christians will continue to have little influence in that nation.

The Egyptian government also actively assists in spreading anti-Christian propaganda. A recently released “scientific report” issued by a state-owned corporation described Christianity as “idolatry” and “a religion of polytheism” …

In Saudi Arabia, a nation where no Christian church is allowed, the country’s religious police are ever on the alert for non-Muslim religious activity, including private expressions of prayer. Private group Bible readings and praying run afoul of strict religious edicts …

While instances of Muslim persecution of Christian believers are documented from Nigeria to Indonesia, no where is Christian martyrdom more tragic and ironic than in post-Saddam Iraq …

Unrelenting attacks on Iraqi Christians have caused between 400,000 and 500,000 Iraqi Christians to flee Iraq, and many of those remaining are internal refugees – displaced citizens in their own nation, fearful of returning to their homes …

Politically inspired oppression of Christians remains a constant feature of the Communist world, despite the “reforms” reported in the centralized media following the collapse of the Soviet Union. The most significant crime of Christians is that they deny the right of the state to dominate all aspects of human life …

In … Laos, Communist government officials have described Christianity as a “foreign religion to be abhorred,” and threatened a group of Christians with death if they persisted in their beliefs…

In the neo-Marxist state of Venezuela, virtual dictator Hugo Chavez has lashed out at Church criticism of his Communist regime and proclaimed the Catholic Church a “tumor” in Venezuelan society. Chavez has also described the Catholic clergy as “mental retards.”

In 2006, former Communist guerrilla Daniel Ortega returned to power in the Central American nation of Nicaragua. Once a target of U.S. President Ronald Reagan’s anti-Communist strategy, Ortega claims that he has renounced violence, but remains a fervent Marxist. True to recent Communist practice, Ortega is now attempting to put the Christianity at the service of government, and deny the Church any independence in respect to any political and social issue …

Catholic bishops are facing similar struggles in Ecuador and Bolivia …

It is time for the U.S. mass media to acknowledge the persecution of Christians around the world, and to identify those who commit these crimes. We must recognize that the persecution of vulnerable Christian populations by militant Islamists and Communists is a herald of things to come for the remainder of humanity.

When persecution is mentioned, many unbelievers and leftists downplay it or say that such attacks would go against official policy for that nation.  I read often in the press that Malaysia is a country where all faiths live together in perfect harmony.  Yet, the facts belie this, as Mr Westerman and many other online columnists have stated over recent years.  By law in a Muslim country, Christians must obtain council permission to make even rudimentary repairs to their churches.  It is not unusual for this permission to be pushed to the bottom of the pile or refused.

In closing, the Gaia worship which is rapidly becoming flavour of the month among Catholic nuns and priests in South America is no doubt part of the Marxist propaganda drive to destroy Christianity. Christian religious who follow along unwittingly serve as useful idiots. Increasingly, they speak of incorporating South America’s ancient religions, which are animist and pagan, thereby producing a syncretic Christianity.  Christianity has nothing to do with Marxism or Gaia.