by Enza Ferreri — 1/8/2014
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| Christian victims of a Muslim attack on an Egyptian church. |
I am reproducing the last two paragraphs from Raymond Ibrahim’s fundamental book Crucified Again: Exposing Islam’s New War on Christians (Amazon USA), (Amazon UK ):
The return of the persecution of Christians under Islam is the most visible aspect of a larger and more dangerous phenomenon: the return of Islam as a global force. The West ignores those being crucified again at its own peril — bringing to memory the words of German pastor Martin Niemoller, who came to understand — but only after being sent to a concentration camp during World War II — what it meant to face a totalitarian ideology hostile to all who reject it:
"First they [the Nazis] came for the communists, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist. Then they came for the socialists, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Catholic. Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak for me."
It may seem relatively peaceful now in Western countries, and we all have a natural tendency to avoid facing problems if we possibly can.
What happens to Christians at the hand of Muslims (the massacres of villages, burning of churches, beheadings, climate of constant fear) in remote parts of the world - even assuming that we somehow got to know about it amidst the silence and dissembling of our media and leaders - doesn't touch us, we think, so we prefer not to be troubled by it.
Even when something closer to home occurs, like the killing of Drummer Lee Rigby by a Muslim jihadist in a London street, or the use of British white girls by Muslim paedophile and sex slave rings, we continue to believe that these incidents are not part of a major trend, and we keep sleeping serenely.
But history has repeatedly shown that we should take the first hints because, if we wait for the macroscopic signs, they may be easily recognisable for a reason: the problem has become so big that we can no longer address it without violence and tragedy.