The series is a response to the apparently common perception expressed on this forum that Islamophobia is more extensive than Christianophobia and there are more Islamophobes than there are Christianophobes.
Christianophobia has manifested in recent years in violent acts of terrorism. Churches in Egypt and Iraq have both been struck by suicide bombers. Malaysia was swept up in a wave of violent mob action attacks against churches. Pakistan, Egypt and Indonesia have seen their fair share of pogroms against Christians by unruly Muslim extremists numbering in the thousands. Iran has executed and imprisoned a number of Christians for converting to the Christian faith or for the apparently serious crime of spreading the Gospel.
I will start this thread off by looking at what has been transpiring in the Muslim world via relations with Christians over the past 48 hours, to get a better idea of where the Muslim world stands in its view of Christians.
After all, if one is to believe Islamophobia is more developed or widespread than Christianophobia, it should be expected to find similar instances occuring in the Western world.
In Egypt, for instance, thousands of Muslims recently surrounded the reopening of a church, preventing Christians from entering:
(AINA) -- On the morning of May 19 two Coptic priests went to St. Mary and St. Abraham Church in Ain Shams and opened it together with some of the Coptic residents, but later in the day thousands of Muslims surrounded the church to protest its opening, hurled stones at the church building and the Copts, who responded by throwing stones. The army and the police stood there watching and did not intervene (video).
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The Coptic diocese bought the building, which used to be a clothes factory, in 2004 and used it for worship until November 22, 2008, when it was closed by State Security after nearly 3000 Muslims surrounded the church, pelting it with stones and terrorizing thousands of parishioners inside.
"The atmosphere of the meeting was belligerent," said attorney Ashraf Edward, "and one of the sheikhs threatened us by saying that should the church be opened without their permission it would end up like the church in Soul which was demolished by Muslims." He said the church was offered a larger place to relocate to away from the Muslim families as the imams said. "They presented us with a petition from the Muslim families against the opening of the church."
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The Muslims demanded that should the church be reopened, it should be without cross and dome.
http://www.aina.org/news/20110524023731.htm
Video of the attack against Christians today:
Recent news form Malaysia is hardly any better; Malaysian politicians and Islamic leaders are accusing Christians of violating their terms of the dhimmah.
Islamic leaders are pushing to remove rights Christians currently enjoy in that country and threaten the expulsion of Christians they accuse of conspiring to make Malaysia a Christian state:
“In attempts to get vote and support of non-Muslims, we have been very gracious in giving them their civil rights,” said Datuk Nakhaie Ahmad, former president of Islamic Da’wah Foundation Malaysia. “Civil rights given to them include the rights to vote, participation in politics, hold office, involvement in the military and so forth but we cannot just willingly give them everything.”
“If the agreement is broken then actions must be taken against them,” he added in a likely reference to Malaysian law, which declares the nation an Islamic state but recognizes the rights of non-Muslims. “If they break our agreement then they are our enemy and must be expelled from the country. We must not compromise with them. We must be stern with them when it comes to the social contract agreed.”
http://www.catholicculture.org/news/hea ... ryid=10415
For more information, read:
http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/mala ... im-rights/
And in Britain, a story is re-emerging of the incident from several months ago of four Muslim men who badly beat a teacher for being a non-Muslim and teaching about Islam. A certain supremacist mindset made the teacher a legitimate target. Now imagine if that teacher were Jewish or Black and was attacked by Christian or White supremaicsts for those reasons instead:
Gary Smith, 28, was left with facial scarring, both long and short-term memory loss, and now has no sense of smell.
He became depressed after his face was slashed and he suffered a brain haemorrhage, fractured skull and broken jaw following the attack.
In one recording Hussain said: ‘He’s mocking Islam and he’s putting doubts in people’s minds . . . How can somebody take a job to teach Islam when they’re not even a Muslim themselves?’
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... girls.html
Surveys in the Muslim World/community
Opinion polls of Muslim views of Christians are few from what I could find, but opinion polls from two Muslim majority nations offer some sense for how Christians are viewed by many of the world's Muslims.
A recent survey conducted amongst Indonesian Muslims showed growing intolerance for fellow Indonesian Christians.
The survey revealed nearly 58% of Indonesian Muslims are against the construction of churches and other non-Muslim places of worship.
Over 27% were against their children being taught by non-Muslims:
Of 1200 adult Muslim men and women surveyed nationwide, 57.8% said they were against the construction of churches and other non-Muslim places of worship, the highest rate the study centre has recorded since 2001.
More than a quarter, or 27.6%, said they minded if non-Muslims taught their children, up from 21.4% in 2008.
http://www.news24.com/World/News/Indo-M ... t-20100929
One third of Turkish Muslims were shown to be against having Christians for neighbors and a majority, 55%, were against having non-Muslims - including Christians - from joining the police or judiciary.
Conducted by the Frekans research company as part of a project to promote the Turkish Jewish community and its culture, the poll gauged Turks' views on different ethnic and religious groups in Turkey, the Jewish community in particular. Fifty-seven percent of 1,108 people surveyed in the poll said they did not want to have atheist neighbors, while 42 percent said they did not want Jewish neighbors and 35 percent of respondents were reluctant to have Christian neighbors.
Furthermore, when asked whether they would feel uncomfortable if people from Turkey's non-Muslim communities were employed by top state institutions, 57 percent of respondents expressed discomfort with the idea of someone from these groups being employed by the National Intelligence Organization (MİT), while 55 percent stated that they did not want non-Muslims to be members of the judiciary or the police force.
http://www.todayszaman.com/news-188522- ... -poll.html
Surveys have also revealed a near majority of Turks will not or most likely not vote for any politician who is not a Muslim, regardless of the politician's positions. The poll also found a greater percentage of Turks are opposed to non-Muslims openly expressing ideas to the mere 11% of Turks who support the free assembly of non-Muslims.
Additionally, while 90% of Turks have a positive view of Muslims, very few view Christians favorably:
The findings on tolerance toward religions are remarkable as well. Ninety percent of the Turkish population reported having a positive view toward Muslims, but this ratio dropped to 13 percent for Christians and around 10 percent for Jews. Those who said they have highly positive views about non-believers of any religion totaled 7 percent.
When it comes to accepting political candidates from different religions, 37 percent of Turks said they would absolutely not accept this and 12 percent said they would most likely not accept it. However, 23 percent said they would absolutely accept it and 24 percent say they would probably accept it. Eleven percent of Turks said people from different religions should absolutely be allowed to organize public meetings to express their ideas, while 24 percent said they should be allowed to do so.
Thirty-six percent said people from different religions absolutely should not be allowed to organize such meetings, while 23 percent said they should not be allowed to do so.
http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/n.php? ... 2009-11-17
Muslim communities in the West have also been surveyed. Opinion polls from Britain show that living with non-Muslim majorities - where the majority has an overall positive view of Islam and Muslims - hardly improves Muslim perceptions of non-Muslims.
British Muslims are shown to be the most intolerant Muslim community in Europe where, paradoxically, they are probably the best integrated and accepted Muslim community in European society.
http://libertyphilesurveys.blogspot.com ... ml#respect
The poll found that 63% of all Britons had a favourable opinion of Muslims, down slightly from 67% in 2004, suggesting last year's London bombings did not trigger a significant rise in prejudice. Attitudes in Britain were more positive than in the US, Germany and Spain (where the popularity of Muslims has plummeted to 29%), and about the same as in France.
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Across the board, Muslim attitudes in Britain more resembled public opinion in Islamic countries in the Middle East and Asia than elsewhere in Europe. And on the whole, British Muslims were more pessimistic than those in Germany, France and Spain about the feasibility of living in a modern society while remaining devout.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2006/jun/23/uk.religion
The question then becomes, on what basis does the common refrain that Islamophobia is more developed and rampant than Christianophobia stem from?
If there are supposedly more Islamophobes, then by how many more Islamophobes are there than Christianophobes?
By a factor of 2? 5? 10?
Logically, if there are twice as many Islamophobes, shouldn't we hear the word 'Christianophobe' thrown around on the internet and media at least half as often as we hear of Islamophobia and Islamophobe?
Being on a message board in the Muslim world, where are the Muslims on this forum to raise awareness of Christianophobia? Is it telling that Christianophobia is covered up and Muslims play the victim card instead?
For what reasons is Christianophobia not a commonly used term when it's been shown in this thread that Christianophobia is very much rampant in at least two very large Muslim majority countries?
On top of that, the polls of these Muslim countries are the exception. Turkey and Indonesia stand apart from other Muslim majority nations for precisely their tradition of tolerance, secularism and pluaralism.
Based on this, we can extropolate these results for the majority of other Muslim nations.
By that, I mean, if Turkey and Indonesia are the moderate nations, then how much worse is Christianophobia in Egypt, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia?
Actual acts of violence is carried out by a minority, but the hatred and prejudice directed against Christians is shared by a larger segment of a population. If one individual carries out a violent act against Christians, then how many others may have approved of the attack at least to some degree?
If the actual acts of violence are at the end of a bell curve, then the bigoted views held by a population must be somewhere in the middle.
Part II of this series will look at non-Muslim attitudes toward Islam.
Part III will address discriminatory laws in the Muslim world agianst Christians.
And Part IV will look at any discriminatory laws against Muslims in the West.
I'm seeing double