Thursday, April 9, 2009
Given the Ummah's propensity to demand every right and respect for themselves, but its rotten record on respecting those very same rights in others (Islam's Bloody Borders), certain lines in the sand are not uncalled for. To take a Human Rights perspective, a Helsinki Accord-like set of expectations, even if unilaterally observed by us ("this is what we expect") might not be a bad way of looking at things (remember when Human Rights Watch hadn't lost the thread and used to be known as Helsinki Watch -- before it forgot the difference between how you deal with free and unfree societies?)
Daniel Henninger: Will Islam Return Obama's 'Respect'?
Today is Holy Thursday for Christians and the start of Passover for Jews. This week was an opportune time for President Barack Obama to visit Istanbul's Hagia Sophia, which has been both a Byzantine church and Islamic mosque. In Turkey he spoke of seeking engagement with Islam based on "mutual respect."
The subject of this column is the status of minority faith groups, mostly Christian, living inside Islamic countries. That status is poor. In some cases it verges on extinction, after centuries of coexistence with Islam...
...In reality, the experience of Arab Christians living now amid majority Islamic populations is often repression, arrest, imprisonment and death.
Coptic Christians in Egypt have been singled out for discrimination and persecution. Muslim rioters often burn or vandalize their churches and shops.
In Turkey, the Syriac Orthodox Church (its 3,000 members speak Aramaic, the language of Christ) is battling with Turkish authorities over the lands around the Mor Gabriel monastery, built in 397.
Pakistan's recent peace deal with the Taliban in the Swat Valley puts at risk the 500 Christians still trying to live there. Many fled after Islamic extremists bombed a girls' school late last year. Pakistan has never let them buy land to build a church...
...In short, the "respect" Mr. Obama promised to give Islam is going only in one direction. And he knows that...
There's much more. Read it and explain why we shouldn't start noticing, admitting the truth, and taking our own stand.
I agree a new Helsinki Accords could be way to approach the problem. Please find (see link) my resolution text that develops some base argumentation towards this direction. It is related to Durban II and demands freedom for four converts to christianity in Libya who are in jail.
What sort of result could be expected from an Helsinki type accord with Muslims where their very religion forbids accords with infidels?
Where their Qur'an, Hadith and Sira make it plain that there is no respect for infidels.
As it is the Muslims have succeeded in intimidating those infidel inhabitants of non-Muslim countries into doing just what the Muslims want; so why would they bother with accords and back down from the dictates of their religion?
Not only that, but of course there's no "Muslim leader" with whom to make agreements. Even if you make agreements with various Muslim governments, the various sub-governmental actors will still do what they will. No one who made such an agreement on the other side could ever be trusted to keep it, anyway, just as we couldn't simply trust the Soviets, we had to pressure and contain them.
My point is really that WE should act and demand as though we had an agreement and proceed with carrots and sticks as appropriate, unilaterally. Of course, what I'm really getting at is sticking up for our own values, which we both know isn't going to happen. Our President is out there on an apology tour. Imagine, WE'RE apologizing to THEM. You can't make this stuff up.