How does one pity a group that itself regularly exhibits no pity or even mere tolerance for others? This is the conundrum one faces when considering Muslim victim groups.
Take the Rohingya, for instance, a Muslim people that primarily lived in Myanmar, while, like most invading and conquering Muslims, not being indigenous to Myanmar. There they have been severely persecuted by the indigenous Buddhists of that nation. While the Rohingya are regularly presented as victims—aspects of which is no doubt true—historically and precipitating their current status, whenever they had the chance, they were the ones quick to victimize others.
In fact, and not unlike the Muslim minorities of other nations, the Rohingya have been committing the same sort of anti-infidel mayhem, violence, terrorism, and rape that one is accustomed to associating with “radical Islam”—though news of it seldom reaches the West. The main difference is that, unlike, say, the West, Myanmar has responded with uncompromising ruthlessness.
Consider the words of Wirathu, the leading anti-Muslim Buddhist monk in Burma: “If we are weak, our land will become Muslim.” The theme song of his party speaks of a people who “live in our land, drink our water, and are ungrateful to us”—a reference to the Rohingya—which “we will build a fence with our bones if necessary” to keep out. His pamphlets say “Myanmar is currently facing a most dangerous and fearful poison that is severe enough to eradicate all civilization.”
Relatedly, consider the words of Fr. Daniel Byantoro, a Muslim convert to Orthodox Christianity:
For thousands of years my country (Indonesia) was a Hindu Buddhist kingdom. The last Hindu king was kind enough to give a tax exempt property for the first Muslim missionary to live and to preach his religion. Slowly the followers of the new religion were growing, and after they became so strong the kingdom was attacked, those who refused to become Muslims had to flee for their life to the neighboring island of Bali or to a high mountain of Tengger, where they have been able to keep their religion until now. Slowly from the Hindu Buddhist Kingdom, Indonesia became the largest Islamic country in the world. If there is any lesson to be learnt by Americans at all, the history of my country is worth pondering upon. We are not hate mongering, bigoted people; rather, we are freedom loving, democracy loving and human loving people. We just don’t want this freedom and democracy to be taken away from us by our ignorance and misguided “political correctness”, and the pretension of tolerance. (Source: Facing Islam, endorsement section).
But surely all of this is history? Surely having been at the receiving end of persecution, the Rohingya have come to learn how it feels, and, accordingly, come to deplore the idea of victimizing others simply because they are different? Unfortunately that does not seem to be the case.
For example, in January of 2020, Muslim Rohingya in a Bangladeshi refugee camp savagely beat a dozen Christians in their midst. “[They] attacked us, the Christians. They looted our houses, and beat up many Christian members. At least 12 Christians have been undergoing treatment at different hospitals and clinics,” a Christian reported, before adding, “We came under attack due to our faith…. On May 10, 11, and 13 last year, this same group of terrorists attacked us. They want us to leave this camp. They have been attacking us systematically.”
Discussing that spate of attacks, the Rohingya Christian Assembly from India said that Muslim Rohingya “attacked the whole Christian community in Kutupalong Camp… Approximately 25 Christian families are displaced. It is winter and very cold, the victims have many minor children with them.” The group added that mobs armed with machetes—“hundreds in many groups”—invaded and destroyed every Christian home at night.
Last Christmas, 2021, in India, hundreds of Rohingya migrant Muslim workers, some lethally armed, violently attacked a group of Christian migrant workers near a factory. According to the report, “A scuffle broke out at around 11.30 pm when some Muslims objected to carols being sung by Christian migrants from Nagaland and Manipur. While they were celebrating and dancing late at night, Muslim migrants attacked them.” Several police and others who tried to intervene were also injured in the riot; fanatical Rohingya even “tried to burn policemen alive.”
Around the same time, Muslim Rohingya beat a Christian Rohingya in their refugee camp in Bangladesh. According to Saydul Amin “I have been persecuted since I revealed that I am a Christian. I no longer feel safe in the camp.”
The same report quotes David Sunir, another Christian who had been beaten in a Rohingya refugee camp: “We Christians are a minority, and we live in fear.”
It should be noted that something similar is happening here in the West. Reports of Muslim refugees (supposedly “victims” in need of asylum) attacking and killing the Christian minorities intermingled with them in European-based refugee camps regularly surface.
Indeed, at one point, teams of trained killers disguised as refugees were sent by ISIS into U.N. refugee camps to kill Christians, including “in their beds,” and to kidnap young girls to sell or use as slaves. This was reported after an ISIS operative “got cold feet and renounced jihad after witnessing Christians helping out other refugees within the camp. He then revealed that he had been sent with an Islamist hit squad to eliminate Christians as part of the hate group’s ideological drive to wipe the [Christian] religion off the map.”
The point here is not to argue that all Muslims are troublemakers and therefore “deserve” whatever treatment they get. Rather, it is, and to reiterate the question initiating this article, to ask: How is one supposed to feel pity and want to provide sanctuary for a minority group that, once it has the chance, treats the minorities in its midst atrociously—and for no other reason than because they are different, in this case, because they are “infidels”?
Thanks Raymond
I’ll say here, as I’ve been commenting lately, I believe that Islam is a greatly underestimated adversary, as Hillaire Belloc knew too well.
The problem now is the corrupted media protection of Islam’s constant, growing and spreading aggression, disdain for non-Muslins of any kind with an emphasis on Jews and Christians, a view of every Muslim being superior to every non-Muslim, and a religion who’s main goal is to subdue the entire earth, nothing less.
Western leaders don’t seem to get the picture, which is also a terrible, deadly error.
Memorial weekend here in the states, may we all take a moment to remember those who gave their all to defend us from enemies, they even gave up life itself in our defense.
And be thankful for those now, with that same commitment to freedom and democracy, who stand ready to give their all, as their ancestors did including life itself, so we can remain safe and free.
Thanks again Raymond
It is why I cannot feel sorry for Uyghers. They did jihad now they want me to feel sorry for them. Their own kind (moslems) want their organs and pay a high price to the CCP for them. Oh gee, we are only supposed to hate the CCP for what they do. So, the Uyghers did jihad, have organs harvested because other moslems want them because they are halal, and would give no consideration to anyone else if they had won and the circumstances were against any non-moslem in their area, or borders? Naw, I will put my emotions where they belong and it isn’t with a group that follows such an evil ideology as islam.
Thanks Raymond. Copied my other comment from Gatestone to his article – oops – tired old guy not paying attention.
Great article here. Hopefully open a few eyes and minds.
Where is the Minstrel Boy?
“The point here is not to argue that all Muslims are troublemakers and therefore “deserve” whatever treatment they get.”
While I agree with this, it also needs to be stressed that, whether or not every Muslim “deserves” to be categorised as a danger to non-Muslims, Islam itself does deserve to be so categorised. How likely is it that if Muslims were to achieve a majority in any state Islam in that state would not persecute non-Muslims? Indeed, how likely is it that more liberal Muslims will have enough influence to moderate the beliefs and actions of their more zealous co-religionists?
Having personally had far too much “interaction” with muslims I beg to differ. Islam is a black hole ideologically and anyone and everyone who lives in a muslim country and tries to civilize it will be murdered or otherwise silenced. “Liberal muslims” (a paradox if there ever was one) also include those superficially westernized and who usually live in western states with <10% muslims and mix with non muslims daily. For most of these it is a charade and if told to “act” by an imam will almost certainly do so. I am certain that there are some decent people born muslims out there but if you look at the degree and depth of indoctrination of muslim children you will find that >99% of muslims are either terrorists or potential terrorists. Anyone who submits to a vicious, cruel, vindictive, barbaric god like allah cannot be trusted (muhammad plagiarized the OT for that god) .
I hope you didn’t think that I was saying anything greatly different from what you say. My point was, precisely, that Islam as a religion is not to be trusted, and that, while there may be some Muslims who try to accept a more liberal version of their faith, Islam itself, as you say, is a black hole ideologically. Remember it was Raymond who said, as I quote: “The point here is not to argue that all Muslims are troublemakers and therefore “deserve” whatever treatment they get.” My qualification of that was simply that Islam as a religion is one that cannot be trusted not to make trouble, even if there are (as I think there are) more moderate Muslims who do not accept their religion in the brutal form that it is almost everywhere held.
Brilliant article Raymond! Though I feel sorry for those ignorant and innocent Muslims whom I met in my life as I was growing up in a country with a long and distinguished history going back to the Pharaohs but invaded by Muslims and Islamised, usurping its history – as they did in every country they invaded from one end of the Middle East to the Atlantic end of North Africa and more. The only way to deal with them is as did Myanmar if they want their civilisation to survive. For where the Islamists can they destroy and Islamise, as with the Buddhas of Bamiyan – and if they can’t destroy they Islamise and usurp, as when the second son of Saladin tried but couldn’t destroy the Pyramids.The only way for a civilisation to survive without being choked by the Islamic scourge is to do as Myanmar did and as did also in the past Queen Isabella of Spain, who saved her country from Islamisation.
But now we have the leftists, the Islamist allies, who were very helpful to the Muslims in the middle of Europe some years ago aided by Clinton and Blair so that now we have a mafia in central Europe dealing with drugs, guns and women (Christian women of course), not to mention that the “Muslim-controlled Bosnian government …. granted Bosnian citizenship to several hundred Arab and other Islamist volunteers – eliminating their foreign status…” (Serge Trifkovic,”The Sword of the Prophet”:220; also “Defeating Jihad”, which both tell the story of the dark years of the barbaric 400-500 years of Muslim occupation of south eastern Europe, and Hungary 150 years, which Western Europe will never understand and of which Caliph Erdogan is so proud!!!).
In every country where there is an influx of Muslims the same happens, as during the 1970s when Turkey occupied the north of Cyprus, where Churches were looted with important items being destroyed or, when they realised their value, sold all over the world, women being raped, homes taken over or destroyed, and even change in the demographic structure of the island effected by importing Muslim populations from Turkey. Of course, there are those who will say that there are good people among Muslims. Yes, there are as I said above at least in the country where I grew up but these people too are eventually forced to submit being told that this is Allah’s will and if they don’t do as he wishes they will have their heads cut off as well as that of every member of their family including their children.
There are of course educated Muslims who do not subscribe to these views – two Muslim co-workers and friends protected my family and myself from the mobs during the Suez war by taking us to a safe house in Cairo and I shall be forever grateful to them – but these too will have their heads cut off if and when caught, including authors of books by born Muslims like ‘Islamic Fascism’ by Hamed Abdel-Samad, or ‘Islamic Jihad’ by M.A. Khan, or again the several books written by originally Somali Ayaan Hirsi Ali, that courageous woman who found refuge first in Holland and then in America. This is in reply to someone who said to me once that such books and articles are written by Christians like Raymond Ibrahim who hate Muslims. NO. Honourable born Muslim authors write them too. My thoughts? Occupy us and Islamise us is what they intend to do in Europe and in America and all other Western countries no matter how long it takes, they are not in a hurry ….. unless we find a way to stop them, and stop the leftists from helping them, if not for us at least for the sake of our children and grand-children.
Thank you Raymond Ibrahim and God save you and yours!
Thanks, Mary
You are most welcome Raymond ….but the thanks due to you will never be enough for this mammoth task you have undertaken. And I am sure I don’t speak only for myself but for countless others. God be with you and protect you and yours always.
Thanks Mary. As you occasionally do, you have given us greater insight into things we are familiar with but not with the nuanced and thorough understanding you have.
I’ve followed Ayaan for some years. She is married to a brilliant historian I listen to a lot. They live in secret. I consider him as well to be a heroic man to take her in marriage. “Class Act” as we say in the states.
Always appreciate the book titles. I’m still crawling through “Sword” but find it fascinating as I read in short bursts. Also reading “Laptop From Hell” about the corruption in the Biden family – and “Debunking Howard Zinn”, his revisionist, “A Peoples History of the United States” helped turn a generation of Americans against their own country.
I’m engaging younger people, 40’s mostly, about these problems. Spoon feeding you might say, they are easily upset. It’s very difficult to admit you have been deceived, pokes the pride I think.
Stay well Mary, we appreciate you very much.
Thank you too Don. I learn a lot and get a lot of ideas from you too as well as from books to read. I know of Niall Ferguson very well. I even have a couple of his books. Yes he has courage and I admire him for marrying Ayaan, very much indeed. But the courage it took Ayaan a Muslim Somali young woman in her very early 20s to flee from Africa into the unknown took more than courage. We are not talking here of a young woman who grew up in the West but of a shielded Muslim woman considered inferior to the male and under his protection always
from all places Somalia. My admiration for her for the strength of character she needed to escape her prison knows no bounds. BTW
her piece ‘The Challenge of Dawa’ is on the internet free of charge.
Thanks Don.God Bless!
To put it simply, like everyone, we have to make choices in life. I choose to have no pity for Muslims who follow Islam with their hateful and murderous behaviour towards Christians and other infidels. If one is not controlled by the Holy Spirit, one is under the control of the unholy spirit, whose fruits are rotten to the core.
We see that not only in the followers of Islam, but in our cultures too where people have chosen to reject the true and living God. Murder and mayhem are the consequences.
Hi Tershia. Besides my efforts to get the word out. I’m asking Christian friends to pray specifically, politically, for a few items. Some say it’s end times – I don’t know, just live my life fighting for what is right and good. Stay well up there in beautiful Canada with your faulty leadership. Pray for change.
Thanks Don, it certainly seems as if we are seeing the signs of the end times, especially when we see how many churches have capitulated to the Marxist ideology of CRT/Social Justice. But only God knows the hour.
Yes, in the mean time I keep my focus on the Lord and pray daily for the persecuted Christians (and Raymond’s protection) and the removal of our evil leadership.
I do however, believe that these leaders are God’s judgement on our sinful nations who have legalised everything that is an abomination to God.
We are slowly feeling persecution here, as our “faulty” leaders has declared the Bible as a myth.
Nice to talk to you – sending blessings 😇
God bless you and yours, Raymond.
Islam must be stopped. Until the ideology is stopped it’s futile to discuss the behavior of individuals. Very few individuals will ‘resist’ a vicious ideology when their life – and the lives of loved ones – are on the line. Cowardice and compliance are normal. Normal is usually good, but it’s not good when a culture is hi-jacked by a deadly ideology.
We need a miracle to get out of this.
A miracle indeed!