Christianity and Islamic religions are at loggerhead throughout the COSMOS nations. Both Christians and Islams are not eye-to-eye, mainly after 9\11 Al Qaeda attacks against United States in 2001. And both the religions and their followers are after their blood against each other ! Main reasons appear for supremacy in the globe. Muslims are being targeted by Christians by brandishing the formers being terrorists and they are being tortured and atrocity are being perpetrated in the areas of influences throughout the world led by the leadership in the United States of America. On the other hand, Christians are facing major threat in the areas of influences of Muslim countries , mainly in the Middle East countries where unnecessary military interventions by America have created problems. Apart from that, the natural resources like 'oil' is also one of the main factors of enmity because Gulf regions, dominated by Muslims, are the major oil producers, which once upon a time USA had harnessed and wanted its control by installing military bases in the region.
Nevertheless, the animosity between two-Christians and Muslims- has been taking definite shape since long despite contradictions in their own respective religions, While Christianity is marred by differences among Protestant and Catholic, Muslims are also poles apart from the divide between Shias and Sunnis throughout the globe. In my opinion , the secularism is gradually going down to the drains for co-existence on the earth.? My two blog- www.kksingh1.blogspot.com -essays-"Why this hate campaign against Muslims of the world (October 16, 2012) and Muslims in the Globe vis-a-vis in India ( July 17, 2012)- have depicted in detail the atrocity on Muslims and their Islam religion, by calling them 'terrorists'. In the current topic, Just I want to narrate the retaliatory instances and measures against Christianity and their followers mainly throughout Middle East , Gulf, Arab and part of Europe by Islamics followers. Richard L Russel, Professor of the National Security Affairs at the Near East and South Asia Centre of for Strategic Studies has authored of books-Sharpening Strategic Intelligence, Weapons Proliferation and War in the Greater Middle East and George F. Kennan's Strategic Thoughts, and has detailed the sorry state of affairs among Christian Community in different parts of the world, mainly in the Middle East ! The Washington Post and the New york Times have also carried various reports of atrocity on Christians in the globe.
Russel has said, " Americans of all political stripes have embraced the promotion of democracy as a centrepiece of U S foreign policy. But this American democracy crusade has caused huge and largely overlooked, collateral damage since 9\11 Al Qaeda attacks against United States in 2001. The fall of the authoritarian regimes throughout the greater Middle East has fuelled growing persecution of minority Christian communities."
More over, the Pew Research Centre has charted extensive government restrictions on non-Muslim religions in number of countries, including Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Iran , Tunisia, Syria, Yemen and Algeria, The centre has found high social hostilities in Pakistan, Iraq, Yemen and Palestinian territories, Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Government of all these countries have imposed restrictions and social hostilities directed against Christians. Huge number of Christians are fleeing the region. Interestingly, in the beginning of the early twentieth century, Christians account for about 20 percent of the Middle East population, but now the figure is down to only five percent. In the aftermath of 9\11 and the 'Arab Springs', the Christians communities throughout the greater Middle East find themselves increasing under threat. Sadly United States administration is silent spectators of such naked drama against Christians by Muslims ! Interestingly, the sieges against Christians community have increased in the so called 'liberated' regions by the American Military in the recent years.
Reports suggest that a democracy enthusiasts would anticipate that Christian community would be thriving now that a 'democratic' Afghan government was installed by the American Military power after the ouster in 2001 of the Taliban regime. Not only that Afghan Constitution, adopted in 2004, guarantees freedom of religion. But Afghan Christians are today deprived of worship and compelled to worship in secret lest they be accused of apostasy for converting to Christianity from Islam, a charge punishable by death, In neighbouring Pakistan, blasphemy laws are wielded more and more aggressively against Christians, who make up only about two percent of Pakistan's 180 million people. These Christians are living under tremendous mental agonies and economic discrimination. Barbarian attitude against Christian surpassed all cannons in Pakistan in March 2011 when only Christian minister in Pakistan, who bravely criticised harsh blasphemy laws that impose the death penalty for insulting Islam, was assassinated, exposing the so called secular and liberal Pakistan's approaches.
Iraq has, since starting open warfare from 2003 against Christian community, been forcing mass exodus of Christians although even the ousted Saddam Hussain was relatively hospitable to Christians. Iraqi Christians are severely embattled by Sunni extremists linked to Al Qaeda and are discriminated against by Iraq's Shiya majority, largely in control of the government. Incidents such as 2010 suicide bombing Our Lady of Salvation Church in Baghdad, which killed fifty Christians and two priests, have terrified Iraq's Christian population, which has dwindled to less than 5000,000 from 8000,000 and 1.4 million in the time of Saddam.
Situation in Egypt, dominated by Muslim Brotherhood, has posed far greater threat to large number of Coptic Christian community in comparison to its authoritarian predecessors under Hosni Mubarak . A Coptic church in Cairo was set ablaze by Islamists in 2011 and many Copts-an estimated ten percent of Egypt's 85 million people-live in fear that Egypt is on the path to being governed by Islamic laws or Sharia. Egypt police sided with an angry crowd of young Muslims in April 2013 throwing rocks and firebombs in a siege of Egypt's major Coptic Cathedral. Egyptian Copts, who have sought work in in neighbouring Libya, fared well in the chaos that has rained in that country since the fall of Muammar Gaddafi. Not only that Christians were shocked in December 2012 by bombing of a church in Misrata, Libiya. That attack has stoked fears that Libyans Islamists are growing in power and more such attacks against Christians are in store. Islamists also emerged powerful in Syria, generating fear that in the case they get power, they would persecute Syrian's Christian community. Over three hundred thousand Christians in Syrians have already fled the country and are refugees. Thus fate of Christian community in Syria is threatened by Muslims with the infiltration of uncontrollable fanatic fundamentalists groups of Muslims.
Syria's violence against Christian community have spread into neighbouring Lebnan.The Shia Islamists group Hazbollah is flexing military strength and lending support to embattled Syrian forces. Hundreds of Lebanese Christians have fled over the years due to civil wars and more recently, in fear that Hazbollah eventfully will control the country and turn it into an Islamic state. Christians were about 52 percent in 1932 in Lebanon and during the last national census, but now by some estimates suggest only 34 percent of the Christian population. A similar trend has long been under way in the Christian Palestinian community, caught in the middle of the conflict between Israelis on one side and secular and Islamist Palestinian on the other. The Catholic Patriarch of Jerusalem has lamented that the Holy Land is fast becoming a 'spiritual Disneyland' with holy sites as theme park attraction bereft of worshipping Christians.
In the rich Arab gulf states, Christian communities formed primarily by Asian immigrate workers, quietly practise their faith but that is now happening in the regions powerhouse Saudi Arabia. Qatar for example, has allowed the construction of a catholic church in Doha for one hundred and fifty thousands Catholics. Churches in Kuwait, Bahrain, and United Arab Emirates are seen as a way to lure expatriate labour to those countries. These Gulf states have survived the political torrents of the Arab Springs but should they fall to street protests, successors regimes likely would resemble Saudi Arabia today, which forbids Christian worship by the estimated eight hundred thousand Catholics in the kingdom. The Saudi government publicly laud inter-faith dialogue , but Saudi-sponsored conferences take place outside the kingdom to avoid domestic religious-political backlashes from Saudi Arabia's Wahhabi religious establishment.
The tightening of nooses around Christian community in the Arab Middle East is running parallel to sieges laid against Christians by non-Arab Muslims elsewhere in the region. The Assyrian Christian population in Iran has plummeted from about one hundred thousand in the mid-1970s to about fifteen thousand today. More than 300 Christians have been arrested by Islamic regime since mid-2010. Churches operate in fear. And Christian converts safe persecution. In the meantime, Turkey is praised in the west as a democratic success story in the Muslim world and the government in Ankara often characterised in the media as 'mildly Islamic'. But the steady erosion of free speech rights in Turkey, as evinced by the increasing imprisonment of journalists and the government's aggressive purging of the secular Turkish military, raises doubts about future prospects for Turkish political and religious tolerance. Attacks against Christians living in a country of 71 million Muslims. A Catholic bishop was stabbed to death in southern Turkey in 2010 and several years earlier a Catholic priests was murdered in a Turkish town along the Black Sea.
All these hate campaign against Christians Muslims against each other have been initially started by United States of America and the then Soviet Russia now Russia. Initially both these big powers used Muslims and later threw them in waste paper baskets in the globe nations, calling them (Muslims) terrorists. Both USA and Russia used Osama bin Laden as well 'Taliban 'for their enlightened self-interest of hegemony in the world.After 9\11, the USA administration started vigorous campaign against Muslims in the name of eliminating terrorists, the so called Muslims. In between Muslims, to great extend, supported 'jehadi movement' under bin Laden and created tremor in the world solely to save their prestige and honour g;globally . Now the Muslim-dominated Middle East and Arab world have also started retaliations and creating reign of terror against Christians in their areas of dominance.
Will such action and reactions not destroy the secular fabrics in the democratic set-ups in the globe ? Good sense must prevail both sides, specially America to diplomatically lessen the tension in the world specially among Christians and Muslims communities for everlasting peace globally by ending hate campaign !
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