Giulio Meotti
Giulio Meottiצילום: עצמי
It's always the same scene: a village and humble houses surrounded by open fields, Muslim terrorists appearing in the middle of the night when everyone is asleep, breaking down doors and shouting "Allahu Akbar", killing, raping and mutilating women and children on sight, setting fire to churches and houses. Only because they are Christians.

Nigerian Archbishop Matthew Man-oso Ndagoso said that his faithful are being killed "like chickens". In another country, a bishop reveals: "Catholics are killed in hospital beds”. Yet all these masses of persecuted are not trendy enough to merit the mobilization of the beautiful western people. Those murdered are not even worth the time of the hashtag #savechristians. They don't move the Western cyber public as much as does a Libyan migrant, males who call themselves women or a Koran burned in a Swedish square...

First scene:

A copy of the Koran is set on fire in Sweden by a provocateur with no following. The squares of the Islamic world fill up to ask for revenge. The Organization for Islamic Cooperation is asking Europe to intervene (for this reason it has opened an office a stone's throw from the European Parliament in Brussels). The United Nations intervenes: “The High Representative of the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations, Miguel Moratinos (former Spanish Foreign Minister), unequivocally condemns the cowardly act of burning the Holy Koran in Sweden…”. Then it's the turn of the European Union: "The action is not compatible with the values of the EU". Finally, the European chancelleries arise. All the media talk about it.

Second scene.

Isaac Achi, a Catholic priest, is burned alive in his house in Nigeria, where Christians are killed every hour in odium fidei and which is described as "the largest slaughterhouse of Christians in the world". But in this case, nothing from the UN, the EU, European chancelleries and the media. “Unequivocally” we do not read it anywhere. "The persecution of Christians is ignored by the Glass Palace", denounces Aid to the Church in Need. We are in a country where 100,000 Christians have been killed in twenty years. When 44 Christians were murdered in Kaduna state, In Nigeria, a witness said the dead were mostly women and children, "slaughtered like rams to be used for barbecue".

As we don’t hear any condemnation for the two Israeli children just killed in Jerusalem.

Not to mention the girl burned alive just because she was a Christian in Nigeria, where 39 priests were killed in 2022. She was killed b Muslims after being accused of "blasphemy", the same accusation leveled against European countries nowadays by the Ummah. Her name was Deborah Yakubu. The videos of her show a frightening ferocity, dozens of people attacking her body, setting it on fire and joyfully shouting "Allahu Akbar" onto their mobile phones and social networks.

Not to mention the Christian couple burned alive in a furnace in Pakistan, where there have been massive demonstrations against Sweden in recent days. A pregnant woman, already mother of three children, and her husband, falsely accused of having burned pages of the Koran (always that book, the Koran), attacked by a mob of Muslims and thrown into an oven of a brick factory and burned there. Or in Mali, where 27 Christians were burned alive. Or Isima Kimbugwe, a Christian religious man who was burned alive in Uganda. Burnt alive like priest David Tanko, in Nigeria. Or the 12 Christian children burned alive in Jos, Nigeria. Or the Assyrian woman burned alive in Syria. Also in Jos, Nigeria, Islamic terrorists went to the houses where parents and children had barricaded themselves, set fire to it and let 17 Christians burn alive. Among them Timara, only 4 years old, Bontà 5 years old, Lovina 8 years old.

A 47-page report by the NGO Open Doors was published in January. “It is absolutely terrifying, my blood literally freezes” writes the Jewish historian Marc Knobel in the latest issue of the Revue des deux mondes. “Open Doors estimates that '312 million Christians are severely persecuted and discriminated against'. It represents 1 in 7 Christians in the world. But, if we look more precisely, this figure equates to 1 in 5 Christians in Africa and 2 in 5 Christians in Asia. Christians are alone and are being murdered, churches and temples are being burned down. All means are used to force them to renounce their faith: owning a Bible is a crime, the celebration of worship is prohibited, churches destroyed, burned, Christians murdered as in Syria, for example…”.

Then Knobel explains: “I am not a Christian, but of the Jewish religion. I can therefore measure what happened to the religious persecutions of which the Jews were victims for two millennia. But, today, I also want to measure rejection, fear, terror. And my fellow Christians who are persecuted all over the world have been forgotten. Why am I talking? Should I shut up? Some may think that the Christian victims counted in this report are just a cold statistic, which leaves them cold overall. Others will be powerless or disillusioned bystanders. In short, a code of silence reigns over this matter. As if the law of silence should be the rule. The mere mention of these religious persecutions seems to make many commentators, secular associations and NGOs uncomfortable, who prefer to remain silent".

Knobel is Jewish and French and perhaps he remembers that in his country, in the silence of the various Erdogans and of our institutions, a young Jew, Ilan Halimi, was burned alive by a gang of Muslims outside Paris.

Priyantha Kumara was not a Christian but a Buddhist, but still an "infidel". Finished with kicks, bolts and a petrol can. He is a Sri Lankan immigrant who used to work as a manager in a sporting goods factory. For the workers he was guilty of removing a poster with Muhammad's name on it (if it's not the Koran, he's Muhammad). Kumara didn't even understand. But that is enough to accuse him of "blasphemy". One of 1,130 people killed in Pakistan after being accused of "offending Islam" in extrajudicial executions.

Is a child burned alive worth less today than a copy of the Hadith burned in the square? Why the double standard?

You have to ask Salman Rushdie, whose first photos appeared after he escaped the terrorist attack in New York. A man crippled, haggard and broken. Speaking to the New Yorker, Rushdie says: “People were afraid to be around me. I thought, the only way to stop it is to act like I'm not afraid." One evening Rushdie went out to dinner with Andrew Wylie, his agent and friend. The painter Eric Fischl stopped by their table and said, "Shouldn't we all be afraid and leave the restaurant?" "Fine, I'm having dinner," Rushdie replied. "You can do what you want".

In the West there are no more seats at the table for those who are not afraid to tell the truth.