How dare you? The supremacist nature of Muslim ‘grievances’
“[G]rievances” are not predicated on any universal standards of equality or justice, only a supremacist worldview.
By RAYMOND IBRAHIMPAKISTANI CHRISTIANS pray at a church in Lahore 370(photo credit: REUTERS)
In 2012 in Pakistan, as Christian children were singing carols inside their church, Muslim men from a nearby mosque barged in with an axe, destroyed the furniture, desecrated the altar, and beat the children. Their justification for such violence? “You are disturbing our prayers.... How dare you use the microphone and speakers?” Welcome to the true face of “Muslim grievance” – what I call the “how dare you” phenomenon. Remember it next time “progressive” media and politicians tell you that Muslim terrorism – whether the 9/11 strikes, Fort Hood massacre, Boston bombing or recent London beheading – are products of grievances against the West. Missing from their analyses is the supremacist nature of Muslim grievances.The Conditions of Omar, a foundational medieval Muslim text, mandates this sense of superiority over non-Muslims.Among other stipulations, the Conditions commands conquered Christians not to raise their “voices during prayer or readings in churches anywhere near Muslims” (hence the axattack in Pakistan). It also commands them not to display any signs of Christianity – specifically Bibles and crosses – not to build churches, and not to criticize the prophet.If the supremacist nature of Islamic law is still not clear enough, the Conditions command Christians to give up their seats to Muslims on demand.By analogy, consider when Rosa Parks refused to give up her bus seat to white passengers in a white supremacist environment.Sincere grievances arose: how dare she think herself our equal? But were such grievances legitimate? Should they have been accommodated? In my new book, Crucified Again: Exposing Islam’s New War on Christians, I document hundreds of attacks on Christians.In most cases, the Muslim attackers are truly aggrieved. For example, in 2007 in Turkey, a publishing house distributing Bibles was stormed and three of its Christian employees tortured, disemboweled, and finally murdered. One suspect later said: “We didn’t do this for ourselves, but for our religion [Islam]....Our religion is being destroyed.”Similarly, in 2011 in Egypt, after a 17- year-old Christian student refused to obey his Muslim teacher’s orders to cover up his cross, the teacher and some Muslim students attacked, beat and ultimately murdered him.These Turkish and Egyptian murderers were truly aggrieved: the Conditions clearly state that Christians must not “produce a cross or Bible” around Muslims. How dare the Egyptian student and Turkish Bible publishers refuse to comply? In Indonesia, where it is becoming next to impossible for Christians to build churches, Christians congregated to celebrate Christmas 2012 on empty land where they hoped to build a church – only to be attacked by Muslims who hurled cow dung and bags of urine at them as they prayed.
These Muslims were also sincerely aggrieved: how dare these Christians think they can build a church when the Conditions forbid it? (See Crucified Again for a new translation of The Conditions of Omar.) Weeks ago in Pakistan, after a Christian man was accused of insulting Muslim prophet Muhammad – another big no-no according to the Conditions – 3,000 Muslims burned down two churches and some 200 Christian homes.Take a look at their pictures; these are undoubtedly people with a “grievance.”Most recently in Pakistan, when a Muslim slapped a Christian and the latter reciprocated, the Muslim exclaimed “How dare a Christian slap me?” Anti- Christian violence immediately commenced.In short, any time non-Muslims dare to overstep their Shari’a-designated “inferior” status, supremacist Muslims become violently aggrieved.From here, one can begin to understand the ultimate Muslim grievance: Israel.For if “infidel” Christians are deemed inferior and attacked for exercising their basic human rights, like freedom of worship, by aggrieved Muslims, how must Muslims feel about Jews – the descendants of pigs and apes, according to the Koran – exercising power and authority over fellow Muslims in what is perceived to be Muslim land? How dare they! Of course, if grievances against Israel were really about justice and displaced Palestinians, Muslims – and their Western appeasers – would be aggrieved by the fact that millions of Christians are currently being displaced by Muslim invaders.Needless to say, they are not.So the next time you hear that Muslim rage and terrorism are products of grievance, remember that this is absolutely true. But these “grievances” are not predicated on any universal standards of equality or justice, only a supremacist worldview.The author, a Middle East and Islam specialist, is the author of the new book, Crucified Again: Exposing Islam’s New War on Christians (Regnery, 2013). He is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center and associate fellow at the Middle East Forum.
