Why was this event, reported in the NY Times print edition (same for the Washington Post), not covered in my Globe and Mail, Ottawa Citizen, or Ottawa Sun this morning?
BAGHDAD — Iraqi antiterrorist forces stormed a church where gunmen had taken close to 100 hostages on Sunday in an afternoon of chaos that became a bloodbath. At least 30 hostages and 7 security officers were killed, and 41 hostages and 15 security force members were wounded, according to a source at the Ministry of the Interior…
Abdul-Kader Jassem al-Obeidi, the minister of defense, said that most of the hostages were killed or wounded when the kidnappers set off at least two suicide vests as they took over the church. He defended the decision to storm the building, saying, “This was a successful operation with a minimum of casualties, and killing all the terrorists.” He added that an unspecified number of suspects were also arrested.
The source at the Ministry of the Interior said that the police had arrested eight gunmen believed to be affiliated with the Islamic State of Iraq, a militant organization connected to Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia.
Hussain Nahidh, a police officer who saw the interior of the church, said: “It’s a horrible scene. More than 50 people were killed. The suicide vests were filled with ball bearings to kill as many people as possible. You can see human flesh everywhere. Flesh was stuck to the top roof of the hall. Many people went to the hospitals without legs and hands.”..
More from the WaPo:
…
The Islamic State of Iraq, a front for the Sunni extremist organization, claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement posted on the Internet on Monday. It said the attack on a “den of polytheism” was meant to pressure the Egyptian government to release women linked to al-Qaeda in Iraq who were being held in Egypt. It was not immediately clear which women the statement was referring to…
Update: At least it’s on CBC News Network now, 0940 ET.
Mark
Ottawa
“not covered in my Globe and Mail, Ottawa Citizen, or Ottawa Sun this morning?”
well how about:
…because society accepted a false truth that it is normal to disregard this sort of thing, that its only Christian lives and not a worry, because they must have deserved it for some wrong eons ago, or for being idiots for daring to practice Christianity in such a place, or because of all the people in the world to reach out to, it wouldnt be them?
I heard an interview recently with Retired Lt. General Jerry Boykin, who made comments that are exactly as I have been noticing over the years, about reporting of or depiction of Christianity, events surrounding it, and the double-standards used when dealing with most other religions in comparison…… I said to myself, finally someone with outstanding credibility and authority in our society stands up and states the blunt obvious truth. Then I figured the world pretty much didnt care, hypocrisy is easier to live with than reality, and things would never change.
He said it was readily evident “that persecution of Christians is acceptable in our society today by leadership and media…”
Not only in physical slaughter such as the horror mentioned here, but in all sorts of media and public discourse as well. If something can be mud-raked against a Christian or Christian organization, you better believe it will be relentlessly exaggerated to full offensive effect.
It doesnt matter if its labelled ‘a global conspiracy’ or merely a repeated pattern, the conditioning has taken affect and is clearly in the collective mindset. In short, ‘you say something enough times and sooner or later you believe it to be true, whether it is or not’. Simple enough?
In our paper, this slaughter was way at the back pages and given a rather underwhelming flavor of ‘bored reporting’… suggesting only a dozen or so were murdered in the church (wrong), and wrapped up in short order like a regular traffic accident report. It almost made me feel like someone regretted having to waste their time typing this up for the paper. Almost coldly brief to the point of inferring disdain.
How about noting the disrespectful depictions of the priest on CBC’s Little Mosque on the Prairie… he is made mockery of, coming off as an idiot/buffoon compared to the usually ‘sensible, hip cool muslims’? No one notices. In one episode the muslims are taking over his parish in a weak attempt to build their own mosque inside the church. “all light hearted, all just humor, no reverence need apply”… who cares, is fair game in all aspects apparently.
Imagine if the role was reversed, the mere ribbing of anything islamic would have gotten several writers and producers murdered, if a simple ‘almost-koran-burning’ event is any measure of response.
As the good retired General pointed out, no one would want to offend a muslim, intentionally or accidentally. Christians however… meh… have at it (He made several good points about the unacceptable service record of the Ft. Hood muslim murderer leading up to that carnage; the unavoidable evidence being many above his rank did not make a move to restrict, re-educate or demote this man, directly relating to the fact he was a muslim, so they let his substandard service behaviour slide for years. People died for lack of action, but atleast ‘they didnt offend any muslim’ in the end)
“Southpark” is a clear example of how self-entitled, knee-jerk reaction the muslim religion is allowed to be in the world’s mind, while Christianity is batted around on that show with vigor. (oh ya I forgot muslim groups around the world threatened to murder them if they even made any visual reference to allah)….
Cant say there is similar standard for anyone writing how offended they might get at CBC’s priest mocking; it would garner them the label of ‘uptight, atypical stereotype Christian backwater dullard’ or some such thing.
How about taking note how many characters on Law and Order are stereotyped as weird, mental, twisted sick Christians who either are abusing or molesting children, or murdering someone?
Again, its almost as if there is some unseen rule in society that infers its perfectly fine to do this sort of thing… or its almost hip, cool or expected to make the ‘bad guy religion’ to be a Christian one, probably because no one will be beheaded or blown up if they do so.
Its the ‘safe’ target to offend and abuse.
Im sure Christ and God and all that are big boys who arent the slightest insecure in their identity in the light of all this, but still there has to be a line where this kind of perpetual nonsense does stop and double-standards in media and journalism end.
When I read koran verses and think of their ‘god’, I get the opposite, I get the picture of extreme paranoid insecurity. Knee jerk reaction is almost a commandment, whether it be against critical analysis, repudiation of, hand drawn caricatures of, or refusing to convert to islam. Seems death by any sort of means is always a penalty.
For drawing a stick figure of allah? or writing a work of fiction ala Rushdie? Well, ya.. and I guess we are being conditioned to get used to it, considering how many indignant, viciously vile reactions there are.
So why the double standard? Is it because there is no personal threat for ignoring slaughtered Christians, or dire consequences for endlessly depicting Christianity as being a religion of ill-gotten wealth, or inbred with countless pedophiles and murderers?
who knows, but there is an obvious pattern there.
Until people stop screaming at Christians to ‘lighten up’ about being smeared, slaughtered or ignored in all these ways, I suspect there will always be this double standard.
given a couple days passage, more evidence of what I said crops up…
It seems an al Qaeda affiliate called “The Islamic State in Iraq,” said that Iraqi Christians would be “exterminated” if two Egyptian women, whom they claim are being held captive after converting to Islam, weren’t released.
The church in question was doing no such thing, the members were attending a service…. more likely is the case two Egyptian women were attending this service, or perhaps actually converted to Christianity and this is being twisted to suit an excuse… either way there is no evidence anyone was ‘kidnapped’ by this church or members that ’caused’ this reaction. Instead, western media chose to somehow relate the course of actions as being a bank robbery that went wrong, and the thugs happened by a church they chose to raid or hold up in…
To this group of wackjobs, anyone making the personal choice of turning away from islam to something they like better is probably what they mean by being ‘held captive’. The koran says anyone turning away from (or rejecting or, or, or…) allah should be slaughtered, so in the end they accomplished both in one move….
It appears the BBC had a deeper insight than North American media ever bothered to give the situation, as it has outlined a pattern of systemic attack on Christian groups in the middle eastern muslim world as a whole. Made for enlightening viewing, but I am sure it would never fly with the media moguls here ‘because no one wants to offend a muslim’, as the retired General above is quoted as saying.
Once more it is shown ‘people over here’ dont care and are ignorant of the fact there are even ‘people over there’ who are practising converted Christians, being murdered or repeated attacked… the conditioning of ignorance and indifference is well established….
I bet you could count on one hand the number of investigative reporters on this continent that know Chaldean Christians have been attempting to live in areas throughout Iraq since before islamic ideology was even conceived. Somehow, marginalization (and in this instance according to “the islamic state”, eradication) of the earliest dwellers of the land is nothing to be concerned about, must be some sort of justifiable ‘thinning of the herd’, and likely all just fine, because its NIMBY.
It amazes me how such introverted nit picking of our own (now mostly rejected) religious heritage somehow makes all these actions seem natural and to be expected. Quite the hypocritical stance for a nation that demands various aspects of tolerance, when it almost patently excludes it from being extended to one religion (and Im not talking about the islamic ideologically totalitarian one).
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