Although the mainstream media rarely reports on Muslim attacks on Christians, it jumps at the chance to cover stories about attacks on Muslims. For example, when a deranged white supremacist killed 50 Muslims in two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand on March 15, 2019, the story was front page news for weeks and months afterward. In fact, anniversary specials about the event still appear on TV.
So intense was the focus on the New Zealand massacre, that several big stories about Muslim persecution of Christians got bumped out of the news.
About one month after the New Zealand shooting, nine Muslim suicide bombers attacked three Christian Churches and three luxury hotels in Columbo, Sri Lanka. Two hundred seventy were killed and more than 500 were injured. Yet, although the casualties were much higher than those in New Zealand, news coverage was minimal. If you live in the U.S., it’s quite likely that you’ve never heard about the Sri Lanka massacre. Most of the world media were still fixated on the mosque attack, and seemed to have little interest in attacks on Christians at worship.
Whistling in the Dark
Another story that, in normal times, would have received wide attention was all but blotted out by the New Zealand atrocity. Five days after that attack, a Muslim school bus driver in Milan, Italy kidnapped and tried to immolate the 50 middle-school students in the bus. The driver later told police he was retaliating against Italian immigration policy which he held responsible for the deaths of “thousands” drowned in the Mediterranean crossing.
Although the event was chock full of drama and human interest—frightened handcuffed children, a high-speed chase, anxious parents, a blazing bus, and a heroic police rescue—it received little media attention outside of Europe. Coverage of the near-massacre was almost non-existent in the U.S. On the day of the incident Fox news carried a brief account at 7:30 pm but most other news sites reported nothing about the story. Google News didn’t cover the near-tragedy, but carried half a dozen headline stories about the New Zealand shooting with links to dozen more stories. I checked Google News for the next five days and found many more stories about the New Zealand attack, but nothing about the 50 children trapped in a blazing bus near Milan.
Do Non-Muslim Lives Matter?
Why the double standard? Why does the media give priority to stories of Muslims at risk while ignoring similar stories of Christians in peril?
One answer is that attacks on mosques and Islamic Centers are relatively rare both in the U.S. and abroad. But many in media are committed to the Islamophobia theory. When they come across a story that seems to confirm the Muslim-as-victim narrative, they give it extra attention and keep it alive as long as possible. Moreover, many of those who reported on the New Zealand massacre frequently used the phrase, “this has got to stop”—as though the atrocity was only one in a long line of white supremacist mosque shootings.
The Muslim-as-victim theme is, perhaps the dominant thread in the Islamophobia guide. At one point, Duffner writes: “Imagine what it would be like to have your house of worship targeted by vandalism or arson or to have your child bullied at school because of their faith.”
The implication is that this sort of thing is a common occurrence in the lives of Muslims, but that Christians could only try to imagine what it must be like. The truth is, many Christians don’t have to imagine such things. They are much more likely to happen to them than to Muslims.
A Global Crime Wave of Jihad Violence Against Christians
In Africa, Christian churches are frequently burned down, sometimes with the congregation locked inside. In Nigeria roughly one hundred churches are destroyed each month by jihadist organizations and Muslim tribal groups. In France in recent years over a thousand churches and cathedrals have been damaged or destroyed by vandals or arsonists, most likely drawn from France’s growing Muslim population. And yes, in France as well as in Austria, Sweden, and England, children are “bullied at school because of their [Christian] Faith.”
But none of this is mentioned in the U.S. Catholic bishops’ alarmist new Islamophobia guide I’ve already written about here. And dozens of other acts of violence by Muslims against Christians are omitted, including the tens of thousands of English schoolgirls who were victimized by Pakistani rape gangs in dozens of towns and cities throughout the English midlands.
Nor does the guide’s author, Jordan Denari Duffner, mention the increasing number of jihad attacks here in America such as the vehicular attack in New Orleans on New Years Eve which left 14 dead and 57 injured.
Of course, Dr. Duffner is not obliged to mention all the evidence that contradicts her thesis, but surely someone at USCCB must have noticed that her guide is, to say the least, a bit lopsided.
Drunk With Love for Exotic Foreigners
The trouble is that one can’t assume that USCCB members would have noticed. Ever since Vatican II, the Catholic hierarchy has been smitten with the idea that Islam and Christianity are brother religions with shared beliefs and practices.
In their minds they have created a fantasy Islam—one based mainly on wishful thinking but not on actual acquaintance with Islamic scripture. It’s a safe bet that very few bishops have actually read the Quran. In short, most bishops suffer not from Islamophobia but from Islamoignorance.
Nothing displays the bishop’s ignorance of Islam better than the publication of the Islamophobia guide for U.S. Catholics. Why so? Let me outline a few of the problems with the guide:
First, it is designed to keep your mind on a secondary issue while ignoring the primary one. The secondary issue is bigotry. Dr. Duffner maintains that it is widespread but admits that it is more commonly “manifested in subtle forms” and often “without realizing it.” This may involve “mistreatment by classmates and even teachers, workplace and hiring discrimination; and name-calling and rude glances.” What’s the primary problem in Christian-Muslim relations? Well, to put it bluntly, Muslims are killing and torturing Christians by the millions all over the world.
Second, the booklet not only ignores Christian suffering, but also hijacks it with the result that the victimizers are turned into victims. Christians are asked to imagine “your house of worship targeted by vandalism or arson,” although Christians are all too familiar with this kind of persecution at the hands of Muslims. Muslims may sometimes be the victims of “rude glances,” but the main victim of “house of worship” attacks are Christians.
Third. Bishops should consider the possibility that they are being conned. Is our society really threatened by a wave of Islamophobia or is it simply a hoax designed to distract us from the possibility that Islamic ideology not Islamophobia poses the greater threat to civilization.
Some Fears Are Perfectly Rational
As you probably know, the word “Islamophobia” means an irrational fear of Islam. But the evidence suggests that, in many cases, fear of Islam is thoroughly rational. If Muslims have burned 20,000 Churches in Nigeria, is it irrational for Nigerian Christians to fear the doctrine that motivates them? If Muslim rape gangs in England have raped and prostituted tens of thousands of school-age girls, is it irrational for English parents to fear for their daughter’s safety, especially when Islamic law permits the rape of infidel women in non-Muslim territories?
It’s quite true that a lot of people in many parts of the world are afraid of Islam and Islamic teachings, but that’s because those teachings often encourage violence toward non-Muslims. Muslims themselves, not a phobic mindset are the cause of that fear.
As evidenced by their publication of A Guide for U.S. Catholics on Anti-Muslim Bigotry, the American bishops do not have any fear of Islam. But that’s not because they are wiser than the rest of us. It’s because they are more closed minded. Their fault is not that they harbor irrational fears, but that they have no rational ones.
William Kilpatrick is the author of Christianity, Islam, and Atheism: The Struggle for the Soul of the West (Ignatius Press), and a new book, What Catholics Need to Know about Islam (Crisis Publications). His articles have appeared in Crisis, Catholic World Report, The National Catholic Register, First Things, FrontPage and other publications.
