Screaming “With our blood and soul, we will defend you, Islam,” jihadists stormed the Virgin Mary Church in northwest Cairo last weekend. They torched the Coptic Christian house of worship, burned the nearby homes of two Copt families to the ground, attacked a residential complex, killed a dozen people, and wounded more than 200: just another day in this spontaneous democratic uprising by Muslim hearts yearning for freedom.
In the delusional vocabulary of the “Arab Spring,” this particular episode is known as a sectarian “clash.” That was the Washington Post’s take. Its headline reads “12 dead in Egypt as Christians and Muslims clash” — in the same way, one supposes, that a mugger’s fist can be said to “clash” with his victim’s face. The story goes on, in nauseating “cycle of violence” style, to describe “clashes between Muslims and Coptic Christians” that “left” 12 dead, dozens more wounded, “and a church charred” — as if it were not crystal clear who were the clashers and who were the clashees, as if the church were somehow combusted into a flaming heap without some readily identifiable actors having done the charring.
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The thugs in question were Egyptian Muslims. Were they representative of all Egyptian Muslims? No, but it would be more accurate to portray them as such than to suggest, as the Pollyanna narrative holds, that Egypt (and Tunisia, and Yemen, and Syria, and Lebanon, and Algeria, and …) is teeming with legions of Gamal al-Madisons.
This is the Egypt where the toppling of the pro-American, pro-peace Mubarak regime was celebrated by the rape of CBS correspondent Lara Logan amid the familiar chants of “Allahu Akbar!” The same Egypt where, just a few weeks ago, Islamist factions wiped out the proponents of democracy by a whopping 78–22 margin in a referendum on the formation of a new government. The result ensures a Muslim Brotherhood hammerlock on the new parliament, and perhaps even the presidency — a Brotherhood leader having announced this week that he will run against the popular but weak Amr Mousa.
The provocation that stirred Muslims this time, as if there had to be one, involved a rumor that Copts are preventing a Christian woman from converting to Islam — and who wouldn’t grab the blowtorch over that? The rumor is probably not true, but what difference does that make? A Christian woman about whom a similar claim was made a couple of years ago ultimately denied that she had ever attempted to become a Muslim. That didn’t stop enraged Muslims — rage being the default condition — from killing 51 people in a similar arson attack on a Syriac Catholic church in post-Saddam, “Made in the U.S.A.” Baghdad.
Meanwhile, back in Egypt, the Copts have been dealing with a rash of “clashes” ever since the early breakout of spring. The Wall Street Journalprovides the rundown: a church in Alexandria bombed on New Year’s Eve, killing 23; a Cairo church attacked by angry mobs in March; and last month, rioters in Qena demanding the ouster of the regime-appointed governor because he is a Christian and, under sharia standards, thus unfit to govern in a Muslim land.
Straining to preserve the storyline of a vibrant democracy movement that unites Egyptians across sectarian lines, the Post dispatch was quick to add that the “unrest” in Cairo broke out amid “demonstrations attended by Copts and Muslims to show unity and demand better protection from the government.” Of course, these demonstrations got steamrolled. Why? Because the “Arab Spring” is not the Arab Spring. It is the Islamist ascendancy. Like good democracy fetishists, though, the media is seeing the Egypt it wants to see. To the contrary, in the real Egypt, Islamist ideology is the mainstream, coursing from the beating heart of Al-Azhar University through every part of the country. Without the much-derided Mubarak around to clamp down on it, Islamists have Copts and secularists paralyzed by their habitual “unrest” and “clashes.”
The Jews and Nazis also clashed during Kristallnacht in November, 1938. 91 Jews died during that clash while countless shops were destroyed. This was done by ultra-conservative Nazis, not by the more moderate wing of the Nazi party. Different thugs, same outcome.
As you say Andy, "The 'Arab Spring' is not the Arab Spring. It is the Islamist Ascendancy."
The MSM and the Obama Administration need to finally open their eyes to this truth.
All one has to do is see the reality of events in Muslim countries where Christians and Jews are being continuously persecuted. Just one example, Christians are emptying their churches and fleeing from North Sudan
Fortunately the American public is "having their clash with reality" and are climbing on board with you in ever increasing numbers.
Keep telling it like it is.
The liberal media et al are in hyper mode to protect the Obama administration’s assertion that what is happening in the Middle East is "democracy in action" and that his Cairo speech was the seed that sparked this "Arab Spring." What we are in fact witnessing in that region is radical Islamist ascendency and yes, it may well be attributed to Obama's speech to say nothing of his tepid, milquetoast Middle East foreign policy.
There are three key areas that will serve as the tipping point, Yemen, Libya and Syria. Yemen and Libya are well on their way to being taken over by radical Islamist ideology. Bashar al Assad in Syria is brutalizing his citizens to ensure that an actual desire for a more democratic government is forever destroyed even as Iran is fomenting sectarian revolt in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain. If this is “springtime,” it is going to be one long hot summer indeed.
Will some supposedly conservative pundits finally admit that they were terribly wrong about "The Arab Spring," as they have been about so much else in the world?
Its time for publications such as National Review to stop giving any credibility to Neocons. Nation-building schemes and accommodation with Islam is helping to destroy the West.
The news media has never been invested in reporting the truth about Muslim "rage" in the Middle East. How they are reporting Egyptian violence against Christians is how they've been reporting Palestinian violence against Israel for years. Anyone who follows the conflict with open eyes and an honest heart knows that.
Here's the lesson in my view: what happens in Israel doesn't stay in Israel. The same violence we've insisted on ignoring and forcing Israel to deal with is spreading. Perhaps coming to a town near you if we don't quit playing dumb.
I did notice the weasal words in the main stream coverage of the "clash" between Christians and Muslims. Of the burned buildings, dead and injured, how many were Muslim? I would bet it was none, but to report that fact would reveal this to be an act of anti-Christian bigotry, and that can't be if democracy is rising in Egypt. So to preseve the liberal narrative, the truth must be sacrificed.
My conclusion is that truth is the first victim, not only of war, but also of the liberal agenda.
The only other upheaval of this magnitude in my lifetime was the breakaway of the Warsaw Pact, started in Poland.
At one mass rally, Solidarity started reciting our Declaration of Independence. It was easy to see the direction that revolution would take.
For this Arab Spring, my mind drifts to the public assault of Lara Logan. Declaration of Independence vs. Female Assault. It doesn't take a genius to see where the Middle East is going.
It's the ignorance of non-recognition. To ignore reality is to ignore truth. That area of the world has constantly shifted over hundreds and thousands of years. History is irrelevent; and the future is irrelevent. They are locked in on the present with no long-term view of current actions.
The folk have loyalties to family, tribes or local people, nation, and Islam. There's no room for utopian outsiders. These outsides make speeches, write papers and books, and convene their group-think communes. They also self-congratulate when something arises that can be attributed to their thoughts or words. It helps perpetrate that they can devine the reason and outcome. Funny in they don't realize those strings on their fingers are attached to nothing but their colleagues.
I ask them, when will they walk the streets of these countries they deign to state are becoming democratic. There will always be conflicts and/or strife. The question is will they recognize it, or sweep it under the rug when it doesn't fit their world-view. Europeans see it, if it will not trickle up, they may have to worry about themselves rather than people thousands of miles away.
I support the European Awakening. I support nationalism. I support resisting the ivory tower puppeteers...I want salt with my transfat fries. They are never satisfied, nor are they every out of 'ideas'.
I agree the situation is terrible all around. I would, however, say that I don't see another option. As in Gaza, I think that we need to let the Islamists show what they offer the people of these countries. How is it working for the people of Iran? What about Gaza? In time, the people will realize what kind of life these fanatics are offering and there will be other uprisings.
I don't say this without a heavy heart. Many will die in the meantime and there is no telling how long the Islamists will hold on. The U.S. and our allies must make sure that these nuts don't aquire WMDs...not an easy task as we can see with Iran.
Yes, the situation in Egypt is terrible all around. However, I don't see any other choice other than to let things play out. Islamist will most likely take over and we should not try to stop it. The people of Egypt must see what Islamists offer...repression. Iran and Gaza are instructive. The people of Iran are trying to throw off the yoke of this repression. It seems to me that, though it will cost may lives, Egypt, and perhaps most Arab countries are going to go through the hellish step of Islamic dictatorship before they realize that a non-sectarian government is what they need to thrive.
I say this with a heavy heart because there will be much pain and death before the arabs can hopefully emerge from their dark age.
The willfully blind have their meta-narratives. It's how the New York Time's Duranty reported on the Soviet Union in the 1930s and a comparable useful idiot of the Times reported on Castro in the 1950s. They see what they want to see, and don't bother them with truth or reality.
@panic: They can't bother the Jews because they are nowhere to be found in Egypt. Nasser saw to that.
I see comments about the Administration needs to wake up to the Islmamist ascendacy, falsely known as some "democracy" movement.
The Administration knows what it is doing. One more support of anti-Americanism inherent in the Dem/Left/Lib/Progressives.
It was Hillary Clinton's State Department that helped train the useful idiots to use social media to unravel Egypt's pro-American leader. It was Obama who pushed Mubarak over the edge. Hussein Obama clearly hates American Allies, and Western/Judeo-Christian values.
It is all by design to weaken this great nation. It is so typical of the Left and Islam to repress free thinking people.
Obama, Hillary, the State Depart., and Islam...working hand-in-hand for ...you? ..the American people? I think not.
Raise your hand if your tired of hearing about the zillion ways "Muslims can be Provoked" - If Islam wants to generate a bunch of psycho rage-a-holics tolerating no one while screaming the rest of the world is intolerant, keep them out of here.
There were no 'ultra conservatives' in Nazi Germany! The Communists and the Nazis were leftist brothers. Nazi's were 'nationalist' and the communists were 'internationalists'. Both were leftists and socialists. Only someone schooled by members of the NEA would be ignorant enough to suggest that the philosophy of the Socialists and Communists were in opposition.
The Islamist Aryan decided that Persia was an inadequate descriptor for a Aryan Nation, so while in cooperation with the Third Reich they renamed the country Iran.
If you are not muslin, you need to be prepared to defend yourself against Islam. Only a matter of time until they begin destroying non muslin outside the Arab world...
Andrew McCarthy is an American treasure. As US Attorney, Southern District of NY, AMc prosecuted the 1st World Trade Center Islamic bombers and has vast knowledge of this dangerous enemy.
I very much appreciate AMc continuing to alert our fellow Citizens to this terrible reality!
