Don’t feel bad Raelene, other bullies are so much worse

Our very own Raelene Castle is determined to make New Zealand and Rugby Australia proud. She has Israel Folau’s head on a platter, and whilst she’s cross at him for making her very uncomfortable, the upside is that she sees herself as fighting religious intolerance, which has to be good for sport and her career.

Castle has this ass-backwards. She is not a hero, she’s a totally misguided do-gooder better known as a bully. When she went after Folau, she inadvertently joined an international movement which is trying to stomp out Christianity. But don’t feel too bad Raelene, you are in appalling company, but you’re not as bad as some.

Israel Folau is fortunate to just lose just his job when others are literally losing their heads. According to a report commissioned by the British Foreign Secretary, Jonathon Hunt, Christians are being imprisoned, tortured, killed and forced to flee their traditional homelands. Quote.

“The inconvenient truth,” the report finds, is “that the overwhelming majority (80%) of persecuted religious believers are Christians”. 

It also uncovered “shocking” evidence that the persecution is worse today than ever with widespread discrimination across south-east Asia, sub-Saharan Africa and in east Asia – often driven by state authoritarianism and intolerance of religious diversity.” End of quote.

Breitbart

Mainstream media believes persecution occurs because we refuse to follow their “religious tolerance and diversity” narrative. But they too have it ass-backwards when they expect us to keep quiet on controversial issues, because not discussing a problem does not make the problem go away.

Organisations like Open Doors and Breitbart have banged on about Christian genocide for years, but it took this state funded report to grab media attention. The Guardian and the BBC were first to dip their toes into chilly waters. Quote.

The interim report said the main impact of “genocidal acts against Christians is exodus” and that Christianity faced being “wiped out” from parts of the Middle East.

It warned the religion “is at risk of disappearing” in some parts of the world, pointing to figures which claimed Christians in Palestine represent less than 1.5% of the population, while in Iraq they had fallen from 1.5 million before 2003 to less than 120,000.

“Evidence shows not only the geographic spread of anti-Christian persecution, but also its increasing severity,” the Bishop wrote.

In some regions, the level and nature of persecution is arguably coming close to meeting the international definition of genocide, according to that adopted by the UN.

Mr Hunt said he felt that “political correctness” had played a part in the issue not being confronted.

Mr Hunt, who is on a week-long tour of Africa, said he thought governments had been “asleep” over the persecution of Christians but that this report and the attacks in Sri Lanka had “woken everyone up with an enormous shock”. End of quote.

BBC

Governments are not asleep – they simply don’t want Christianity, so turn a blind eye. They don’t care.

Neither do the media, who won’t report on anything outside their preordained narrative, thinking Christianity belongs in the bad old days of colonialism. Quote.

The report says: “The rise of hate speech against Christians in state media and by religious leaders, especially in countries like Iran and Saudi Arabia, has compromised the safety of Christians and created social intolerance.”

He added: “I think there is a misplaced worry that it is somehow colonialist to talk about a religion that was associated with colonial powers rather than the countries that we marched into as colonisers.”

The report identifies three drivers of persecution:

– political failure creating a fertile ground for religious extremism;

– a turn to religious conservatism in countries such as Algeria and Turkey; and

– institutional weaknesses around justice, the rule of law and policing, leaving the system open to exploitation by extremists.

In findings that may pose difficulties for the UK as it seeks to build relations across the Middle East, the report states: “In some cases the state, extremist groups, families and communities participate collectively in persecution and discriminatory behaviour.

In countries such as Iran, Algeria and Qatar, the state is the main actor, where as in Syria, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Libya and Egypt both state and non-state actors, especially religious extremist groups, are implicated.” End of quote.

The Guardian

In other words, persecution is motivated by a political or religious powerbase that is fearful of losing control. The bigger the threat, the more likely the persecution.

The worst thing we can do is exactly what the media are telling us to do, which is to stay silent.

It’s not hate speech that does the damage, it is unchecked bullying that escalates to violence. Staying silent about bullying gives tacit approval to further bullying and possibly violence.