The 17th anniversary of September 11, 2001 is upon us and the Young Americans for Freedom (YAF) at Ripon College had been planning a 9/11 project.

Evidently, the school’s “Bias Protocol Board” is not too enthused over it.

YAF’s “9/11: Never Forget Project,” which began 15 years ago, consists of 2,977 flags representing each life that was extinguished on that day of infamy, as well as a poster featuring multiple images and photographs of the Islamic terrorists who murdered them.

According to YAF, its members were informed that the project, particularly the poster, is objectionable because it “relentlessly” targets “one religious organization, one religious group, one religious identity [.]” As such, it gives rise to an environment within which “students from a Muslim background would feel singled out and/or harassed.”

A spokesperson from Ripon said that school officials merely offered student representatives of YAF “suggestions as to how to have a discussion about 9/11 this year with our entire campus and community” (emphasis mine).

Presumably, YAF’s project as such is insufficiently inclusive.

Of course, the idea that there is something “Islamophobic” about remembering 9/11, or about doing so with explicit reference to the Islamic terrorists who were responsible for it, has been circulating for quite some time.   Three years ago, for example, The Daily Beasthardly a conservative or right-wing publication—confirmed that students at the University of Minnesota “killed a proposed moment of silence for 9/11 victims due to concerns…that Muslim students would be offended.”  To its credit, the author of the Beast essay recognizes these “concerns” as “insulting” and “childish.”

Notice, in the American and European worlds of the 21st century, non-Muslims who, despite repeated assurances via words and deeds that they harbor no ill-will toward Muslims generally, are nevertheless deemed guilty of “Islamophobia” for daring to notice the reality that the Muslims who they’ve generously allowed into their lands are disproportionately represented among the terrorists that seek to kill them.

To repeat, in decrying “Islamophobia,” the Western media is virtually always decrying nothing more or less than the fact that Westerners, especially Americans, have chosen to, well, never forget.

However, while “Islamophobia” springs effortlessly and regularly from the lips of Western commentators, journalists, and activists, the term “Christophobia” is never uttered—even though Christians around the world are made to suffer real persecution for their faith.

Moreover—and this no doubt accounts in part for why the self-styled enemies of “Islamophobia” aren’t interested in commenting on the persecution of Christians—most (but not all) of the most egregious oppressors of Christians are…Muslims.

Take, for example, Pakistan.  Last month, a group of Christian men, women, and children were set upon and beaten by a mob of Muslims. The Christians were attempting to protect their church property from being stolen in the town of Kasur, a city near Lahore.  Bashir Masih, one of the victims, gave his account to International Christian Concern (ICC) that the attackers numbered “over 50 Muslim men” who were “led by Mukhtar Ahmad, a local Muslim” and “a local landlord” with whom the “local Christians” have had a dispute over property “for years.”

Even though a “lower court” had issued a “stay-order” for the property “for both parties,” Ahmad’s “Muslim family wanted to grab the church property using their social and religious pressure.”

St. Mathew’s Catholic Church serves approximately 40 families.  The local Christians built it with their own money.

Masih explained that when Ahmad “tried to cultivate a piece of land with a tractor that belongs to the church,” the Christians urged him “not to violate court orders.” He not only ignored them; Ahmad made “derogatory remarks,” saying that it is “nonsense” to “build a church.”

Almost immediately, Ahmad’s “armed companions attacked the Christian men, women, and children with arms and sticks.”

Two people, an 18 year-old woman and a ten year-old boy, were “severely injured during the attack,” according to ICC.

The woman, Anand Masih, required eight stitches in her lips.  The boy, Sagar Masih, had his left arm broken.

ICC found out by speaking with community leaders that while the police were aware of what had occurred, police officials ordered the Christian victims to “keep quiet and avoid mentioning it as a religious issue.”

Shamoun Qaiser, a former legislator, shared her thoughts with ICC:

“The government officials think that religious freedom means celebrating Christmas and Easter eves only, however it’s much more than going to churches and celebrating events.”

The problem is that over the last so many decades, “our social fabric has been torn in such a way that the space for religious minorities has been reduced.” Qaiser notes that “kids in schools face discrimination on the basis of religion” and church property, including cemeteries that have been built on that property, is “often grabbed with impunity.”

Qaiser adds that these attacks on “poor and downtrodden segments of the society should be condemned”—but are not.

This most recent attack fits a pattern of anti-Christian oppression in Pakistan stretching back quite some time.  During just this year alone, ICC has documented numerous instances of anti-Christian hostility.  Some of these instances include allegations of “blasphemy,” “kidnappings, rape, forced conversions to Islam, and religiously-motivated murders.”

Yet the left in America is more concerned about Muslims in the United States feeling discomfort when, every September 11, the country recalls the most horrific attack that its sons and daughters have ever experienced.

 

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