By Yvette Harding –
Hundreds of churches have been burned down, vandalized or graffitied in France and other Western European nations, but the alarming trend has been largely ignored by police, European governments and traditional media.
“If they were mosques (being burned down), there would be outrage,” observes Mahyar Tousi, who runs a conservative news channel on YouTube. “The political establishment would launch an investigation. There would be media coverage 24/7. The liberal governments of Western Europe would come out to say, ‘It’s the rise of Islamophobia.’
“But when it’s the other way around (attacks on churches), not only do they not talk about it in media reporting much… But nobody is seeking any sort of investigation. Why is this happening? We know that a lot of the churches in France were attacked because of the rise of Islamism.”
Why would Islamists damage churches? Raymond Ibrahim’s book Sword and Scimitar documents a 1,400 year-old tendency to destroy, desecrate, pillage, rape and enslave by the expansionist, militarist Muslims. Europeans have broken from their religious past; Islamists see the present as a continuation.
Similarly, Tom Holland, a non-Christian who was shocked to see the desecration of churches in lands from which ISIS had recently retreated, asked himself, What is it about the cross that is so offensive that extremists resort to unprintable barbarism?
As Muslim immigrants flood France, England and other Western European nations, they seem to get bolder and more audacious in their claims for take over. In an online video, British Bangladeshi Dilwar Hussain recently discussed options for a coup, whether by proselytization, jihad, a coup, or a combination thereof.
How can such a brazen public promotion of violence do anything but embolden Muslim fanatics to independent acts of putting down the religious “enemies” of Islam, Jews and Christians? (The Koran calls Jews and Christians enemies).
In France alone in 2020, there were 613 cases of hate crimes against Christianity, according to the European Parliament website.
According to Ellen Fantini, a consultant to religious freedom, the number of officially recorded anti-Christian incidents has risen 285% between 2008 and 2019.
“There is Christian persecution by Islamists in Europe today,” remarks journalist Rupert Shortt on The New Culture Forum video on YouTube. “We are witnessing two attacks per day on churches in France.
“You get knives being stuck through the throat of statues of the Virgin Mary,” Shortt adds. “You get a great deal of graffiti on the walls with slogans like ‘Submit to Allah or else’ or ‘Abandon your idolatry.’”
The Church of the Immaculate Conception was burned down on the night of Sept 2, 2024. The blaze lasted from around 4:00 a.m. to 7:15 a.m. when it was contained, leaving only a skeleton of a building.
The Greenisland church in Northern Ireland is another example of targeted arson against churches. This fire happened on Sept. 1, the day before the attack on the Church of the Immaculate Conception.
A significant amount of damage was dealt to the church that night, allegedly caused by three young boys aged 10 – 11. It has not yet been said why they did this, but it’s not currently being treated as a hate crime.
In another incident, the organ of the gothic Cathedral of St. Peter and St. Paul in Nantes, France was destroyed by fire. This organ had survived the French Revolution and World War Two bombings but not this attack.
The man who did this, Emmanuel Abayisebga, also was charged for allegedly killing a priest later in 2021. The homicide was not an isolated incident.
In 2016, a couple of 19-year-old immigrants who had pledged allegiance to ISIS stormed a church in Saint-Étienne-du-Rouvray, Normandy, northern France, wielding knives and wearing fake explosive belts. They slit the throat of 85-year-old priest Jacques Hamel, killing him, and critically wounded another 86-year-old man. Then, one of the terrorists preached a sermon in Arabic.
Why are politicians on the left allowing widespread immigration of extremists? From British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s active courting of the Muslim vote, it would appear they want to add them to their voting block.
Secular liberals’ eyes glaze over when asked to look at the Koran, and they also don’t seem to be interested in history, excepting as viewed through the Marxists lens. Hence, “Queers for Palestine” makes sense in their eyes.
But are the liberal politicians worried about Islamists open ambition to take over? Again, history may suggest an answer. Communists have allied themselves with any band to gain power; once in power, they summarily liquidate their former allies.
Islamists have also liquidated allies who helped them get into power. Since treachery is commonplace to both Marxists and Islamists, who would prevail at the end?
So the media and the government (heavily dominated by leftist elites) are engaging in a grand-scale policy of “looking the other way” as Islamists carry out mayhem in what was once Christendom.
“If different restaurant branches of McDonalds were being targeted, everybody would be curious,” newscaster Tousi remarks. “They don’t even talk about it (burning churches) in media reporting. There doesn’t seem to be any appetite in the West right now to protect churches or basic cultural Christian values.”
The Christians who have suffered persecution in Islamic countries and the historians who don’t’ put a spin on the history of the rise of Islam are dismayed at the left’s coverup of Islamic atrocities.
“In all of human history there has never been a civilization that has so opened its doors to another civilization that is openly hostile to it,” Raymond Ibrahim told a Danish conference. “Your ancestors of Europe fought tooth and nail to prevent Islam from entering and conquering Europe. This was the Muslims’ actual goal. Now Western Europe is saying, None of that matters. It was all a misunderstanding. Come on in. But they haven’t changed that mentality.”
Ibrahim is a Christian. Someone may argue his view of history is jaundiced by his beliefs. This can’t be said of Areesha Babar however.
Areesha, a Pakistani human rights activist who fled to Germany as a refugee, is also dismayed. She called in to Candid with Lubna’s livestream on YouTube to volunteer information that could put her life in jeopardy. She’s currently in a refugee camp in Germany.
“The majority of the refugees here are Muslim and they have some sort of hate. The men from Pakistan try to harass you. If you’re not willing to integrate, if you’re not willing to integrate, why are you moving here? They look at Germans and laugh and say ‘These are kafur (a derogatory term for unbelievers). A lot of them think, eventually the population will rise and take over.”
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About this writer: Yvette Harding studies at the Lighthouse Christian Academy near Century City, CA.
