Category Archives: Islamist Winter

The Crusades Rebound

Introduction

Yesterday’s warning from President Assad of Syria that the West will pay a heavy price for supporting al-Qaida militants in Syria’s civil war and that those militants will turn against their backers and strike ‘in the heart of Europe and the United States’, should be heeded. After two years of bloody war, he should know about terrorism. President Assad has given a warning to the West. It is the same warning as that which is given in the old proverb: ‘Those who sow the wind shall reap the whirlwind’. Will the West take heed?

Bolshevism

In Syria the West is repeating the very same mistake that it made in Russia in 1917. Then, having decided that the Tsarist system was not in its interests, it chose to back a group of aristocratic Russophobic revolutionaries who dreamed of setting up a Western-style Constitutional or Republican ‘democratic’ system in Russia. These feeble, uprooted and deluded dreamers were soon replaced by ruthless pragmatists who had no qualms of conscience about massacring all their enemies. The result was anti-Russian Marxist Bolshevism, the second most murderous Western ideology, after Naziism, known to human history. Not only did this ideology kill tens of millions over three generations inside the new Soviet Union, it also gave the West a new enemy and Cold War.

In its habitual mixture of naivety born of ignorance and arrogance born of self-absorption, the West created its own enemy. Thus, its ideology of ‘one size fits all’, that the whole world must be Westernised despite the flagrant failures of the West, its literal and spiritual bankruptcy, brought the West a new enemy. If it had not meddled in Russia, it would never have had to face German Naziism or Soviet Communism. Thus, the anti-Russian Crusades of the 13th century Teutonic Knights rebounded, as East Prussia and the Reichstag fell to the Red Army in 1945. However, Soviet Communism could not survive three generations. The Soviet gerontocats who so foolishly invaded Afghanistan were confronted by a West that so foolishly trained and financed Islamist al-Qaida in Afghanistan.

Islamism

Just as the West undermined ‘nasty’ Tsarism in 1917 using ‘nice’ secularist Russian dupes, today it is undermining ‘nasty’ President Assad. It fails to see that President Assad is the lesser evil and that the ‘nice’ secularist Muslim dupes whom it backs have already been crushed by the new Bolsheviks, the fanatical Islamists, whom it has financed and armed. The Western Crusades in the Middle East are rebounding; the result is a Middle East which is being spiritually ‘cleansed’ of Christianity, in Iraq, Syria, Israel, Egypt, Libya and Tunisia. Moreover, further to the south of these countries along the African Christian/Muslim fault line, Christians in a whole series of countries, Nigeria, Mali, Sudan, Somalia, are also being spiritually ‘cleansed’ by Islamism in bitter persecution.

More than this, Western ignorance and arrogance have brought Islamism to its heart. Large parts of Western Europe now have Muslim populations of between 5% and 95%. Naively thinking that Muslims were just as secular as themselves, since 1945 greedy Western elites allowed them to settle in their own countries (naturally without consulting their peoples). Today, Marseilles is the largest Algerian city apart from Algiers, most boys born in parts of several large cities in England are called Mohammed, parts of Germany are being conquered by Turkey, Belgium is alarmed by the numbers of Belgian Muslims fighting as Islamist mercenaries in Syria, and the list of Western countries whose skylines are going to be dominated by mosques goes from Sweden to Italy and from Spain to Norway.

Conclusion

The West has stopped believing in its millennial semi-Christianity, in ‘Western’ Christianity. But as a result of the globalisation spread by the West, everything is global, including global terror and global Islamism. And so if the spiritual vacuum of the West, and we know that nature abhors a vacuum, is not filled by the real and full Christianity of Western roots, by Orthodoxy, it will be filled by Islam. Unfortunately, self-destruction is now at the top of the Western agenda, as even President Assad has pointed out….

The Patriarchate of Antioch is facing oblivion in its homeland

Most Orthodox Christians in Syria live in the westernmost parts of that country. It is from here that most of the Christians have been forced to flee for their lives, mainly to the Lebanon. Catholic sources now say that 65% of the natives of Aleppo, once the largest Christian city in Syria, have fled, that every single parish both in the city centre and in the suburbs of Homs, the third largest city in Syria, has been devastated, and that in Damascus itself most parishes have closed and the enthronement of Patriarch John took place in a half-empty Cathedral; it was necessary to hold another enthronement in Beirut. After the Golgotha of Iraq’s Christians, Syria has followed. The Patriarchate, forced out of Antioch (in Turkey), may now be forced out of Damascus in turn. Two news reports follow.

Syria: Muslim Militia Forces Christian Exodus

Posted GMT 3-2-2013 7:12:8
http://www.aina.org/news/20130302011208.htm

Syria’s 2,000-year-old Christian community is being devastated by the country’s civil war.
A Swedish journalist interviewed more than 100 Syrian Christian refugees in Turkey and
Lebanon. They say Muslim rebel militia are driving them out because of their faith.
One woman said her husband and son were shot in the head just because they were
Christians.

Syria’s population of 2 million Christians is the second largest in the Middle East after Egypt,
and now whole villages are disappearing when Islamist rebels arrive. Every week, hundreds of Syrian Christians arrive in Lebanon. A Lebanese Patriarch said it is a ‘great exodus taking place in silence.’

CBN Middle East Bureau Chief Chris Mitchell spoke with Lela Gilbert, co-author
of Persecuted: The Global Assault on Christians, about the persecution of Christians
in Syria and the Middle East.
Watch more of Mitchell’s interview with Gilbert.

Number of Syrians in Lebanon Reaches 920,000

http://www.aina.org/news/20130302011551.htm
Posted GMT 3-2-2013 7:15:51

According to Lebanese government sources, more than 920,000 Syrians (both migrant
workers and persons displaced from the war) are now in Lebanon. The security problems are
getting worse in many areas in Lebanon because many of these Syrians are armed. Western
diplomats in Lebanon have praised the Lebanese government for its cooperation and for not
closing the Lebanese-Syrian border, just as they have praised the Lebanese people for
hosting displaced Syrian families.

But some Western ambassadors have begun to warn Lebanese officials that the displaced
Syrians now constitute a ‘powder keg’, especially since Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s
opponents have started thinking of forming armed militias in Lebanon, risking a war between
them and the Lebanese. (There are precise figures about the armed Syrians, which show
they are all over Lebanon, including the capital.)

According to Western circles, the gravity of the issue is pressuring the Lebanese government
to keep a close eye on displaced Syrians in Lebanon. These Western circles told As-Safir
that the Syrian crisis could spread to Lebanon.

Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati is consistent with the Western officials he meets (most
recently, British Foreign Secretary William Hague when he visited Lebanon, and UN
Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon in Davos). He has given Western countries three options: to
close the border with Syria, which is impossible for practical and geographic reasons,
especially since 80% of the Lebanese border is shared with Syria; to transfer some of those
displaced to other countries or for Lebanon to be quickly given material aid as its
humanitarian burden grows.

Of course, the third option is preferred by Western countries and the UN, even though they
are very slow in providing the funds promised at the conference for displaced Syrians in
Kuwait.

Circles close to Mikati told As-Safir that ‘the disbursement of funds is very slow. Lebanon is
in immediate need of $370 million but all we have received so far are promises’. The two
countries that generally keep their promises of money are ‘Kuwait and the UAE, which are
giving large amounts of money for the displaced’….

By Marlene Khalifeh
AL Monitor
Translated from As-Safir (Lebanon).

Russia Unprepared for Flood of Christian Refugees from Western-sponsored Islamist Winter

» 02/05/2013 10:18
RUSSIA
Syrian and Coptic Christians fleeing to Moscow, but Russia lacks shelters

by Nina Achmatova

http://www.asianews.it/news-en/Syrian-and-Coptic-Christians-fleeing-to-Moscow,-but-Russia-lacks-shelters-27050.html

Human rights activists denounce inadequate facilities for the reception of immigrants and the bureaucratic obstacles.

A Copt tells AsiaNews of death threats of the Muslim Brotherhood for failing to convert to Islam.

Moscow (AsiaNews) – A flow of refugees from Syria and Egypt is pouring into Moscow to escape from wars and violence in their country of origin bringing to light the inadequacy of facilities for the reception of immigrants in Russia.

The complaint has been made by a veteran in migrant assistance, the president of the ‘Civic Assistance Committee’, Svetlana Gannushkina. In the past week a family of 10 Coptic Christians, including a child a few months old, presented themselves in their office. The family say they fled religious persecution from Islamist groups taking place in Marsa Matrouh, near the border with Libya. “They threatened us with death if we didn’t convert and make our women and girls wear a veil,” Reda, 26, who fled with his 19 year old pregnant wife told AsiaNews.

“After the revolution many activists of the Muslim Brotherhood came – added his brother Viktor, 30, – who put pressure on us Christians to convert. Our problems started already in late 2011, but are getting worse. ‘Last year, after an argument with the principal of the school who wanted to force my daughter to wear the hijab, we were told that the presence of Christians in the city was no longer welcome. ” “We sought shelter with a local priest – he concluded – but his church had already been burned once and so he did not want to further expose himself to attack.”

Now all 10 Egyptians, plus Iraqis and Sudanese, are forced to live in a room of 20 square meters, with only a few chairs and a table, because there is no temporary accommodation center for immigrants waiting to receive refugee status in the city.

“Everyone is waiting for an answer from the Federal Service for immigration – Gannushkina , who has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize several times told AsiaNews, – which must decide on their possible transfer to Ochyor, in Perm region, where there is one of only three reception centres for refugees in the entire country.”

The process, however, can last for weeks and the authorities have not thought of any temporary accommodation for these people, who do not have a place to live.”The problem is much worse for the Copts – said Gannushkina – because for them here, unlike Syrians, there is no large community or network of countrymen ready to open their homes.” “It is winter, and in these conditions they are likely to die of exposure – she added – so we are forced to accommodate
these people in our offices, but they are not adequate facilities.” The small child Cirillus, who arrived with his mother, father and sister also from Marsa Matrouh, is already sick and was visited by doctors from Doctors Without Borders.

Last year 700 people turned for help to ‘Civil Assistance’, including 80 Egyptian Copts. The new arrivals are in addition to about 30 Syrians who in January of this year already made a request to Moscow for refugee status. One hundred Syrians arrived in the last six months of 2012.

Reception centers for refugees fleeing persecution and war are provided in all countries that have signed the UN Convention on Refugees. In Russia – denounced the Gannushkina – formally, there are three centers, but in fact only one works, that of Ochyor for more than 80 people. “This integration does not exist and the sanitary conditions are very bad,” she added.

According to rumors circulating in the press and among NGOs, the Immigration Service is considering even closing it down. The other two centers are located one in the Tver Region and the other in the south of Rostov, but are not working at full capacity. “In a country as large as Russia three centers for immigrants is virtually nothing, if you think that Poland, which much smaller than us, has 11,” added Gannushkina, who has always declared that if she ever wins the Nobel she will allocate the prize money to building at least another refugee centre near Moscow.