Sorry to post about bad news so close to Christmas. Tomorrow I promise a Sissel video.
Via my Facebook friend Josh Griffing, this report from a sympathetic Jew at Big Peace, on the plight of Christians in Egypt:
Gordon College is a Christian school between Salem and Rockport. A few weeks ago I spoke there at a commemoration of Kristallnacht, Germany’s night of broken glass, the first mass assault on Europe’s Jews and the harbinger of the Shoah. I told the Christian audience how good it was to feel Christian support for Jews in these times, and that even some of the most stubborn of my people were now appreciating Evangelical support for Israel. I also said that we felt this blessed support came from a spirit of Christian altruism. But given the news from the Middle East, concern for others is surely not the only reason Christians need to support Israel.
I asked how many in the audience of 250 knew of Anne Frank. Almost every hand shot up. Then I asked how many had heard of Ayman Labib. I got a mass blank stare. Ayman was a 17-year-old Egyptian Christian who just weeks ago was beaten to death by his Muslim classmates as teachers watched because he refused their demand to remove his cross necklace.
I asked how many knew about the Maspero massacre, which had left at least 24 Copts dead and 270 injured. And whether they knew that since January, there had been more than 70 attacks on Christian churches or institutions in Egypt.
While tonight you commemorate a Jewish pogrom, I told them, Christianity has just suffered its own “Kristallnacht” … and I have yet to see much of a Christian response.
If I were a utilitarian, I’d recommend that the Christians of the Middle East start demanding their own “homeland.” Unfortunately, the approved method of promoting such a policy, in our time, is suicide bombing, which is forbidden to Christians.
The blood of martyrs is the seed of the church, it’s true. But it would be pretty cold-blooded to look on complacently while our brethren are slaughtered, insulated by a conviction that “it can’t happen here.”
It’s also happening in Africa. Europe is next. Eventually, America will be in the cross-hairs, if nothing is done.
Is Sgt. Whatisname available? To quote Kipling…
Said England unto Pharaoh, “I must make a man of you,
That will stand upon his feet and play the game;
That will Maxim his oppressor as a Christian ought to do,”
And she sent old Pharaoh Sergeant Whatisname.
It was not a Duke nor Earl, nor yet a Viscount —
It was not a big brass General that came;
But a man in khaki kit who could handle men a bit,
With his bedding labelled Sergeant Whatisname.
Said England unto Pharaoh, “Though at present singing small,
You shall hum a proper tune before it ends,”
And she introduced old Pharaoh to the Sergeant once for all,
And left ’em in the desert making friends.
It was not a Crystal Palace nor Cathedral;
It was not a public-house of common fame;
But a piece of red-hot sand, with a palm on either hand,
And a little hut for Sergeant Whatisname.
Said England unto Pharaoh, “You ‘ve had miracles before,
When Aaron struck your rivers into blood;
But if you watch the Sergeant he can show vou something more. ‘
He’s a charm for making riflemen from mud.”
It was neither Hindustani, French, nor Coptics;
It was odds and ends and leavings of the same,
Translated by a stick (which is really half the trick),
And Pharaoh harked to Sergeant Whatisname.
(There were years that no one talked of; there were times of horrid doubt —
There was faith and hope and whacking and despair —
While the Sergeant gave the Cautions and he combed old Pharaoh out,
And England didn’t seem to know nor care.
That is England’s awful way o’ doing business —
She would serve her God (or Gordon) just the same —
For she thinks her Empire still is the Strand and Hol born Hill,
And she didn’t think of Sergeant Whatisname.)
Said England to the Sergeant, “You can let my people go!”
(England used ’em cheap and nasty from the start),
And they entered ’em in battle on a most astonished foe —
But the Sergeant he had hardened Pharaoh’s heart
Which was broke, along of all the plagues of Egypt,
Three thousand years before the Sergeant came
And he mended it again in a little more than ten,
Till Pharaoh fought like Sergeant Whatisname.
It was wicked bad campaigning (cheap and nasty from the first),
There was heat and dust and coolie-work and sun,
There were vipers; flies, and sandstorms, there was cholera and thirst,
But Pharaoh done the best he ever done.
Down the desert, down the railway, down the river,
Like Israelites From bondage so he came,
‘Tween the clouds o’ dust and fire to the land of his desire,
And his Moses, it was Sergeant Whatisname!
We are eating dirt in handfuls for to save our daily bread,
Which we have to buy from those that hate us most,
And we must not raise the money where the Sergeant raised the dead,
And it’s wrong and bad and dangerous to boast.
But he did it on the cheap and on the quiet,
And he’s not allowed to forward any claim —
Though he drilled a black man white, though he made a mummy fight,
He will still continue Sergeant Whatisname —
Private, Corporal, Colour-Sergeant, and Instructor —
But the everlasting miracle’s the same!
I asked people on Baen’s Bar who are likely to know, and they said Christian Arabs are as bad at being soldiers as Muslim Arabs. It’s a sucky situation and I don’t see it getting better.