Rich Lowry: The age of the anti-Christian pogrom

  • By Rich Lowry
  • Wednesday, April 8, 2015 6:28pm
  • Opinion

We live in the era of the anti-Christian pogrom. The slaughter at Garissa University College in Kenya that killed nearly 150 people last week was the latest example of the bloodlust.

Usually, such mass-casualty attacks are indiscriminate, but the killers of the Somali-based al-Shabab terror group sought to be exacting during their all-day assault on the largely Christian university.

A student told The Associated Press, “If you were a Christian, you were shot on the spot.”

Another who escaped through a window said, “The attackers were just in the next room, I heard them ask people whether they were Christian or Muslim, then I heard gunshots and screams.”

One witness described his best friend begging for his life, pretending to be a Muslim; when he couldn’t recite a Muslim prayer, he was shot to death.

Another recalls seeing three girls praying for help: “The mistake they made was to say, ‘Jesus, please save us,’ because that is when they were immediately shot.”

Al-Shabab condemned the university, just 90 miles from Kenya’s porous border with Somalia, as being part of an alleged plan to spread Christianity and infidelity. An al-Shabab spokesman told Reuters that the group spared Muslims (although, according to reports, the killers fired randomly at times).

The administration’s reaction to this atrocity carried out by Islamic zealots for avowedly religious reasons was typically shorn of any specific reference to what had happened, or why. The administration reverted to its core strength of tightly scripted euphemism.

In his statement, President Barack Obama said that “innocent men and women were brazenly and brutally massacred.” True enough, but he couldn’t bring himself to say who had been shot by whom. He vowed to stand with the Kenyan government and people “in their efforts to bring communities together,” the closest he dared step to the unmistakable religious dimension of the murders.

Secretary of State John Kerry urged steadfastness in the fight against “violent extremism,” the administration’s term of art for Muslim extremism.

President Obama can’t restrain his anger over Bibi Netanyahu saying that Arab voters are turning out in droves prior to the Israeli election, but if coldblooded killers gun down Christians for their faith, he turns to careful verbal gymnastics.

As a matter of sheer intellectual honesty, we should be forthright about the religious hatred that motivates attacks on Christians. One of the Garissa gunmen was a law-school graduate and son of a Kenyan government official, who presumably wasn’t driven into the arms of al-Shabab by blighted economic prospects.

If the administration worries about playing into the Islamist narrative of the Western “crusaders,” the 11th century wants its foreign policy back. In country after country, Christian communities are embattled and vulnerable, and obviously in no condition to crusade for anything. They don’t want to take back Jerusalem; they want to survive.

At Garissa, it was the typical depressing story of insufficient protection from the government, either out of indifference or incompetence or both. Warnings of a coming attack on a university had been ignored. Students had protested the lack of security back in November, and did get a fence, although not the protection they felt they needed. An elite police unit didn’t respond to the attack on the university until hours after it had begun.

The least we can do is to speak up forcefully about the plight of threatened Christians and urge governments to do more to protect them. It is one of the scandals of our time that the president of Egypt has been a more courageous voice on this than the president of the United States.

There will be more Garissa-like attacks to come, demonstrating with heartbreaking starkness the disparity in martyrdom between radical Islam and Christianity. The “martyrs” of militant Islam strap on suicide vests and commit hellish acts of mass murder; Christianity’s martyrs die as innocents, often with a prayer on their lips.

Rich Lowry can be reached via e-mail: comments.lowry@nationalreview.com.

More in Opinion

A state plow truck clears snow from the Kenai Spur Highway on Wednesday, Nov. 2, 2022, in Kenai, Alaska. (Jake Dye/Peninsula Clarion)
Opinion: Use of the brine shows disregard for our community

It is very frustrating that the salt brine is used on the Kenai Peninsula often when it is not needed

Therese Lewandowski. (Photo provided)
Point of View: Inflation, hmmm

Before it’s too late and our history gets taken away from us, everyone should start studying it

A cherished "jolly Santa head" ornament from the Baisden Christmas tree. (Photo provided)
Opinion: Reflections of holidays past

Our family tradition has been to put up our Christmas tree post-Thanksgiving giving a clear separation of the holidays

Screenshot. (https://dps.alaska.gov/ast/vpso/home)
Opinion: Strengthening Alaska’s public safety: Recent growth in the VPSO program

The number of VPSOs working in our remote communities has grown to 79

Soldotna City Council member Linda Farnsworth-Hutchings participates in the Peninsula Clarion and KDLL candidate forum series, Thursday, Sept. 5, 2024, at the Soldotna Public Library in Soldotna, Alaska. (Photo by Erin Thompson/Peninsula Clarion)
Opinion: I’m a Soldotna Republican and will vote No on 2

Open primaries and ranked choice voting offer a way to put power back into the hands of voters, where it belongs

Nick Begich III campaign materials sit on tables ahead of a May 16, 2022, GOP debate held in Juneau. (Peter Segall / Juneau Empire file photo)
Opinion: North to a Brighter Future

The policies championed by the Biden/Harris Administration and their allies in Congress have made it harder for us to live the Alaskan way of life

Shrubs grow outside of the Kenai Courthouse on Monday, July 3, 2023, in Kenai, Alaska. (Ashlyn O’Hara/Peninsula Clarion)
Opinion: Vote yes to retain Judge Zeman and all judges on your ballot

Alaska’s state judges should never be chosen or rejected based on partisan political agendas

A vintage Underwood typewriter sits on a table on Tuesday, Feb. 22, 2022, at the Homer News in Homer, Alaska. (Photo by Michael Armstrong/Homer News)
Point of View: District 6 needs to return to representation before Vance

Since Vance’s election she has closely aligned herself with the far-right representatives from Mat-Su and Gov. Mike Dunleavy

The Anchor River flows in the Anchor Point State Recreation Area on Saturday, Aug. 5, 2023, in Anchor Point, Alaska. (Delcenia Cosman/Homer News)
Opinion: Help ensure Alaskans have rights to use, enjoy and care for rivers

It is discouraging to see the Department of Natural Resources seemingly on track to erode the public’s ability to protect vital water interests.

A sign directing voters to the Alaska Division of Elections polling place is seen in Kenai, Alaska, Monday, Oct. 21, 2024. (Photo by Erin Thompson/Peninsula Clarion)
Vote no on Ballot Measure 2

A yes vote would return Alaska to party controlled closed primaries and general elections in which the candidate need not win an outright majority to be elected.

Derrick Green (Courtesy photo)
Opinion: Ballot Measure 1 will help businesses and communities thrive

It would not be good for the health and safety of my staff, my customers, or my family if workers are too worried about missing pay to stay home when they are sick.