Barney Zwartz, and time for another crusade as the West rediscovers its Christendom roots ...

(Above: friends, fellow citizens, it's time for another crusade, and not just against rock 'n roll, though that's a good place for any Christian to start. Quick, read up on David A. Noebel here, and see a startling list of his good book's ingredients here, before we in the west roll up our shirtsleeves or skirts and tackle the Muslim hordes).

Still catching up on my reading, and where better to start on a Sunday set aside for solemn reflection than with Barney Zwartz's highly esteemed blog, wherein he indulges in a pious piece about The hypocrisy of hatred ...

Yep, there's never a day that can't be set aside for a bit of Muslim bashing, though of course there are some important caveats and cautions. Like suggesting it's not a blanket criticism - perhaps more of a doona or a nice flannel sheet? And that it's actually not an actual criticism, it's more by way of a very long question, though it's always handy if the question contains in a yin yang way only one possible answer ...

And of course being a blog, it's important to note that it will inevitably superficial, which is why the pond will naturally respond in a way that's profoundly superficial.

Yep, that's the way to go about blogging, with a superficial blanket covering a tediously long self-serving, self-answering question ...

Barney is concerned with the way that Islam is discriminatory and mis-treats its minorities, and of course here at the pond, we have a special dislike for this kind of ratbaggery. But equally when you're a Christian, this kind of religious back-handing requires careful treading, especially as the Pentagon is right now embroiled in a 'don't ask don't tell' matter involving discrimination, and some scribblers are inclined to write bizarre stories about the role of women in churches, as with Erik Jensen's Macho boys' club 'cost Anglicans millions'.

Barney's toe hopping is a treat to watch, as he sidesteps the mote in the Christian eye:

It’s important to acknowledge that no ideology – religious or secular – has an unstained record. Of course it is centuries since the Western world saw itself as “Christendom”, with a primarily religious identity, but since then we have had sectarian cruelties plus those inflicted by various nationalisms, fascism and communism. History proves that any people are capable of cruelty.

Oh it's impossible not to love it, to delight in it and to relish it. It's centuries since the Western world saw itself as Christendom ... but phew we don't have to worry about the Crusades or sundry wars and invasions in the centuries since ... I mean that's just folks doing folksy things ...

And thank the lord that means the Western world now excludes the United States of America ... unless you can imagine the day an atheist gets the gig as President ...

And isn't it cheering to learn that since Christendom has faded we've had all kinds of sectarian cruelties ... because you see, in the end, it's all the fault of the secularists and the atheists with their own brand of sectarian cruelties ... I mean Hitler might have been a vegetarian and pretended an interest in god, but we all know he was just a bloody atheist ...

Hang on a second, a superficial thought just struck me. Perhaps the Islamics learnt a thing or two from all those god loving and fearing countries who not so long ago managed to bung on the second world war, which just happened to come at the peak of a rampant bout of colonialism, which saw the various Christian powers swanning about in their Sunday best doing their best to create muddied, murky waters in all kinds of Muslim countries (and if you fan out from the British making a mess of the middle East to the British making a mess of Pakistan to the sundry other messes in Indonesia and Malaysia and ... why even the Kiwis managed to make a mess of Samoa in their delusional colonial power phase ...)

Never mind, Barners offers up the cheerful insight that people are ... well, they're just people ... as opposed to Islamics, who see themselves as a kind of beehive:

Another reason is anger at the plight of many Muslims in non-Muslim countries. Muslims see themselves (at least theoretically) as a single, unified group (the ummah), and think Christians feel the same. So attacking local Christians is one way of teaching America a lesson.

Uh huh. Tremendous stuff. Muslims see themselves as a unified group, at least theoretically. Now where was I reading that stuff - all pure theory of course - about sundry sects. There's those ratbag Wahhabists, settled in Saudi Arabia and nurturing the mad bombers that took down the twin towers, which makes it perfectly sensible for the United States to avoid taking the Saudis to task, and instead taking on Iraq ... you know, as a positive act of discrimination in a decidedly charitable and Christian way (and haven't they been tremendously Christian in the good work and good deeds they're currently doing in Afghanistan).

Yep, it turns out that even Muhammad thought that Islam could outdo the Jews (71 or 72 sects) and the Christians (ditto) by managing to bring forth some 73 sects ...

So there's the Shias and the Shi'ites and the Ismailis and the Sunnis and the Sufis and the Alawites and the Ahmadiyyas and the Kharijites and so on and on, and I got to thinking why Barney's right, it's a veritable fortress, a wall of monomaniacal thinking, this Islamic world ... so much so that the Saudis even whispered to the United States what a jolly good idea it would be to bomb bomb bomb, bomb Iran, bomb bomb bomb Iran, oh you got me rockin and a rollin, rocking and a reelin, bomb bomb Iran (and more on Barbara Ann here). But sssh, seeing as how Islamics are a monolith, please United States people don't mention it to anyone ...

Meanwhile, Barney loads the dice by quoting the thought of Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, the Iranian foreign minister, no doubt seeing the man as just another example of the kind of thinking we can expect - with one united voice - from Malaysians and Indonesians, since they all belong to the Organisation of the Islamic Conference, of which he's the current general-secretary.

This is a bit like blaming Catholics in general for the very specific weirdness and strange utterances of the current Pope, but hey, what the heck, you belong to the church, you wear the scrambled, heavily boiled eggs your pontiff delivers unto the world (and how can you bring forth eggs which are both boiled and scrambled? Go figure, but make sure to look up "dumb metaphors" first ...)

Naturally Barney blames a very narrow religious education, which is perhaps why he - along with so many other caring Christians - is no doubt mounting a campaign right at this very minute to kick religion out of the classroom in Australia, and bring in ethics classes instead, as well as demanding that the Federal government stop funding fundamentalist religion based schools ... but don't hold your breath.

Naturally the Saudis are to blame, as they pump out Wahhabi nonsense, but if that's the case why on earth are the Christians of America in bed with the Wahhabists?

And then of course there are the vicious blasphemy laws to be found in Pakistan, which reminds me of the good old days when Christians were able to take a serious view of blasphemy in western countries, along with anal and oral sex. Thank the lord the Christians have been whipped into shape ... and the job ahead, whipping the Islamics into shape, is best undertaken by a decent bout of secularism and materialism and consumerism, and not by inter-tribal varieties with addle-headed Christians like Barney explaining how all would be best if the Islamics ended up like tolerant Christians. You can take Christian tolerance and throw its condescending carcass into the nearest lake, for benefit of gays and women and a dozen other oppressed minorities ... did I mention my TG friends?

Well anyhoo, towards the end of his long ramble, Barney gets the idea he might have gone a tad far, and takes a detour by asking a Muslim friend to comment, and the Muslim friend notes he's likely to get a simplistic response ... seeming to forget that all Barney was proposing to offer was a superficial long winded question deserving a simplistic response ...

But happily the friend added some much-needed nuance, and pointed out to Barney that perhaps Muslims were not a single global community, and that there might be a few splitters in the ranks. The obliging friend even made mention of colonisers and their religions, and that in colonised countries, there tended to be a prejudice against Islam in favour of ... Christianity.

Dearie me, next thing you know, the tendency of some blacks in Australia to turn to Islam (in much the same way as blacks in America turned to their own form of Islam) might be seen to have something to do with Christians cavorting around the world in a colonial way ... Take it away Rocky Davis:

Christianity is a culture of invasion, and if anyone can tell me that it’s not, I need people to openly debate whether it be on live TV or in front of an audience, that Christianity was used as a weapon to invade all the world’s indigenous peoples, Canadian Indians will tell you, Maoris will tell you, Cook Islands will tell you, Africans will tell you, the English used Christianity to invade and conquer and enslave. Christianity were the founders of slavery. Not Islam. And I was never invaded by a Muslim country. Everywhere the Christians went, they plundered and they robbed and they murdered and they enslaved, and they raped. Christianity is a religion of child molestation. In terms of actual religious theology, Christianity is an unbelievable evil. (the rest here in the sadly missed Religion Report and more here and if you can stand listening to Rachael Kohn, Aborigines Choosing Islam on a recent Spirit of Things interview with 'Ramiz', which I suffered through while waiting for a plane connection, not because of the subject or the interviewee but Kohn's tendency to treacle).

Oh dear. Well it's back to Barney, and here we must admonish Rocky. Steady on old chum, Barney's just asking a question, you know, and calling Christians robbers and murderers and enslavers and child molesters is going a tad far. Sure they might have done, or even still be doing these things - I'm told a drone can make a powerful mess of a village - but it's all for the best in the best of all possible worlds, and totally unlike the devious deeds of Islamics.

Muslims in Holland or Switzerland are not hacked to death with machetes because they touched a Christian cup or a Bible or drew an image of a crescent. Christians do not rampage through their homes, burning them down, shooting and looting as they go. Muslims are allowed to worship, they are subject to the same laws of the state as other citizens. They are allowed to own property. Their women are not abducted and raped and forcibly married to Christians to make them desert their religion. These and more are regularly perpetrated in many Muslim countries, even though the vast majority of the Muslims who live there would not behave that way. I could give hundreds of examples. But something suggests you are beyond convincing.

Oops, is a seething snake pit of prejudice showing? Somehow we seem to have slipped from asking a question ... just wanting to discuss things ... to convincing a recalcitrant that Muslims are collectively responsible for the world's ills and Christians happily, joyously responsible for all the world's joys ...

But that outburst came a little later, in response to a likely sectarian secularist reader, and in the meantime, Barney was still putting on his air of calm reasonableness:

So there’s my blog-style over-simplification at least partly skewered. Yet my initial concern remains: minorities in many Muslim countries need help – now. Soon there will be almost no Christians in the region that gave their religion birth. And Christians have much to learn from the way so many Muslims are concerned for their co-religionists everywhere, however inadequate and politicised this is.

Yep, there's the concern. It's Christians unite and do battle with the Muslims. Oops, I see I've jumped the gun. Back to that superficial, over-simplified question at the end of a long winded blog:

Over to you: Do you agree with the way I have described the issues? What have I missed? Have you any solutions? Can and should the West do more, and if so what?

Well here at the pond, thank the lord, we have a solution to Barney's angst-laden superficial question - another crusade, for a hundred, or if necessary, a thousand years.

Happily we don't think he's missed anything in his description of the issues - his portrait of a blind blinkered westerner suffused with paranoia, fear and loathing is impeccable, and yes Western Chirstendom must do more, and if so, what can it do, except a little more invading and bombing and blitz-kreiging ...

It's the Western way, not that we're suggesting the West exists, or has a bee hive mind.

Sure, Western steps to date haven't been a total success, what with Iraq ousting a secularist bloody minded dictatorship, and instead installing a conservative group of Muslim men keen to oppress women, and in the process by happenstance empowering the theocratic state of Iran ... and Afghanistan seems a bit up and down as well, as somehow people ... who after all are just people ... seem to get upset at a drone landing in the middle of a wedding, or a funeral ...

So yes the West needs to start thinking of itself once again as the last bastion of Christendom, and taking steps against the vile Islamics ... not that we're suggesting the West has ever thought of itself as the West for the last few centuries ... and indulge in some fruitful colonial interventions which will fix Muslims and their religion once and for all. And when we've finished with that lot, we can start on the Indians and their vexatious Hinduism, and the Chinese, with their wretched maltreatment of minorities. Come on Barney let's hear it for Falun Gong ...

Cynics might of course take the view that the world would be better off without whinging, whining Christians of the kind found in Barney's camp, as well as being well shod of wretched fundamentalist Islamists, as opposed to those who manage to down the odd drink and eat the odd bit of bacon (you don't have to look far in a country like Malaysia for a snifter of Scotch).

This might lead you to think a pox on the lot of them, including blathering Barney. In which case welcome to the pond ...

(Below: the Falun Gong Falun Dafa emblem, literally meaning practice of the wheel of law. Oh dear, will someone explain to them that even though the symbol goes back thousands of years to the Indus valley, in right and mirrored left facing forms, the swastika got a bit of a bad reputation, and reversing it back again doesn't quite remove the taint).