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| Thousands are dead in Muslim-led violence against Christians in Bangui last summer and it's started up again. |
What the headline does not say is that all this comes on the heels of a wave of horrific Muslim violence against Christians after last year's coup which replaced the elected president with a Muslim usurper. Except in that bit of violence, it wasn't the death of a single guy who fell off a bus fleeing from angry people that the Muslim para-militaries had been persecuting.
The anti-Christian violence last year resulted in thousands killed or wounded for no greater crime than being Christian or living in a Christian village. The difference is that along with the rest of the world, Christians are appalled at the brutal death of the Muslim man, but for the death of the many Christians last year, news outlets were virtually silent and unsympathetic. It is said that one death is a tragedy, tens of thousands of deaths is a statistic. This fact makes those who restrain themselves and their fellow believers from murdering wholesale, vulnerable to being cast as monsters in the "if it bleeds, it leads" modern media. The media excels at wringing public tears from personal tragedies. They are utterly hopeless at making people feel the same pitch of emotion over the systematic murder thousands. The violence does get reported but in sweeping general terms. Strangely, or perhaps not so strangely, the individualized pathos has been missing - until now.
No doubt someone in the media will use this story to gin up sympathy for persecuted Muslims and try to pin it on Christian hate-mongers. The story does make a last minute mention of the fact that the Muslims were doing far worse to Christians last summer. It also hints that not all of the participants or even the persecuted were, in fact, Christian. Other media outlets will not be even close to that accurate when they tell the story.
To be fair the media has semi-consistently reported on the violence against Christians (back on page 10 or 12), but it's all seemed rather without any real enthusiasm. There's an almost embarrassed tone some journalist get when they're talking about Christians who have been wronged, but then they get downright teary-eyed over an Israeli missile attack on a Palestinian village/terrorist missile launching base or a Muslim beaten to death by a mob, some of whom come from Christian villages. The media may appear to give coverage to both sides of the story, but reporters learn in journalism school, just how to tune the data to fit the story in your head and just who they ought to tune out. It would be nice if we could get as much outrage out of the Muslim media over the persecution of Christians as you get from Christian media over persecution of Muslims.
Jesus said that if they persecuted Him, we could expect they would persecute us. All that we really can do about that is pray for them that persecute us. We're under orders to do so from our Commander.
© 2014 by Tom King
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