John R. Houk
© July 31, 2014
Shamim writes about the raw deal Christians living in poverty in Pakistan. Due to the poverty conditions in Pakistan Christians face not only persecution from the Muslim majority but the societal hierarchy shows little care for the dangers that come from poverty living conditions.
Shamim also has grown weary of the lack of concern that Churches and Christians living in the West seem to have for Christians living in Pakistan. Pakistani Christians are not alone in the Western Church acting in disregard. Christians in Egypt that actually still comprise 10% of the population are horrendously persecuted in the same exact way as Pakistani Christians. The Middle Eastern Christians face the worst persecution in the Middle East are the Christians of Syria and Iraq.
The Syrian rebellion against al-Assad’s rule has resulted in radical Muslims running that revolution. Those radical Muslims are persecuting Christians with torture and murder. The Sunni Muslim rebels haven’t just targeted Christians but also non-Sunni Muslims viewed as heretics and supporters of Bashar al-Assad.
In Iraq a group of Muslim terrorists that are also of the Sunni persuasion are dominated by a group that has called themselves the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria or its variation the Islamic State in Iraq and Levant. Those that used the appellation “Levant” is due to the word “al-Sham”. Al-Sham is Arabic for Levant; hence the confusion Western Media in the using acronym ISIS or ISIL. Toward the end of June ISIS declared itself a sovereign government and the seat of a Caliphate of a nation called Islamic State (IS). I just read a Long War Journal post dated July 29 in which IS has gone on a Christian-murdering rampage in which again the Western Churches and the Obama Administration are incredibly quiet about.
Shamim goes somewhere that I sense is the result of the constant anti-American and anti-Israel sentiment that exists in the Muslim world. Here’s the quote:
Some of the violence against Christians is directly related to the American-led war against Muslims in different countries as in the war in Afghanistan, Iraq and to some extant Israel’s war against Philistines**, so [this] has [given Muslims] an expressly political motive. Months later the US-led coalition attacked Afghanistan in 2001, [shortly after the invasion] a grenade attack on a chapel inside a Christian Mission Hospital at Taxila City killed four people.
I explain the “Philistines- double asterisks” below after Shamim’s post. Shamim has entered the realm in which he blames Muslim persecution of Pakistani Christians on American invasions in Afghanistan and Iraq as well as “Israel’s war against Philistines” (I believe Shamim meant Palestinians – details below). As much as I agree with Shamim about Western silence pertaining to the persecutions of Christians in Muslim nations, making the USA and Israel the biggest reason is a huge misperception resulting from the Islamic Supremacist attitudes infused into Muslim lands’ media.
The USA led an invasion to Afghanistan because the then Taliban led government supported and harbored the Islamic terrorist perpetrators responsible for a cowardly attack that killed thousands of Americans at New York City’s Twin Towers, Washington DC’s Pentagon and the brave souls who stood up to the Muslim hijackers of United Airlines Flight 93 that crashed in Pennsylvania. In America there is a political spectrum disagreement if the invasion of Iraq was warranted for U.S. National Security. President Bush decided to remove Iraq’s butcher dictator because of Intelligence reports that implied Saddam Hussein was preparing to arm himself with WMD nukes and Chemical Weapons. This was alarming because Hussein had a penchant for rewarding homicidal-suicide bombers that maimed and killed Jews in Israel AND while the USA was liberating Kuwait from Hussein’s aggression of annexing that nation, fired random scud missiles into Israel. An Israel I might add that restrained itself from counter-attacking Iraq at the bequest of President Bush. AGAIN if the Intel was correct, Hussein’s past actions indicated he would have no problem with launching nuke-tipped missiles and Chemical Weapon-tipped missiles into Israel or any other nation that might have oil Hussein believed he could capture.
After Hussein’s military was rapidly defeated by the U.S. led coalition, it was only then discovered that nuke and Chem-Weapon restocking was only in the planning stages and not even close to fruition. America’s Leftists jumped all over President Bush for this even though his political opponents in Congress read the same Intel reports and concurred with the invasion decision. Frankly I am of that American minority that believes Saddam Hussein was closer to implementing a nuke program then believed and Hussein used Chemical Weapons shortly after his defeat in the First Gulf war against Iraqi Shi’ites and Iraqi Kurds to prevent them from rebelling against his rule. There is suspicion Hussein decided transport his Chemical Weapons to fellow Baathist dictator Bashar al-Assad to keep them from American discovery.
It is an inaccurate statement to say “Israel’s war against Philistines”. Jews have a Biblical right to have a Jewish State and call it Israel:
1 Now it came to pass after these things that God tested Abraham, and said to him, “Abraham!”
And he said, “Here I am.”
2 Then He said, “Take now your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you.”
6 So Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on Isaac his son; and he took the fire in his hand, and a knife, and the two of them went together. 7 But Isaac spoke to Abraham his father and said, “My father!”
And he said, “Here I am, my son.”
Then he said, “Look, the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?”
8 And Abraham said, “My son, God will provide for Himself the lamb for a burnt offering.” So the two of them went together.
10 And Abraham stretched out his hand and took the knife to slay his son.
11 But the Angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said, “Abraham, Abraham!”
So he said, “Here I am.”
12 And He said, “Do not lay your hand on the lad, or do anything to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me.”
15 Then the Angel of the Lord called to Abraham a second time out of heaven, 16 and said: “By Myself I have sworn, says the Lord, because you have done this thing, and have not withheld your son, your only son— 17 blessing I will bless you, and multiplying I will multiply your descendants as the stars of the heaven and as the sand which is on the seashore; and your descendants shall possess the gate of their enemies. 18 In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice.” (Bold Emphasis Mine - Genesis 22: 1-2, 6-8, 10-12, 15-18 NKJV)
++
18 On the same day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying:
“To your descendants I have given this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the River Euphrates— (Genesis 15: 18 NKJV)
++
10 Now Jacob went out from Beersheba and went toward Haran.
13 And behold, the Lord stood above it and said: “I am the Lord God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie I will give to you and your descendants. 14 Also your descendants shall be as the dust of the earth; you shall spread abroad to the west and the east, to the north and the south; and in you and in your seed all the families of the earth shall be blessed. 15 Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have spoken to you.” (Bold Emphasis Mine - Genesis 28: 10, 13-15 NKJV)
++
14 ‘Behold, the days are coming,’ says the Lord, ‘that I will perform that good thing which I have promised to the house of Israel and to the house of Judah:
15 ‘In those days and at that time
I will cause to grow up to David
A Branch of righteousness;
He shall execute judgment and righteousness in the earth.
I will cause to grow up to David
A Branch of righteousness;
He shall execute judgment and righteousness in the earth.
16 In those days Judah will be saved,
And Jerusalem will dwell safely.
And this is the name by which she will be called:
THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS.’[a]
17 “For thus says the Lord: ‘David shall never lack a man to sit on the throne of the house of Israel; (Bold Emphasis Mine - Jeremiah 33: 14-17 NKJV)
++
21 Tell me, you who desire to be under the law, do you not hear the law? 22 For it is written that Abraham had two sons: the one by a bondwoman, the other by a freewoman. 23 But he who was of the bondwoman was born according to the flesh, and he of the freewoman through promise, 24 which things are symbolic. For these are the[a]two covenants: the one from Mount Sinai which gives birth to bondage, which is Hagar— 25 for this Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia, and corresponds to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children— 26 but the Jerusalem above is free, which is the mother of us all.
28 Now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are children of promise. 29 But, as he who was born according to the flesh then persecuted him who was born according to the Spirit, even so it is now. 30 Nevertheless what does the Scripture say? “Cast out the bondwoman and her son, for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son of the freewoman.”[a] 31 So then, brethren, we are not children of the bondwoman but of the free. (Bold Emphasis Mine - Galatians 4: 21-26, 28-31 NKJV)
++
22 You worship what you do not know; we know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews. 23 But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him. 24 God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”
25 The woman said to Him, “I know that Messiah is coming” (who is called Christ). “When He comes, He will tell us all things.”
26 Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am He.” (Bold Emphasis Mine - John 4: 22-26 NKJV)
I know that was a bunch of Scriptures. Frankly this is only a sampling that the Promises of God flow through the child of Promise Isaac who in turn is the father of Jacob renamed Israel by God Almighty. Muslims that hate Jews because they have moved back to their ancestral land are off base for this reason alone. Israel is not at war with Palestinians. The Arabs that call themselves Palestinians are at war with Israel to remove them from their ancestral land and then kill the remaining Jews at worst or force them to live by Islamic Sharia Law at best.
How has living under Sharia Law worked for Christians living in Muslim dominated lands? NOT WELL! If Shamim’s experiences as a second class citizen in Pakistan is any evidence and the death and mayhem perpetrated against Christians in other Muslim lands is evidence, then the current explosion of purist Islam called radical in the West will not bode well for Israel.
So I have to passionately disagree with Shamim Masih that wars involving the USA and Israel are not a motive for the ill treatment of Christians in Pakistan or other Muslim lands. Rather the Muslim world uses the Americans and Israelis as an excuse to exact their Islamic Supremacist ways encoded in their Quran, Hadith, Sira and Sunna.
At this point I have to reiterate something about Shamim Masih. Shamim is a godly man living under the pressures of Islamic Sharia in Pakistan. I have no doubt that Muslim media has ginned up anti-Americanism and Jew-hatred which in turn has been exploited by radical Islamic elements in Pakistan. So I am not angry with Shamim who has probably heard this disinformation on the USA and Jews his whole life.
THEREFORE I am still a supporter of Shamim Masih’s civil and Christian rights activism in Pakistan. Due to my financial situation I wish I could do more money wise for Shamim. BUT I KNOW there are some of you at there – especially in the USA – that can spare some monthly donations whether that be $10 bucks to $100 bucks or more a month. Below Shamim’s report I show you how easy it is to send money via Western Union to aid in Shamim’s personal needs in a repressive Islamic society that has no problem treated Christians like the scum of the earth.
JRH 7/30/14
********************************
Listen to the screams of poor Pakistani Christians
By Shamim Masih
Sent: 7/29/2014 6:04 PM
ISLAMABAD: Sehrish Ishfaq, 5, poor Pakistani Christian girl was drowned in the seasonal drainage; during the first monsoon rain in the federal capital. She was found dead, the voice reiterated itself. How could this be possible? I shook my head in disbelief while speaking on the mobile phone. In a state of disbelief I stood up, changed my clothes and went to see her. Her dead body was there, people around me were sad, her mother was crying. But this wasn’t the first time. In fact, during the last years in the same days [i.e. the monsoons], two young Christians were drowned in French Colony, sector F-7 and I attended their funeral.
A Couple of days before Eid (religious festivity after Ramazan), a mob killed a member of the Ahmadi (who consider themselves Muslim but believe in a prophet after Mohammed) and two of her granddaughters and eight others were severely injured after another member was accused of posting blasphemous material on Facebook. The dead including a seven-year-old girl and her baby sister, the attacker after looting the valuables set 5 houses on fire.
Christians could count themselves among minorities that made up 15% of the population at pre-partition [British India divided into Hindu dominated India and Muslim dominated Pakistan in 1947]. Now minorities fall short of roughly around 5% of the country. The Christian community in Pakistan, roughly around 15 million, is the first largest religious minority present here. But the actual figure is never been given; because there is no census after 1998. Yet the minorities are being persecuted, targeted, slaughtered and killed, without mercy – just because our faith is not the same as that of our [Muslim] killers. One would think this horror might be consuming the pulpits and pews of Western churches. The silence has been nearly deafening. In this predominantly Muslim nation, religious extremism and resentment of the West [all] contribute to violence against Pakistani Christians. We feel most of the time we are not equal. Not only unequal, but the growing feeling is that we are not even wanted.
Some of the violence against Christians is directly related to the American-led war against Muslims in different countries as in the war in Afghanistan, Iraq and to some extant Israel’s war against Philistines**, so [this] has [given Muslims] an expressly political motive. Months later the US-led coalition attacked Afghanistan in 2001, [shortly after the invasion] a grenade attack on a chapel inside a Christian Mission Hospital at Taxila City killed four people.
If it is said that Shias are being attacked but the dynamic with that particular enmity is entirely different. Shias in Pakistan are seen as influential and high profile with positions in the ruling class and playing prominent role in the country. They are caught up in what many analysts call a proxy war between Shia Iran and Sunni Saudi Arabia. Pakistani Christians evoke public sympathy and are not tools of a larger sectarian and ideological battle.
My concern is; what is the future of Christians in Pakistan? In fact, the right question is, do they have a future here at all?
Majority of the Pakistani Christians are living below poverty line residing in the slum areas across the country and around the seasonal drainage in the federal capital especially. Living with low income, they cannot afford school fees and thus their children remain uneducated. Many Christians suffer from grinding poverty. Education and employment discrimination leave them only the lowliest occupations. Many of them spend their lives in brickyards, within perilous distance of blazing hot kilns. These families are close to being slaves – bonded laborers – never able to work off the outrageous debts laid on them by Muslim landlords. Others find work as janitors or sewer workers. Their employers barely regard their Christian employees as human. Christian sanitation workers are the first ones sent into sewer trench lines, and usually without proper protection. Every year many Christian workers die from exposure to the toxic fumes. And their young girls work as maid and been raped by masters and then were forcefully converted to Islam.
Hundreds of the Christians’ students have not been promoted to next classes for their parents were unable to clear the dues at the schools in the twin city only. There could hundred thousand in the country. Sister Abida, head of the Saint Teresa High School, Rawalpindi has reportedly expelled 17 girls’ students for the school for their parents had not paid their school fee during this semester. This is missionary school, which aim should be to encourage poor Christian’s students to study. It is unfortunate that none of the priest has taken notice to it till I am writing these lines.
The situation becomes more terrible when so called social and religious reformers and Christian politicians living in and outside the country play with them. They receive huge funds from the West but deliver little and rests spend for their own luxury life. None of them has ever planned to bring economic and social revival for this most vulnerable community. Many talented young ones are wasting their lives with low income jobs and have no future. Shahroz Tabassum, son of Akram Masih, student of La Salle High School, Faisalabad was the top scorer securing 1073 marks in his Secondary School Examination this year. Many of the so called social activists like me have posted his picture on their timelines but no one has announced any scholarship to encourage him.
The US, EU and UK government funds seem directed to the Muslim regime to supporting the raise of Islamic militants to power. Even when aid is given to Pakistan, none ever reach the beleaguered Christian community. And sad to say, even the Christian human rights groups working in Pakistan seem to focus to hire Muslim employees. I wonder; what is future of the poor Pakistani Christians? Do they have any a future here? Is there anyone who listen the screams of the poor Pakistani Christians?
Be Blessed,
Shamim Masih
[**Philistines: I am certain Shamim means “Palestinians”. Whether the use of Philistines was a faux pas or the mistranslation of the Arabic ‘Falistin” (or “Filistin” depending who you read) is quite ironic. When the Romans gave most of the Jews the boot from their ancestral land in mid-2nd century AD, the Romans desired to eradicate the memory of Jews in the land and it the Latin Palaestina after the ancient enemies of the Jews the Philistines. Arabs have a problem pronouncing the letter “P”; hence the name Falistin:
… Several hundred years later, in 135 CE (Common Era), after having long-become a captive province of the Roman Empire, the Jewish people’s third and final revolt against Rome was crushed by Emperor Hadrian; but Rome's army also suffered devastating losses, including the complete annihilation of its illustrious XXII Legion. In furtherance of Rome's costly victory, the Roman Emperor Hadrian renamed the province “Palestine” in honor of the Philistines (an Aegean people who had migrated to the Land of Israel in Antiquity and had subsequently become a fierce enemy of the Jewish people, but who had disappeared from History due to their extirpation by the Babylonian Empire more than 700 years prior to the renaming of the Land), as part of an unabashed effort to humiliate the defeated Jewish people and to delegitimize any further national Jewish claims to the Land.
However, although the province had been converted from Judea (the Latin-language word for which was Iudaea, meaning Land of the Jews) to Palestine (the Latin-language word for which was Palaestina, meaning Land of the Philistines), and although a vengeful Rome massacred and expelled much of the Land's Jewish inhabitants, it nonetheless continued to be populated by Jews, together with substantial populations of other ethnic groups, but hardly any Arabs, at least until the colonialist Islamic Arab invasion of 638 CE. However, even under the rule of the Arab and all subsequently superseding empires, the Jewish people nevertheless maintained a continuous national presence in the non-sovereign territory of "Palestine" -- right up until the resurrection therein of the Jewish nation-state of Israel in 1948.
In contrast, the ersatz people identified nowadays as the "Palestinians" are a collection of diverse Arab clans plus a smattering of other ethnic groups (such as Serbs -- these are the so-called Bosnian Muslims who were Serbian Orthodox Christians before their forced conversion to Islam -- as well as Circassians and Chechens, all imported by the Ottoman Empire from their lands of origin to the Middle East, including the Land of Israel, several centuries ago), who, for reasons virtually identicalto those of the Roman Empire, have, since Israel's Six Day War of 1967, publicly declared themselves to be a distinct ethnic nation named after those very same defunct Philistines -- this despite the fact that the ancient Philistines were not even Arabs.
Moreover, in light of “Palestinian” claims to aboriginal status, it is ironic and noteworthy that the English-language cognate words “Palestine” and “Philistine”, as well as the Arabic-language word “Falastin”, are all derived (via Latin and, before that, Greek) from the biblical Hebrew-language word “Pelishtim” (“Philistines”), whose literal meaning is: “Invaders”. It is indeed telling that the “Palestinians” have created for themselves a faux ethnic identity whose very name originates, not from their own Arabic language, but rather from the Hebrew language. (Excerpted from: "Palestinian" Identity Is An Elaborate Ruse; By Mark Rosenblit; The Rosenblits' Website; All rights reserved © 1995 - 2012 The Jerusalem Post.)
More info on the origin of word “Palestine”:
___________________________
Muslims Blame USA & Israel for Persecution of Christians
John R. Houk
© July 31, 2014
____________________________
Listen to the screams of poor Pakistani Christians
Edited by John R. Houk
Any text or links enclosed by brackets are by the Editor
© Shamim Masih
Special Correspondents
Human Rights Activist
Snapshot of Human Rights Activism from 2011
Christian Rights Activist
Freelance Journalist
Freelance Journalist
Secretary General of Information
Shamim Masih’s Donate/Support info:
Editor: For Americans especially, I have discovered the best way to donate to Shamim Masih is via Western Union sending to a Western Union agent in Islamabad. Include Shamim’s phone - +92-300-642-4560
FOR USD TRANSFER.
Intermediary Bank: MASHREQ BANK, NEW YORK
Intermediary Bank SWIFT BIC: MSHQUS33
Beneficiary Bank: JS BANK LIMITED
Beneficiary Bank SWIFT BIC: JSBLPKKA
Bank A/c # at Intermediary bank: 70008227
Title Of a/c Shamim Masih
Beneficiary Account Number: 405527
Intermediary Bank: MASHREQ BANK, NEW YORK
Intermediary Bank SWIFT BIC: MSHQUS33
Beneficiary Bank: JS BANK LIMITED
Beneficiary Bank SWIFT BIC: JSBLPKKA
Bank A/c # at Intermediary bank: 70008227
Title Of a/c Shamim Masih
Beneficiary Account Number: 405527
IBAN # pk80jsbl9530000000405227
FOR GBP TRANSFER.
Intermediary Bank: MASHREQ BANK, LONDON
Intermediary Bank SWIFT BIC: MSHQGB2L
Beneficiary Bank: JS BANK LIMITED
Beneficiary Bank SWIFT BIC: JSBLPKKA
Bank A/c # at Intermediary bank: 00010855
Title Of a/c Shamim Masih
Beneficiary Account Number: 405527
IBAN # pk80jsbl9530000000405227
FOR EURO TRANSFER.
Intermediary Bank: MASHREQ BANK, LONDON
Intermediary Bank SWIFT BIC: MSHQGB2L
Beneficiary Bank: JS BANK LIMITED
Beneficiary Bank SWIFT BIC: JSBLPKKA
Bank A/c # at Intermediary bank: 10847
Title Of a/c Shamim Masih
Beneficiary Account Number: 405527
IBAN # pk80jsbl9530000000405227
FOR GBP TRANSFER.
Intermediary Bank: MASHREQ BANK, LONDON
Intermediary Bank SWIFT BIC: MSHQGB2L
Beneficiary Bank: JS BANK LIMITED
Beneficiary Bank SWIFT BIC: JSBLPKKA
Bank A/c # at Intermediary bank: 00010855
Title Of a/c Shamim Masih
Beneficiary Account Number: 405527
IBAN # pk80jsbl9530000000405227
FOR EURO TRANSFER.
Intermediary Bank: MASHREQ BANK, LONDON
Intermediary Bank SWIFT BIC: MSHQGB2L
Beneficiary Bank: JS BANK LIMITED
Beneficiary Bank SWIFT BIC: JSBLPKKA
Bank A/c # at Intermediary bank: 10847
Title Of a/c Shamim Masih
Beneficiary Account Number: 405527
IBAN # pk80jsbl9530000000405227
No comments:
Post a Comment