Who would be a blogger?

Already, I am beginning to almost regret having started my proposed series on The Ten Words (Commandments). Part of the idea was that, for this month, I wouldn't have to think about what to publish.  Little did I know how much would be happening in the first couple of weeks of 2015!

I have already made reference to the murderous activities - in one case, that of the Muslim police officer in Paris, cold-blooded, evil, despicable, murder - of the Islamist thugs at the offices of the Charlie Hebdo satirical magazine, and in the Jewish supermarket.  However, the universal, and well-deserved, repulsiveness engendered by those cowardly actions has served to overshadow another news report with an Islamic flavour.

On Friday, in the port-city of Jeddah in Saudi Arabia - that bastion of Sunni Islam - Raif Badawi, a Saudi blogger convicted of insulting Islam, was brought after Friday prayers to a public square, and flogged 50 times before hundreds of spectators.  What was his real 'crime'?  He had criticised Saudi Arabia’s powerful clerics on a liberal blog he founded - a blog that has since been shut down. He was also ordered to pay a fine of 1million riyals or about £175,000.  In fact, his original sentence was seven years in prison and 600 lashes (in July last year), but an appeals court overturned the sentence and ordered a retrial - which then earned him a more severe sentence of 1,000 lashes and ten years in prison.  The 1,000 lashes will be administered on a weekly basis, fifty at a time,  That means that he will be tortured like that for almost a year.  However, it might not be as long as that.  As he is, reportedly, denied any medical treatment in between lashings, it is unlikely that he will survive for long enough to complete his sentence.

Despite international pleas for his release, Badawi, a father of three, was brought from prison by bus to the public square and flogged, on the back, in front of a crowd that had just finished midday prayers at a nearby mosque.  I really can't imagine a Christian congregation coming out of a worship service and immediately watching a hanging!  But then, I cannot imagine British authorities arresting me for anything that I have published on this blog!

This event, I believe,together with the murder of the Muslim police officer, and the massacre of so many Muslim schoolchildren and some of their teachers, by members of the Pakistan Taliban, in the Peshawar district of Pakistan; shows that these Islamic terrorists are a threat to anyone, and everyone, who criticises them or who does not submit to their own beliefs.  I suppose that I have placed myself in the firing line of any of them who happens upon this blog, and who can find out where I live! 

Thankfully, I am soon to be moving home - mind you, we are going to France! 

They're only Christians!

I telephoned the BBC this evening (Monday)!  It's not something that I do with any frequency, but I was - to say the least - very angry!

Watching the 6 o'clock T.V. News, I was provided with further information about the dreadful attack, in Nairobi, Kenya, when members of the militant Somali, al Qaeda-linked, Islamist Group al Shabaab ("the lads"!) launched their indiscriminate attack on shoppers in a mall, that resulted in, the deaths of at least 62 people and the wounding of over 200 others, since the brutal attack began on Saturday.  In common, I would hope,with all right-minded people, my heart goes out to the bereaved and the injured, and I trust that both the Kenyan and Somalian governments deal quickly with one of the most ruthless of all of the Islamist terrorist groups operating in these days.

However, the very next item on the programme concerned the, as yet unfounded, charges made against entertainer, Rolf Harris!  In vain, I waited to be informed of the latest news of an even greater terrorist atrocity.  At least 83 people were murdered in a double suicide bombing at All Saints Church in Peshawar, Pakistan.  Around 130 people were wounded, some of them critically.  Many of those killed and injured were children.  The Pakistani Taliban (Islamist) claimed responsibility for the attack, stating that: "They [Christians] are the enemies of Islam, therefore we target them. We will continue our attacks on non-Muslims on Pakistani land."

In Kenya, the attack took place in what has been described as a popular upmarket shopping mall. Indeed, Westgate Shopping Centre described itself as Nairobi's premier shopping mall - a "first world interior"… " where local and international shoppers feel at home". Its 80 stores included Adidas, Nike, pizza restaurants and the four floors (350,000 sq feet) centred around a waterfall. It is, according to some news reports, where the affluent of Kenyan society are to be seen - both the indigenous population, and international visitors.

By contrast, All Saints Church served a congregation of fairly ordinary Pakistani believers - indeed, many of them were reportedly receiving a free meal in the grounds of the church building when the cowardly attack took place.

Could it be that the media are simply less concerned about those who were targeted because of their religious beliefs, than with those who were caught up in an attack because they were out buying designer clothing, and purchasing 'western' fast food?

Thank God, that He is concerned with each and every one of us.  "For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. For God sent the Son into the world, not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through Him. He who believes in Him is not condemned; he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the Name of the only Son of God." (John 3:16-18)