Someone informed me recently about an online campaign raising awareness of the plight of persecuted Christians in Iraq.
The symbol of solidarity for that was the Arabic letter n, or "ن".
On Sunday I was listening to the news and there was someone from the church on saying that the UK government has been far too quiet for far too long on the plight of Christians in Iraq.
I haven't liked what the campaign represented for the first moment. I understand that for western individuals this may seem worthy and they may focus on the non-muslim minorities. I think it is misguided for Muslims to join any such campaign
What this campaign and others do is devalue Muslim blood.
Yes, ISIS are brutal and yes they have targeted Christians and others. However what these people will not tell you or even know or care is that the biggest victims of ISIS and similar groups are not other religionists but Muslims.
While Christians may be persecuted and be made to pay protection money in a misguided understanding of Islam, the Muslims and their families murdered by these people would have given anything to be given that same level of persecution.
Ask any of the Muslim groups that have stood up or simply not bowed down. They have been killed, decapitated, even crucified. Then there is the capture of those Muslims belonging to another sect. They don't live long.
The bishops and priests asking the government to not be silent on Christian persecution in Iraq are silent on persecution by the same groups of Muslims and even persecution of Christians in Israel - simply because it doesn't fit into their romantic notions of the world.
It is understandable considering the bloody western history to choose to show solidarity with those persecuted that they identify with, but us Muslims should not fall into the same trap.
Its just as colonialist white-supremacist as the "bring back our girls" campaign when those girls were kidnapped in Nigeria (and soon forgotten when the attention span found new shiny things to focus on).
As an example we show solidarity all Palestinians, whether they be Christian or Muslims, while the west, even the Christian churches have either chosen to side with Zionism over the Christians or chosen silence over their persecution.
We stand on the side of the oppressed whether Muslim or not Muslim. That includes all victims in Iraq and Syria, not just the Christians who have on some occasions been allowed their lives to be spared through financial transaction.
We are against indiscriminate slaughter of Christians, Yezidis, Muslims of all denominations. None of that is allowed - Islamic rules of violent confrontation are very clear and lay out very clear guidelines over what is allowed and what is not.
Those that decide to join the Christian solidarity campaign should seriously question their motives. If it is a form of "da'wah", or even integration, they should realise that neither should work: the Campaign starts of "This is offensive but..." so no, you are not getting on their good sides. As such solidarity picks a certain type of photogenic victim over all the others I would suggest that this is about conquered/occupied minds above anything else.
Moving beyond the personal campaigns and onto western intervention - I am against western intervention.
Even when the situation on the ground is dire, our western countries only look out for their own interests. They helped cerate this mess and every time they put their foot in, it is only for their own interests and never for humanitarian reasons.
They used the excuse of Gadaffi's madness to destroy Libya. Yes, he was a maniac and that was a very good reason to oppose him, but the people are suffering more now. The west did not help the people of Libya, just themselves.
The same is the case in Syria. Assad may be a monster, but they don't really want a strong democratic regime representative of the people in Syria because the people of Syria will not tolerate a portion of their country being occupied by Israel. At the same time they do not want Assad strong enough to be able to do something should its master Iran be attacked.
(The demands of the people were legitimate. However, they are being used as pawns in a bigger game)
At the same time they gave support to the overthrow of Morsi in Egypt. Israel knew of regime changes days before the Egyptians did. General Sisi needed Israel's blessing and now during the current assault on Gaza General Sisi is repaying Israel by being more than complicit in the crimes against the people of Gaza - my reading of negotiations is that Israel could have been budged on some points but Egypt will not consider that as they consider Hamas their enemy due to it being an ofshoot of the now banned Muslim Brotherhood. In 2012 when Morsi was in charge of Egypt, the ceasefire was reached and implemented relatively quickly.
Then there are places like Bahrain where due to them being "allies", the will of the people does not matter.
So to conclude, I would question why people should show solidarity with a small subsection of the victims/oppressed and what the west has to gain in intervening and whether it will really help the locals.
