A ‘firmer perspective’ on religious violence
Re: “Remembering the hundreds of thousands of Muslim innocents killed by Western violence”, Have Your Say, September 7.
Not for the first time, Dr Frank suggests that I march into Europe and endeavour to correct the wrongs I perceive, as though I were some latter-day Rambo.
While I might have considered such a course when I served in the Royal Navy, I feel that if I were to rock up at London Heathrow, stripped to the waist, face daubed with camouflage, and grenade launcher slung across my shoulder, I might receive a rather stern ticking-off from Customs once they had stopped laughing. I am 70, after all. But if I managed to blast through, I am sure that I would be offered a seat on the Tube into town.
“Let us take a closer look, and put matters firmly into perspective,” says Dr Frank, shamelessly failing to do either. His cherry-picked figures from recent history purport to demonstrate Western Christian violence against Iraqi Muslims, but he omits to mention that recent Muslim genocide against Yazidi and other Christians within Iraq has reduced their population from 1.5 million to 275,000 today.
Now “let us take a closer look” at the last 1,400 years.
Historians are in agreement that Islam has been the greatest killing machine in the history of mankind with the estimated deaths of 10 million Buddhists (Southeast Asia), 60 million Christians (North Africa, Middle East and Europe), 80 million Hindus (conquest of India), and 120 million Africans (slaving). So, by adding a few zeroes to Dr Frank’s figures and turning his argument on its head, I do believe that we put matters more “firmly in perspective”.
And since Dr Frank can’t be bothered to say it, I will. May the hundreds of millions murdered in the name of Islam rest in peace.
Nigel Pike
Phang Nga
