A Minor Hate Crime

A brief item in my newspaper today perhaps sums up the lunacy of the witless fervour of Islam more than any of the stories about the Afghani-born nutcase who allegedly planted bombs in New York City and Elizabeth, New Jersey.  Or more, for that matter, any of the atrocities reported daily from the Middle East.

An unnamed Moslem immigrant from the Cameroon is on trial in Spain for throwing six passengers overboard from a vessel of which he was captain.  It was carrying fifty migrants, most of them apparently Muslims, from North Africa to southern Spain.  The six victims were selected because they were Christians.  They were selected for their sacrifice.  They were searched for symbols of their faith concealed in their clothing, attacked with planking from the deck of the vessel, and then tipped over the side, whether dead or alive is not yet known – not that it matters.  Their bodies were never found.

What enraged the captain, according to prosecutors, was that they had provoked the violent storms that endangered the vessel by praying for salvation.  Presumably the other migrants on board were either powerless or disinclined to intervene, although some are now testifying against the captain, 

Now, here we have fifty souls, tossed about on a stormy sea – all, so to speak, in the same boat, all facing death.  One might imagine that the first order of priority of all on board, but particularly the captain, would have been simply to survive, and to implement the means of doing so. The six, understandably, may have regarded praying to their maker as an obvious part of those means.  One can only presume that, meanwhile, the priority of the captain and what passed for a crew – and what ought to have kept them fully occupied – was keeping the boat afloat.        

But instead the captain allowed the peculiar prejudice of his religion to overcome all other considerations, and punished the ‘infidels’ for causing their collective predicament.   Since everyone else survived the tempest, one might think that a more appropriate response would have been to thank the Christians for their devotions.

But, no, they and their God were responsible for the episode of the storm, but apparently not for the survival of all the passengers.  

What is it about Islam that creates such fanatics as this so-called captain (who presumably is a paid people-smuggler and so hardly the kind of man one might expect to be driven to extreme acts by faith)?  We are constantly told by moderate Moslems that nowhere in the Koran are there injunctions to practise violence against non-believers, and that hate-filled extremists have corrupted its essential message of peace and harmony.  The history of Islam, of course, tells an entirely different story.   

Islam is a hate-filled religion, not to mention a foolish one.  It may be no more hate-filled and foolish than many other religions, and its record of conquest and cruelty over the centuries is far from unique in that, or other doleful aspects.  But too many of its adherents seem intent on carrying on its evangelical mission, to eradicate any and all competing faiths – to the bitter end.

No one leader has decreed this – there is no Moslem equivalent of a Pope – so the campaign simply springs from the twisted minds of its devotees, be they mullahs or self-proclaimed terrorists or both, and shamefully sanctioned in their silence of the supposedly peaceable millions of Moslems around the world. 

Only those on board the stricken vessel can know what it was that provoked the captain to commit multiple murders.  The case for the defence may be that the six were sacrificed in the interests of keeping the boat from capsizing – which would be comprehendible if not commendable – but the selection based on religion makes it an indefensible crime of hate.   

And one final question comes to mind: would a ‘Christian’ captain in similar circumstances have made a decision to ditch six Muslims?   Would Donald Trump? 

I’m just asking.