Muslim vs. Christian Sensitivity - No Comparison

Remember that Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale "The Princess and the Pea" about the princess who was so sensitive that she could feel a pea placed under several mattresses? Her sensitivity proved that she was a true princess and I was reminded of her when I heard all the excuses given by the White House as to why it would not release the death photos of Osama Bin Laden. Once again we did not want to offend the sensitivity of the Muslim community and inflame any violence that might ensue.

The only thing this response proves is the cowardice of this administration and its incoherence in dealing with the Muslim community. It is demeaning and patronizing and the American Muslim community should be outraged at being lumped together with the most radical extremists of their religion.

I've lived next door for the past 33 years to Albanian Muslims who sent their children to the same parochial school as mine. The women hold outside jobs, drive cars, some wear head scarves but I've never seen any wear burkas or hijabs. Their weddings are joyful and full of hip swerving music. I've also written about a local Pakistani Muslim cardiologist who runs a free cardiac clinic in honor of his late parents and who happens to be a Republican. These Americanized Muslims are despised as much as Christians and Jews and are viewed as infidels by the jihadists and when they bravely speak out against the terrorists the mainstream media ignores them.

It is insulting to these moderates that this administration placates the worst elements of radical Islam who are as easily offended by a cartoon as they would be by a death photo of their leader. The question remains - are they really that sensitive or is their reaction carefully orchestrated to monopolize the media coverage of their causes?

The liberal media feeds into their madness by publicizing articles designed to inflame a lunatic reaction even if they haven't bothered to verify the veracity of incidents. The May 9th, 2005 issue of Newsweek reported that a Koran had been flushed down a toilet by Gitmo interrogators and this led to seven deaths in anti-American riots in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The magazine had to retract this report when it was learned that it was a Muslim inmate who had tried to stop up the toilet with pages from the Koran. The retraction did not express sorrow for the deceased nor did it bring them back from the dead.

The New York Times continued to fan the flames of alleged Koran abuse in its May 27th issue by reporting that a U.S. inquiry found five cases of Koran mistreatment. The allegations, of course, were brought by Gitmo detainees so that was all the NY Times needed to hear before it decided to publish the article, continuing its hate campaign against the Bush administration.

Who can forget the rage in the extremo-stone-age jihadist community when a Danish newspaper dared to publish twelve cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed? Muslims across Europe and the Middle East exploded in riots which resulted in the deaths of at least 139 persons and many others injured. Certain sects of Islam regard any portrayal of the Prophet to be blasphemous and forbidden - which just goes to show how some imams are ignorant of their own religion. In the first place, Mohammed was not a deity but a human and there is no proscription against depiction of Mohammed in the Koran. Throughout medieval history his image is prevalent in Ottoman, Afghan, Uzbek and Persian Islamic Art.

There are times when I am in the midst of writing a column when I can feel my blood pressure rise at the injustice, unfairness and utter stupidity that abounds in our society today particularly when the issue is religion.

My faith is routinely ridiculed in the press, on television, in films and books become best sellers if they mock Christianity, priests and the Catholic Church. The cable network Showtime will broadcast a series about Popes but only the notorious and scandalous ones. I expect The Borgias to win an Emmy and other accolades for its brilliant cast. Jesus Christ, founder of my religion, has been portrayed as a gay man, a fraud, an unmarried father of the illegitimate child of Mary Magdalene and other such conspiratorial nonsense and the lone defender of the faith we have is Bill Donohue of the Catholic League objecting in press releases or appearances on Fox News.

Did Newsweek ever publish an article on the burning of the bibles in Afghanistan by the U.S. Army? I don't think so. In 2009, bibles in the Afghan language were sent by his church to an evangelical soldier serving in Afghanistan. The Al-Jazeera network filmed a documentary showing soldiers with the stack of bibles and fearful that these might be used to proselytize and convert Muslims, the army seized and destroyed the bibles. U.S. Central Command's General Order Number 1 forbids troops on active duty - including all those based in Iraq and Afghanistan - from trying to convert people to another religion. Don't you wish we had that kind of order in our prison system to prevent radical imams from converting criminals to join their jihad sect?

Conversion to Christianity is punishable by death for apostasy in Afghanistan so it's understandable why the Army felt compelled to seize the bibles but why didn't they just return them to the church that sent them? Why burn them as if they were just garbage and why aren't we rioting in the Vatican. Could it be because we are civilized and Christianity is really the religion of peace?

I've come to the conclusion that none of this is about religion at all. It's about power that is wielded by the corrupt over the weak and ignorant. Wahhabism is the most extreme form of Islam and was established under the guise of cleansing Islam to seize lands and property of other Muslims. Because of a pact in 1740 between ibn Saud and ibn Abd-al-Wahab, ibn Saud pledged to enforce Wahhabi teachings and thus his family would remain the temporal 'leaders' of the movement and the eventual ruling power in Saudi Arabia.

Women are the worst victims of fundamentalist radical Islam and instead of condemning its civil rights violations, the United States, the once most powerful nation in the world, kowtows shamefully to the sensitivity of this evil "princess."

In 2012, I hope to be able to vote for a politically incorrect candidate who understands that we are not living in a fairy tale.

Alicia Colon resides in New York City and can be reached at aliciav.colon@gmail.com and at www.aliciacolon.com