So It Begins... Again.

(AINA) -- News of a massacre of two Christian Coptic families by Islamists just emerged from Upper Egypt with the return of the Internet connections after a week of Internet blackout by the Egyptian regime. The massacre took place on Sunday, January 30 at 3 PM in the village of Sharona near Maghagha, Minya province. Two Islamists groups, aided by the Muslim neighbors, descended on the roof of houses owned by Copts, killing eleven Copts, including children, and seriously injuring four others....

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THE CATHOLIC KNIGHT: It's a familiar sign of things to come in the not-too-distant future. Though Egypt has always had a poor record on Christian tolerance, just a few weeks ago in Egypt (before the unrest) there was a beautiful display of devout Muslims shielding Christians at worship with their own bodies in what looked like a sign of hope in the Middle East. That wonderful display of humanity has now given way to this. Sadly, it is likely a sign of things to come. The 2011 Egyptian mess is frightfully similar to the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran. The Iranian Revolution started out as a pro-democracy demonstration against the American backed dictator - the Shaw - which quickly unraveled into a theocratic takeover of Islamist radicals. We are watching the exact same thing transpire today with the Muslim Brotherhood gradually taking the lead among pro-democracy opposition groups to the American backed dictator Hosni Mubarak. In time, probably a very short time, the Muslim Brotherhood will be the lead opposition voice in Egypt. When (not if) that happens, Egypt will be well on it's way to following in the footsteps of Iran. Whatever vestige of Christianity remains in Egypt will be oppressed by the new Egyptian Islamic theocracy, and Christians will regularly suffer persecution like this from private Islamist vigilante groups while the police look the other way. Welcome to the future.

The Catholic Knight has been saying this over and over again on this blog, and I will not stop saying it anytime soon. SECULARISM DOES NOT WORK! I have repeatedly gone into the reasons why it will soon fall in Europe, and the Americas will follow. However, the attempts to create secular regimes in Islamic nations are failing miserably, and this is particularly evident in the Middle East right now.

Islamist radicalism is a reactionary movement. Let me make that perfectly clear. While Christians have always suffered at the hands of Muslims in North Africa and the Middle East, there have also been long periods of tolerance and relative peace between Christians and Muslims. The human shield display in Egypt just a few weeks ago is a demonstration of a mutual acceptance that can happen, and has happened, at various times throughout the Islamic domination of North Africa and Asia. Now don't get me wrong. I'm not saying it's all roses and daisies between Christians and Muslims. There have always been tensions, and those tensions have occasionally erupted in brutal violence, but for the most part Christians and Muslims have existed relatively peacefully in Islamic regions for the greater part of the last millennium.  Christians have been oppressed under Islamic law but rarely massacred.

The recent problems in the Islamic world started to develop with the introduction of Secularism to Islamic societies. Secularism had been accepted, and embraced, in the Christian world for nearly two centuries before it's introduction to the Islamic world. By the time of it's introduction to the Islamic world, it had already run amok in places like Russia, China, and other communist states, where Secularism morphed into state sponsored Atheism. In places like Western Europe and North America, the transformation was more gradual and subtle, but nevertheless present. In a very real and practical sense, Secularism is Atheism, when it is enforced through government policy. For decades the Western world, primarily led by the United States, has pushed Secular thought into the Islamic nations of Northern Africa and the Middle East. This has been done by backing dictators that give lip-service to Islam but simultaneously attempt to introduce Secular policies. In the short term, this has been beneficial to Christians living in the region. In the long term this has been disastrous. The Muslims world will never accept Secularism. They will never roll over and just take it like the Christian world did for the last two centuries. The West tried to shove Secularism down the Islamic world's throat, and the Islamic world is now gagging on it. Radical Islamism is the result. It is the knee-jerk reaction to a perceived Secular threat. These radical Islamists seek to restore their Islamic societies once again by pushing an extreme interpretation of the Koran that was abandoned by most Muslims almost a thousand years ago. Of course, we know what these people do to Christians living nearby.

What we are witnessing today is the vomit of the Islamic world on the Western push of Secularism in their region. They're gagging on Secularism and in the end Egypt will reject it completely just as Iran did thirty years ago. Other Muslim nations will follow - soon. The only way the current Middle Eastern regimes can survive now is to abandon their Secular goals, adopt some version of Shariah law, and turn against the West as the nation of Turkey recently did and Jordan is now doing. Failure to do this will likely result in a similar fate as Egypt. So what we are seeing now in that part of the world is a complete realignment of Islamic nations, the complete rejection of Secularism, and the restoration of Islamic governance in one form or another. Who is going to suffer for this? Obviously Christians in this region will be targeted for vigilante persecution while the government looks the other way.  This is not to say the average Muslim will support this. To the contrary, it is likely that average Muslims will be sickened by it.  I'm just saying they will not likely be able to do much about it in the years ahead. Their hands will be tied by the new political reality.

The cancer of Secularism will also destroy Europe soon, giving Muslims living there a considerable advantage as the few Christians that remain try to follow the Secular rules, while a growing number of Muslims and Islamists actively usurp them. European Secularism will inevitably result in a final choice that all Europeans will be forced to make whether they like it or not. That choice will be to pursue Secularism to it's final goal - which is complete collapse and the rise of Islamic republics in Europe - or to abandon Secularism and return to Europe's Catholic Christian roots before it's too late. So the way Europe goes, the Americas will follow. The day is coming. There is no avoiding it. It will arrive. I just don't know when.