The recent Ramadan, an Islamic commemoration with no roots in Western countries, provided a warning about growing Islamization as schools and workplaces in America and Europe banned public eating out of ‘respect’ for the period. This effectively forced non-Muslims to observe an Islamic commemoration putting them in the familiar position of Dhimmis that Christians are forced to occupy in the Muslim world.
This article in Germany’s Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung describes the plight of Christians in the Muslim world during Ramadan. Even if you don’t speak German, I think you can make out the headline, “Christen Im Ramadan: Du Musst Auch Fasten!”
Or “You Must Fast!”
Nada is a Christian. In the society she lives in, this is not the norm. As a convert, she is particularly vulnerable – a circumstance that, for many, amounts to a death sentence. “My family knows nothing about my faith, otherwise they would kill me.”
She speaks of fear of arrest, of threats and violence that could also affect her daughters if she defies the strict fasting rules. Ramadan, a time of reflection for many in Yemen, is for her a daily struggle to adapt, a time when she has to conceal her own faith and feels like she is denying herself. “We don’t like to lie, but we are forced to,” she says. To avoid arousing suspicion, she even participates in Muslim prayers: “We don’t want to do this, but we are afraid.”
This is what Muslims do to Christians when they’re the majority. And we can already see what they’re doing as a minority.
Ahmed, a Christian convert in Egypt says,
“Not fasting in public is hardly possible here either.” Anyone who doesn’t fast during the day attracts attention – and anyone who attracts attention has to explain themselves.
And there’s Ramadan Apartheid.
The Islamic scholar and journalist Kacem El Ghazzali describes Ramadan as a time when social inequalities become particularly evident: “No other month illustrates the position of religious minorities within Islamic societies as clearly as Ramadan.”
In many predominantly Muslim countries, El Ghazzali says, there are “laws that criminalize eating in public.” Arrests are common “if someone is caught smoking, eating, or drinking.” This segregation is also evident in everyday life: some restaurants serve “only Muslims,” with corresponding signs on doors or at the cash register.
Videos repeatedly circulate showing people seemingly eating or drinking in public – and then being physically attacked by passersby. The social pressure goes far beyond government regulations. Political voices also reflect this attitude. For example, former Moroccan Prime Minister Abdelilah Benkirane essentially stated that he had “a problem with those who don’t fast” – even when society otherwise leaves them alone.
Open Doors describes the persecution of Christians for Ramadan.
In Zanzibar, Christians were flogged and taken to the police for eating during Ramadan. In other cases, Christians were attacked in their own homes.
Ramadan also has economic consequences: “Christians who run restaurants often can’t open them.” In Bangladesh, Christian merchants have been forced by extremists to close their businesses during the fasting period. Added to this are government regulations. In Brunei, it’s a crime to eat in public during Ramadan; similar laws have been enacted in Iraq
That’s why ‘accommodating’ Ramadan is not harmless and it’s not tolerance. It’s giving in to a militant bigoted medieval theocratic ideology bent on forcing everyone to bow to it. For Christians in the Muslim world, eating on Ramadan is an act of heroic faith. And at the rate our governments are surrendering to Islam, it soon will be for us too.
