Nigeria's Christians Today, Europe's Christians Tomorrow

by Giulio Meotti • March 18, 2018 at 5:00 am

It is in Nigeria that the balance between Islam and Christianity in Africa will be decided, according to Philip Jenkins, a leading expert of Christianity. That is why the Islamists have been killing the Christians en masse.
"If the Islamists should overrun Nigeria, it will be a steppingstone [sic] to conquering smaller countries. If Nigeria falls to Islamic extremists, all of Africa will be at risk". — Catholic Bishop Hyacinth Egbebo, Nigeria.
Wole Soyinka's "horde" will not be confined to the Nigerian borders, but will try to strike Western Europe as well....We are lucky to have survived as many attacks as we have in Madrid, London, Paris and Berlin, to recall just a few. But how many more? And for how long?

Pictured: A Nigerian man reads a bible in a Catholic Church in Kano, Nigeria. (Photo by Chris Hondros/Getty Images)

Usually, Africa only breaks through to the West when Western targets are attacked by terrorists. First, two US Black Hawk helicopters were shot down in Somalia in 1993. Then Al Qaeda attacked US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998. Then, only a few days ago, Islamic State published a video purporting to show an ambush in Niger in which four US soldiers were killed last October. The West was silent. The West does not seem to care about the ongoing Islamic terrorist genocide on Africa's biggest Christian population in Nigeria.

A few days ago, the Coliseum in Rome was lit up red to protest the persecution of Christians. Italy's most famous landmark was illuminated at the behest of "Aid to the Church in Need" to draw attention to the intense and enormous massacre Christians are suffering.

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Erdogan's Unrequited Arab Love

by Burak Bekdil • March 18, 2018 at 4:30 am

Apparently for Turkey's extremist Muslims, this is a war between "us good Muslims" and "those infidels."
First, Turkey is running a military show in Arab Syria: targeting Muslim Kurds who it claims are terrorists. Erdogan has vowed that after Syria, the military campaign will target northern Iraq.
In the meantime, Erdogan's "Arab friends" are showing signs of hostility, one after the other.

The events in the last couple of weeks seem to confirm that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's ambitions for a Turkey-led ummah (Muslim community) are not welcome in the Arab world. This emerging divide among Sunni Islamists -- Turkey, Saudi Arabia et al -- is important for the West.

In Turkey, a hysteria has set in. It appears a national competition of patriotism that has captured the Turkish imagination. Screams of martyrdom and jihad can be heard echoing across the country. Even children are not spared from the ugly "death talk."

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The Boy From Petersburg Who Became The Man From Moscow

by Amir Taheri • March 18, 2018 at 4:00 am

(Image source: kremlin.ru)

On Sunday, Russians will go to the polls to elect their president, and, if opinion polls are right, they will re-elect the incumbent Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin.

When recruited by President Boris Yeltsin as an aide, Putin was regarded as a rising star reflecting the Russian mood of the 1990s which favored rapid westernization. Putin was a boy from Saint Petersburg, the city built by French and Italians for Peter the Great, the westernizing tsar.

In the first phase of his career as Prime Minister and then President, Putin reflected that mood with great gusto, forging close ties with Western leaders, notably President George W. Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair.

More importantly, through G-8 he coordinated policy with Western powers on a number of major international issues, including the fitting of China's rising economic power into the global system, Iran's nuclear ambitions and the global war on terror.

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