I have a piece posted on Catholic Lane, related to a conference I attended over the weekend here in the Boston area.
Most riveting were the firsthand accounts of two young women, Juliana Taimoorazy, the Executive Director of the Iraqi Christian Relief Council, and Cynthia Farahat, an Egyptian political activist and writer. They testified to daily harassment and oppression by police and radical Muslims. They spoke bravely about the constant fear and the innumerable political obstacles to living freely in societies predominated by Islam.
One of the most poignant comments was made by Ms. Farahat, who explained that she was forced to live as a fourth-class citizen in Egypt. (Christian women rank behind Muslim males, Muslim females, and Christian males in such objectively stratified cultures. Surely, that reality is a far-cry from the constant grumbling about “patriarchal values in our own society, where females outnumber males in most post-graduate studies.)
As the article notes, there was great good in being there, seeing how many people see through the media distortions about the real victims around the world, but there was a significant disconnect as well, related to the Larger Narrative in which we're privileged to participate. [Read it all.]
