Cruel Ironies: Muslims in Indonesia Say Build Your Church Somewhere Else

I was on Twitter figuring out how to translate my tweets into Indonesian when I got into a "conversation" with two people who from Indonesia. In their view, I was all wrong about Muslims. They thought I would benefit by visiting Indonesia to see how peaceful the Muslims were toward their Christian neighbors.

In response, I did what I used to do as a conservative American government professor face-to-face with out of touch liberal colleagues: I confronted them with powerful counter evidence. In this little YouTube video the Muslims in Indonesia do not appear to be very friendly to their Christian neighbors. The irony, of course, is that President Obama grew up in Indonesia and he is fond of suggesting that Islamic adherents in that country are not as vicious or as extreme as the people we are fighting in Iraq or Afghanistan.

This YouTube video features a Muslim woman from Indonesia saying that she lives in a Muslim dominant neighborhood and that the Christians should just build their church somewhere else.

As an Armenian-American, I know from family experience how dangerous it is to be a Christian in a Muslim dominant country. My grandmother lost her mother and many of her relatives to the Armenian Genocide. As such, I recommend this YouTube video as a chilling and ironic reminder that Muslims - even the ones in Lolo Soetoro's home country - are inspired by a text which facilitates the abuse and mistreatment on non-Muslims. We would be unwise not to pay attention to the mistreatment of Christians at the hands of Muslims all over the world.

John C. Drew, Ph.D. is an award-winning political scientist.