Tuesday, February 22, 2011

What do these have in common?

Here's a list of eleven countries. Tell me what they have in common?

Angola, Bahrain, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, China, Djibouti, Gabon, Libya, Nigeria, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia.

Islamic? Well, not quite. Bahrain, Burkina Faso, Djibouti, Libya, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia are indeed Islamic, but the other five are not.

In the Middle East? Again, not quite. Some are indeed part of the Middle East, but the others are in Africa. And, of course, China is far to the east.

So what do they have in common?

Actually, they all share two things in common. First, they are all rated near the very bottom of the Democracy Index of countries, where they are all classified as "authoritarian regimes." (They are ranked 120th or lower in the list of the 167 countries of the world.) Second, they are all members of the United Nations Human Rights Council--the group that has routinely condemned Israel for its "abuse of human rights."

It seems that these nations do indeed have first-hand experience with the abuse of human rights. Perhaps they ought to remember Jesus' words to remove the beam from their own eyes before pointing out the spec in the eye of another.

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