Regular readers of this column know that, at times, we look at the ways Muslim countries, those nations where Islam is the national religion and the foundation for their laws, are not like us (if you’ll excuse the grammar).  Egypt and Turkey are two examples.  Both have been in the news recently for their unabashed persecution of their Christian populations.

An official policy of the Obama administration is to keep happy our pigs and those who raise them by avoiding the term “swine flu” when describing the influenza virus that jumped from pigs to people.  It is not the swine flu, but rather the H1N1 virus, they tell us. 

The Egyptian government, however, uses swine flu as an excuse to launch another round of persecution against its minority Christian population.  Even though the World Health Organization reports no swine flu in any African nation as of this writing, the Egyptian government ordered the destruction of the entire pig population in a nation where only Christians raise pigs because Muslims consider pork unclean.

Earlier this week, according to various news organizations, about 1,000 Christian pig farmers armed with stones and bottles faced off against about 200 police officers armed with tear gas and accompanied by armored vehicles.  The Christians lost. 

Now, Egyptian health officials say the pig slaughter is part of a campaign against unsanitary conditions on pig farms, especially in Cairo slums where garbage collectors live.  And since all pig-raising garbage collectors are Christians, some observers believe this is another way to harm Christians in a nation where the law strongly discourages conversion to Christianity.

Or, someone serving at the wedding of a Muslim who converted to Christianity.  Father Mattaos Wahba received a five-year prison sentence last October after his conviction on charges he helped a Muslim woman obtain an ID card that falsely listed her religion as Christian.  The woman obtained the ID of a deceased Christian woman of about her age two years before she met her future husband, according to the organization Christian Copts of California.  The priest, according to the group, had no knowledge of the woman’s fake ID.  He, instead, is a victim of Egypt’s open violation of religious and human rights.  At least in the way we understand them. 

Even the U.S. State Department describes the Egyptian government as applying discriminatory religious laws and practices, and effectively shutting out Christians from senior positions in the government, military, and education.  And forget about building or repairing churches.  An 1856 law says non-Muslims must obtain a presidential decree to build or repair a place of worship.  A church in a Cairo suburb has been waiting for a construction permit for the past 50 years, according to the State Department. 

Turkey doesn’t need a swine-flu ruse to persecute its Christians.  That government is open in its de jure and de facto forms of discrimination, including the systematic removal of Eastern Orthodoxy from within its borders.  Turkey does not recognize the ecumenical role of the Patriarch of Constantinople, the spiritual leader of the world’s 200 million Eastern Orthodox Christians, whose patriarchate dates back to the fourth century. 

At one time, the patriarchate possessed holdings on par with those of the Vatican, but it is now a small, beleaguered enclave with most of its property seized by the government and its priests and patriarch victims of constant physical and political attacks.  For instance, the government must approve a new patriarch who must be a native Turk.  The government also closed all Christian schools and the Halki Seminary that trained Turkey’s priests and patriarchs. 

In 2007, the late Congressman Tom Lantos joined 50 members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, which he chaired, in sending a letter to Turkey’s prime minister urging an end to all restrictions on the religious freedom of the patriarch.  President Obama made a similar statement in his April 6 remarks to Turkey’s parliament.

Mr. Obama, however, did not mention a case under deliberation by a Turkish judge.  The monks of the fourth-century Syriac Orthodox monastery of Mor Gabriel want the court to stop a group of state land surveyors and Muslim villagers from taking about sixty percent of its property.  The monks believe the taking of their land is another way to force non-Muslims to leave.

The case of Mor Gabriel may have profound political ramifications for Turkey, as pointed out by the Assyrian International News Agency.  Turkey wants to become a member of the European Union, and protection of minority and religious rights are conditions for entry.  But, history often shows us that political expediency often trumps religious rights, particularly when the religion is Christianity in a Muslim state.

You would be hard-pressed to find news stories referring to the birthplace of Jesus Christ, THE SON OF GOD, as “the holy city of Bethlehem.”  Journalists would never describe as Christian holy cities the ancient patriarchates of Constantinople, Rome, Jerusalem, Antioch, and Alexandria.

Constantinople is now Istanbul, but at one time, it was the seat of the Byzantine Empire and the ecumenical center of the Christian world.  Rome, Jerusalem Antioch, and Alexandria are still around, but journalists and their editors back home go out of their way to avoid the hint of Judeo-Christian bias.

This is why you won’t read about the 22-year-old man arrested for swimming nekked in the “historic” Baraccia fountain in the holy city of Rome, as happened this week and reported by Reuters.

Nor will you read about responses from the holy city of Vatican City about a proposal for Roman Catholic pope Benedict XVI and Russian Orthodox patriarch Alexy II to chew the holy fat in Cyprus sometime during the year, as reported this week by the Associated Press.

Anglicans won’t read about controversial housing development plans accepted by the holy city of Canterbury’s city council this week, as reported in The Times of London.

Folks in Japan and China never see their capital cities referred to as holy cities or former holy cities, even though the emperors of both countries claimed divine status.  Maybe the lack of a recognized holy city led the Chinese to take control of Tibet, home to the holy city of Lhasa.

Latter-Day Saints never hear the Mormon mecca called the holy city of Salt Lake City.

Gays, however, can read the Agence France Presse story about an ultra-Orthodox Jew arrested last week for trying to blow up a Gay Pride parade route in the holy city of Jerusalem.  In case the reader starts feeling distressed about the use of the term, and experiences an overriding desire to apologize for religious insensitivity, the writer included the following disclaimer:  “Jerusalem (is) revered as a holy city by millions of Christians, Jews, and Muslims all over the world.”

Maybe the title of holy city doesn’t mean what it used to mean.  Think of a holy city and you may think of a peaceful place populated by people filled with some kind of holy spirit.  The Merriam-Webster online dictionary defines holy city as a city that is the center of religious worship and traditions.

These days, though, a holy city may find itself as the center of a story about a natural or political upheaval.  “Another quake jolts holy city of Qom in Iran,” read a Payvand News headline on the last day of spring.  Historians of the twentieth century know the Punjab holy city of Amritsar for the martyrdom of 206 Sikhs in 1984.  In February, officers from Saudi Arabia’s Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice set out to protect the rectitude of the holy city of Mecca by arresting more than 200 Saint Valentine’s Day observers from Bangladesh and Myanmar.

Even though western journalists try hard to play up the religion-of-peace aspect of Islam, they find themselves writing stories of gunmen killing six people riding a minibus near the holy city of Karbala, or of soldiers guarding the funeral of a police officer in the holy city of Najaf.

Samarra, also in Iraq, may not be a holy city, but it has a revered mosque bombed by al-Qaeda earlier this month.  (Please note that western journalists only use the word revered with Islamic places of worship.  God forbid, so to speak, that the reporter for an Irish newspaper describe the “ancient” Basilica of Saint John and Saint Paul in the [holy city] of Rome as revered, even though it is the administrative headquarters for the Passionist order to which the newly canonized Charles of Mount Argus belonged.)

Pity the poor United States.  We’re not old enough to have anything that’s ancient.  We reserve revered for really old actors or professors who just died.

But we do have Charleston, S.C., named after King Charles II of England, and a self-proclaimed Holy City, because of the abundances of places of worship.

Charleston also is the home to Sammie Smalls, the inspiration for the Porgy character in “Porgy and Bess” and a guy who used to ride around James Island on a goat cart.  Charleston will be a mecca this weekend for people attending the “Comin’ Home to Porgy” celebration, a Lowcountry version of a haj.

Others can have their holy cities and revered places.  We have our own holy city, complete with a revered goat cart rider.

We’re doomed.