{"id":6834,"date":"2011-05-11T09:03:31","date_gmt":"2011-05-11T05:03:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/?p=6834"},"modified":"2011-05-11T14:33:52","modified_gmt":"2011-05-11T10:33:52","slug":"people-of-the-book-damning-the-exodus-of-christians","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/showcase\/people-of-the-book-damning-the-exodus-of-christians\/","title":{"rendered":"People of the Book: Damning the Exodus of Christians"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>The latest round of sectarian strife in Egypt has brought the issue of Christians in the predominantly Muslim Middle East back to the fore. \u00a0 I do not believe that what we have witnessed in Egypt is a sectarian confrontation. \u00a0 It is ignorance.<\/p>\n

If one is interested in a game of one-upmanship then there are many resources available for proving or disproving why one religion is superior to the other, more righteous, correct, genuine, true etc.\u00a0 If comparing and contrasting one might as well extend the argument to the differences and subsequent advantages\/disadvantages, between social classes, races, gender, sexual orientation, etc.<\/p>\n

None of that interests me.\u00a0 I, for one, am grateful for the blessing of having Christians in the Middle East. \u00a0 It makes for a more diverse, culturally rich existence that, in my view, promotes understanding.\u00a0 There will always be an undercurrent of rivalry and, sadly, flashes of violent confrontation as witnessed in Egypt over the past decades.<\/p>\n

It is important to note that Christians in the Arab world have not, in general, spent the better part of the past 14-plus centuries getting slaughtered by Muslims.\u00a0 I strongly recommend Zachary Karabell’s People of the Book: The Forgotten History of Islam and the West<\/a> <\/em>for an in-depth study of the subject.<\/em><\/p>\n

When states across the centuries have been prosperous, successful and secure minorities have not had major problems.\u00a0 And the reverse is true.\u00a0 Think of the global financial crisis of the past few years and the accompanying rise of the anti-immigrant politics, sentiment, and attacks in Europe and the United States.<\/p>\n

Thus the Armenians, for example, lived their lives for several hundred years under the Ottomans as other religious minorities did; not in line with 21st Century standards but in generally quite acceptable conditions for that time and age.\u00a0 It was the decay and eventual collapse of the Ottoman Empire and rise of Turkish nationalism (Young Turks) that led to the terrible genocide perpetrated against the Armenians between 1915 and 1917.<\/p>\n

It is worth recalling here the words of French philosopher Jean Bodin describing the Ottoman Sultan Suleiman in the Six Books of the Republic<\/em> (1576): \u201cThe great emperor of the Turks doth with as great devotion as any prince in the world honor and observe the religion by him received from his ancestors; and yet detests he not the strange religions of others; but to the contrary permits every man to live according to his conscience… and suffers four diverse religions: that of the Jews, that of the Christians, that of the Grecians, and that of the Mahometans.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n

Incidentally, while the West has almost always described Suleiman as the Magnificent, in Turkish he was kanuni Sultan Sulayman, ie Suleiman the Lawgiver. \u00a0 He is one of only 23 famous lawmakers whose likenesses adorn the walls of the US House of Representatives.<\/p>\n

With the Spanish reconquest of Iberia the Jews of Spain sought and were given shelter by the Ottomans.\u00a0 And it was in Muslim Spain that the world witnessed the grandeur of a society that brought together Jew, Christian and Muslim.<\/p>\n

Today the Christians in the Arab world face a stark reality.\u00a0 The Arabs have lived under occupation, colonization, mandate or in defeat for the better part of the past few centuries.\u00a0 That the Ottomans, fellow Muslims, ruled for a few hundred years large tracts of Arab lands and peoples tempers the fact but does not entirely remove the sting for they are guilty of their own transgressions.\u00a0 A nascent Arab nationalist movement (end of 19th-early 20th Centuries) strongly influenced by Arab Christians came to naught.\u00a0 At the end of World War I and with the collapse of the Ottoman Empire Western powers carved the region with scant regard for its native inhabitants. \u00a0 With a newly born Israel in the background, the advent of Gamal Abdul Nasser and his Free Officers movement in 1952 prompted the Arab masses to believe that salvation was at hand. \u00a0 Instead Nasser eventually oversaw the loss of what remained of Palestine and set the stage for copycat coups branded as \u201crevolutions\u201d in Syria, Iraq, Sudan and Libya.<\/p>\n

Still Arab Christians remained influential.\u00a0 Michel Aflaq established, with Salah al-Bitar, the Arab Baath (Renaissance) Party.\u00a0 The Arab defeat in the 1967 war dealt a severe blow to Nasser but empowered the Palestinian guerrilla movement. \u00a0 Among its most influential characters was George Habash, a Christian. \u00a0 A secular current still permeated the Arab world. \u00a0 It all came to an end in the mid-to-late 1970s with the gradual disengagement of Egypt from the Arab world and the outbreak of the Lebanese civil war in 1975.<\/p>\n

While the right-wing Lebanese Christians sought, and received, Israeli and then Syrian assistance, left-wing Christians fought on the other side of the conflict alongside their Muslim brethren and the PLO.\u00a0 And while Christian east Beirut was essentially cleansed of its Muslims inhabitants, thousands of Christians, Lebanese and Palestinian (including George Habash), continued to live and thrive in Muslim west Beirut.\u00a0 At the beginning of the conflict innocent civilians were murdered because of the sect indicated on their ID cards-hence \u201cID killings\u201d.\u00a0 A couple of decades later while researching my War of Lebanon documentary I was told a joke which was presented as a true story: a fighter incensed at the slaughter of Muslims declared, \u201cI want to slaughter a Christian,\u201d to which his companion replied, \u201cI have an excellent Christian for you to murder.\u201d\u00a0 \u201cReally, who?\u201d\u00a0 \u201cGeorge Habash.\u201d Silence…<\/p>\n

Today, resistance in the 1980s to Israel’s occupation of Lebanon is wrongly attributed to Hezbollah. \u00a0 In fact it was the secular parties that established the Lebanese National Resistance Front in 1982 and these parties were either led by or included Christians in their ranks. \u00a0 One of underground resistance commanders was Elias Atallah, a Maronite Christian.<\/p>\n

I point this out because today Christians in the Arab world are described by either errant, extremist or fundamentalist Muslims as outsiders or even kuffar<\/em>, non-believers.\u00a0 However, the Quran clearly establishes that Christians and Jews are people of the book with whom Muslims can freely interact and even marry.<\/p>\n

The bankruptcy of the Arab nationalist movement gave rise in the 1970s to Islamism.\u00a0 The momentous assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat<\/a> in 1981 heralded the birth of the reputation of modern-era Muslim militants as fearless and fearsome.\u00a0 The stage had already been set by battle for the representation of Islam. \u00a0 It pitted on one side a still-shaken puritanical Wahabi Saudi Arabia, fresh out of the earth-shattering occupation of the Grand Mosque in Mecca<\/a> in 1979 by Juhayman al-Otaibi and his band of followers, and on the other by Ayatollah Khomeini’s Shiite Iran, flush with the success of a popular revolution which the mullahs claimed as their own and set about trying to \u201cexport the revolution\u201d.<\/p>\n

In the face of Tehran’s zeal the world (ie the West) chose the Saudis who expanded their operations, philanthropic, educational, charitable, etc throughout the world, unhindered.\u00a0 Nay, they were encouraged.
\nThat influence became evident in the Afghan war (1979-1989) when thousands upon thousands of young Arabs poured into Afghanistan to join the jihad<\/em> against the \u201cGodless\u201d Soviets. \u00a0 Enter Usama bin Laden.<\/p>\n

To defeat its archrival the USSR, the United States had created the foe with which it would do battle into the 21st Century!<\/p>\n

The rise of political Islam meant, by necessity, the eclipse of secular currents in Arab societies.\u00a0 While the late (and devout) Yasser Arafat surrounded himself with Palestinian Christians and never tired of repeating \u201cour Christian and<\/strong> Islamic holy sites [in Palestine]\u201d his words were lost amid the din created by Islamist Hamas which viewed things through a singularly Muslim kaleidoscope.\u00a0 To be labeled secular was equal to an accusation of heresy.<\/p>\n

Inevitably that meant the Christians also suffered. \u00a0 Grasping at straws, Islamists saw in \u201cresistance\u201d the only path to victory. \u00a0 In Hamas-ruled Gaza Christians became a target, Hosni Mubarak’s age of mediocrity<\/em><\/a> in Egypt witnessed further sectarian strife, Iraqi Christians suffered terrible attacks in the post-Saddam era and French monks were gruesomely murdered in Algeria.\u00a0 At the same time the Muslim populations were languishing under the some of the most brutal regimes in the world.<\/p>\n

It is hardly surprising that the end product was increasingly insular, almost xenophobic societies that clung and cling to what they perceive as their only salvation: religion.<\/p>\n

The suffering of minorities is not restricted to Christians.\u00a0 The Kurds have endured great injustices and violations in Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey. \u00a0 Unfortunately the current turmoil in the Arab world as a new chapter of history is being written means little time is given to address the issue of religious and ethnic minorities in the Arab world.<\/p>\n

But it will be a shame if the exodus of Christians from the Arab world continues. \u00a0 We will all be the poorer for it.\u00a0 They are an intrinsic part of the fabric of our societies in the orient and have made great contributions. \u00a0 Where would we be today without the Taklas who established the Egyptian daily al-Ahram?\u00a0 And Gibran Khalil Gibran’s sublime literature?\u00a0 Or the wondrous voice of Fairuz, the Lebanese diva?<\/p>\n

What kind of an Arab world would it be without Christians to visit and celebrate with on Christmas and Easter, and to receive in Muslim homes during Eid?<\/p>\n

For me it means emptiness and a profound sense of sorrow.<\/p>\n

It is not Islam that should be blamed for what we are witnessing.\u00a0 Nor Christianity.\u00a0 It is ignorance, nurtured and preserved by decadent and bankrupt regimes and movements and overseen by a world more interested in a constant supply of oil and the mirage of regional stability in an area that has witnessed since 1948, on average, a war every 8 years.<\/p>\n

This is a crucial period in the history of the Middle East.\u00a0 It is either a new era or a false dawn.\u00a0 The desire for liberty is genuine, the hope for a bright future real.\u00a0 Somewhere in the plans being initiated for reformed systems of government must be a place, a cornerstone, for tolerance and understanding.\u00a0 Religion is faith, it is belief, not a sword brandished nor a diktat imposed.\u00a0 The religious and the men of religion, of which I’m not, need to speak to their followers, to preach the message of peace, because that’s what religion is all about. Or so I believe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

OMAR AL ISSAWI: The latest round of sectarian strife in Egypt is not about sectarian confrontation. It is about ignorance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":86,"featured_media":6840,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[24,2693,18328,4334,114,320,229,1301,18300,470,6840,3088,227,2734,2323,18306,18321,91,18311,18309,18332,249,3502,191,406,583,3605,1747,128,1808,5701,2139,221,18330,2744,6844,18325,18302,6833,2274],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6834"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/86"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6834"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6834\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6840"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6834"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6834"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6834"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}