Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

A Road To Perdition For Arab Christians

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • A Road To Perdition For Arab Christians

    A ROAD TO PERDITION FOR ARAB CHRISTIANS

    The Daily Star (Lebanon)
    September 10, 2013 Tuesday

    by Basem Shabb

    Recent events in Syria have seriously jeopardized the future of
    Eastern Christian communities in the Levant. But not as much as
    the ill-conceived outbursts of the clergy in support of the brutal
    regime of President Bashar Assad and silence in the face of flagrant
    atrocities. The prophet Isaiah prophesied the destruction of Damascus -
    "Damascus is taken away from being a city, and it shall be a ruinous
    heap" - and the patriarchs and bishops seem eager to expedite the
    process. Blinded by the fear of Sunni extremists, Christian communities
    in Syria have adopted seriously flawed policies and attitudes. Wishful
    thinking and poor judgment have somehow aligned Eastern Christianity
    with a cruel regime and an anti-Western alliance headed by Iran.

    As the Syrian uprising gained momentum, a majority of the Christian
    communities grew both critical and skeptical of the Arab Spring. The
    Greek Catholic patriarch, Gregory III Lahham, has repeatedly voiced
    support for Assad on religious occasions, totally oblivious to the
    fact that a majority of Catholics are in Aleppo, where there have
    been major advances by rebels, many of whom are Sunni radicals.

    In Lebanon, too, churches have made questionable choices. Maronite
    Patriarch Beshara Rai has both publicly and privately expressed his
    fear that radical Sunni jihadists may gain in Syria and regularly
    receives the Syrian ambassador to Lebanon.

    The Armenian political and clerical leadership in Lebanon and Syria
    has turned a blind eye to Hezbollah's involvement in the Syrian
    conflict. An evangelical pastor in Aleppo who staunchly defends the
    Syrian regime accused the opposition of using chemical weapons.

    Widespread human right abuses have been met with deafening silence
    by representatives of almost all the Christian denominations, with
    no hint of empathy for the displaced and the incarcerated.

    Many pro-Syrian Christian groups in Lebanon such as Michel Aoun's Free
    Patriotic Movement and Suleiman Franjieh's Marada Movement regularly
    call for the closure of the Lebanese-Syrian border in the face of
    Syrian refugees and for expulsion of the displaced in Lebanon. Syrian
    refugees are regarded not as victims but as jihadist sympathizers.

    This sentiment against the opposition was reinforced by jihadist
    terrorist actions against the Syrian Christian population and
    institutions as well as the absence of genuine condemnation by the
    more moderate Sunni majority.

    The Syrian regime and Iranian and Hezbollah propaganda have convinced
    large swathes of the Christian community in Syria and Lebanon that
    their fate is organically tied to survival of the Assad regime.

    The Christian narrative of victimization and persecution is often laced
    with anti-Sunni sentiment, without any meaningful consideration that
    the Sunni community in Syria has suffered infinitely more than the
    Christian community. True, churches have been targeted and destroyed,
    but many more mosques have been targeted and destroyed.

    True, tens of thousands of Christians have been displaced, but millions
    of innocent Sunnis have been made refugees in and outside Syria.

    Moral apathy reached its nadir with the gruesome chemical attack in the
    Ghouta area of Damascus recently. Instead of horror and condemnation,
    conspiracy theories were invoked to exonerate the perpetrators.

    The Armenian churches, themselves the victims of genocide, remain
    unapologetic about the excesses of the Syrian regime. The Greek
    Orthodox church echoes Russia's position of supporting the regime in
    the face of the so-called "takfiris," with an added anti-Western and
    often anti-Semitic twist. Little attention is paid to the fact that
    Russia's ruthless support of a despicable and barbarous regime is the
    cause and not the consequence of rising Sunni radicalism. Russia's
    self-serving interest in Syria's Christians has produced a false
    sense of security.

    Western countries assisting Syrian Christian refugees are appalled
    by the prevalent pro-regime and anti-Western sentiment of Christians,
    often directed against those same countries trying to host them. This
    week, for instance, Rai attributed the current crisis to a "foreign
    agenda" designed to serve Israel's interests. He also called on Arabs
    "to resolve their confessional disputes that were created by the West
    and Israel."

    Conspiracy theories and anti-Western rhetoric may appeal to popular
    sentiment but are hardly fitting for a cardinal in the Vatican
    and perhaps the leading cleric in Eastern Christianity. Eastern
    Christianity cannot antagonize the West yet call for its help in
    times of despair. The duplicity of siding with Russia and Iran,
    yet seeking refuge in France, Germany and Sweden has not been lost
    on the West, which has reacted by being slow in granting emigration
    visas to Syria's Christians.

    The Greek Orthodox church in Syria survived centuries of turbulence
    because of it's symbiotic relationship with Sunni Islam. Should this
    relationship sour as it has, neither Russia nor Iran can save Syria's
    Christians. Christians have not learned the lesson of Iraq. The
    fate of Christian communities cannot be tied to a decaying order,
    let alone to a brutal dictator who is likely to be overthrown.

    The road to perdition has been paved with moral ambivalence, overt
    anti-Sunni sentiment and cultural detachment from the West. This
    course must be reversed before the coming onslaught against the regime,
    which may hasten its downfall, even if such a reversal is unlikely.

    God forbid that after the dust settles in Syria, Eastern Christians
    will echo a haunting refrain from Psalm 22: "My God, my God, why hast
    thou forsaken me."

    Basem Shabb is the Protestant representative from Beirut in the
    Lebanese Parliament. He wrote this commentary for THE DAILY STAR.

Working...
X