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RELIGIOUS INTOLERANCE: THE BURDEN OF THE CROSS
AINA Assyrian International News Agency
Dec 25 2014
The Guardian
Posted 2014-12-26 00:32 GMT
Photographs of slain Iraqi priests are seen during a mass at Our Lady
of Salvation church in Baghdad, Iraq in November 2010 (photo: Khalid
Mohammed/AP).The invasion of Iraq in 2003 and its aftermath can be
seen in hindsight as the greatest catastrophe to strike the ancient
Christian communities of the Middle East since the Mongol invasions.
In some ways it was worse. The Mongol invasions had as a side effect
the postponement for about 50 years of the collapse of the Crusader
kingdoms. The invasion of Iraq contributed nothing to the safety of
any Christian community anywhere.
The hideous convulsions that followed have been dreadful for everyone
in the region, but nobody has suffered more than the Christians,
persecuted alike in Sunni and Shia states. In the nations that are not
at war, they are tolerated but oppressed; in the Gulf, most Christians
are servants, abominably treated. Their religion must be practised in
secret, with converts threatened with death. In Iran, a missionary or
a pastor is hanged from time to time as an exercise in public morality.
In the states where war rages, every man's hand is against them. The
Christian population of Iraq was more than a million in 2003. Now it
is less than a third of that size, with perhaps half that number in
Kurdistan, which is functionally independent of the Shia government
anyway. They are not coming back. Nor can they feel safe in Kurdistan.
It was Sunni Kurds who did much of the killing in Turkey's attempted
genocide of the Armenian Christians 100 years ago, and both sides
remember this.
In Syria, a brutal sectarian insurgency drives some Christians to
support the ruthless Assad regime. In Egypt, the already vulnerable
Coptic Christians, who lived there for 600 years before the Muslims
arrived, had a dreadful Arab spring under the Islamist regime of
President Mohamed Morsi and, after the counter-revolutionary coup,
continue to be persecuted, both inside and outside the law. Even
Israel, which presents itself as a beacon of religious liberty,
is a dreadful place to live for Christian Arabs, caught between an
occupying army in the West Bank and Muslim fundamentalism in Gaza.
Further east, in Pakistan, a corrupt government fails to challenge
deep prejudice that leaves Christians vulnerable to judicial murder
under the blasphemy laws, as well as to the lynchings and pogroms to
which the authorities turn an understanding eye. Those rare politicians
brave enough to speak up for toleration can be assassinated, sometimes
by their own bodyguards.
Across a wide belt of sub-Saharan Africa, but especially in Nigeria,
northern Kenya and the Central African Republic, there are simmering
wars between Muslim and Christian ethnic groups. In some cases, in
the Democratic Republic of the Congo and in South Sudan, Christian
armies fight merciless civil wars against each other and civilian
populations. It isn't just a simple story of Muslims persecuting
Christians. In China and in North Korea, atheist governments are
persecuting Christians; in Russia, an Orthodox Christian regime treats
Catholics with suspicion and Protestants with brutality. In India,
state governments have indulged the persecution of Christians under
the ludicrous pretext that they are stamping out proselytism.
Nonetheless, the problem of Christian persecution is most pronounced
in Islamic societies, and especially in places where oil riches are
inflaming prejudice. Of course, Muslims in Europe or North America
confront intolerance too, but it would be silly to deny that the
situation of Christians in the Middle East is very much worse.
The answer is not to inflame matching animosity against Islam. A
clearer understanding of that faith's complexities would be a help,
both to praise the visions of peace it contains and to condemn the
way that certain Muslim ideas are turned into aggression by some
adherents. But this is best done in terms that Muslims themselves can
embrace, through a discussion involving people of all faiths as well
as those of none.
Just as important is a resolute stand for the principle of religious
freedom everywhere. Religious belief is fundamental to many human
identities. Freedom of faith must be defended, irrespective of whether
the attacks come from totalitarian atheist regimes or theocracies. For
the faithful, what they believe about God is inseparable from what
they understand about human beings. But God's rights must never be
allowed to trample on human rights.
http://www.aina.org/news/20141225193253.htm
AINA Assyrian International News Agency
Dec 25 2014
The Guardian
Posted 2014-12-26 00:32 GMT
Photographs of slain Iraqi priests are seen during a mass at Our Lady
of Salvation church in Baghdad, Iraq in November 2010 (photo: Khalid
Mohammed/AP).The invasion of Iraq in 2003 and its aftermath can be
seen in hindsight as the greatest catastrophe to strike the ancient
Christian communities of the Middle East since the Mongol invasions.
In some ways it was worse. The Mongol invasions had as a side effect
the postponement for about 50 years of the collapse of the Crusader
kingdoms. The invasion of Iraq contributed nothing to the safety of
any Christian community anywhere.
The hideous convulsions that followed have been dreadful for everyone
in the region, but nobody has suffered more than the Christians,
persecuted alike in Sunni and Shia states. In the nations that are not
at war, they are tolerated but oppressed; in the Gulf, most Christians
are servants, abominably treated. Their religion must be practised in
secret, with converts threatened with death. In Iran, a missionary or
a pastor is hanged from time to time as an exercise in public morality.
In the states where war rages, every man's hand is against them. The
Christian population of Iraq was more than a million in 2003. Now it
is less than a third of that size, with perhaps half that number in
Kurdistan, which is functionally independent of the Shia government
anyway. They are not coming back. Nor can they feel safe in Kurdistan.
It was Sunni Kurds who did much of the killing in Turkey's attempted
genocide of the Armenian Christians 100 years ago, and both sides
remember this.
In Syria, a brutal sectarian insurgency drives some Christians to
support the ruthless Assad regime. In Egypt, the already vulnerable
Coptic Christians, who lived there for 600 years before the Muslims
arrived, had a dreadful Arab spring under the Islamist regime of
President Mohamed Morsi and, after the counter-revolutionary coup,
continue to be persecuted, both inside and outside the law. Even
Israel, which presents itself as a beacon of religious liberty,
is a dreadful place to live for Christian Arabs, caught between an
occupying army in the West Bank and Muslim fundamentalism in Gaza.
Further east, in Pakistan, a corrupt government fails to challenge
deep prejudice that leaves Christians vulnerable to judicial murder
under the blasphemy laws, as well as to the lynchings and pogroms to
which the authorities turn an understanding eye. Those rare politicians
brave enough to speak up for toleration can be assassinated, sometimes
by their own bodyguards.
Across a wide belt of sub-Saharan Africa, but especially in Nigeria,
northern Kenya and the Central African Republic, there are simmering
wars between Muslim and Christian ethnic groups. In some cases, in
the Democratic Republic of the Congo and in South Sudan, Christian
armies fight merciless civil wars against each other and civilian
populations. It isn't just a simple story of Muslims persecuting
Christians. In China and in North Korea, atheist governments are
persecuting Christians; in Russia, an Orthodox Christian regime treats
Catholics with suspicion and Protestants with brutality. In India,
state governments have indulged the persecution of Christians under
the ludicrous pretext that they are stamping out proselytism.
Nonetheless, the problem of Christian persecution is most pronounced
in Islamic societies, and especially in places where oil riches are
inflaming prejudice. Of course, Muslims in Europe or North America
confront intolerance too, but it would be silly to deny that the
situation of Christians in the Middle East is very much worse.
The answer is not to inflame matching animosity against Islam. A
clearer understanding of that faith's complexities would be a help,
both to praise the visions of peace it contains and to condemn the
way that certain Muslim ideas are turned into aggression by some
adherents. But this is best done in terms that Muslims themselves can
embrace, through a discussion involving people of all faiths as well
as those of none.
Just as important is a resolute stand for the principle of religious
freedom everywhere. Religious belief is fundamental to many human
identities. Freedom of faith must be defended, irrespective of whether
the attacks come from totalitarian atheist regimes or theocracies. For
the faithful, what they believe about God is inseparable from what
they understand about human beings. But God's rights must never be
allowed to trample on human rights.
http://www.aina.org/news/20141225193253.htm