بعض من محاضرة القيت في نادي الليونز (351)

الديبلوماسية البرلمانية

بقلم إيلي الفرزلي

نائب رئيس مجلس النواب

للولايات المتحدة الأميركية في عين زائرها ملامح لا تخفى، بل هي بارزة للعيان على كل محطة. وثباتها الطويل الذي أوصلها لتكون القوى العظمى الوحيدة في العالم ، هو الشهادة الناطقة بثبات نظامها السياسي الذي أقامه المشرّعون الأوائل بأفق مستقبلي بعيد المدى.

ولذلك فإن أي عضو في أي مجلس تشريعي في العالم لا يجد نفسه غريباً في الولايات المتحدة ، بل يشعر على الفور، لكونه منتخباً من شعبه، أنه من هل البيت ، وله إبداء الرأي في أي أمر بصرف النظر عن حجم بلاده أو وزنها أو دورها. حتى أن رئيس البلدية المنتخب في أصغر قرية ، هو في نظر الأميركيين أهم وأكثر شرعية من أي وزير معيّن في أكبر دولة.

لم نشعر أثناء وجودنا في الولايات المتحدة بين المشرّعين الأميركيين الذين حضرنا مؤتمرهم القومي في مدينة ني أورليانز، بأننا نمثل دولة صغيرة بقدر ما شعرنا أننا نمثل فكرة كبيرة. فالحياة الدستورية في لبنان لها وزن في العالم أكبر مما يتصوّر اللبنانيون.

قلنا للمشرّعين الأميركيين، ولغيرهم من المسؤولين على جميع المستويات، أن البنيان الدستوري الذي حفظ الولايات المتحدة خلال الحرب الأهلية الأميركية في القرن الماضي ، وحفظها من التقسيم بنوع خاص ، هو ذاته الذي حفظ لبنان من المرامي الخبيثة للحرب اللبنانية . فالخلق الدستوري العميق الجذور في لبنان، كأساس للنظام الديموقراطي البرلماني، متماثل، من حيث المبدأ، مع الخلق الدستوري الرفيع للآباء المؤسسين للولايات المتحدة، ولو أن كثيرين من المشرعين والسياسيين اللبنانيين لم يرتقوا الى هذا المستوى.

وصادفت أثناء وجودنا في الولايات المتحدة ذكرى وفاة الكاتب الشهير "الكسيس دي توكفيل" صاحب المؤلف الكلاسيكي المعروف "الديموقراطية في أميركا"، فكانت مناسبة للتعرف إليه من جديد عن كثب، ولتعريف الدستوريين اللبنانيين به.

ذلك أن توكفيل كان يرى أن نجاح النظام الأميركي وتفوّقه يعودان الى الانسجام أو التطابق بين الخلق الدستوري في المطلق والخلق الشخصي للمشرّعين الدستوريين.

ولا سبيل الى ردم أي ثغرة تنشأ بينهما إلا بممارسة الحياة الديموقراطية الحرّة في إطار المؤسسات الدستورية ولممارسة الديموقراطية الفعلية.

كذلك لمسنا لمس اليد أن الاتصالات التي يجريها النواب المنتخبون في أي بلد مع نظرائهم في البلدان الأخرى، لها فعل أكثر نفاذاً ودواماً من أي اتصال ديبلوماسي آخر على المستويات الرسمية، باعتبار أن "الديبلوماسية البرلمانية" لا تشوبها المجاملات الكثيفة والملامسات الخجولة أو غير المباشرة. كما أن النائب المنتخب لا تحدّه عقدة حجم بلاده، كما سلف القول، بل يعتبر نداً بصرف النظر عن أي اعتبار، فيكون من الناحية العملية كأنه أخذ مقعداً في مجلس نظيره بالنسبة الى القضية التي يريد إبلاغها أو الدفاع عنها.

ولعل هذه الحقيقة هي من الأسباب التي حملت وكالة التنمية الدولية على التركيز على التنمية السياسية، وخصوصاً بالنسبة الى المؤسسات الدستورية والديموقراطية، لأن التعاضد بين المجالس التشريعية في البلدان المختلفة من شأنه أن يحمي الأوضاع الديموقراطية في تلك البلدان كافة. وقد أثبت هذا التوجّه نجاحاً ملحوظاً في أميركا اللاتينية. كان شرفاً عظيماً للبنان أن وفده البرلماني الذي دعي لحضور المؤتمر القومي للمشرّعين الأميركيين إلى جانب وفود دولية من بريطانيا والكومونويلث وألمانيا والإتحاد الاوروبي وأميركا اللاتينية وكندا واليابان، حيث حظي بترحيب خاص وبمشاركة فعلية. كذلك الأمر في لجنة الشؤون الخارجية في الكونغرس الاتحادي في واشنطن برئاسة "لي هاملتون"، عندما دعينا لحضور جلسة استجواب وزير الخارجية "وارن كريستوفر" قبل جولته الجديدة في الشرق الأوسط.

وإذا كان لي من كلمة أقولها للبنانيين عامة ، وللزملاء النواب خاصة ، فهي أننا في لبنان نتمتع بمركز فريد فعلاً قوامه الخلق الدستوري والحياة الديموقراطية، وأنه علينا أن نحافظ عليه وأن نرتقي إلى المستوي اللائق به.

إيلي الفرزلي

نائب رئيس مجلس النواب

10-08-1994 

 

Ms. Angelina Eichhorst, Head of the EU Delegation to Lebanon

Ms. Angelina Eichhorst, Head of the EU Delegation to Lebanon

Subject: Urgent appeal following the incidents of the town of Maaloula in Syria

Petitioner: The Christian Gathering (Beit Anya, Lebanon)

Your Excellency Ms. Angelina Eichhorst, Head of the EU Delegation to Lebanon,

From 4 to 8 September 2013, documented facts were reported by international and namely western media, revealing that the town of Maaloula in Syria was the victim of several armed attacks led by Islamists that oppose the Syrian authorities. These incidents made at least three dead among the population of Maaloula, and were marked by acts of vandalism that targeted the town’s religious and historical sites. Consequently, the Christian population’s displacement from Maaloula and the country was accelerated.

Your Excellency,

The Christian Gathering would like to draw your attention to the fact that the population of Maaloula belongs to autochthonous Christian communities having inhabited this land for more than two thousand years. From a cultural point of view, they stand out for being the last population to speak ancient Aramaic, and to teach it to children at school. It is noteworthy that this language is one of the constituents of civilization in the Middle East in particular, and the world in general, for being the language spoken by Jesus Christ, as proven by historical studies.

It is also worth recalling that the religious and historical sites in Maaloula form an integral part of the culture of this community whose roots in this land are centuries old. They constitute a cultural asset for humanity as a whole.

Your Excellency,

What is happening in Maaloula deserves the direct attention of the European Union and all its member States. As expressed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and reiterated during the 1993 World Conference on Human Rights, one of the main purposes of the EU consists in ensuring the respect for all human rights, whether civil, political, economic, social, or cultural, all over the world. The EU further supports the rights of women, children, people belonging to minorities, and displaced persons. 

Your Excellency,

What has been inflicted to Maaloula, and more generally to Christians in Syria, Iraq, Egypt, or Occupied Palestine, is a blatant violation of the principles enshrined in the first 24 articles of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights. More specifically, articles 21 and 22 thereof, stipulate respectively that “Any discrimination based on any ground such as sex, race, color, ethnic or social origin, genetic features, language, religion or belief, political or any other opinion, membership of a national minority [...] shall be prohibited”, and that “The Union shall respect cultural, religious and linguistic diversity”. In addition, all principles embedded in the UN charter and most articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights are thereby violated. Moreover, these actions constitute a clear violation of the “Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide”, the “International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination”, the “Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Intolerance and of Discrimination Based on Religion or Belief”, and most importantly “The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights” (16 December 1966). A large number of international instruments that are part of the International Humanitarian Law can be added to the above list, including, inter-alia, The “Declaration on the Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities” adopted and disseminated by the UNGA on December 18, 1992, and to which the EU adheres.

Your Excellency,

Based on the above, and on all the general principles of the International Humanitarian law, we urge you to take action as soon as possible, and to leave no stone unturned so as to achieve the following:

1-               To add the persecutions and attacks committed against religious communities in the Middle East, and namely those perpetrated in the past few years in Iraq, Syria, Egypt, and Palestine, to the EU’s agenda and areas on interest, involving all EU entities and member States, and to raise the issue during the UNGA’s session, expected to be held in the few upcoming days.

2-               To work on the creation of an international fact-finding committee, in order to conduct filed visits to the places where these tragedies are occurring, starting from Maaloula in Syria, so as to establish facts and ensure moral and effective protection to the victims of persecution.

3-               To work on the issuance of appeals by the EU and the UNGA, as well as a presidential statement by the UNSC, condemning perpetrations against minorities, and stressing, based on numerous past humanitarian tragedies, that the protection of such groups constitutes an international responsibility that is intrinsically linked to international peace and security.

4-                To exert serious and strenuous efforts in the aim of listing the historical sites and places of worship of Maaloula as “World Heritage” as defined by UNESCO’s UN registered “Convention concerning the Protection of World Cultural and Natural Heritage” (16 November 1972).

Your Excellency,

Human Rights, and chief among them the right to live in freedom and dignity, are the very foundation of your nations and civilization. This is precisely what we are calling upon you to stand for in our region today.

Please do accept Mrs. Ambassador, our full consideration and esteem.

Mr. Ban Ki Moon, UN Secretary General

Mr. Ban Ki Moon, UN Secretary General

Subject: Urgent appeal following the incidents of the town of Maaloula in Syria

Petitioner: The Christian Gathering Lebanon (Beit Anya)

Dear UN Secretary General,

From 4 to 8 September 2013, documented facts were reported by international and namely western media, revealing that the town of Maaloula in Syria was the victim of several armed attacks led by Islamists that oppose the Syrian authorities. These incidents made at least three dead among the population of Maaloula, and were marked by acts of vandalism that targeted the town’s religious and historical sites. Consequently, the Christian population’s displacement from Maaloula and the country was accelerated.

For over two years now, Christians in Syria have been exposed to a series of attacks and persecutions, the most reprehensible of which being the abduction, on April 23, 2013, of two Christian bishops, who remain in custody. Moreover, innocents have been killed, places of worship burnt, and more than 450 thousand out of two million Syrian Christians deported, as stated by Patriarch Gregory III Laham, one of the leaders of the Syrian clergy. The forced migration of Syria’s Christians prompted the Vatican’s bishops on January 2013 to launch and appeal calling for their protection and the preservation of their presence in their homelands.

Sir,

The “Christian Gathering” would like to draw your attention to the fact that the population of Maaloula, who has been the latest target of these systematic acts of persecution, belongs to autochthonous Christian communities having inhabited this land for more than two thousand years. From a cultural point of view, they stand out for being the last population to speak ancient Aramaic, and to teach it to children at school. It is noteworthy that this language is one of the constituents of civilization in the Middle East in particular, and the world in general, for being the language spoken by Jesus Christ, as proven by historical studies.

It is also worth recalling that the religious and historical sites in Maaloula form an integral part of the culture of this community whose roots in this land are centuries old. They constitute a cultural asset for humanity as a whole.

Sir,

What is happening in Maaloula should be the subject of your direct and personal attention, and that of the organization as a whole. As a matter of fact, one of the main purposes of the organization, as stated in its charter, consists in “promoting and encouraging respect for human rights and for fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion”.

Sir,

What has been inflicted to Maaloula, and more generally to Christians in Syria, Iraq, Egypt, or Occupied Palestine, who are being conceptually rejected as humans, individuals, and communities, is a blatant violation of the principles enshrined in the UN charter, as well as in most articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Moreover, it is a clear violation of the “Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide”, the “International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination”, the “Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Intolerance and of Discrimination Based on Religion or Belief”, and most importantly “The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights” (16 December 1966), in addition to a large number of international instruments that are part of the International Humanitarian Law, and that require the United Nations to act promptly in order to defend Maaloula with its population and heritage. It is also the UN’s responsibility to defend the above-mentioned instruments that are part of the UN-system.

Sir,

The “Declaration on the Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities” adopted and disseminated by the UNGA on December 18, 1992 applies fully and precisely to the current situation of Maaloula’s population, as well as to all the persecuted religious communities in Syria, Iraq, Egypt, Palestine, and other countries in our region. The above-mentioned declaration actually stresses that your noble organization considers that “the promotion and protection of the rights of persons belonging to national or ethnic, religious and linguistic minorities contribute to the political and social stability of States in which they live” and “would contribute to the strengthening of friendship and cooperation among peoples and States”. The declaration further states expressly that the “United Nations has an important role to play regarding the protection of minorities”. It is a role assigned to you personally, sir, as per article 9 of the Declaration, providing that “the specialized agencies and other organizations of the United Nations system shall contribute to the full realization of the rights and principles set forth in the present Declaration, within their respective fields of competence.”

Based on the above, and on all the general principles of the International Humanitarian law, we urge you to take action as soon as possible, and to leave no stone unturned before achieving the following:

1-               To include the persecutions and attacks committed against religious communities in the Middle East, and namely those perpetrated in the past few years in Iraq, Syria, Egypt, and Palestine, in the agenda of the UNGA’s session, expected to be held in the few upcoming days.

2-               To work on the creation of an international fact-finding committee, in order to conduct filed visits to the places where these tragedies are occurring, starting from Maaloula in Syria, so as to establish facts and ensure moral and effective protection to the victims of persecution.

3-               To launch an appeal by the UNGA, and issue a presidential statement by the UNSC, condemning perpetrations against minorities, and stressing, based on numerous past humanitarian tragedies, that the protection of such groups constitutes an international responsibility that is intrinsically linked to international peace and security.

4-                To exert serious and strenuous efforts in the aim of listing the historical sites and places of worship of Maaloula as “World Heritage” as defined by UNESCO’s UN registered “Convention concerning the Protection of World Cultural and Natural Heritage” (16 November 1972).

Please do accept Mr. Secretar

Russia's Orthodox Awakening

By Nadieszda Kizenko

Russia's Orthodox Awakening

The Fraying of Russia's Church-State Alliance

When the Russian Orthodox Church is in the news, which has been quite often of late, the

image that comes to mind is of an army of archbishops and abbots, commanded by Patriarch Kirill I, operating in conspiracy with the country’s authoritarian rulers in the Kremlin. This is not without reason. The church’s conservative clerics have, in fact, given their support to the government’s most polarizing recent laws, including the jailing of three members of Pussy Riot for offending believers’ religious sensibilities, legislation proscribing “propaganda of nontraditional sexual relations,” and the institution of a limit of three legal marriages per Russian, to discourage divorce.

But to conclude that the Russian Orthodox Church is nothing more than a bastion of extreme conservatives is to miss the many ways that change is being forced upon it. In some sense, the church’s ultraconservatism is on the wane -- for confirmation, one need only look to what’s happening among the laity, rather than to the very top of the church’s hierarchy. Devout Orthodox Christian journalists, academics, and political scientists -- as well as free-thinking priests -- are becoming increasingly assertive as alternative spokespeople for their faith. This burgeoning Orthodox intelligentsia is already posing a challenge to the conservative church hierarchy and, by extension, to Vladimir Putin’s regime.

This is not the first time that the church has produced prominent dissident intellectuals. Early in the twentieth century, Father Georgii Gapon was one of the Russian Empire’s most prominent liberal critics, leading an unsuccessful workers' demonstration in 1905 that came to be known as Bloody Sunday. In the 1970s and 1980s, the Russian public was captivated by charismatic priests such as Father Alexander Men and the dissident Father Gleb Yakunin. In 1992, Yakunin co-chaired a parliamentary investigative committee that exposed a vast network of collaborators among clerics, particularly at the highest levels.

But the current crop of dissidents is different: although they are devout, they are not all members of the clergy. The most influential (and liveliest) discussions about the church’s future as a political actor were initiated instead by a group of Orthodox journalists and activists in the aftermath of the disputed December 2012 presidential primary vote. This group includes journalist Konstantin Eggert; Aleksei Ulyanov, the deputy director of the Moscow Administration’s Department of Science, Business, and Enterprise who was formerly with the socially liberal Yabloko party; and Andrei Zolotov, the founding editor of Russia Profile magazine. Since then, the ten-member group has broadcast its bimonthly meetings on national television.  In doing so, it has brought to bring to light the deep discontent among some Orthodox laity about the church hierarchy’s alliance with the state.

It’s significant that the young Orthodox professionals gaining influence in the church are as likely to be female as male: they are introducing increasingly diverse voices in church publications. Women now dominate the rapidly growing field of religious media, which ranges from glossy mass-market magazines to religious bookstores and publishing houses, blogs, and social networks, as well as television and movie production studios. Among the most prominent women in this sector include Anna Danilova, the editor-in-chief of the leading Orthodox Web site; Marina Zhurinskaia, the editor-in-chief of the theological journal Alpha and Omega; journalists Xenia Loutchenko and Maria Sveshnikova; and Natalia Rodomanova, the documentary filmmaker.

Orthodox academics have also been contributing to the insurrection against the church hierarchy. In the Soviet period, scholarship had to be couched in crudely Marxist terms, and the Orthodox Church was mostly excluded from any scrutiny. But since 1990, sophisticated scholarship on contemporary religiosity has been a growth industry. Conferences on, and studies of, religion abound. And, as with the religious mass media, the striking thing is the Orthodox academia’s refusal to commit to the party line. A growing number of scholarly publications emphasize the diversity among Russian spiritual beliefs -- what the religious life of believers actually looks like (many Russians claim spiritual rewards from buying organic produce from Orthodox farmers), as opposed to what sociologists or clerics think they ought to look like (say, praying or going to church). Sociologist Nikolai Mitrokhin, who has studied the contemporary Orthodox Church in the greatest detail, goes furthest in criticizing the church-state alliance -- including what he calls the “gay mafia” in the church hierarchy. But even those scholars who do not support an explicit political agenda have helped to undermine the church’s claims about a single “true” Orthodoxy.

It's not just laypeople who have adopted a critical approach to contemporary Russian Orthodox Christianity. Priests have joined the conversation, too. Archpriest Georgii Mitrofanov, a church historian and film critic, has sparked controversy by suggesting that Russians should show more nuance in their understanding of World War II, rather than celebrating it as an unqualified victory deserving of a “holy flame.” This attempt to desacralize World War II is especially important because both the church hierarchy and Putin have explicitly encouraged that war's spiritual and political significance to bolster their popular standing. Mitrofanov has been publicly accused of both heresy and blasphemy, simply for acknowledging the difficult choices faced during the war by Russians who had just undergone the worst decade of Stalin's terror. Despite pressure from the hierarchy, he has managed to keep his job in the church.

Sergei Chapnin, the editor-in-chief of the Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate, the main publication put out by the Russian Orthodox Church, has challenged the symbiosis of church and state most directly. His recent book, The Church in Post-Soviet Russia: Dialogue with Society, Subjective Thoughts on the Present and the Future,argues that the church’s relationship to society has become dangerously distorted. In the two decades after communism, the church could claim that it was the leading civic institution in Russia. But now, Chapnin argues, particularly after the protests connected to the elections and persecution of opposition leaders, “Society has once again begun to pose sharp and painful questions to the Church with ever greater and unheard-of persistence.” These questions include how to pursue a “common good” and a system of law that has the well-being of citizens as its top priority.

If the church shuns dialogue with the rest of society in favor of maintaining a close relationship with the state, Chapnin warns, “this will be a serious blow to its authority.” The church, Chapnin thinks, should move away from the radical right fringe, and to create church structures that would expressly support lay participation, by acknowledging, for example, that laypeople have canonical rights as well as responsibilities.

Most of the church hierarchy is likely to resist this newly emergent civic orthodoxy. It still believes that the church’s radical right wing commands respect and admiration, both among clerics and the public. It is no accident that the chief spokesman for the Moscow Patriarchate, Vsevolod Chaplin, delights in scabrous sound bites on everything from an “Orthodox dress code” to hailing the transfer of power from Dmitry Medvedev to Vladimir Putin as a model of “friendliness and dignity.” But as Eggert has noted, this is hardly a sustainable strategy. The church’s apparently automatic support for all of the Kremlin’s initiative -- whether it is blessing rockets at a military parade or Putin at his inaugurations -- is demoralizing would-be believers. They continue to tolerate the church-state alliance, but they have reduced their participation in official religious and political institution to a minimum. And that makes them liable to jump ship the next time a capable alternative -- whether political or religious -- arises.

Indeed, the church’s main problem is that its support among the faithful is being outpaced by discontent about its ultraconservatism. Kirill himself seems to have recognized this: he has recently taken a far more guarded stance recently when speaking about the church’s role in politics. But it could be too little, too late. If change from within is to occur, it will likely come from Russia's new voices

A great poem بإذن الله محمية

A great poem

 

بإذن الله محمية

Have a great day

في ظلمة المكان , رآها فجأة أمامه , متعبة , مستلقية على فراش من نور . حاول التعرف عليها , اقترب منها , سألها : ما اسمك سيدتي ؟ فأجابت : أسماني الغزاة عبر العصور "العصيّة" ... أجدادي أطلقوا عليّ اسم "الفيحاء" ... أما أبنائي فينادونني"الأبية" ... وما أروع عشاقي عندما يصفوني "بالبهية" ... سألها ليتعرف عليها أكثر : كم عمرك سيدتي ?? قالت : - ولدت قبل تدوين التاريخ بتاريخ - ونطقت أحرفي الأولى قبل أن تنطق الأبجدية - غسلت وجهي بماء الحضارة - لملمت شعري , كحلت عيوني ... - فكنت على الأرض أول صبية ... قال لها بخجل : ولمن تنتسبين سيدتي ?? قالت : - نسبي يعود إلى الذي ترك ضناه على كتفي مقتولاً - نسبي يعود إلى "آدم" أبي البشرية - ذكرني الله في "قرآنه" مرات ومرات - وسار "بولس الرسول" على أرضي حاملا المسيحية - محمد قال إني "كنانته" - وأنار وجهي "عيسى بن المجدلية" - جامعي "أموي" - وكنيستي "مريمية" - أبي "قاسيون" رافع الرأس - أمي "الغوظة" - وبردى يسير من "وريدي إلى وريدي" - أبوابي" "للعز والتاريخ حكاية" - وأزقتي "للحضارة مدرسة" - والياسمين لكل عاشق مني "هدية" - في كتب المجد منذ الأزل لم "أغب" - وفي قصص البطولة "سيفي على مدى الدهر لم يتعب" - فارسي مغوار تارة اسمه "ابن الوليد" وطوراً يأتي برفقة "عقبة أو بلال ابن الحبشية" - وصلاح الدين في حضني "نام نومته الأبدية" أبنائي كثر مباركون - منهم من يقيم في الشاغور - ومنهم من يقيم في القنوات أو الصالحية - منهم من ولد في الميدان - ومنهم من شاب في مآذنة الشحم - ومنهم من مات في القيمرية حاول أن يسألها أكثر ..... لكنه لاحظ أن بعض جراحها تنزف . ركع أمام حضرتها وبكى وجعها . ربّتت على كتفه بحنان كعادتها وقالت : لا تبك يا ولدي , لا تبك قم وأمسك بيدي لننهض معاً من كبوتنا فأنا دمشق , بإذن الله محمية

The Christian Exodus/The Disastrous Campaign to Rid the Middle East of Christianity/By Reza Aslan

The Christian Exodus

The Disastrous Campaign to Rid the Middle East of Christianity

By Reza Aslan

SEPTEMBER 11, 2013

A Coptic Christian holds up a cross in Cairo, Egypt (Courtesy Reuters)

As I write, the city of Maaloula in Syria has become a ghost town after being briefly occupied by members of the al Qaeda–linked jihadist group al-Nusra Front. Conflicting reports claim that al-Nusra fighters have desecrated churches and statues in what may be one of the oldest Christian cities in the world, a place where residents still speak Aramaic, the language presumably spoken by Jesus. 

Sadly, the experience of Maaloula’s residents is becoming all too common in the Middle East, where examples of brutality against Christians have been mounting in recent weeks. In Egypt, the coup against President Mohamed Morsi was followed by a wave of Islamist pogroms against Christians in which 42 churches were attacked, 37 were burned or looted, and an untold number of Christians were assaulted or killed.

As tempting as it may be to attribute these events to the atmosphere of post-insurrectionary anarchy in Egypt and Syria, that is not the best vantage point from which to view the problem. Take a step back, and it becomes clear that the recent assaults are part of a bigger offensive against Middle Eastern Christians, one that can be traced back to decades-long developments in regional politics and Islamic society. The Arab Spring may be the proximate cause of some of the worst violence, but its roots run much deeper -- and the stakes are much higher than one might think. What we are witnessing is nothing less than a regional religious cleansing that will soon prove to be a historic disaster for Christians and Muslims alike.

At the start of World War I, the Christian population of the Middle East may have been as high as 20 percent. Today, it is roughly four percent. Although it is difficult to be exact, there are perhaps 13 million Christians left in the region, and that number has likely fallen further, given the continued destabilization of Syria and Egypt, two nations with historically large Christian populations. At the present rate of decline, there may very well be no significant Christian presence in the Middle East in another generation or two. 

This would be a profoundly important loss. Christianity was born in the Middle East and had a deep, penetrating presence in the region for hundreds of years before the rise of Islam. In the fourth and fifth centuries, when tens of thousands of heterodox Christians were forced to flee a Roman Empire that considered them heretics, the lands of the Middle East and North Africa became a haven for them. In the years thereafter, the region became the epicenter of Christian theology. In the Arabian peninsula, a large, thriving Christian population played a pivotal role in influencing the early theological and political development of Islam. During the Inquisition (the twelfth to fourteenth centuries), Christian sectarians found refuge under Islamic rule, which classed all Christians, regardless of their doctrinal differences, as “people of the Book” and accorded them protected, albeit inferior, societal status.

The situation for Middle Eastern Christians changed dramatically in the colonial era. Because the colonial experiment was also an unapologetically Christianizing mission, one that overtly privileged indigenous Christians over Muslims and framed Islam as a backward culture in need of civilization, political tensions between the two communities erupted throughout the Middle East. Muslims tended to view their Christian neighbors as complicit in colonial oppression; indigenous Christians became the target of anticolonial backlash.

With the end of colonial rule in the twentieth century, the governments of the Middle East’s newly independent nation-states actively encouraged the exodus of their Christian citizens from the region by enacting laws limiting their rights to proselytize or build places of worship. The lot of the Christians who remained in the region worsened with the rise of political Islam in the 1950s and ’60s, as groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood encouraged Middle Eastern Muslims  to think of nationalism and citizenship strictly through the lens of Islamic identity. The irony was that, at the same time, the secular authoritarian regimes in the Middle East burnished their reputations in the West by presenting themselves as protecting Christian minorities from Islamist fanatics.

The ascension of transnational jihadism over the last two decades raised the campaign against Christians to a fever pitch. Jihadist groups such as al Qaeda have been remarkably successful at framing conflicts as an all-out war between Christianity and Islam. Many of the region’s Muslims, even those who do not support al Qaeda, now profess to believe that Middle Eastern Christians are firmly aligned either with the “crusading” West (as in Iraq) or the “godless” tyrants and dictators (as in Syria and Egypt). 

For example, the U.S. invasion of Iraq was widely portrayed as part of a Christian crusade against Islam; radical Muslims consistently (and successfully) argued that the country’s Christians were colluding with the U.S. military. The result is that atleast 60 Christian churches have been attacked and more than a thousand Christians have been killed since the toppling of Saddam Hussein. By some estimates, nearly two-thirds of Iraq’s 1.5 million Christians have been forced to flee the country over the last ten years, many to Syria, where they found themselves once again under attack. 

Syria’s Christian population has dropped from 30 percent in the 1920s to less than ten percent today. Although this mass exodus has been made worse by the civil war, its real cause lies in the decades-long psychological shift that occurred throughout the region as Christians became identified as enemies. Still, because so many Syrian Christians have been vocal supporters of the Assad regime -- either because their fortunes are tied to the government or because they fear the persecution that may follow if it falls -- it has been easy for the Syrian opposition to portray the country’s Christians as de facto collaborators with a brutal regime responsible for the mass murder of its own citizens. Since the start of the civil war, more than 40 churches have been damaged or destroyed, over a thousand Christians killed, and hundreds of thousands of Christians displaced.

A similar dynamic has been at work in Egypt, which boasts the oldest and largest Christian population in the Middle East. (Copts make up roughly ten percent of the population, or about eight million people.) Many Egyptian Christians, including the Coptic Pope Tawadros II, have made no secret of their support for the military coup that removed the democratically elected, Muslim Brotherhood–backed president from office. That support has opened the floodgates of unspeakable acts of violence by some supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood against the country’s Christian minority. Although Islamists have been at the forefront of this violence, they are not the only ones responsible. The police and military did little or nothing to prevent the attacks on Christians; Human Rights Watch went so far as to suggest that the government’s lack of response was meant to embolden and even encourage these acts of terror. 

Indeed, one should not forget that Egypt’s secular regimes have a history of targeting the country’s vulnerable Coptic population. Some of the most oppressive years for Christians were during Hosni Mubarak’s rule in the 1990s. Until the recent wave of violence, the worst massacre of Copts in post-revolutionary Egypt came at the hands of the very military many Copts now support. The Maspero massacre of October 2011, in which the Egyptian army deliberately stirred up anti-Coptic sentiment, left 26 Copts dead.

The tragedy for Christians in the region is obvious. They are losing their lives, their homes, and their houses of worship. They are being driven from their ancestral homelands and forced to flee as refugees to neighboring countries where they are, in many cases, equally unwelcome.

But it is important to note that the removal of the region’s Christians is a disaster for Muslims as well. They are the ones who will be left with the task of building decent societies in the aftermath of these atrocities. And that task will be made immeasurably harder by the removal of Christians from their midst. It is not just that the memory of these brutal actions will taint these societies -- perpetrators and victims alike -- for the indefinite future; it is also that Muslims are removing the sort of pluralism that is the foundation for any truly democratic public life. One of the refrains of the Arab Spring has been that Muslims want to put an end to tyranny. But the only lasting guarantor of political rights is the sort of social and religious diversity that Muslims in the region are in the process of extinguishing. If nothing is done to reverse the situation, the hope for peace and prosperity in the Middle East may vanish along with the region’s Christian population. 

المطران جورج خضر /آلام و قيامة

المطران جورج خضر

14 أيلول 2013

ليس من حزن في الكنيسة منغلقاً على نفسه ومنتهياً ومهما يكن من أمر لسنا مرة في موقع وجع معنوي نهائي. الرجاء دائماً لاحق بالألم. هذه مسيرتنا على صورة ان يوم قيامة المخلص كان لاحقا لموته. ليس عندنا انفصال بين الموت والقيامة. باللغة الفلسفية هذه جدلية الموت والانبعاث. لذلك كان فصح الكنيسة الأولى يتضمّن الثلاثة الأيام الأخيرة من الأسبوع العظيم وما كان المؤمنون آنذاك واعين انهم يعيدون ليوم الجمعة العظيم ويوم الفصح مفصولين أو منعزلين احدهما عن الآخر.

الأهمية لهذا الثنائي ان آلام المخلّص ليست نهايته ولكنها انطلاقة إلى قيامته. المسيح كان حياً يوم الجمعة العظيمة كما كان حياً في الفصح. المسيح غالب في آلامه وحي في موته. لما قال: "أنا القيامة والحياة" لم يكن يتحدث عن قيامته من بين الأموات. كان يعني ان شخصه - في صلبه وانبعاثه - هو الحياة لأن الموت ولو حصل جسديا لم يقهره وما أخضعه. الرب حي في كل مظاهره الجسدية.
الأمر العجب ان القيامة في معناها العميق وفي مداها كانت مرافقة للسيد في كل أطوار حياته على الأرض. أجل مات المسيح في الجسد ولكنه ما أبيد. في موته كان حيا لأن ألوهته كانت مرافقته وكانت تحيي جسده. بصورة ما كنا نراها. مات يسوع ولم ينقرض. ما فني الرب لحظة واحدة. هذا سر يفوق العقل ولكن هذا هو ايماننا. يسوع كان دائما حرا من الموت ولو كان في قيده المنظور. موته كان عربون الحياة التي أعطانا اياها. لذلك نقول عن كل أمواتنا انهم راقدون على رجاء القيامة والحياة الأبدية.
نحن في آلامنا الجسدية والنفسية ذائقون موت المخلّص وقيامته بآن. حياته كانت في الصلب كما كانت في انبعاثه من بين الأموات. لذلك في عباداتنا في الجمعة العظيمة لا نتغنى بآلامه منتهية بنفسها ولكن نعرف اذا ذكرناها انها مطلة على القيامة. في آلامنا يغرس المخلص حياته فينا. واذا ذكرنا صلبه عندما نتوجع ينبغي الا ننسى ان هذا الصلب نافذة على القيامة. الفصح في كل طور في سيرة السيد. غلبة المسيح للموت كانت عند صليبه أيضا. ما انطوى المسيح في الصليب. عاش عليه. لذلك نقول صباح كل أحد في صلاة السحر انه في الصليب جاء الفرح لكل العالم.
نحن لا نبكي على المصلوب في صلاة الجمعة العظيمة. نندمج بموته لنحيا حياة جديدة. اذا تأثرنا بالبكاء قليلا فهذا من الطبيعة ولكنا نذوق في الإيمان اننا حاصلون بموت الرب يسوع على حياة جديدة.
نحن قياميون، قلناها مرارا. وذلك ليس فقط يوم الفصح ولكن يوم الجمعة العظيمة. ليس من حقيقة فعالة عندنا الا حقيقة الفصح وهي ظاهرة في كل يوم من الأيام وفي يوم العيد. اذا تكلّمنا في العبادات عن آلام المخلّص لسنا ناسين اننا بهذه الآلام مسافرون إلى انتصار الفصح. في آلام يسوع أنفسها نحن ناظرون إلى غلبة القيامة. نحن لا نتوارى بالآلام ثم نبعث. نحن قائمون مع السيد دائما ولسنا راقدين في قبر الأحزان.
القيامة كامنة في كل أعيادنا. الأعياد تصب في قيامة المخلص. كل ترتيب في الكنيسة صار عندنا استعدادا لفصح السيد ولفصح كلّ منّا ثمرةً فينا لفصح الرب

“Challenges Facing Arab Christians/Report by Rev. Dr. Habib Badr On the Amman Conference held from 3–4 September, 2013/

“Challenges Facing Arab Christians”

Report by Rev. Dr. Habib Badr

 On the Amman Conference held from 3–4 September, 2013

By invitation of King Abdullah the 2^nd of Jordan, I participated in an international conference held in the capital Amman from 3 to 4 September, 2013 on the theme “Challenges Facing Arab Christians.”   

The invitations came to us via Prince Ghazi, the cousin of the King, who is also his consultant for religious affairs and personal envoy.  Prince Ghazi is additionally the initiator of the famous document “Common Word,” that called for Christian/Muslim dialogue, and that was signed by many Muslim scholars and leaders from all over the world.  He is a conservative Muslim, but well educated and very eloquent.  He has made some positive moves to enhance Muslim-Christian relations, and has also taken significant initiatives to ameliorate the situation of Jordanian and other Middle Eastern Christians in recent times.

Participants:

About 70 Eastern and Western Christian leaders and scholars were invited.  Among them were two Greek Orthodox Patriarchs: John X of Antioch (whose brother, the bishop of Aleppo, was recently kidnapped) and Theophilus III of Jerusalem (who is well connected to Prince Ghazi).  In attendance also were: the Melkite (Greek Catholic) Patriarch Gregorios III of Antioch, Alexandria and Jerusalem; Patriarch Fuad Twal of the Latin (Roman Catholic) Church of Jerusalem and all the East; Patriarch Louis Sako of the Chaldean Church (of Iraq); the Armenian Patriarch of Jerusalem, Nurhan Manougian.  Additionally, several bishops and priests representing other churches and communities in the Middle East were also invited.  Worth mentioning are: Bp. Suheil Dawani of the Anglican Church of Jerusalem and Bp. Mounir Hanna of the same Church in Egypt; Bp. Munib Younan of the Lutheran Church of Jordan/Palestine, and current president of the Lutheran World Federation; as well as Bp. Avak Assadourian of the Armenian Orthodox Church of Iraq. 

I was invited in my own right, but I also represented the president of the Supreme Council of the Evangelical Community in Syria and Lebanon.  Also attending was Rev. Dr. Riad Jarjour.  Additionally, only four Muslim scholars attended and spoke.  Most prominent amongst these was Dr. Muhammad Al Sammak from Lebanon. 

Other than Prince Ghazi, who opened the Conference, altogether about 40 persons spoke each for 10 minutes or so.  These represented the various countries of the Middle East such as Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan Palestine and Iraq.  The Coptic Pope Tawadros of Egypt sent a word that was read, and Patriarch Al Raii (of the Maronites of Lebanon) could only attend for a few hours at lunch at the King’s Palace on Tuesday, where he said a very short word and received (among others) a special medal from the King.

The Vatican was represented by Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, president of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, in addition to retired Cardinal McCarrick, of Washington D.C.  Canterbury was represented by Bp. Michael Langrish.  Olav Fykse, General Secretary of the WCC was also present and spoke, so also did Rev. Dr. Ian Torrence, a prominent Presbyterian leader from Edinburgh (and ex-president of Princeton Theological Seminary).  Noteworthy also was the presence of certain prominent North American conservative Evangelical leaders and representatives.  Worth mentioning are: Pastor Rick Warren (who said the opening prayer at president Obama’s first inauguration), Rev. Dr. Geoff Tunnicliffe, Secretary General and CEO of the World Evangelical Alliance (who claims to represent 600 million Christians around the world), the Baptist pastor and professor Dr. Paul Fiddes of Oxford University, and Mark Burnett and his wife Roma Downey, the producers of the famous “The Bible” series that aired on the History Channel in the USA.  They are also ambassadors for the World Evangelical Alliance.

Interestingly, these Evangelicals are all well connected to the King, who seems to want to foster good relations with American Evangelicals, knowing the potential influence they have on American politics and politicians, but also because he wants them to better understand the Middle Eastern Christian situation. 

It is also note worthy that the local (conservative) evangelical churches in Jordan and some other countries of the region, who are growing in number and influence, were not invited to participate in the event.

Issues Raised and Discussed:

At the lunch hosted by the King on Tuesday, and throughout the conference, three main issues were raised, and were considered particularly pressing at this critical moment in the history of Middle Eastern Christianity.

The first concern of the Conference was to raise the voice of the Christians of the Middle East, and to make it heard and taken note of by local governments, the world church, as well as by the international community.  And this voice was certainly expressed -- loudly and clearly -- at the conference.  Several complaints were expressed, and five main points were raised in this regard:

1-      The various Christian communities (“minorities”) of the Middle East region have in general (with the possible exception of Lebanon) not been treated as full citizens with equal rights and privileges in the various Arab and Middle Eastern countries and societies in which they live.  Many concrete examples were given in this respect.  This has many reasons, one of them being the lack of clarity on the place and role of “the different other” (be it individual or community) in Islamic law and government.  This of course is not only a challenge that faces the Christian communities of the Middle East, but it also extends to many “minority groups” within the region.

2-      In light of the fast, violent and radical changes taking place in the Arab world today (the so-called “Arab Spring”), this situation has dramatically worsened. Indeed persecution and violence against Christians has greatly increased and the waves of migration have risen to unprecedented levels.  Many cases of such deterioration were cited, not least of which is the kidnapping of the two (Greek and Syrian) Orthodox bishops of Aleppo.  The future that awaits Christians in this situation looks unclear, grim and scary.

3-      The “moderate” Muslim and Arab clerics, intellectuals, rulers, governments, leaders and political authorities have to do something to ameliorate this situation.  Their voices need to be raised and heard by all parties concerned.  One of the Muslim participants, Dr. Sammak, declared boldly that the emptying of the East from its Christian inhabitants will inevitably have a negative impact on Islam and the image of Muslims in the world.  Christian and Muslim leaders ought to come together in order to analyze the problem, to find practical and effective ways and means to face the challenges thereof, and to change and improve the situation for the sake of both peoples.

4-      In spite of all the difficulties they have suffered (or caused), Middle Eastern Christians have always sought to be a serving and productive element in the societies they live in.  Through their various institutions of social, educational, medical, cultural, and other diaconal ministries, as well as their significant contributions to the Arab cultural and national awakenings, the Christians of the Middle East have tried to be instruments of peace and a means of blessing for the region and its inhabitants.  They have been serving its Christian, Muslim and even Jewish inhabitants alike without discrimination, distinction or bias.  They desire to continue to do so.

5-      Christians have consistently played an important role in defending and advocating the causes of justice and peace in the region, in particular in promoting a just and lasting solution to the Palestinian problem.  The MECC, among other institutions, has played a significant role in this regard on an international level.  Christians believe that they have a unique role to play in bridging the gap created by misunderstandings between East and West, and in lessening the existing tensions on many issues (such as Islamophobia, Christian Zionism, terrorism and other issues).

The second issue discussed at the Conference relates to the practical ways in which the above-mentioned concerns and challenges may be tackled.  Not many ideas were put forward in this regard because of the lack of time and because it was agreed from the outset that no final communiqué was to be issued by the participants.  However, a few ideas were put forward, one of them being to transform this conference into a permanent organization, meeting regularly to follow up the issues raised and to find solutions and ways forward.  Another was to form a follow-up committee from the persons invited to meet with Muslim and government leaders on all levels to explore ways of going forward.

The third issue raised is concerned with the role that Christians can play in the determination of the final status of Jerusalem.  It was observed by King Abdullah that the present ongoing negotiations between Palestinians and Israelis seem to be moving in a positive manner, unlike previous rounds of talks.  The King, being the custodian of the Holy Sites in Jerusalem, requested the Christian leaders to meet with their Muslim counterparts in order to reach, as soon as possible, a common and unified position on the final status of Jerusalem.  He hoped that this position would safeguard the rights and privileges of all the inhabitants of the “City of Peace” -- before it is too late!  It is feared that the current measures being taken by the Israeli government in the city (and the country as a whole) are rapidly changing its character, and consequently leave very little space for its non-Jewish inhabitants to live as equal citizens, and to continue to practice their centuries’ old religious heritages.

Conclusion:

All in all, this was a very good beginning for all parties involved.  And even though in principle this conference should have been convened upon the initiative of the churches of the Middle East (possibly by the MECC), nonetheless, it is good that it took place.  Perhaps now the churches would be emboldened to pursue matters on their own, without losing the momentum created by this welcome and appreciated invitation of the King of Jordan and Prince Ghazi.  Let us hope and pray for a brighter, more secure and peaceful future ahead for all of us living in this troubled region of the world.

Habib Badr

Beirut, 9 September, 2013