Mideast Christians struggle to hope in Arab Spring, some see no spring at all
Middle East Christians are struggling to keep hope alive with Arab Spring democracy movements promising more political freedom but threatening religious strife that could decimate their dwindling ranks. Scenes of Egyptian Muslims and Christians protesting side by side in Cairo’s Tahrir Square five months ago marked the high point of the euphoric phase when a new era seemed possible for religious minorities chafing under Islamic majority rule.
Since then, violent attacks on churches by Salafists — a radical Islamist movement once held in check by the region’s now weakened or toppled authoritarian regimes — have convinced Christians their lot has not really improved and could get worse.
“If things don’t change for the better, we’ll return to what was before, maybe even worse,” Coptic Catholic Patriarch of Alexandria Antonios Naguib said at a conference this week in Venice on the Arab Spring and Christian-Muslim relations. “But we hope that will not come about,” he told Reuters.
The Chaldean bishop of Aleppo, Antoine Audo, feared the three-month uprising against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad spelled a bleak future for the 850,000 Christians there. “If there is a change of regime,” he said, “it’s the end of Christianity in Syria. I saw what happened in Iraq.”
In Egypt, where the Coptic Orthodox and Catholic minorities are under heavy pressure from Salafist Muslims, methods the state used to keep Christians in line before President Hosni Mubarak was toppled haven’t changed. When there is a conflict between a Muslim and a Christian, the police still have them hold a “reconciliation session” that usually ends in the Muslim’s favour, said participiants at the conference organised by the Oasis Foundation led by Venice Cardinal Angelo Scola.
Fr. Milad Sidky Zakhary, head of the Catholic Institute of Religious Sciences in Alexandria, said that laws proclaiming legal equality for all Egyptians are not enforced. “As a Christian, I must hope. But I must recognise that there has been no real progress,” he said. Referring to one of Venice’s best-known musicians, he added: “The great Italian composer Antonio Vivaldi wrote the beautiful symphony The Four Seasons. For us Christians in Egypt, there are only three seasons. There is no spring.”
Bahrain crisis could worsen Sunni-Shi’ite sectarian tensions in the region
A Bahraini police crackdown on pro-democracy protesters, two days after Saudi Arabia sent in 1,000 troops to bolster its longtime Gulf Arab ally, will heighten Sunni-Shi’ite tensions in Bahrain and beyond. At least five people were killed and hundreds wounded when police cleared demonstrators from Manama’s Pearl Square on Wednesday in an attempt to halt weeks of popular unrest.
The violence, so soon after the Saudi-led intervention, will further embarrass Washington, which had urged dialogue to tackle Bahrain’s problems and says Riyadh did not consult it before moving troops to the island where the U.S. Fifth Fleet is based. That may be the case, but U.S. Defence Secretary Robert Gates visited Bahrain at the weekend. To many Arabs the timing smacks of U.S. complicity in King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa’s decision to invite the Saudis in and declare martial law.
The decision to crush a protest movement inspired by popular revolts in Egypt and Tunisia is conditioned by the sectarian factor in Bahrain, a tiny country seen by the United States and the GCC as a bulwark against the rising power of Shi’ite Iran.
Sunni Gulf rulers tend to view Shi’ites in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia as a potential fifth column for the Islamic Republic, despite what Gulf-based political analyst Neil Partrick called the “clear Arab affinity of many of the Shi’ites of the Gulf.”
Bahraini Shi’ites have long complained of discrimination in housing and jobs, charges the government rejects. The protesters had sought to cast their movement as national, not sectarian. But amid the tumult of Middle East protests, the sectarian overtones of the Bahrain crisis find a ready echo in places like Iraq and Lebanon, where Sunni-Shi’ite tensions run high.
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Christian exodus hurts Middle East: Muslim official
Christian emigration from the Middle East is impoverishing Arab culture and Muslims have a duty to encourage the presence of Christian minorities, a Lebanese government adviser has told a Vatican summit.
Mohammad Sammak, a Sunni Muslim who is secretary general of Lebanon’s Christian-Muslim Committee for Dialogue, told a synod of bishops on Thursday the declining number of Christians in the region was a concern for all Muslims.
“The emigration of Christians is an impoverishment of the Arabic identity, of its culture and authenticity,” said Sammak, who is an adviser to Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri. He added that maintaining the Christian presence in the Middle East was a “common Islamic duty.”
Iran’s Ayatollah Seyed Mostafa Mohaghegh Damad Ahmadabadi, a Shi’ite law professor, recognized the need to protect minority communities in his speech to the synod. “The stability of the world depends on the stability of the livelihood of small and large groups and societies,” he said.
See also our factbox on Christians in the Middle East and analysis Vatican synod to mull Middle East Christian exodus.
Christians in Lebanon fret despite privileged role
After a panicky mass flight from his Christian village, Sami Abi Daher watched from across the valley as Syrian-backed Druze fighters burned and looted it. That was back in 1983 when battles forced tens of thousands of Christians from their homes in the Aley and Shouf hills near Beirut in a bloody postscript to Israel’s 1982 invasion.
Abi Daher, a former Christian militiaman, has never returned to live in his village, Rishmaya, instead working and bringing up his three children in a Christian district of Beirut.
Twenty years after the 1975-90 civil war, Christians formally enjoy a reduced but still disproportionate weight in Lebanon’s sectarian power-sharing system. While under no specific threat, as a community they are weak and divided.
“There isn’t anywhere else in the Middle East that has a Christian president,” says Abi Daher. “Just as well. If the Muslims had ruled, imagine what would have become of us.”
Yet he denies that Muslims pose any peril for Christians, who number perhaps a third of Lebanon’s five million people, but are guaranteed half the seats in parliament, as well as the posts of president and army commander. “There’s no problem between us and the Sunnis and Shi’ites… The problem is with the politicians of course.”
Read the full story here. See also our factbox on Christians in the Middle East and analysis Vatican synod to mull Middle East Christian exodus.
Christian-themed TV shows spark complaints in Saudi Arabia, Lebanon
Television shows with Christian themes have sparked complaints in Saudi Arabia and Lebanon in recent days, but from different groups and for different reasons.
In Saudi Arabia, a popular sitcom has drawn the ire of conservative clerics over an episode portraying Arab Christians in a positive light after the kingdom sought to sell itself as a leader of dialogue between faiths.
A two-part episode of the sitcom “Tash Ma Tash,” which has aired during the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan for 17 years, showed the two main Saudi characters, both Muslims, being advised by their dying father to visit the brother of their deceased Lebanese mother.
After a tearful reunion, the pair discover their mother’s relatives were Christians and their Uncle Boutros was a priest. Despite their initial shock, the brothers slowly come to respect their uncle’s Christianity, although they try to convert him to Islam and give him a Koran.
Some Saudi clerics were not impressed. “A Muslim is allowed to praise only the one true religion — Islam,” said Eissa al-Ghaith, a judge at the Justice Ministry, in remarks carried by al-Madina newspaper on Sunday.
In Lebanon, two Muslim channels, including Hezbollah’s al-Manar television, said on Friday they had stopped airing a series depicting the life of Jesus after complaints from Christians. Al-Manar and NBN television said they had selected the series to show during Ramadan, but had “decided to stop airing it … to prevent any attempt to use it in a negative way.”
Britain removes Fadlallah eulogy from blog of its envoy to Lebanon
Britain has removed a blog from the website of its ambassador to Beirut in which she praised Lebanon’s late Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah. In her blog, titled ‘The passing of decent men’, Frances Guy wrote that she was saddened by Fadlallah’s death and that the world “needs more men like him willing to reach out across faiths.”
Fadlallah was revered by many Shi’ite Muslims across the Middle East and Central Asia, and was known for his moderate social views and for trying to minimise Muslim sectarian differences. But he was designated a terrorist by the United States and Israel because of his links to Hezbollah and his support for suicide attacks against the Jewish state.
A British Foreign Office spokesman said Guy’s blog had been removed “after mature consideration.” The criticism of her blog followed the firing of a senior CNN editor for Middle East news who published a Twitter message that said she respected Fadlallah.
Like the CNN editor Octavia Nasr, Guy later posted an attempt to explain her post. “The problem with diplomatic blogging is that you risk being anodyne or controversial,” she wrote. “Clearly in the last few days I have been the latter. This was not my intent. My comments on the late Sheikh Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah have now been removed because they were leading to confusion about British policy.” Read the rest of her post here.
Read our full story on Guy’s blog post here.
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CNN fires veteran Mideast editor over tweet on respect for Fadlallah
CNN has fired a senior editor for Middle East news after she published a Twitter message that said she respected a Lebanese Shi’ite cleric branded a terrorist by the United States, U.S. and British media said on Thursday. The Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, one of Shi’ite Islam’s highest religious authorities and an early mentor of the militant group Hezbollah, died in Beirut on Sunday.
Octavia Nasr, a 20-year CNN veteran based in Atlanta, wrote on Twitter: “Sad to hear of the passing of Sayyed Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah … One of Hezbollah’s giants I respect a lot.” Some supporters of Israel saw the Twitter posting almost immediately and took issue with it, the New York Times said.
The Times cited Parisa Khosravi, the senior vice president for CNN International Newsgathering, as saying in an internal memorandum that she “had a conversation” with Nasr and that “we have decided that she will be leaving the company.”
Nasr tried to explain the tweet in a CNN blog post, saying: “Reaction to my tweet was immediate, overwhelming and a provides a good lesson on why 140 characters should not be used to comment on controversial or sensitive issues, especially those dealing with the Middle East. It was an error of judgment for me to write such a simplistic comment and I’m sorry because it conveyed that I supported Fadlallah’s life’s work. That’s not the case at all.”
What do you think? Was it right for CNN to fire Nasr over a tweet?
In a supposedly democratic society that values the freedom of speech and supposedly protects those rights in the constitution, it deplorable that she lost her job as a result.
I am not agree with her view, but I would fight with all my heart to protect her right to say it.
Another example Political correctness going too far and the knee jerk reaction of those in power.
CNN has lost much credibility over the years, and this in another example that drives me to get my “unbiased” news elsewhere.
Hundreds of thousands mourn Lebanon’s Grand Ayatollah Fadlallah
Lebanon’s Grand Ayatollah Sayyed Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah was buried on Tuesday, mourned by hundreds of thousands who paid homage to an early mentor of Hezbollah who became one of Shi’ite Islam’s highest authorities.
Fadlallah, who died on Sunday aged 74, was a revered marja’a, or source of emulation, for many Shi’ites across the Middle East and Central Asia. He was seen as the spiritual leader of the militant movement Hezbollah when it was formed after Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon. When the group was blamed for abduction of Westerners in the 1980s and attacks on U.S. and French targets in Lebanon, Fadlallah repeatedly called for the hostages to be released, saying he opposed kidnappings, and he later distanced himself from Hezbollah’s close ties to Iran.
Fadlallah was known in Shi’ite circles for his moderate social views, especially on women. He issued several notable fatwas, or religious opinions, including banning the Shi’ite practice of shedding blood during the mourning ritual of Ashura.
A critic of the United States, which designated him a terrorist, Fadlallah used many of his Friday prayer sermons to denounce U.S. policies in the Middle East, particularly its alliance with Israel. But he was also quick to denounce the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the United States which killed some 3,000 people.
Read the full story by Laila Bassam here. See also “Senior Lebanese Shi’ite cleric Fadlallah dies.”
Europe, face veils and a Catholic view of a Muslim issue
The French National Assembly begins debating a complete ban on Muslim full face veils in public next week and could outlaw them by the autumn. Belgium’s lower house of parliament has passed a draft ban and could banish them from its streets in the coming months if its Senate agrees. The Spanish Senate has passed a motion to ban them after a few towns introduced their own prohibitions.
Calls to ban “burqas” — the word most widely in Europe used for full veils, even if most full veils seen are niqabs — have also been heard in the Netherlands and Denmark. According to a Financial Times poll, the ban proposal also “wins enthusiastic backing in the UK, Italy, Spain and Germany”.
Only a tiny minority of Muslim women in these countries actually cover their faces, but that doesn’t seem to matter. That Switzerland has only four minarets didn’t stop Swiss voters from banning them in a referendum last November (and maybe banning veils next). There seems to be a movement to ban religious symbols that Europeans either reject or fear.
Is this the best way for Europe to deal with the veil? Should governments just introduce ever tougher policies and Muslims counter with increasing opposition? Is there another approach that could offer a more harmonious outcome?
Cardinal Angelo Scola, the Roman Catholic Patriarch of Venice, thinks there is. His beautiful city of canals and gondolas might not be the first one would think of when discussing Muslim integration in Europe, but his Oasis Foundation there has been working with Christians and Muslims in the Middle East since 2004. His extensive contacts in the region have led to some ideas he thinks could be relevant for Europe.
First of all, Scola thinks bans are not the way forward. “One risks radicalising the problem rather than resolving it,” he told Reuters. “The problem would be more adequately dealt with in the normal workings of civil society rather than by a law… One must obviously separate religion and politics, church and state. But one must recognise that religions have a public dimension.”
Muslim countries in the Middle East have seen a resurgence of Islam in recent decades, he said, with increased emphasis on the unity of the Ummah (Islamic world) and importance of visible markers of Muslim faith such as headscarves.
Witness – Writing on the walls in the Holy Land
Alastair Macdonald has been Reuters Bureau Chief in Israel and the Palestinian territories for the past three years. As a foreign correspondent over the past 20, he has previously been based in London, Paris, Moscow, Berlin and Baghdad. As he ends his assignment in Jerusalem, he reflects in the following story on how he has watched people in the region build an array of barriers, both physical and emotional, to cut themselves off from each other.
With one last exit stamp in my passport, I end a three-year reporting assignment in the Holy Land that has been marked by images of frontiers, by a sense of walls going up and fewer and fewer people finding a way through.
From the minefields of Israel’s frontlines with Syria and Lebanon to the fortified fences around the West Bank and Gaza Strip — much in this month’s headlines — to the walls, old and new, of Jerusalem, physical barriers shape the lives of the 12 million people cut off here in what was once called Palestine.
But those lives, and millions more touched by events that reach far beyond these borders, are marked, too, by less visible internal frontiers — religious, cultural, ethnic, political.
I’ve seen Israelis grapple with divisions among between descendants of early European immigrants and later arrivals from the Middle East, Ethiopia and the Soviet Union. Ultra-Orthodox boys hauling barriers around their expanding neighbourhoods in Jerusalem to protect their Sabbath observances from intrusion by secular Jews has also been a potent image.
Inside the Old City’s gates, Ottoman-era Quarters — Muslim, Jewish, Christian and Armenian — map communal rivalries still alive today. Small battlefields marked by razor wire, flags and hurled garbage show where Israelis are settling in Arab areas.
“Jalaluddin, this sounds to me like one of those book reviews where the critic basically writes, “This isn’t the book I wanted to read!”” “one article whose purpose has been misunderstood.”
I agree that much hinges on perceived intentions and purposes. I also agree that impressionistic reporting is a valid and important component of journalism, complementing both detailed day-to-day headlines and wider analysis. I’d like to see reporters do this more often.
“they may have some difficulty following all the details”
“Most of our readers have specific knowledge about a few issues in the news and general or little knowledge of the rest. They deserve our attention too”
Again, I fully agree! I’m not complaining about the lack of detail in this article, but rather its strange detachment from any wider context. What makes Hass, Levy, and Mondoweiss worth reading is not their detail, but (a) an ever-present awareness of the key issues that loom behind the conflict and (b) objectivity rooted in some sort of principled, rather than semantic, framework. As discussed earlier, it’s Reuters which focuses (perhaps aptly) on the trees rather than the forest; the “Witness” concept would seem to be a way to go a little beyond the trees, as you suggest.
“gives those readers some insight into what’s behind them, it has achieved its purpose.” … “and they will come away from a piece like this with some new understanding.”
Here’s where I disagree. I don’t think that such readers will come away with some new understanding from this piece. They are just as likely (or more likely) to come away with the old and false understanding that the Holy Land is just a hopeless place where people have always hated one another along sectarian lines and continue to do so.
There simply isn’t enough phenomenological depth here for the piece to stand alone on impressionistic grounds, though I’ll bet that’s more to space contraints than to journalistic ability. (Looking back briefly into MacDonald’s archive of postings, I don’t see reason to doubt MacDonald’s ability or sincerity. Better than average, in my quick and humble opinion.) Some reflections on the hierarchy or causal elements of these divides could have easily compensated, and are necessary for a readership which is surprisingly unclear (judging by recent studies) on the most basic facts of the occupation upon which everything here hinges. Someone who “has been Reuters Bureau Chief in Israel and the Palestinian territories for the past three years” surely must have some reflections on this, and those thoughts would give the article depth and purpose and value, but from the article as is, you couldn’t tell whether he arrived there three weeks ago or three years ago.
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Incidentally, I’m not someone deeply invested in the Middle East conflict; I’m probably not far off demographically from your typical readership. I turn to Mondoweiss et. al instead of the BBC or the NYT only because I feel that’s where I can get a quick and meaningful sense of what’s happening in that part of the world free of the semantic chicanery which plagues those two otherwise venerable institutions. (I do have more respect for Reuters, though of course its footprint is more diffuse.) Fisk alludes to this phenomenon near the end of a recent (and powerfully written) column: http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/com mentators/fisk/fighting-talk-the-new-pro paganda-2006001.html
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