Sep 30, 2012
Robert Fisk: In Maaloula, the past has relevance to Syria's tragic present
Sunday is a good day to drive to Maaloula. There are fig and olive trees and grapes by the road and, for a time, you can forget that Syria is enduring an epic tragedy. True, you mustn't turn right to Tell, where the Syrian Arab Army are having a spot of bother with the Free Syrian Army and there are 35 military checkpoints on the 100-mile round trip from Damascus; but in the cool mountains east of the Lebanese border, Christians and Muslims live together as they have for 1,300 years. History, however, does not leave them alone.
Enter the wonderful Catholic church of Saint Sarkis and you find paintings of two Roman soldiers, based at the imperial fort of Rasafa north of Palmyra, who converted to Christianity and found themselves in a rather Syrian situation. Sergius and Pixos upset the Great Leader in Rome – the empire had not yet abandoned Jupiter, Venus, Bacchus and the rest – who ordered their execution. So the two legionnaires took sanctuary in Maaloula, preaching Christianity until the long arm of Rome's intelligence service caught up with them, and they were hauled back to Rasafa to be beheaded on the orders of the emperor. I look at the old man who is recounting this story to me and we both nod in unspoken agreement of its current relevance. Sergius and Pixos were defectors.
Over the Roman temple of Maaloula was built the church, and thence came in 1942 the twice wounded General Wladyslaw Anders, who was shepherding his 75,000 emaciated Polish soldiers from Soviet imprisonment through the Holy Land to join the Second World War allies and subsequently the battle for Monte Cassino. Anders gave a beautiful icon of Christ to the church at Maaloula; I found it inside the front porch, his name written at the base, but no hint of his mission. His brave II Polish Corps was condemned by Poland's post-war Communist government as a legion of defectors.
But Maaloula, of course, is known for finer things. Its people, as every tourist knows, still speak Aramaic, the language of Christ – Damascus was part of the Aramaen kingdom – and when I asked a young woman to say the Lord's prayer in her language, it sounded a bit like Hebrew. A suspicious Fisk wonders if this is the reason why, although there is a written language, the people of Maaloula do not learn it. Did Arabic and Hebrew descend from Aramaic? Scholars – I always find that an odd word – are still undecided.
So I chat to old Father Fayez who's serving time as the local priest and he refuses to talk politics, but insists that his people, in their old, blue-painted houses, live side-by-side with their Muslim neighbours; indeed, the 20,000 Christians and Muslims living in three villages all speak Aramaic. But the sunlight and sharply-defined shade in the church courtyard reflect the darkness that has fallen across the lives of these people. There had been three kidnappings of Christians, the priest says; all had been released after ransom was paid.
Then the owner of a Christian restaurant set off last month to collect some Muslim workers from a neighbouring village, and he'd been abducted on the way. The Free Syria Army brought the kidnapped man back to Maaloula. I drive to Seydnaya where the church is built, Peter-like, on a rock, the basilica of Seyd Naya – the Holy Virgin in Syriac – with a clutch of orphans and an off-duty Syrian army conscript cleaning the floors and bringing water for the children.
And then an angry nun approaches in her black habit, flapping like a blackbird, frameless spectacles pinned to the outside of her head covering. "You journalists want to harm this country," she chirps. "Before the war, we lived in peace. We had holidays, vacations, women and children could walk in the street at midnight." She stalked off, only to return – as I knew she would – for a second assault. She had a story to tell, for the Holy Spirit – while it may drift through the narrow cold stone corridors of Seyd Naya - cannot prevent violence from touching the church. "A boy wanted to come here to pray for his marriage because he was marrying a local girl," the nun said. "But then we heard today that his father has been killed in the massacre at Deraya…"
So I consulted Sister Stephanie Haddad who said that Seyd Naya was peaceful – she passed over the shells which hit the monastery seven months ago, supposedly fired by the Free Syria Army – and was now sheltering refugees from Homs and Hama and Tell and from Deraya itself. So I asked the obvious question. What would Jesus say if he turned up in Syria today? "If he came now, he would tell the people: don't kill, burn, shoot, kidnap or steal. All these things are mentioned in the Bible."
There are 20,000 souls in Seyd Naya, Sunni Muslims, Greek Orthodox and Catholics, 13 churches and two mosques, "at least" two Christian women married to Muslims – make of this what you will.
On the edge of town, I come across a group of civilians at a sandbagged checkpoint. Government-approved, of course. They smiled. And they were armed.
Sep 24, 2012
Sep 22, 2012
The Hollow Men by T.S. Eliot
I
We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats’ feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar
Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;
Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death’s other Kingdom
Remember us—if at all—not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.
II
Eyes I dare not meet in dreams
In death’s dream kingdom
These do not appear:
There, the eyes are
Sunlight on a broken column
There, is a tree swinging
And voices are
In the wind’s singing
More distant and more solemn
Than a fading star.
Let me be no nearer
In death’s dream kingdom
Let me also wear
Such deliberate disguises
Rat’s coat, crowskin, crossed staves
In a field
Behaving as the wind behaves
No nearer—
Not that final meeting
In the twilight kingdom
III
This is the dead land
This is cactus land
Here the stone images
Are raised, here they receive
The supplication of a dead man’s hand
Under the twinkle of a fading star.
Is it like this
In death’s other kingdom
Waking alone
At the hour when we are
Trembling with tenderness
Lips that would kiss
Form prayers to broken stone.
IV
The eyes are not here
There are no eyes here
In this valley of dying stars
In this hollow valley
This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms
In this last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river
Sightless, unless
The eyes reappear
As the perpetual star
Multifoliate rose
Of death’s twilight kingdom
The hope only
Of empty men.
V
Here we go round the prickly pear
Prickly pear prickly pear
Here we go round the prickly pear
At five o’clock in the morning.
Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom
Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow
Life is very long
Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom
For Thine is
Life is
For Thine is the
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.
Sep 21, 2012
Robert Fisk: Syria's road from jihad to prison For the first time, a Western journalist has been granted access to Assad's military prisoners
They came into the room one by one, heads bowed, wrists crossed in front of them as if they were used to wearing handcuffs. In one of Syria's most feared military prisons, they told their extraordinary story of helping the armed opponents of Bashar al-Assad's regime. One was French-Algerian, a small, stooped man in his forties with a long beard; another Turkish, with what looked like a black eye, who spoke of his training at a Taliban camp on the Afghan-Pakistan border. A Syrian prisoner described helping two suicide bombers set off a bloody explosion in central Damascus, while a mufti spoke of his vain efforts to unite the warring factions against the Syrian government.
Given the unprecedented nature of our access to the high-security Syrian prison, our meetings with the four men – their jailers had other inmates for us to interview – were a chilling, sobering experience. Two gave unmistakable hints of brutal treatment after their first arrest. It took 10 minutes to persuade the prison's military governor – a grey-haired, middle-aged general in military fatigues – and his shirt-sleeved intelligence officer to leave the room during our conversations. Incredibly, they abandoned their office so that we could speak alone to their captives. We refused later requests by the Syrian authorities for access to our tapes of the interviews.
Two of the men spoke of their recruitment by Islamist preachers, another of how Arab satellite channels had persuaded him to travel to Syria to make jihad. These were stories that the Syrian authorities obviously wanted us to hear, but the prisoners – who must have given their interrogators the same accounts – were clearly anxious to talk to us, if only to meet Westerners and alert us to their presence after months in captivity. The French-Algerian wolfed down a box of chicken and chips we gave him. One of the Syrians admitted he was kept in constant solitary confinement. We promised all four that we would give their names and details to the International Red Cross.
Mohamed Amin Ali al-Abdullah was a 26-year-old fourth-year medical student from the northern Syrian city of Deir el-Zour. The son of a "simple" farming family in Latakia, he sat in the governor's brown leather chair in a neat striped blue shirt and trousers – given to him, he said, by the authorities – and told us he had encountered "psychological problems" in his second year. He twice broke down in tears while he spoke. He said he had followed medical advice as a student but also accepted psychological help from a "sheikh" who suggested he read specific texts from the Koran.
"This was a kind of entrance to my personality and from time to time the second man gave me disks about the Salafist cause, mostly of speeches by Saudi sheikhs such as Ibn Baz and Ibn Ottaimin. Later, he gave me videos that rejected all other sects in Islam, attacking the Sufis, attacking the Shia." The "sheikh" was imprisoned for a year but later joined Mohamed as a roommate in Damascus. "Then he used to show me videos of operations by jihadi people against Nato and the Americans in Afghanistan."
When the uprising began in Syria last year, Mohamed said, he was advised by the "sheikh" and two other men to participate in anti-regime demonstrations. "When Friday prayers were over, one of us would stand in the middle, among the crowd, to shout about injustice and the bad situation; the other four would go to the corners and shout 'Allahu Akbar' [God is great] to encourage the crowd to do the same."
Around this time, Mohamed said, he was introduced to a Salafist called "Al-Hajer" who asked him to help in his movement's "medical and logistic support – to hide men wanted by the authorities and to find safe houses". Al-Hajer began frequenting Mohamed's home, "and he offered me a kind of allegiance, where you shake hands with this man and tell him that you acknowledge him as a leader whom you will obey, and will follow jihad and will not question him". Al-Hajer brought strangers to Mohamed's home.
"They took me into their circle. I left my mind 'outside' at this period and then I recognised that this group was al-Qa'ida. On 10 April this year, one of these people asked me to go with him in a car. I went to a place where I saw cylinders 2.5m high, with cases to fill them up with explosives. There were about 10 people there. I don't know why they asked me there – maybe to drag me into involvement. There was a Palestinian and a Jordanian who were to be suicide bombers and three Iraqi citizens. We left in a car in front of the two bombers. I don't know where they were going to bomb, but 15 minutes after I arrived back home, I heard the explosion and two minutes later there was a much stronger explosion. The catastrophe came for me when I watched the television and saw the bomb had gone off in a crowded street in the Bazzaz district; there were houses crushed in the bombings and all the inhabitants [targeted] were middle class and poor people. I was so sorry."
Later, one of the Salafists asked Mohamed to visit his mother in hospital – because he was a doctor and the Salafist would be recognised – but the Syrian Mukhabarat intelligence service was waiting for him. "I said very frankly to them: 'I am happy to be arrested – better than to get involved in such a group or have a role in wasting more blood.' I don't know how I got involved with these people. I put myself in a kind of 'recycle bin'. Now I want to write a book and tell people what happened to me so that they should not do as I did. But I have not been given pencil and paper."
Mohamed saw his father, a schoolteacher, his mother and a sister two months ago. Was he mistreated, we asked him. "Just one day," he said. "It was not torture." We asked why there were two dark marks on one of his wrists. "I slipped in the toilet," he said.
Jamel Amer al-Khodoud, an Algerian whose wife and children live in Marseille and who served in the French army in the 1st Transport Regiment, was a more subdued man, his 48 years and his rather pathetic tale of a search for jihad – encouraged by al-Jazeera's coverage of Muslim suffering in Syria, he said – leaving him a somewhat disillusioned man. Born in Blida, he had emigrated to France, but though a fluent French speaker, he found only a life of odd jobs and unemployment, until, "after a long hesitation, I decided to go to Turkey and help the Syrian refugees".
He was, he said, a "moderate Salafist", but in the Turkish refugee camps had met a Libyan sheikh, many Tunisians and a Yemeni imam "who gave me lessons in jihad". He crossed the Syrian border with a shotgun, and with other men had attacked military checkpoints and slept rough in abandoned houses and a mosque in the mountains above Latakia. Trained on French weapons, he had never before fired a Kalashnikov – he was allowed to fire three bullets at a stone for target practice, he said – but after several miserable weeks of discovering that a jihad in Syria was not for him, he resolved to walk back to Turkey and return to France. "What I saw on television I didn't see in Syria."
Captured by suspicious villagers, he was taken to a city (probably Aleppo) and then by helicopter to Damascus. Why didn't he choose Palestine rather than Syria for his jihad, we asked. "A Palestinian friend told me his people needed money more than men," he replied. "Besides, that is a difficult border to cross." When I asked him if he had been treated badly in captivity, he replied: "Thank God, I am well." To the same question, he repeated the same answer.
A Syrian imam – of the Khadija al-Khobra mosque in Damascus – with a lean, dark face, told us of his meetings this year with four Syrian "militant groups" in the city which had different nationalist and religious aims, of how he tried to unite them, but discovered that they were thieves, killers and rapists rather than jihadis. Or so Sheikh Ahmed Ghalibo said. Sprinkling the names of these men throughout his conversation, the sheikh said he had been appalled at how the groups had liquidated all who disagreed with them, merely on suspicion, "cutting the bodies up, decapitating them and throwing them in sewage". He said he had witnessed seven such murders; indeed, the disposal of corpses in sewage has been a common occurrence in Damascus.
Knowing that he was a mufti at the al-Khobra mosque and apparently aware that he had met the four extremist leaders, the Syrian security police arrested Ahmed Ghalibo on 15 April this year. He told us he had made a full confession because "these militants are not a 'Free Army'", insisted he had received "very good treatment" from his interrogators, condemned the Emir of Qatar for stirring revolution in Syria, and said he believed he would be released "because I have repented".
Cuma Öztürk comes from the south-eastern Turkish city of Gaziantep, and crossed into Syria after months of training, he said, in a Taliban camp on the Afghan-Pakistan border. He could not speak Pashtu – or Arabic – but had left behind his pregnant wife Mayuda and their three-year old daughter in Gaziantep to travel to Damascus. He spoke only vaguely of jihad but said he had been asked to set up a "smuggling" trail from Turkey to the Syrian capital which would also involve moving men across the border. He was arrested when he visited Aleppo for his mother-in-law's funeral. "I regret all that happened to me," he said mournfully; he was receiving good treatment "now". He asked us to let the Turkish authorities know of his presence in the prison.
When our four and a half hours of interviews were over, we appealed to the Syrian prison governor to give his inmates greater access to their families, a request which his tired smile suggested might be outside his remit. We also asked for a pen and paper for Mohamed al-Abdullah and we spoke – however fruitlessly – of the need for international law to be applied to those in the prison. The inmates shook hands with the governor in friendly fashion, although I noticed that little love seemed lost between them and the shirt-sleeved intelligence man. Each prisoner returned to his cell as he had arrived at the governor's office – with his head bowed and his eyes on the floor.
Who cares about Syrian Refugees?
By Natasha Mozgovaya
Who cares about Syrian refugees?
The visit of Jordan's Minister of Planning and International Cooperation in Washington coincided with an outburst of anti-American rage in the Middle East, the killing of four US diplomats in Libya, and yet another rift between the Israeli Prime Minister and the U.S. president over Iran's "red line." The result: Dr. Jafar Hassan's plea for additional financial support of Jordan's efforts to absorb the influx of Syrian refugees, whose numbers in the Hashemite kingdom have reached 200,000, was largely ignored by the American press.
"In 2011, the influx of refugees to Jordan began: there were 30,000 in summer 2011, the number tripled by this spring then doubled again by August 2012," Minister Hassan said during a meeting with journalists in Washington. "Today we have close to 200,000 Syrians in Jordan who fled following the outbreak of violence - around four percent of the Jordanian population, with three fourths of these refugees living in our cities and towns, especially in areas where there is already high unemployment and poverty; it puts tremendous pressure on host communities in terms of education and health care services, tremendous pressure on the water infrastructure."
The growing numbers of refugees crossing the border have spurred the Jordanian government to come up with another solution, the Zaatari refugee camp, which was opened in July. Primitive conditions in the camp forced hundreds of refugees to brave their way back to whatever is left of their homes in Syria - and, as the Jordanian minister notes, winter hasn't even arrived yet.
"We didn't want camps to begin with," he says. "We hope this camp will not remain for long. They've been put in tents, we are talking about the winter season coming, we are trying to put them in caravans, but so far we have, in pledges to provide caravans for refugees, only about 20 percent of the needs."
There is tremendous sympathy for the plight of Syrians in the country, he says. More than half a million Jordanian citizens are married to Syrians. But there is a limit to the good will: with unemployment in Jordan over 12 percent, there are few opportunities to provide jobs for the new refugees.
"We have to act urgently to preserve the good will, and to accommodate Syrians in the most dignified manner possible. It can't last forever. We have hosted 400,000 Iraqis since the war in 2003; most of them remained in the country because they feel they are better off economically in Jordan. But now Jordan is facing one of its worst fiscal crises in decades. We lost more than 4 billion dollars over 18 months because of the interruption of Egyptian gas; the government had to borrow this money to provide electricity - we pay 18 percent of GDP just to cover the energy bill. We lack the resources to provide for additional - or even current - numbers of Syrians in the country. The refugee camp capacity is 80,000 people. We thought it would take a while to reach that number, but we expect it to reach capacity within 30-40 days. This has put us in a race against time, and we'll have to start building a second camp."
So far, Dr. Hassan says, the borders are being kept open for refugees. "But our national security interest dictates our options at the end of the day."
Jordan's ability to continue absorbing refugees depends on the willingness of the international community, stingy because of the economic crisis, to keep up the donations. Several weeks ago Jordan appealed to six UN agencies that had spelled out precise needs for the Syrian refugees for 2012 - 2013, totaling 700 million dollars, half of it for Syrians living in local communities, and half for the Zaatari camp. So far, the financial support Jordan has received through agencies and NGO support "does not exceed 10 percent of the actual needs," though the US administration has shown "tremendous understanding of what Jordan is facing,", the minister says, adding that Israel - Jordan's and Syria's neighbor - is not part of the discussions on refugees.
The end of the conflict in Syria that has left at least 20,000 dead so far, is not in sight, and government officials are careful to stick to the talking points. "His Majesty (King Abdullah ) was clear on Jordan's position regarding Syria: there should be an inclusive, peaceful political transition. UN Security Council and the Arab League set for us the parameters through which we are hoping to get out of this very bad crisis," minister Hassan concludes.
Sep 19, 2012
The Value of Adversity
It is good for us to have trials and troubles at times, for they often remind us that we are on probation and ought not to hope in any worldly thing. It is good for us sometimes to suffer contradiction, to be misjudged by men even though we do well and mean well. These things help us to be humble and shield us from vainglory. When to all outward appearances men give us no credit, when they do not think well of us, then we are more inclined to seek God Who sees our hearts. Therefore, a man ought to root himself so firmly in God that he will not need the consolations of men.
-Thomas a Kempis
-Thomas a Kempis
What did we Really Witness last week?
By Rami G. Khouri
The Daily Star
It is always instructive but also irritating to be in the United States when tumultuous events occur around the Middle East or the wider Arab-Asian region with its predominantly Muslim populations. Last week was such a week, as we witnessed demonstrations and occasional violence in over a dozen countries, from Morocco to Indonesia, sparked by the insulting film trailer about Islam and the Prophet Mohammad that angered so many Muslims and others, including myself.
I see the fascinating and troubling dimension of mainstream American media coverage of the past week’s events, including the prevailing themes of public political discussions, as the tendency to link the historic events of the past 21 months (the Arab Spring, as it is known in the United States) to the outbursts of anger and resentment among those who demonstrated across the Arab-Asian region, and to ask: “Was the Arab Spring worth it?” A variation on this is to declare that the Arab Spring has led to a Dark Autumn, or some other such pairing of positive and negative attributes.
Many conclusions are drawn from this sort of discussion, including one streak in American thinking that says the U.S. should minimize its contacts with those violent and ungrateful Muslims over there who keep attacking our embassies and killing our citizens every time they are angered by manifestations of American free speech.
A subtext of this is the questioning of why those Muslims cannot be modern and tolerant like Americans or Westerners, who are much more casual about insults to their religion or prophets (and the questions are always about “Muslims,” not Nigerians, Indonesians or Tunisians, let’s say, and often the subject of bewilderment here is simply “Islam,” not even Muslims as individuals).
My concern is primarily about the frequent and negative linkages between the Arab uprisings across the Middle East and North Africa that seek more legitimate and democratic governance systems, and the angry protests and the few incidents of violence or death that erupted across the Arab-Asian region in the past week. Some in the U.S. now feel that demonstrations and occasional violence essentially negate the epic gains of the Arab uprisings.
This is such a terrible equation because the demonstrators usually involved a few hundred and occasionally a few thousand people (mostly men) who went out for a few hours here and there to express their rather legitimate anger (along with a few illegitimate and unacceptable acts of violence) at having their Prophet and religion deliberately demeaned. The attacks against the American consulate in Benghazi may also have included a preplanned attack by a small band of Salafist militants.
In contrast, the Arab Spring uprisings have gone on uninterrupted, in some cases for a year and nine months, and have seen tens of millions of ordinary citizens go out into the streets to demonstrate peacefully for the most part as they worked to remove their dictators and live a more dignified and free life. In some cases, as in Syria and Libya, violent regime responses prompted some opposition elements to use military means to confront the regimes, usually with assistance from Arab and Western countries.
One gets the impression over and over in the United States that Arabs and Muslims often are perceived as something akin to juvenile delinquents on parole – they have to behave well and obey the rules in order to enjoy the normal benefits of a free life. Arab freedom and sovereignty do not seem to be absolute rights, but rather are held hostage to American, Western and, in some cases, Israeli validation that we are behaving correctly.
This is not new, and is only the latest twist to what we witnessed when the uprisings first threatened pro-American dictators in Tunisia and Egypt in January 2011.The reflexive, almost Pavlovian, first questions that many American analysts and politicians asked then were, “What does this mean for Israel, Iran and Islamist movements,” without first asking if this was good for the hundreds of millions of ordinary Arab men and women risking their lives to live in freedom.
That a handful of small, occasionally violent demonstrations last week could cause some Americans and others abroad to question the worth of the past 21 months of epic Arab struggles for liberty and democracy is a terrible reminder that deep chasms separate these two worlds in some critical areas.
The most important of these is a deep lack of respect for the other on both sides, including the widespread perception in many American quarters that the liberty of Arabs and Muslims is not an absolute God-given right, but rather a relative benefit that Arabs can achieve if they play by the rules of the West.
I wonder, should we see the Arab-Asian-Muslim demonstrations and these American reactions as a lingering aftershock of the colonial mentality and the anti-colonial wars of resistance of the past century?
Rami G. Khouri is published twice weekly by THE DAILY STAR.
The Daily Star
It is always instructive but also irritating to be in the United States when tumultuous events occur around the Middle East or the wider Arab-Asian region with its predominantly Muslim populations. Last week was such a week, as we witnessed demonstrations and occasional violence in over a dozen countries, from Morocco to Indonesia, sparked by the insulting film trailer about Islam and the Prophet Mohammad that angered so many Muslims and others, including myself.
I see the fascinating and troubling dimension of mainstream American media coverage of the past week’s events, including the prevailing themes of public political discussions, as the tendency to link the historic events of the past 21 months (the Arab Spring, as it is known in the United States) to the outbursts of anger and resentment among those who demonstrated across the Arab-Asian region, and to ask: “Was the Arab Spring worth it?” A variation on this is to declare that the Arab Spring has led to a Dark Autumn, or some other such pairing of positive and negative attributes.
Many conclusions are drawn from this sort of discussion, including one streak in American thinking that says the U.S. should minimize its contacts with those violent and ungrateful Muslims over there who keep attacking our embassies and killing our citizens every time they are angered by manifestations of American free speech.
A subtext of this is the questioning of why those Muslims cannot be modern and tolerant like Americans or Westerners, who are much more casual about insults to their religion or prophets (and the questions are always about “Muslims,” not Nigerians, Indonesians or Tunisians, let’s say, and often the subject of bewilderment here is simply “Islam,” not even Muslims as individuals).
My concern is primarily about the frequent and negative linkages between the Arab uprisings across the Middle East and North Africa that seek more legitimate and democratic governance systems, and the angry protests and the few incidents of violence or death that erupted across the Arab-Asian region in the past week. Some in the U.S. now feel that demonstrations and occasional violence essentially negate the epic gains of the Arab uprisings.
This is such a terrible equation because the demonstrators usually involved a few hundred and occasionally a few thousand people (mostly men) who went out for a few hours here and there to express their rather legitimate anger (along with a few illegitimate and unacceptable acts of violence) at having their Prophet and religion deliberately demeaned. The attacks against the American consulate in Benghazi may also have included a preplanned attack by a small band of Salafist militants.
In contrast, the Arab Spring uprisings have gone on uninterrupted, in some cases for a year and nine months, and have seen tens of millions of ordinary citizens go out into the streets to demonstrate peacefully for the most part as they worked to remove their dictators and live a more dignified and free life. In some cases, as in Syria and Libya, violent regime responses prompted some opposition elements to use military means to confront the regimes, usually with assistance from Arab and Western countries.
One gets the impression over and over in the United States that Arabs and Muslims often are perceived as something akin to juvenile delinquents on parole – they have to behave well and obey the rules in order to enjoy the normal benefits of a free life. Arab freedom and sovereignty do not seem to be absolute rights, but rather are held hostage to American, Western and, in some cases, Israeli validation that we are behaving correctly.
This is not new, and is only the latest twist to what we witnessed when the uprisings first threatened pro-American dictators in Tunisia and Egypt in January 2011.The reflexive, almost Pavlovian, first questions that many American analysts and politicians asked then were, “What does this mean for Israel, Iran and Islamist movements,” without first asking if this was good for the hundreds of millions of ordinary Arab men and women risking their lives to live in freedom.
That a handful of small, occasionally violent demonstrations last week could cause some Americans and others abroad to question the worth of the past 21 months of epic Arab struggles for liberty and democracy is a terrible reminder that deep chasms separate these two worlds in some critical areas.
The most important of these is a deep lack of respect for the other on both sides, including the widespread perception in many American quarters that the liberty of Arabs and Muslims is not an absolute God-given right, but rather a relative benefit that Arabs can achieve if they play by the rules of the West.
I wonder, should we see the Arab-Asian-Muslim demonstrations and these American reactions as a lingering aftershock of the colonial mentality and the anti-colonial wars of resistance of the past century?
Rami G. Khouri is published twice weekly by THE DAILY STAR.
Sep 12, 2012
Minority Witness Amidst Anarchy
by Rylan Truman
Presbyterian World Mission
Seventeen months after demonstrations began in Syria, more than two million people have been displaced by ongoing conflict, with hundreds of thousands internally displaced and others seeking refuge in neighboring Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan and Iraq. According to the United Nations, an estimated 19,000 people have been killed, more than 3 million have lost their jobs, and many more are finding it increasingly difficult to meet basic needs.
In March of 2011, the Arab Republic of Syria became swept up in a people’s movement for political change. Tired of the tyranny and corruption of the al-Assad regime, Syrian civilians publically demanded that their constitutional rights be respected and protected by the government. But what started as a non-violent movement for basic rights, spiraled into a civil war after being hijacked by armed groups, including some radical Islamists.
Amidst this chaos and confusion stand 20 Presbyterian congregations located throughout Syria. They are part of the National Evangelical Synod of Syria and Lebanon (NESSL), which was established by Presbyterian mission workers more than 150 years ago, and has been in close partnership with the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) ever since.
As the armed combat sweeps through the country, many of these Presbyterian congregations have launched relief efforts or joined national humanitarian campaigns to address the needs of the internally displaced and to protect the property of those who have already fled their homes.
As a Presbyterian pastor in the area has said, “This is a new reality (for us), which compels us as churches and ministers to try to meet the urgent needs of those entrusted to us. This is an essential part of our calling in this society, given to us by our Lord Jesus Christ.”
In addition to seeking food and medical supplies, church officials and lay people are attempting to address the psychological trauma experienced by all who come through their doors.
Besides offering what humanitarian support they can, Christians in Syria are trying their utmost to stay neutral in what has become a pugnacious and convoluted situation. The Rev. Fadi Dagher, General Secretary of NESSL, points out: “Syrian Presbyterians remember the plight of Iraqi Christians following the US-led invasion of 2003. This minority population seemed to be attacked from all sides, inciting a mass exodus to Syria and other neighboring countries.
Almost a decade later, many Iraqi Christians are still reluctant to return. This is worrisome to Syrian Christians. Though Syria has historically been a safe haven for this population, attacks on Christians and church buildings are becoming increasingly widespread, making their security in the region quite precarious.
In response to the immense suffering of the displaced, NESSL is establishing a humanitarian relief arm in Beirut, Lebanon. With assistance from the PC(USA) and other ecumenical partners, NESSL has been able to provide financial support to over 110 displaced Syrian families since the conflict began. Local Presbyterian congregations in Lebanon have provided shelter in homes and church buildings for those who have fled the country to evade the fighting. PC(USA) Regional Liaison Nuhad Tomeh observes, “We are seeing the good work of NESSL multiply as more and more local congregations are raising relief funds to assist the displaced.”
Presbyterian World Mission and Presbyterian Disaster Assistance (PDA) are in conversation with NESSL regarding capacity building and training to enable the Synod to address the rising needs of Syrian refugees. World Mission and PDA have additionally issued an appeal to PC(USA) constituents to assist the church in its humanitarian presence.
Last month, members of the Presbyterian Peace Fellowship and the Syria-Lebanon Mission Network, who are in close communication with Syrian Christians, proposed a commissioner’s resolution for the 220th General Assembly. This resolution calls for Presbyterians to “become more fully informed about what is actually happening in Syria, …. [and ] urge the U.S. government to support a mediated process of cessation of violence by all perpetrators, … and to refrain from military intervention in Syria.” This resolution was approved by the General Assembly, thus making it a new church mandate.
Dagher, who attended the General Assembly, endorsed the resolution saying, “We prefer no outside troops, especially from the U.S. because this will make it very difficult for Christians, who are too much viewed as associated with the U.S. government.”
To date, the United States government has not pursued military action in Syria, though an array of sanctions have been enforced since the beginning of the conflict. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has emphasized the need to dispense “non-lethal assistance” to Syrian citizens in the form of humanitarian aid and recently announced that the U.S. will be sending an additional $5.5 million in relief to Syrian refugees.
It is clear, however, that the United States is leaning toward supporting the armed opposition groups, despite its divided composition and history of violence. Back in April of 2012, Clinton asserted that the United States would go beyond humanitarian aid to support “civil opposition groups” by way of providing communication technology. The United Kingdom is embracing a similar strategy, as Foreign Secretary William Hague recently approved £5 million in non-lethal aid for Syria’s opposition groups.
Many Syrians are leery of anyone taking sides in this war and find this outspoken support to be rash. As a Syrian church leader who asked to remain anonymous cautions: “I very much doubt that we can describe what is happening in Syria as a people’s revolution. It is my conviction that ‘revolutions’ that promote violence do not harvest a positive outcome.” This assertion supports popular, Christian sentiment that the conflict in Syria is driven by many self-interests that rarely work to uphold the rights of the Syrian people.
Sep 9, 2012
Sep 8, 2012
Sep 6, 2012
Sep 5, 2012
Isaiah 2:4
And he will judge between the nations, and will decide concerning many peoples; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.
Sep 4, 2012
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