Islamism and the Future of the Christians of the Middle East by Malik Habib C.;

Author:Malik, Habib C.;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Hoover Institution Press

IV. WHERE TO GO FROM HERE

Alongside Islamist fanaticism and the nasty regimes that have shown the ugly face of secularism, the Middle East's Christians have had to contend with Western indifference to their plight as targeted Christians coupled with American “pragmatism” and “realism.” Fundamentally, United States policies in the Middle East have never placed a significant priority on the conditions of indigenous Christians or the threats they have been up against just for being Christian: neither in Lebanon in 1958 during the first serious instance of Christian-Muslim strife, nor again in Lebanon in 1975 or after, nor in southern Sudan during twenty years of civil war, nor in Iraq since 2003, nor at any time with respect to Egypt's Copts. There is an ingrained culture in Washington's foreign policy establishment that prefers to avoid addressing the existential phobias of the region's Christians. These beleaguered Christian communities have become marginalized in American strategic thinking and hence expendable next to larger and more pressing economic, political, and security interests.

For their part these native Christians, whether dhimmi or free, have lost confidence in the West generally and in the United States in particular. They sense that Europe has shown occasional sensitivity to their dire situation, but they know well Europe's limitations in this regard: having itself become largely a post-Christian continent; laboring under severe problems of procreation and Islamic immigration; and lacking the raw power and international clout of the United States. The Vatican, particularly under Pope John-Paul II, showed sustained interest in the embattled Christians of Lebanon and the disappearing Palestinian Christians, and that Pope set up a special synod for the Maronite Church. Pope Benedict XVI, after a May 2009 visit to the Holy Land, announced in September another special synod scheduled for 2010 to deal with challenges confronting the Middle East's Catholic churches.

But popes have no military divisions, as Stalin wryly remarked; still, no Christian in the region seriously entertains the prospect of fleets arriving from the West to subdue their oppressors and save them—these are the fanciful accusations leveled at Christians by their detractors, mainly in the Western media. The primary challenge for Middle Eastern Christians is how to remain in organic communion on the deepest levels of the mind and the spirit with the West while concurrently protecting themselves from the inevitable kicks and stabs—intentional or otherwise—that will come at them from this same West, and how to do all this while not compromising their authentic belonging to the native soil of the East from where they sprang. A tall order perhaps, but one thing is certain: constant bypassing of them and their legitimate concerns by American policymakers is not going to lead those Christians who decide to stay in their ancestral lands to commit individual or collective suicide.

A true Christian believer living under any circumstances can never be robbed of the joy, the inner peace, and the incredible freedom bestowed by that faith. On this level the categories of dhimmi and free, which relate essentially to life in this world, simply do not apply.

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