Source: American University in Dubai
www.aud.edu
Showing posts with label Arab Christians. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Arab Christians. Show all posts
Wednesday, July 15, 2015
Thursday, February 12, 2015
From the Nile to the Euphrates: The Call of Faith and Citizenship
As a member of the Advisory Board of the Christian Academic Forum for Citizenship in the Arab World, I am sharing here the latest version of this Forum's Statement with my humble contribution and that of prominent and active Arab scholars.
From the Nile to the Euphrates: The Call of Faith and Citizenship
The document highlights the main challenges facing the Middle East in the post "Arab Spring Era" and a possible contribution of Christians towards the future of this region.
Available now in English and Arabic. Soon in French, German and Swedish.
Further information:
http://cafcaw.org/
and
http://www.amazon.com/
Wednesday, December 10, 2014
AUD Professor Contributes to Interfaith Dialogue: Dr. Chrabieh prominent voice on religious and political tolerance in the Middle East
The AUD School of Arts and Sciences was prominently showcased recently during the Christians Academic Forum for Citizenship in the Arab World (CAFCAW) academic conference as one of its notable faculty members, Dr. Pamela Chrabieh - Assistant Professor of Middle Eastern Studies, gave a presentation on ‘Major Current Challenges in the Middle East’.
The goal of the conference is to bring together Middle Eastern scholars, peacebuilding and interfaith organizations, and political and media figures, to assess the current situation of Christians in the Middle East and Interfaith Dialogue, as well as propose alternative worldviews, narratives and projects facing the culture of violence. To initiate a regional dialogue among academicians from diverse backgrounds and identities and launch a common platform of thought renewal and applied research.
As a founding member of CAFCAW and member of its executive committee, Dr. Chrabieh presented an overview of major current challenges facing most Middle Eastern countries and Middle Easterners, including the lack of balanced politics-religions relations, of pluralistic social-political systems and human/natural resources’ management; youth unemployment and emigration; obstacles to the effective realization of human rights/women’s rights; extremisms and the culture of violence.
The academic event followed three previous conferences in 2014 (Amman, Istanbul) where Middle Eastern Christian and Muslim scholars, religious leaders, media figures and politicians gathered to tackle and debate issues related to religions-politics’ relations, Interfaith Dialogue, Christians’ roles and situations and theology/fiqh[1] of public life.
Sunday, December 07, 2014
Major Current Challenges in the Middle East
'Major current challenges in the Middle East' is the title of Dr. Pamela Chrabieh's academic presentation during the CAFCAW Conference (December 6, 2014; Tamar Rotana Hotel, Beirut, Lebanon).
About this event:
This academic event followed 3 previous ones in 2014 (Amman and Istanbul). It gathered Middle Eastern Christian and Muslim scholars, religious leaders, media figures and politicians to tackle and debate issues related to religions-politics’ relations, Interfaith Dialogue, Christians’ roles and situations and theology/fiqh of public life. During this event, CAFCAW also launched its document ‘Christians of the Middle East and Public Life’.
Event's goals:
- To bring together Middle Eastern scholars, peacebuilding and interfaith organizations, and political and media figures, to assess the current situation of Christians in the Middle East and Interfaith Dialogue, and propose alternative worldviews, narratives and projects facing the culture of violence.
- To initiate a regional dialogue among academicians from diverse backgrounds and identities and launch a common platform of thought renewal and applied research.
About Dr. Chrabieh's presentation:
As a founding member of CAFCAW and member of its executive committee, Dr. Chrabieh presented an overview of major current challenges facing most Middle Eastern countries and Middle Easterners, including the lack of balanced politics-religions relations, of pluralistic social-political systems and human/natural resources’ management; youth unemployment and emigration; obstacles to the effective realization of human rights/women’s rights; extremisms and the culture of violence.
For more information: http://www.cafcaw.org/
For more information: http://www.cafcaw.org/
Wednesday, July 02, 2014
Séminaire à Istanbul
Je te remercie Maya Khadra de tout coeur pour ce beau compte-rendu de notre conférence à Istanbul. Je tiens à remercier également les organisateurs, Rev. Mitri Raheb et Victor Makari. Aussi, je souligne que ton intervention sur la jeunesse libanaise fut des plus pertinentes
Comme tu le dis si bien à la fin de ton article, restons convaincus-es que « Mieux vaut allumer
une bougie que maudire l'obscurité ». "Une lueur d'espoir pourra, malgré tout, briller dans un Moyen-Orient meurtri par les hégémonies des néo-islamistes et les alliances douteuses des minorités paranoïaques".
— with Pamela Chrabieh, Mitri Raheb, Johnny Mansour,Nuha Khoury, Eli Badran, Maya Khadra, Mina S. Gabi, Rania El-Gayed and Victor Makari.
Wednesday, September 19, 2012
Chrétiens et musulmans en dialogue : une possibilité et une nécessité
Dr. Pamela Chrabieh. Huile et Acrylique (technique mixte). 2011
"Le Moyen-Orient est actuellement sous fortes pressions. Les menaces échangées régulièrement entre l’État hébreu et la République islamique d’Iran font craindre aux peuples de la région le pire. On craint également les retombées négatives sur la sécurité régionale de la chute d’un régime damascène à la décomposition lente mais certaine. Les récentes manifestations violentes contre des intérêts américains dans plusieurs pays musulmans alourdissent encore davantage un climat déjà pesant. C’est dans ce contexte inquiétant que le Pape Benoît XVI a effectué une visite de trois jours au Liban." (Aziz Enhaili. http://www.tolerance.ca/Article.aspx?ID=144788&L=fr).
Le Liban "message" de dialogue interreligieux, exemple pour le Moyen-Orient et pour le monde... Si ce pays meurtri par des décennies de guerre ne peut réussir le pari de la convivialité, la théorie du choc des civilisations/cultures/religions serait seule appliquée... Les exhortations de Jean-Paul II et de Benoît XVI sont claires à ce niveau.
Il est évident que le dialogue entre chrétiens et musulmans au Liban - ne pas oublier aussi les juifs libanais et les Libanais d'appartenances et de croyances diverses - n'est pas le seul pilier de la construction de la paix, toutefois, est une nécessité majeure. Tant que la gestion socio-politique de la diversité au Liban se base sur le partage du pouvoir entre confessions ou communautés religieuses (le confessionnalisme), et que la mentalité de la plupart des Libanais est confessante, il est évident que toute réconciliation devrait faire avec cette gestion et cette mentalité, du moins comme première étape en vue de réformes progressives.
Mes étudiants me posent toujours la question suivante, quel que soit le milieu universitaire (USEK, USJ, NDU au Liban; Université de Montréal au Québec-Canada): le dialogue entre chrétiens et musulmans est-il possible? Ma réponse: oui. Il existe depuis des centaines d'années. Il présente plusieurs formes, des avantages et se heurte à divers obstacles. Même si l’historiographie traditionnelle insiste souvent sur les relations
marquées par les affrontements militaires et politiques, le dialogue entre
chrétiens et musulmans a débuté dès la naissance de l’islam. Un dialogue
certes souvent ébranlé par les soubresauts,
les tensions et les conflits, mais en évolution
continue, notamment au cours des dernières décennies.
Le terme ‘dialogue’ vient du grec dialogos ( dhia - à travers
- et logos - la parole -), qui signifie « suivre une pensée »,
« la parole qui passe » ou « suivre pour saisir ». Il s’agit d’une communication entre deux ou
plusieurs personnes ou groupes de personnes visant divers objectifs dont la
compréhension, le respect, la connaissance réciproque, l’accord, le compromis,
la coexistence, la convivialité, etc. Tout dialogue réclame donc en premier
lieu une juste complémentarité entre l’écoute et la parole, entre la réception
et l’émission. D’où la différence avec le monologue. En suivant cette large
définition, parler de dialogues entre chrétiens et musulmans n’implique pas la
communication entre deux entités perçues comme monolithiques et indépendantes,
l’Islam et le Christianisme, mais la rencontre multiforme entre individus et
communautés qui tiennent compte de leurs appartenances et visions religieuses.
Ce ne sont pas des religions qui dialoguent entre elles, mais des
« croyants » ou du moins, des personnes ou des collectivités qui
possèdent une identité sociologiquement religieuse et qui la mettent en jeu
dans la rencontre. Or, les lieux de dialogue actuellement au Liban et au Moyen-Orient sont peu nombreux face aux lieux de haine, tensions et conflits... Et plusieurs obstacles entravent l'expansion du dialogue. J'en cite quelques-uns ici:
1) Il n’est pas
rare de trouver dans ces sociétés des individus
et des groupes qui s’attèlent à une démarche de prosélytisme au nom du
dialogue. C’est le cas de certains mouvements évangéliques implantés notamment au Liban
et en Syrie, ainsi que de certains mouvements islamistes. Plusieurs penseurs
réfutent continuellement ces actions, en
étalant les conditions d’un dialogue comme débat positif et constructeur. Dans
cette perspective, s’il on prône un militantisme religieux en vue d’une
conversion, il n’y aurait plus d’interlocuteurs et donc plus de dialogue. La
conception du dialogue comme « hameçon de la mission » pose les
problématiques de l’exclusion - fondée sur le principe de purification, dont la
conséquence directe consiste à la tentation au repli et à la fragmentation - et
de l’inclusion, souvent basée sur l’assimilation graduelle, le modelage et le
conformisme. Cette dernière tend à véhiculer la suprématie des bienfaits de
l’hégémonie aux dépens de la diversité, en aggravant les manifestations de
marginalisation, de racisme, de discriminations, de xénophobie et
d’intolérances.
2) Un deuxième obstacle est de faire du dialogue une
entité abstraite clamée à tort et à travers, relevant par exemple de travaux
académiques dénués de toute incarnation sur le terrain ou de discours
politiques et médiatiques qui n’ont aucune portée pratique; en d’autres termes,
des paroles dont l’effet escompté n’est qu’éphémère, puisqu’elles sont
entendues pour un bref moment et sont vite reléguées aux oubliettes. Sans parler
de l’utilisation du dialogue comme moyen ‘efficace’, ‘légitime’ et même
‘croyable’, puisqu’il rejoint un mouvement ‘à la mode’ combattant les
conséquences de l’après-11 septembre 2001. L’action en elle-même est peut-être
noble, mais elle sert souvent d’outil afin d’asseoir les intérêts
suivants : hégémonie, intégration forcée et assimilation, accentuation des
ressemblances en vue d’un nivellement des différences et des particularismes
revendiqués, déresponsabilisation envers des actes commis dans le passé à
l’encontre des communautés conviées à la table ronde (‘oublions et dialoguons’)
etc. Les dérives sont telles qu’au nom même du dialogue, il n’est pas rare de
tomber dans les panneaux d’une logique de ‘choc’ des civilisations, cultures et
religions. D’ailleurs, nombreux sont ceux qui appellent à la rencontre des
‘autres’ en se basant sur une hostilité supposée millénaire entre regroupements
perçus comme monolithiques et immuables. Dans cette perspective, les dialogues
interreligieux (et particulièrement islamo-chrétiens) prêtent à une utilisation
comme principal ‘slogan’ d’événements révélant en fait un sermon unilatéral ou
un compromis basé sur les conditions de celui qui détient le plus de pouvoir.
3) Un troisième obstacle est caractérisé par l’impact d’une
diversité de facteurs d’instabilité socio-politique. Il va de soi de mentionner
les affrontements qui font rage depuis des décennies,
dont les diverses guerres et révolutions au Moyen-Orient, en Afrique et en
Europe de l’Est. Celles-ci ont entraîné la mort de centaines de milliers de
personnes et la destruction de villes entières. Elles ont également généré
d’innombrables problématiques: comme le déséquilibre économique, le déclin
culturel, le renfermement identitaire, l’émigration massive, l’effacement de
particularités minoritaires, la pérennité du clanisme et du tribalisme à la
tête des régimes politiques, la corruption des appareils gouvernementaux et la
restriction des libertés.
Face aux obstacles
identifiés ci-dessus, ne formant que quelques spécimens parmi tant d’autres,
l’avenir des dialogues islamo-chrétiens apparaît obscur, d’autant plus que la
méfiance mutuelle est constamment renforcée par les informations médiatiques
dont le focus se limite aux conflits,
plus ‘aguichants et sensationnels’ que les lieux de rencontres et d’échanges.
Néanmoins, cela n’implique pas forcément l’inexistence de ces lieux et
l’impossibilité de leur entreprise à long terme. Les conditions de création de
nouveaux espaces de dialogue et de poursuite de dialogues déjà enclenchés sont
nombreuses, parmi lesquelles : le
dépassement des stéréotypes et de l’exclusion, l’acceptation des déplacements
théologiques et linguistiques, la prise en compte des contextes politiques,
culturels, sociaux et économiques qui souvent sont à la base des querelles, la
relecture du passé et des blessures infligées de part et d’autre, l’ouverture à
de nouvelles perspectives à partir de nouvelles herméneutiques, le passage
d’identités closes aux identités plurielles et dynamiques, d’une altérité de
conflit à une rencontre relationnelle et émulatrice ...
Il est également
primordial de dépasser la simple tolérance en essayant de viser le respect de
la religion de l’autre, ce qui implique un travail considérable de
compréhension mutuelle, car il faut que « ce respect soit théologiquement
et anthropologiquement fondé », comme le cite Dennis Gira (Au-delà de la tolérance, la rencontre des religions. Paris,
Bayard, 2001: 38).
La reconnaissance de l’autre comme une personne à part entière avec laquelle on
peut découvrir des valeurs universelles ou autres, communément partagées, est
primordiale. Aucun dialogue ne peut se tenir sans un profond
respect pour l’intégrité et les convictions de l'autre. En ce sens, la construction
d’un ‘vivre-ensemble’ dépassant le ‘vivre-à-côté’ est croyable, pensable et
praticable. Il l’est d’autant plus si on accorde de l’importance à renouveler
les systèmes de gestion socio-politique des diversités, en assurant un espace
politique qui appelle une mise en jeu des identités plurielles, religieuses ou
non. Aussi, la limitation au dialogue des experts et des instances
religieuses/politiques ne nous empêche pas de mentionner ce qu’on appelle le dialogue
de vie ou le dialogue naturel ou encore, le vivre
ensemble : une convivialité qui se déroule quotidiennement au niveau
des individus (relations commerciales, personnelles -amitiés, mariages mixtes-, partage d’expériences
spirituelles, cultes communs de saints-es locaux …). C’est certainement sur
le fondement du dialogue de vie que les relations entre chrétiens et musulmans
pourront continuer à s’épanouir.
Friday, September 02, 2011
LA JEUNESSE CHRETIENNE MOYEN-ORIENTALE: ARTISANE DE PAIX
Jeunes universitaires (USEK, Liban, Hiver 2011) - Atelier 'Construction de la paix'
Cours de Dr. Pamela Chrabieh Badine
Le Moyen-Orient ne se réduit pas à un espace de conflits et de polémologies, mais il
présente aussi de multiples lieux où s’inventent et se réinventent des
protocoles de paix, de négociations, d’ententes et de convivialité. Une partie
de ces lieux est investie par les initiatives de jeunes chrétiens : artistes, journalistes, internautes, écrivains,
activistes au sein d’organismes non-gouvernementaux, membres de groupes de dialogue
interreligieux et interculturel, membres de pastorales universitaires… Les
luttes de ces jeunes démontrent que les sociétés
civiles moyen-orientales ne sont pas faites que de désespoir et d’affaissement socio-politique, mais aussi de volontarisme social
et politique et de capacité d’agir sur soi-même et sur l’environnement.
Toutefois, et afin d’élargir ces lieux de paix, l’ensemble
de la jeunesse chrétienne est appelé à tirer les leçons des guerres successives
qui ont marqué l’histoire du Moyen-Orient, à briser la culture de la guerre, à créer des lieux
de réconciliation entre une diversité d’appartenances, qu’elles soient ethniques,
religieuses, politiques ou sociales. Cette jeunesse est appelée à opérer un retournement d’attitude de la victime à celle d’une
responsabilité partagée qui favorise une citoyenneté actrice de paix. Elle est
donc appelée à témoigner de sa foi en devenant
artisane de paix.
En ce sens, elle contribuerait à assigner au fait religieux - le fait
chrétien
au Moyen-Orient - sa fécondité
culturelle et ses apports pertinents dans la définition et le fonctionnement de
la dette de sens. Il serait ainsi possible d’édifier un vivre ensemble en tant que
communion qui proviendrait de
l’intérieur des espaces confessionnels-religieux (intra-catholique en
particulier et intra-chrétien
en général), et qui
s’élargirait à l’interhumain;
une communion qui permettrait
de désapprendre ce qui fut inculqué. Désapprendre n’implique
pas d’être en rupture totale, ni d’adopter une pédagogie libertaire, mais de
favoriser des lieux de questionnement, et de là, de création suivant une démarche
critique et ouverte.
Dans l’Apocalypse de Jean, Jésus-Christ ouvre la voie au Salut. Pour l’apocalypse
moyen-oriental, c’est en fonction de la communion plurielle que pourraient se
dessiner les multiples visions de l’avenir portées par des sociétés complexes,
changeantes et traversées par des dynamiques identitaires polymorphes. En
d’autres termes, seule cette communion serait capable de prolonger l’itinéraire
humain à voix multiples, en tenant compte du flou des frontières, et cet autre
encore à advenir, qui nous échappe. Grâce à cette communion, il serait possible
de construire et de renforcer au Moyen-Orient des espaces communs, des
intelligibilités communes, sans nier les spécificités, ni ériger celles-ci en
singularités absolues.
Monday, May 30, 2011
Le sort des communautés chrétiennes au Machrek
Le sort des communautés chrétiennes au Machrek, Georges Corm
Quelles sont les causes du déclin démographique et du flux migratoire des communautés chrétiennes au Machrek, ainsi que de l’anxiété dans laquelle elles peuvent vivre?
Crédit image : Pamela Chrabieh, L'oiseau de l'amour, 2006, huile sur toile. Inspiré d'un poème d'Ibn Arabi
Relations no 749
juin 2011
Friday, October 15, 2010
Réflexions sur le rôle des Églises et des chrétiens du Liban
Ci-dessous un article qui porte à réflexion, notamment en ce qui concerne l'importance de la désinstrumentalisation du religieux au Liban ou de la dépolitisation de celui-ci. Il est évident que dans cet article, la politique est définie au sens particulier de la gestion de la Cité par les politiciens et les institutions religieuses (Eglise = institution). Alors que nous définissons habituellement la politique par la gestion générale de la Cité - donc la religion y a part - ou la Nation, et l'Eglise = la communauté des croyants - qui ne se limite pas aux institutions et clercs. Une question se pose: dans quelle mesure cette désinstrumentalisation pourrait s'effectuer? A mon avis, il est peu probable qu'elle se fasse... Il me semble qu'il pourrait y avoir une issue aux méandres de notre contexte par étapes progressives: d'une instrumentalisation néfaste pour beaucoup à un moindre 'mal', voire une instrumentalisation négative affaiblie, supplantée par des dynamiques constructives d'une meilleure gestion de la relation religion-politique. Du moins à court et moyen termes...
Et en ce qui concerne l'émigration, celle-ci porte en elle des avantages et des désavantages, tout dépend pour qui, dans quelle situation et en quel moment. Toutefois, les avantages l'emportent bien souvent, vu que la continuité (et donc la survie) d'une religion, d'une culture, d'une civilisation, d'une nation etc., se fait dans et à travers les échanges, les relations, les ouvertures, les ruptures, les changements...
Merci encore pour cet article fort éclairant... Réflexion à poursuivre!
------------------------------------------
L’Orient-LeJour 13.10.2010
Réflexions sur le rôle des Églises et des chrétiens du Liban
EN MARGE DE L’ASSEMBLÉE SPÉCIALE DU SYNODE DE ROME Par Sami AntoineKHALIFÉ
Tout d'abord, je tiens à préciser que les commentaires qui suivent sont le résultat de ma réflexionsur les Églises du Liban, cela non pas dans un but d'exclusion des Églises des autres pays ni dansl'intention d'accaparer l'attention sur nos Églises, mais par respect pour les autres. Même si je suis informé et continue de m'informer sur la situation de toutes les Églises du Moyen-Orient, d'autres que moi sont mieux habilités à en parler.Après une réflexion approfondie sur le «Lineamenta» et sur l'«Instrumentum laboris», l'impression générale que me laisse cette action est bien de l'ordre d'un «examen de conscience», pour montrer un certain intérêt au sort des «frères d'Orient», sans vraiment s'attaquer aux causes réelles des problèmes ni à chercher quelques ébauches de solutions concrètes. De plus, à vouloir trouver un dénominateur commun à toutes les Églises d'Orient, en survolant les difficultés et problems spécifiques à chacune d'entre elles, nous aboutissons à des généralités sur lesquelles tout le monde tombe forcément d'accord, mais qui auront peu de chance d'améliorer ou de changer une situation qui va en se détériorant. (Le document Kairos Palestine, qui nous va droit au coeur et appelle à la conscience de tout chrétien, est un exemple patent d'une spécificité qui mérite notre attention ciblée ainsi que nos actions coordonnées). Qu'à cela ne tienne, voici quelques commentaires que je soumets, avec humilité, à nos évêques à l'occasion du synode et à tout chrétien engagé dans ce Moyen-Orient, berceau du monothéisme judaïque, chrétien et musulman. (Les § se réfèrent aux paragraphes correspondants du Lineamenta et les paragraphes ci-dessous suivent l'ordre des suggestions du même document).1- Il est vrai que notre Église se trouve dans une attitude défensive et de repli sur soi: «Le dangerest dans le repliement sur soi et la peur de l'autre», §17. Nos Églises se replient vis-à-vis de leurspropres fidèles dans une attitude qui les empêche de mettre les ressources de ces derniers àcontribution. Nous nous fragmentons, chacun pour soi, «L'esprit de rivalité nous détruit», §43: rien qu'à voir la multiplication des établissements scolaires et/ou universitaires, on peut imaginer les résultats éblouissants qu'on obtiendrait avec des actions communes coordonnées et bien planifiées.2- Nos Églises semblent perdre de plus en plus leur autorité morale : quand on voit le nombre depersonnes qui désertent et/ou qui changent de confession pour des raisons de facilité de vie courante «convenante» et/ou qui se contentent de fréquenter les églises par «tradition» et/ou pour la photo souvenir à l'occasion des fêtes et/ou par besoin de certaines formalités, etc., nous nous posons de sérieuses questions. Loin de moi l'idée que nos Églises ne se soient pas posé ou ne se posent pas ces questions très souvent ; mais je constate que depuis des dizaines d'années, elles perdent de leur autorité morale à vue d'oeil. C'est un phénomène mondial, dit-on. Probablement, mais cela ne doit pas être une fatalité au Liban, étant donné les rapports étroits et solides qui lient traditionnellement les fidèles à leur Église. Face à cette perte d'autorité morale, nos Églises semblent trouver un substitut en devenant des «acteurs politiques au quotidien».3- Nos Églises ont, depuis des siècles, pris des positions «politiques» de portée «historique» pour le Liban : leur rôle «politique» ne peut pas être sous-estimé. Elles ont modelé le visage du Liban, très récemment encore, jusqu'en 2005. Toutefois, à vouloir se mêler de la vie politique au quotidien et transformer les homélies en discours politiques, nos Églises risquent de devenir des partis où les «membres» entrent et sortent en fonction des mouvances, sans compter l'instrumentalisation de l'Église par des politiciens peu soucieux de la place «historique» de celle-ci. Ce phénomène est préoccupant et grave, car les fidèles, exposés ces cinquante dernières années (du fait de leurs voyages, de l'émigration, de la vie à l'étranger, des communications modernes, etc.) à une separation entre le spirituel et le temporel en Occident, ont du mal à s'identifier avec une Église qui mêle, de plus en plus, religion et politique.4- Nos Églises devraient suivre l'exemple de Rome et reprendre leur rôle de gardiens des valeurs en restant au-dessus de la «politicaillerie». Elles pourront rappeler, avec l'autorité morale qui leur est reconnue, à «tous» les hommes politiques leur devoir d'actions citoyennes. À l'exemple du pape, nos Églises portent le flambeau des valeurs chrétiennes et universelles, pour les chrétiens et pour tous les hommes. Elles resteront un foyer de saints : sainte Rafqa, saint Charbel, saint Nehmetallah Hardini ou le bienheureux frère Estéfan Nehmé, etc. (non pas de «leaders politiques» ), comme elles l'ont été à travers les siècles.5- Évidemment, il y a ceux qui pensent qu'en tant que minorité, nous nous identifions à nos Églises, qui deviennent de facto les protectrices de nos droits communautaires et par conséquent un acteur politique par essence. En faisant entrer nos Églises dans les méandres de la politique au quotidien, nous entrons dans une spirale de laquelle nous sortirons tous perdants, tant sur les plans spirituel et moral que par l'éloignement des fidèles qui ne se reconnaissent pas dans une «Église politique».«Rendons à César...». Nous avons les conseils de communauté, des hommes politiques chevronnés et/ou d'autres qui aspirent à le devenir. Nos Églises sont là pour leur rappeler les valeurs chrétiennes afin qu'ils agissent selon ces valeurs.6- Les chrétiens sont pour le dialogue islamo-chrétien : nos Églises pourraient s'inspirer de ce qui se fait à l'USJ, développer un minicursus sur ce dialogue, et le promouvoir à travers nos paroisses et écoles, donnant ainsi l'exemple. Elles seront en mesure de prôner la même chose dans les écoles publiques ainsi que dans les écoles des autres religions. Pour ce, elles pourront mobiliser les fidèles dans le cadre d'un programme commun à toutes nos Églises, établi au niveau national. La décision prise par le gouvernement de faire à l'occasion de la fête de l'Annonciation une fête nationale islamo-chrétienne est une preuve, s'il en faut, que ce dialogue, poursuivi sous l'égide de l'Église, peut créer amitiés, convivialité, respect de l'autre, contribuant ainsi à éloigner les sentiments d'exclusion. Nos Églises pourraient multiplier ces initiatives de dialogue entre leurs fidèles respectifs de même qu'avec ceux des autres religions.7- Les médias locaux et internationaux (Le Jour du Seigneur, Zenit, l'Osservatore Romano, etc.) qui portent le message de l'Église devraient diffuser et faire davantage connaître à travers le monde les activités des chrétiens d'Orient pour le sensibiliser à leurs défis.8- L'émigration (ici, je ne parle pas de l'émigration massive et/ou forcée, comme c'était le cas au Liban et c'est le cas actuellement avec les chrétiens d'Irak et de Palestine, qui doit attirer notre plus grande attention et qui est à juste titre une des préoccupations du synode) n'est-elle pas un «épouvantail politique», qu'on secoue devant les fidèles par une homélie sur deux ? À l'âge de la mondialisation et de la globalisation, la mobilité et l'émigration sont devenues un avantage, une force et une ressource inestimables pour ceux qui les utilisent à bon escient. Il y a au Liban une tradition d'émigration et de mobilité depuis des millénaires. Je n'offusquerai personne en rappelant que nos migrations remontent aux Phéniciens, ni en parlant des contributions (plus que le quart du PIB) des émigrés à l'essor du Liban : je cite L'Orient-Le Jour du 15/02/2010 : «En parallèle, les transferts des expatriés (en 2009) sont restés stables en dépit de la crise financière internationale, totalisant quelque sept milliards de dollars, selon les dernières estimations.» Le gouverneur de la Banque du Liban, M. Riad Salamé, déclare que ces transferts ont d'ailleurs contribué à «un excédent de 2,7 milliards de dollars au niveau de la balance de paiement» fin août 2010 (L'Orient-Le Jour du 9/10/2010). Ou encore, les dernières visites de certains émigrés célèbres comme MM. Carlos Slim et Carlos Ghosn, qui ont établi des contacts enrichissants l'un dans le cadre de l'USJ, l'autre dans celui de l'USEK, sans parler des réunions qui ont eu lieu avec nos Églises. 9- L'émigration (non forcée) est une réalité qu'il s'agit d'accepter afin de la transformer en force au service de nos Églises : selon une étude de l'USJ (OLJ du 27/03/2010), de 446 000 à 640 000 (Libanais) ont quitté le Liban entre 1992 et 2007; de ce fait, 45 % des ménages ont donc au moins un membre de la famille résidant à l'étranger». Quand on sait l'importance des liens familiaux au Liban, l'attachement à la paroisse, au village, au pays, etc., on peut envisager que nos Églises développent un programme compréhensif (une tâche à entreprendre par les fidèles) pour consolider les relations entre les émigrés et les paroisses du Liban, sans qu'il s'agisse nécessairement de leur paroisse d'origine, afin de favoriser les échanges. À titre d'illustration et sans être exhaustif :
- le jumelage de paroisses entre celles du Liban et celles des pays de l'émigration avec à l'appui des
programmes d'échanges religieux et culturels ;
- le parrainage par les paroisses des émigrés de projets conjoints avec les paroisses du pays ;
- la défiscalisation dans les pays hôtes des dons faits par les émigrés à leur Église
- le patronage par les émigrés de projets éducatifs, sociaux, culturels ;
- nos Églises pourraient, sur leurs terres, favoriser le développement d'habitations qui seraient
vendues ou louées à long terme aux émigrés (cela est bénéfique pour l'économie des Églises et du pays), Ce qui renforcera l'attachement de ces derniers à la terre de leur Église et, par effet d'osmose, limitera la vente des terres par les chrétiens résidents;
- etc.Cela demande une ouverture de nos Églises aux émigrés, la mise à contribution et l'engagement de ces derniers dans l'action de celles-ci. L'émigré en général, du fait d'un rythme de vie relativement bien cadencé à l'étranger, est disponible pour s'engager sur des projets qui le motivent et valorisent son appartenance à son Église d'Orient. Ainsi, il aura la satisfaction de la soutenir, de même que son pays. Mettre ces bonnes volontés à contribution et faire en sorte que leur attachement et engagement restent vivaces transformeront l'émigration d' «épouvantail» en forces vives au service du pays.
10- L'émigré est un relais précieux pour la diffusion du message de nos Églises à travers le monde : avec une documentation bien préparée, l'émigré peut faire connaître nos Églises d'Orient et les défis auxquels elles font face dans son pays d'adoption.
11- Quant aux défis posés à notre pays, je considère le rôle de nos Églises primordial dans ces
domaines : «Parler de paix et oeuvrer pour la paix», «Expliquer le sens de la laïcité», «La modernité (je me permets de préciser, la modernité mal comprise et mal vécue) est aussi un risque pour les chrétiens.» Nos Églises, porteuses des valeurs de l'Évangile, sont notre rempart contre les assauts de la modernité destructrice de nos familles et de nos sociétés, et le phare qui éclaire notre chemin vers une modernité qui suit les enseignements de l'Évangile.
12- Le chrétien doit agir avec son Église pour contribuer à la promotion des droits de l'homme, au développement d'une relation islamo-chrétienne digne et à un essor économique, social et culturel pour son pays. L'Église reste notre guide spirituel pour nous approcher du Seigneur.
13- Les conseils de communauté sont appelés à prendre le relais de l'Église sur la scène politique. Les laïcs (pas les «laïcs» définis dans le Lineamenta §30) chrétiens, résidents et émigrés, doivent s'investir plus à fond dans la vie de leur Église et s'engager activement pour multiplier et consolider les liens avec elle.
Je voulais parler de notre situation au Liban, parler d'un vécu qui nous touche dans notre vie au
quotidien, ce vécu qui nous est propre, nous les chrétiens d'Orient, et qui est probablement observe avec des longues vues à partir de Rome et/ou de l'Occident en général. J'ai grand espoir qu'avec la bénédiction et l'intercession de la Vierge Marie, le synode des évêques catholiques pour les Églises du Moyen-Orient relèvera les énormes défis auxquels font face toutes les Églises d'Orient, pas seulement les catholiques, chacune avec ses propres difficultés, et qu'il aboutira à des resolutions concrètes qui permettront aux chrétiens d'Orient de vivre comme des citoyens fondateurs depuis des millénaires des pays où ils se trouvent en toute liberté, sans contrainte ou intimidation. Ainsi, ils pourront continuer à contribuer au développement de leurs pays sans crainte pour leur avenir et celui de leurs enfants en harmonie entre eux dans l'esprit oecuménique et aussi avec leurs concitoyens musulmans en toute fraternité. Les chrétiens seront des témoins du Christ sur les terres de leurs ancêtres, terres qui ont été foulées par le Christ et ses apôtres.
Le Liban en particulier et le Moyen-Orient en général sortiront grandis comme étant l'antithèse du «choc des civilisations», voire l' «harmonie des civilisations».
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Spirituel et Temporel - mariage possible?
LA JOURNEE SPIRITUELLE DES ANCIENS DE JAMHOUR ET DE L'USJ AVAIT POUR THEME DE DIALOGUE CE MATIN 'LA MISSION DES LAICS AU SEIN DE L'EGLISE ET DANS LE MONDE'. DEPUIS LE CONCILE DE VATICAN II, l'EGLISE EST PERCUE EN TANT QUE COMMUNAUTE DES CROYANTS, LAICS ET CLERCS, AVEC UNE FONCTION QUE TOUS PARTAGENT: LE TEMOIGNAGE DU MESSAGE EVANGELIQUE - LES LAICS TEMOIGNANT DANS LE MONDE, DANS LEUR VIE QUOTIDIENNE, DU ROYAUME DE DIEU A VENIR. ETRE DANS LE MONDE SANS S'Y FONDRE. ALLIER LE SPIRITUEL AU TEMPOREL, LE SACRE AU PROFANE, SANS QU'IL N'Y AIT NECESSAIREMENT DE COUPURE NETTE ENTRE DEUX DIMENSIONS JUGEES SEPAREES D'EMBLEE.
UNE LECON A RETIRER: LA DIFFICILE MAIS O COMBIEN GRATIFIANTE GESTION OU RECONCILIATION DU SPIRITUEL - LEQUEL N'EST PAS LE SEUL APANAGE DES CLERCS - ET DU TEMPOREL - QUI N'EST NON PLUS LE SEUL DOMAINE DES LAICS. UNE LUTTE INCESSANTE...
NI CONFUSION, NI AUTONOMISATION...
NI FUSION, NI DISPERSION/EXCLUSION...
UNE VOIE MEDIANE, TOUJOURS A CHERCHER... NEGOCIATION INTERNE, EN SOI, ET AVEC LES AUTRES.
REVOLU LE TEMPS OU L'ON CROYAIT QUE LE CHRISTIANISME EST UNILATERALEMENT ORIENTE VERS LE SPIRITUEL - LEQUEL EST A DISTINGUER DU TEMPOREL. LE SOCIAL, LE POLITIQUE, L'HUMAIN, FONT PARTIE DE L'HISTOIRE DU CHRISTIANISME, DE SON PRESENT ET DE SON AVENIR.
PETITE PENSEE EN GUISE DE CONCLUSION:
Le corps, en tant que « corps spirituel », aura part à l’accomplissement final (cf. 1 Cor 15,44). Lorsque Paul affirme que la « chair » ne pourra pas recevoir le royaume de Dieu en héritage (1 Cor 15,50) et les croyants ne peuvent pas se laisser déterminer par la « chair » (cf. Rom 8,4-9), il ne n’agit pas là d’un mépris du corps et la dimension corporelle de l’être humain. La « chair » (en grec sarx) – à la différence du « corps » (en grec sôma) – signifie principalement l’être humain dans sa condition pécheresse et dans son opposition à Dieu. Aussi importe-t-il de ne pas se laisser conduire par le « désir pécheur de la chair », mais par l’Esprit de Dieu (cf. Gal 5,13-26). Grâce à l’Esprit de Dieu, le corps de l’homme n’est pas dépassé, mais il est précisément rendu vivant (cf. Rom 8,11).
Thursday, April 17, 2008
ARAB CHRISTIANS
CHRÉTIENS ARABES !
NI UNE 'ESPÈCE', NI 'EN VOIE DE DISPARITION'
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Bonjour à tous et toutes!
En ce début de printemps au Liban, tantôt frisquet, tantôt annonciateur d'un été brûlant, et avec l'invasion de virus de tous genres qui n'épargnent âme qui vive, il est des discours qui qualifient l'Islam de virus et qui ont leur place de choix dans les médias traditionnels. Une manière d'ajouter de l'huile au feu de la haine qui consume la société libanaise en une diversité de "lieux". Je notais dans un commentaire précédent suite à mon texte sur la Prétention Intellectuelle que la thèse qualifiant les chrétiens d'Orient de "derniers peaux rouges", en d'autres termes, d'une "espèce en voie de disparition", est simpliste, réductrice et alarmiste. La situation des chrétiens d'Orient - et notamment celle des chrétiens arabes - est beaucoup plus complexe qu'on ne la dépeint habituellement, en danger de mort à cause d'une "invasion de l'Islam".
Réduction des conflits au Moyen-Orient à l'interreligieux.
Réduction de l'Islam à la violence. Réduction du Christianisme à l'unique figure de victime.
Réduction du fanatisme à l'Islam - alors qu'il n'est pas l'apanage d'une religion ou d'une culture.
Que ne fut ma surprise de recevoir hier un article très intéressant sur les Chrétiens arabes, basé sur une thèse critique, tenant compte des subtilités et des nuances, ainsi que de la pluralité des discours, actions, visions et situations. Il me fut envoyé par Raja G.Mattar, consultant en Management vivant à Beyrouth. Cet article fut publié en deux parties en avril 2008 par le Daily Star - Égypte (en anglais).
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By Raja G. Mattar
First Published: April 1, 2008
“'History is a set of agreed-upon lies” (Napoleon)
A few weeks ago I received by email an article by a Dr. Walid Phares titled “Arab Christians who are they?” Initially I brushed it off as rather inconsequential, but it subsequently came to my attention that Dr. Phares is promoting some rather bizarre ideas about Arab Christians on the lecture and TV circuit in the U.S., contesting their Arab ethnicity and claiming their persecution by Moslems. Being an Arab Christian myself, I would like to use some of the views of Dr. Phares as an entry point to highlight the falsities being promulgated by him and a few other ‘self-hating Arabs’ under the guise of scholarly studies.
Arab Christians have always existed in the Middle East, and long before the advent of Islam. In Lebanon today they number about 1.3 million (about one-third of the population) mainly of Maronite denomination. In Syria they number approximately two million (or about 10% of the population) which include a significant community of Maronites. In Egypt, Christians, mostly Copts, are about 4.5 million, or about 6% of the population. There are one million in Iraq of various denominations, or about 4% the population. The Christians of Palestine and Jordan may number 600,000, but so many population shifts had taken place that it is difficult to venture a reliable estimate.
The Christians of Lebanon, Syria and Palestine played a pioneering role in reviving Arab culture from the comatose state it was in under the Ottomans. The renaissance of Arab culture owes a great deal to the many Christian Arab scholars who were among the forerunners in shaping Arab national identity. The Maronites role, in particular, was of major cultural importance. In Lebanon they are the backbone of its cultural diversity. A Saudi friend once commented that if the Maronites did not exist we would have to invent them!
There have been occasional claims that the Maronites can trace their ancestry to Phoenicians. This is a myth intended to distance the Maronites from their Arab roots. The Maronites were inhabitants of Orontes (Al-Assi) valley in Syria. They are most probably descendants of some Arab tribes who never converted to Islam.
The eminent Lebanese historian Kamal Salibi (incidentally, a Christian) in his ‘A House of Many Mansions’ [1988] states (ch. 6): “It is very possible that the Maronites, as a community of Arabian origin, were among the last Arabian Christian tribes to arrive in Syria before Islam…. Certainly, since the 9th century, their language has been Arabic, which indicates that they must have originated as an Arab tribal community…. The fact that Syriac remains the language of their liturgy… is irrelevant. Syriac, which is the Christian literary form of Aramaic, was originally the liturgical language of all the Arab and Arameo-Arab Christian sects, in Arabia as well as in Syria and Iraq.”
Salibi also notes (in ch. 4), that Patriarch Istifan Duwayhi, a Maronite historian of the 17th century, points out that the Maronites “had to move their seat out of the valley of the Orontes to Mount Lebanon as a result of Byzantine, not Muslim persecution.” Salibi further goes on to say: “Between 969 and 1071… the Byzantines were in actual control of the Orontes valley…. They must have subjected the Maronites to enough persecution to force them to abandon the place and join their co-religionists in Mount Lebanon…. In Muslim Aleppo, however, the community survived, as it does to this day.”
El Hassan Bin Talal (former crown prince of Jordan and a prominent scholar) in his “Christianity in the Arab World” [1994] (ch. 7), emphasizes: “It is possible that the Maronite church would not have survived the Byzantine reconquests in Syria between the 10th and 11th centuries… had the Byzantines … succeeded in occupying the whole of Syria, leaving no parts under Muslim rule, where dissident Christian groups could find refuge from Byzantine persecution.”
I hope we can put to rest the myth of the Maronites as descendants of the Phoenicians. The Phoenicians lived mainly on the coasts of Lebanon and Syria. If one wants to belabor the subject, their descendants are obviously the coast dwellers, mainly the Sunnis. In any case, the Greek historian Herodotus wrote in the 5th century BC, that the Phoenicians themselves were Arab tribes from the Arabian shores of the Red Sea.
Dr. Phares in his article mentions “pogroms of the Copts in Egypt”. This is a serious and misleading accusation. The term pogrom means organized and systematic killing of an ethnic group usually sanctioned by the government. There may have been occasional sectarian clashes, but I have yet to come across a historical record to the effect that the Copts, or any other Arab Christian group for that matter, having been the target of pogroms. (The only recorded massacre of Christians was in 1860 in Mount Lebanon, and the origin of that unfortunate event was a social rebellion by Maronite serfs against their Druze overlords).
Pogroms were an invention of Christian rulers in Europe, mostly directed against Jews — for which Palestinian Arabs, both Christian and Muslim, have been paying dearly as the Christian West tries to atone for its sins at their expense. This western guilt complex, nurtured continuously by Zionist propaganda, has resulted in a tomblike silence over the atrocities perpetrated by Israel over the past 60 years.
It is often mentioned that the Copts of Egypt are descendants of the Pharaohs. But so much history had elapsed between the disappearance of the Pharaohs and the arrival of Islam, that this claim appears questionable, and in any case the Muslims of Egypt have every bit as much right to it, if indeed that claim is anything more than intellectual hair-splitting.
The article in question also claims that the Christians remaining in Palestine “are experiencing one of their most severe choices: surrender to Islamization, or join the pan-Middle East Christian boat….” This is a flagrant distortion of reality. Palestinian Christians are not suffering at the hands of the Muslims, but at the hands of the Israelis, and the bullet-scarred statue of the Virgin Mary in the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem is a poignant testimony to this fact. We are witnessing before our very eyes the gradual de-Christianization and de-Islamization of Arab Jerusalem due to persistent Israeli measures aimed at deliberately destroying the Arab character of the city, while the Western world, spearheaded by successive US administrations, displays utter insensitivity, if not outright acquiescence, to this demographic crime.
Dr. Phares talks about the Muslims “demonizing those who have formed their national state, Israel.” He seems to believe, along with many others, that the Jews of Palestine were a large community dispersed by the Romans and now entitled to return to their ‘homeland’. According to Israel Finkelstein, an Israeli archeologist, in his monumental work “The Bible Unearthed” [2001], the Hebrews were never a large community, never had a substantial kingdom, never were in Egypt (the exodus from Egypt is just a myth). The number of Jews dispersed by the Romans from Palestine was minimal; most Jews remained in Palestine, some gradually became Christians, and some, further on, Muslims.
The bulk of the Jews who have been pouring into Palestine for decades under the so-called ‘Right of Return’ have no demonstrable kinship to the Hebrew inhabitants of Palestine in Roman times. The fanatical settlers — especially those of East European or Russian origins — who claim to return to their ‘ancestral land’ are, as advanced by Arthur Koestler (a Hungarian Jew) in his scholarly work “The Thirteenth Tribe” [1976], descendants of the Khazars, southern Russian tribes who converted to Judaism about 740 AD (ch.1). Their empire collapsed after their defeat by the Russians late in the 10th century and they dispersed all over Europe. Alfred Lilienthal (an American Jew) in an article written in 1981 titled “Zionism and American Jews” confirms: “In The Thirteenth Tribe, Arthur Koestler, supported overwhelmingly by such anthropologists as Ripley, Weissenberg, Hertz, Boas, Mead and Fishberg, proves that the vast majority of today's Jews are descendants of the Khazars of South Russia…. The Ben-Gurions, the Golda Meirs, and the Begins, who have clamored to go back ‘home,’ probably never had antecedents in that part of the world.”
Part II of this commentary will be printed in tomorrow’s issue (April 3, 2008).
Arab Christians are Arabs (Part II)
“'History is a set of agreed-upon lies” (Napoleon)
A few weeks ago I received by email an article by a Dr. Walid Phares titled “Arab Christians who are they?” Initially I brushed it off as rather inconsequential, but it subsequently came to my attention that Dr. Phares is promoting some rather bizarre ideas about Arab Christians on the lecture and TV circuit in the U.S., contesting their Arab ethnicity and claiming their persecution by Moslems. Being an Arab Christian myself, I would like to use some of the views of Dr. Phares as an entry point to highlight the falsities being promulgated by him and a few other ‘self-hating Arabs’ under the guise of scholarly studies.
Arab Christians have always existed in the Middle East, and long before the advent of Islam. In Lebanon today they number about 1.3 million (about one-third of the population) mainly of Maronite denomination. In Syria they number approximately two million (or about 10% of the population) which include a significant community of Maronites. In Egypt, Christians, mostly Copts, are about 4.5 million, or about 6% of the population. There are one million in Iraq of various denominations, or about 4% the population. The Christians of Palestine and Jordan may number 600,000, but so many population shifts had taken place that it is difficult to venture a reliable estimate.
The Christians of Lebanon, Syria and Palestine played a pioneering role in reviving Arab culture from the comatose state it was in under the Ottomans. The renaissance of Arab culture owes a great deal to the many Christian Arab scholars who were among the forerunners in shaping Arab national identity. The Maronites role, in particular, was of major cultural importance. In Lebanon they are the backbone of its cultural diversity. A Saudi friend once commented that if the Maronites did not exist we would have to invent them!
There have been occasional claims that the Maronites can trace their ancestry to Phoenicians. This is a myth intended to distance the Maronites from their Arab roots. The Maronites were inhabitants of Orontes (Al-Assi) valley in Syria. They are most probably descendants of some Arab tribes who never converted to Islam.
The eminent Lebanese historian Kamal Salibi (incidentally, a Christian) in his ‘A House of Many Mansions’ [1988] states (ch. 6): “It is very possible that the Maronites, as a community of Arabian origin, were among the last Arabian Christian tribes to arrive in Syria before Islam…. Certainly, since the 9th century, their language has been Arabic, which indicates that they must have originated as an Arab tribal community…. The fact that Syriac remains the language of their liturgy… is irrelevant. Syriac, which is the Christian literary form of Aramaic, was originally the liturgical language of all the Arab and Arameo-Arab Christian sects, in Arabia as well as in Syria and Iraq.”
Salibi also notes (in ch. 4), that Patriarch Istifan Duwayhi, a Maronite historian of the 17th century, points out that the Maronites “had to move their seat out of the valley of the Orontes to Mount Lebanon as a result of Byzantine, not Muslim persecution.” Salibi further goes on to say: “Between 969 and 1071… the Byzantines were in actual control of the Orontes valley…. They must have subjected the Maronites to enough persecution to force them to abandon the place and join their co-religionists in Mount Lebanon…. In Muslim Aleppo, however, the community survived, as it does to this day.”
El Hassan Bin Talal (former crown prince of Jordan and a prominent scholar) in his “Christianity in the Arab World” [1994] (ch. 7), emphasizes: “It is possible that the Maronite church would not have survived the Byzantine reconquests in Syria between the 10th and 11th centuries… had the Byzantines … succeeded in occupying the whole of Syria, leaving no parts under Muslim rule, where dissident Christian groups could find refuge from Byzantine persecution.”
I hope we can put to rest the myth of the Maronites as descendants of the Phoenicians. The Phoenicians lived mainly on the coasts of Lebanon and Syria. If one wants to belabor the subject, their descendants are obviously the coast dwellers, mainly the Sunnis. In any case, the Greek historian Herodotus wrote in the 5th century BC, that the Phoenicians themselves were Arab tribes from the Arabian shores of the Red Sea.
Dr. Phares in his article mentions “pogroms of the Copts in Egypt”. This is a serious and misleading accusation. The term pogrom means organized and systematic killing of an ethnic group usually sanctioned by the government. There may have been occasional sectarian clashes, but I have yet to come across a historical record to the effect that the Copts, or any other Arab Christian group for that matter, having been the target of pogroms. (The only recorded massacre of Christians was in 1860 in Mount Lebanon, and the origin of that unfortunate event was a social rebellion by Maronite serfs against their Druze overlords).
Pogroms were an invention of Christian rulers in Europe, mostly directed against Jews — for which Palestinian Arabs, both Christian and Muslim, have been paying dearly as the Christian West tries to atone for its sins at their expense. This western guilt complex, nurtured continuously by Zionist propaganda, has resulted in a tomblike silence over the atrocities perpetrated by Israel over the past 60 years.
It is often mentioned that the Copts of Egypt are descendants of the Pharaohs. But so much history had elapsed between the disappearance of the Pharaohs and the arrival of Islam, that this claim appears questionable, and in any case the Muslims of Egypt have every bit as much right to it, if indeed that claim is anything more than intellectual hair-splitting.
The article in question also claims that the Christians remaining in Palestine “are experiencing one of their most severe choices: surrender to Islamization, or join the pan-Middle East Christian boat….” This is a flagrant distortion of reality. Palestinian Christians are not suffering at the hands of the Muslims, but at the hands of the Israelis, and the bullet-scarred statue of the Virgin Mary in the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem is a poignant testimony to this fact. We are witnessing before our very eyes the gradual de-Christianization and de-Islamization of Arab Jerusalem due to persistent Israeli measures aimed at deliberately destroying the Arab character of the city, while the Western world, spearheaded by successive US administrations, displays utter insensitivity, if not outright acquiescence, to this demographic crime.
Dr. Phares talks about the Muslims “demonizing those who have formed their national state, Israel.” He seems to believe, along with many others, that the Jews of Palestine were a large community dispersed by the Romans and now entitled to return to their ‘homeland’. According to Israel Finkelstein, an Israeli archeologist, in his monumental work “The Bible Unearthed” [2001], the Hebrews were never a large community, never had a substantial kingdom, never were in Egypt (the exodus from Egypt is just a myth). The number of Jews dispersed by the Romans from Palestine was minimal; most Jews remained in Palestine, some gradually became Christians, and some, further on, Muslims.
The bulk of the Jews who have been pouring into Palestine for decades under the so-called ‘Right of Return’ have no demonstrable kinship to the Hebrew inhabitants of Palestine in Roman times. The fanatical settlers — especially those of East European or Russian origins — who claim to return to their ‘ancestral land’ are, as advanced by Arthur Koestler (a Hungarian Jew) in his scholarly work “The Thirteenth Tribe” [1976], descendants of the Khazars, southern Russian tribes who converted to Judaism about 740 AD (ch.1). Their empire collapsed after their defeat by the Russians late in the 10th century and they dispersed all over Europe. Alfred Lilienthal (an American Jew) in an article written in 1981 titled “Zionism and American Jews” confirms: “In The Thirteenth Tribe, Arthur Koestler, supported overwhelmingly by such anthropologists as Ripley, Weissenberg, Hertz, Boas, Mead and Fishberg, proves that the vast majority of today's Jews are descendants of the Khazars of South Russia…. The Ben-Gurions, the Golda Meirs, and the Begins, who have clamored to go back ‘home,’ probably never had antecedents in that part of the world.”
Part II of this commentary will be printed in tomorrow’s issue (April 3, 2008).
Arab Christians are Arabs (Part II)
By Raja G. Mattar
First Published: April 2, 2008
The Arabian desert and the area around it gave birth to a number of tribes and civilizations —Phoenicians, Assyrians, Chaldeans, Arameans, Hebrews, Canaanites, Nabateans, etc. These tribes continuously drifted out of the desert into the fertile areas of the Levant and the Nile valley. Their languages were very similar, one could even call them dialects of the same language. Even present-day Hebrew shares remarkable similarities with Arabic.
These tribes had different religions. At one time most were pagan, some were Jewish. With the advent of Christianity some became Christian. Thus Christianity was not an ethnic denomination but a religion adopted by many of these tribes. Many of the great Arab poets of pre-Islamic times were Christian, (Imru’-al-Qays, Amr ibn-Kulthum, Tarafa ibn al-Abed, among others).
The language prevalent in the Arab world today is called Arabic, but it is no more than the dialect of one major Arab tribe, Qureish, which became the language of the Quran. That language spread like wildfire in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Palestine and northern Egypt because the people in these areas were effectively already speaking dialects of the same language.
What used to be known as Bilad Al Sham (Greater Syria, if you will) was Arabized long before Islam. To quote Salibi again (ch. 5): “Since pre-Islamic times, Mount Lebanon appears to have been densely populated by Arab tribes.…” In chapter 7: “To maintain that the Syrians came to be Arabized after the conquest of their country by the Muslim Arabs was simply not correct, because Syria was already largely inhabited by Arabs — in fact, Christian Arabs — long before Islam.”
When Islam expanded out of Arabia into what is now called the Middle East, most oriental Christians (Monophysites, Maronites, Nestorians) were in deep political and theological conflict with Byzantium. Many gradually converted to Islam, including the largest Arab tribe, the Taghlebs, who converted sometime in the 10th century. These Christian Arab tribes may have found in Islam with its insistence on the indivisibility of God (“La Ilah Illa Allah” meaning ‘There is no God, but God’) a simplified version of their faith. The process involved no coercion. The only battles that took place were with the Byzantines. Most Christian Arabs — in fact all, except the Melchites who were allied theologically with the Byzantine Church — cooperated actively with the Muslims, with many actually fighting alongside the Muslims (folklore has it that the Arab saying: “My brother and I against my cousin, and my cousin and I against the foreigner” dates from this period).
Numerous small, dissident Christian sects — among them the Copts and the Maronites — survived and even prospered under Islamic rule, while their equivalents in Christian Europe disappeared under official persecution. Many researchers going through the tax records (the zakat paid by the Muslims as compared to the tribute, called the jizya, paid by non-Muslims, mostly Christian) of the early Islamic rule of Syria and Egypt came to the conclusion that as late as the 12th century, i.e. six centuries after the rise of Islam, the majority of the population of Syria and Egypt was Christian, hardly indicative of any Islamic coercion to convert.
A quote from the eminent Bertrand Russell (1872-1970), a Nobel Prize winner, may be in order at this point:
“I have always been told throughout my youth of the fanaticism of the Mohammedans, and especially that story of the destruction of the library at Alexandria. Well, I believed all these stories, but when I came to look into the history of the times concerned, I had a great many shocks. In the first place, I discovered that the library of Alexandria was destroyed a great many times, and the first time was by Julius Caesar. But the last time was supposed to have been by the Mohammedans, and for this I found no justification whatsoever. Nor did I find that the Mohammedans were fanatical. The contests between Catholics, Nestorians, and Monophysites were bitter and persecuting to the last degree. But the Mohammedans, when they conquered Christian countries, allowed the Christians to be perfectly free, provided they pay a tribute. The only penalty for being a Christian was that you had to pay a tribute that Mohammedans did not have to pay. This proved completely successful, and the immense majority of the population became Mohammedans, but not through any fanaticism on the part of the Mohammedans. On the contrary they, in the earlier centuries of their power, represented free thought and tolerance to a degree that the Christians did not emulate until quite recent times”.
Bertrand Russell (Eng. philosopher, 1872-1970): "Reading History As It Is Never Written" [1959]
Of prime historical significance is the fact that in the early stages of Arab rule, Christians Arabs played a crucial cultural role, highly appreciated by the Islamic rulers. Due to their familiarity with the Greek heritage, they helped translate the legacy of Greece to Arabic, giving an intellectual boost to the emerging Arab civilization which was later, through its outposts in Spain and Sicily, to rouse Europe from the slumber of its dark ages.
Is there such a thing as an Arab ethnicity at present? I think not. There is no group of people in the world that can claim pure ethnicity, except perhaps in some remote islands. Let me take as an example France, which is proud of its cultural, historic, and moral heritage. Most of Southern France is Italian in its ethnic origins; farther west it is Basque; up north, it is Breton and Norman. Paris was a haven for refugees throughout its history. Even Napoleon, to whom the French pay homage, was from Italo-French Corsica. Can one claim that there is such a thing as, ethnically, a French race?
There is, however, such a thing as an Arab culture. Apart from the obvious racial and cultural minorities (the indigenous tribes of southern Sudan, Kurds in Syria and Iraq, Berbers in North Africa, and a few others), the rest of the population is culturally Arab. Culture is the language they speak, the poetry they recite, the songs they sing, the foods they eat, the music they dance to, and the history they share.
Trying to find ethnic slots in which to place various peoples is first an exercise in futility, and second in racism. Cultures do exist, however, and whether we like it or not, whether some scattered thinkers in and outside the Arab world like it or not, whether some self-hating Arabs like it or not, we are — for better or for worse — part of the Arab culture.
Arab Christians have contributed a lot to this culture, and they should be proud of their contributions. Those who deny this heritage are reneging on their cultural roots and trying to identify with some extinct civilizations. They are turning their backs on the Christian giants of Arab culture — the Gibrans, the Naimehs, the Bustanis, the Yazigis, the Zeidans, the various Khourys, the Abou Madis, the Rihanis, the Maaloofs, the Al-Akhtals (old and new), and yes, the Fayrouzes, the Rahbanis, the Al Roumis — and trying to find their heroes in the tombs of Byblos and the sarcophagi of Egypt.
Needless to say, many Arabs are dissatisfied with the current state of Arab affairs. Things do look frustrating, depressing and seemingly hopeless. During such periods of national malaise, there is a tendency among some intellectuals to deny even belonging to their own culture and to find an outlet in esoteric ideas and fanatic ideologies. That is one of many reasons why Communism took over Russia, Nazism took over Germany and radical Islamism is now holding itself as an alternative to secular Arabism. But the current torpor in our political landscape is no reason to create an imagined identity for ourselves from the ruins of defunct civilizations. Nor is it sufficient justification to distance ourselves from our Arab culture and attach ourselves to a technologically and militarily superior West, but whose past and present morality — massacres, wars, religious pogroms, colonialism, and ethnic cleansings, up to and including Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, Bagram and the unconditional support of Israel’s genocidal policies — are hardly occasion for great pride.
There are many agitators who have a political agenda and are keen to distort history and statistics to fit such an agenda, imagining ethnic differences where none exist. They are either alien to this culture — or have alienated themselves from it — and are trying to fabricate falsehoods and pass them off as history to uninformed listeners or readers. They are trying to invent for Arab Christians an artificial identity antagonistic to the environment they have always been part of, not realizing — or maybe they are — that by nurturing such a rift they might be creating among Arab Christians an anti Islamic 'fifth column', disloyal to its own culture and probably imperiling whole Christian communities in the Arab Middle East. And for what? To toady to Israel and its patrons in the US?
The millions of Christians are a dynamic part of the Arab landscape and should remain so. They should cooperate with the Muslims to develop a secular society where all citizens are equal, regardless of religious affiliation or ethnic (imagined or real) background. They should not be encouraged to adopt a confrontational attitude towards their compatriots, and they should refuse to become pawns of foreign powers trying to dominate, destabilize, and re-colonize the Middle East, as exemplified by the enormous military and financial backing bestowed over the years upon Israel and the recent military assault on Iraq. Perhaps the imperative of Christian Muslim harmony applies to Lebanon nowadays more than ever.
We Arab Christians should avoid at all costs to forge alliances with any new crusaders against Arabs or Islam. We should support the Arabs’ struggle today against these neo-crusaders who are masquerading as liberators and democracy promoters, and who are trying to disfigure Arab history and reshape Arab culture and values. Our contributions to Arab culture are immense. We really don't need some cultural defectors to instill in us a persecution complex and a hostile mindset towards our fellow citizens, when we should act, as we always did, as bridges between the Arab world and the West.
Arabs — Muslims and Christians — have their hands full right now trying to field the onslaught of Zionist and neo-conservative propaganda spewing out of the West, without having to contend with a contingent of self-hating Arabs in their midst. In this charged political atmosphere of demonization of Arabs and Islam, we should reclaim our role as defenders, interpreters, interlocutors, spokespersons of our geographical hinterland, of our Arab depth. We have helped the nascent Arab empire in its early years gain access to the Greek classics, we have helped reawaken Arab identity from its Ottoman stupor. Let us not allow Western and/or Israeli fundamentalists to cast a pall over it again.
When the crusaders entered Jerusalem in 1099, we, Arab Christians, were massacred along with the Muslims. The brutality in Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan clearly demonstrates that the morality of the new crusaders is no better than the morality of those who came here centuries ago.
Raja G. Mattar is a former Middle East regional manager of a multinational company and is currently a business consultant living in Beirut.
The Arabian desert and the area around it gave birth to a number of tribes and civilizations —Phoenicians, Assyrians, Chaldeans, Arameans, Hebrews, Canaanites, Nabateans, etc. These tribes continuously drifted out of the desert into the fertile areas of the Levant and the Nile valley. Their languages were very similar, one could even call them dialects of the same language. Even present-day Hebrew shares remarkable similarities with Arabic.
These tribes had different religions. At one time most were pagan, some were Jewish. With the advent of Christianity some became Christian. Thus Christianity was not an ethnic denomination but a religion adopted by many of these tribes. Many of the great Arab poets of pre-Islamic times were Christian, (Imru’-al-Qays, Amr ibn-Kulthum, Tarafa ibn al-Abed, among others).
The language prevalent in the Arab world today is called Arabic, but it is no more than the dialect of one major Arab tribe, Qureish, which became the language of the Quran. That language spread like wildfire in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Palestine and northern Egypt because the people in these areas were effectively already speaking dialects of the same language.
What used to be known as Bilad Al Sham (Greater Syria, if you will) was Arabized long before Islam. To quote Salibi again (ch. 5): “Since pre-Islamic times, Mount Lebanon appears to have been densely populated by Arab tribes.…” In chapter 7: “To maintain that the Syrians came to be Arabized after the conquest of their country by the Muslim Arabs was simply not correct, because Syria was already largely inhabited by Arabs — in fact, Christian Arabs — long before Islam.”
When Islam expanded out of Arabia into what is now called the Middle East, most oriental Christians (Monophysites, Maronites, Nestorians) were in deep political and theological conflict with Byzantium. Many gradually converted to Islam, including the largest Arab tribe, the Taghlebs, who converted sometime in the 10th century. These Christian Arab tribes may have found in Islam with its insistence on the indivisibility of God (“La Ilah Illa Allah” meaning ‘There is no God, but God’) a simplified version of their faith. The process involved no coercion. The only battles that took place were with the Byzantines. Most Christian Arabs — in fact all, except the Melchites who were allied theologically with the Byzantine Church — cooperated actively with the Muslims, with many actually fighting alongside the Muslims (folklore has it that the Arab saying: “My brother and I against my cousin, and my cousin and I against the foreigner” dates from this period).
Numerous small, dissident Christian sects — among them the Copts and the Maronites — survived and even prospered under Islamic rule, while their equivalents in Christian Europe disappeared under official persecution. Many researchers going through the tax records (the zakat paid by the Muslims as compared to the tribute, called the jizya, paid by non-Muslims, mostly Christian) of the early Islamic rule of Syria and Egypt came to the conclusion that as late as the 12th century, i.e. six centuries after the rise of Islam, the majority of the population of Syria and Egypt was Christian, hardly indicative of any Islamic coercion to convert.
A quote from the eminent Bertrand Russell (1872-1970), a Nobel Prize winner, may be in order at this point:
“I have always been told throughout my youth of the fanaticism of the Mohammedans, and especially that story of the destruction of the library at Alexandria. Well, I believed all these stories, but when I came to look into the history of the times concerned, I had a great many shocks. In the first place, I discovered that the library of Alexandria was destroyed a great many times, and the first time was by Julius Caesar. But the last time was supposed to have been by the Mohammedans, and for this I found no justification whatsoever. Nor did I find that the Mohammedans were fanatical. The contests between Catholics, Nestorians, and Monophysites were bitter and persecuting to the last degree. But the Mohammedans, when they conquered Christian countries, allowed the Christians to be perfectly free, provided they pay a tribute. The only penalty for being a Christian was that you had to pay a tribute that Mohammedans did not have to pay. This proved completely successful, and the immense majority of the population became Mohammedans, but not through any fanaticism on the part of the Mohammedans. On the contrary they, in the earlier centuries of their power, represented free thought and tolerance to a degree that the Christians did not emulate until quite recent times”.
Bertrand Russell (Eng. philosopher, 1872-1970): "Reading History As It Is Never Written" [1959]
Of prime historical significance is the fact that in the early stages of Arab rule, Christians Arabs played a crucial cultural role, highly appreciated by the Islamic rulers. Due to their familiarity with the Greek heritage, they helped translate the legacy of Greece to Arabic, giving an intellectual boost to the emerging Arab civilization which was later, through its outposts in Spain and Sicily, to rouse Europe from the slumber of its dark ages.
Is there such a thing as an Arab ethnicity at present? I think not. There is no group of people in the world that can claim pure ethnicity, except perhaps in some remote islands. Let me take as an example France, which is proud of its cultural, historic, and moral heritage. Most of Southern France is Italian in its ethnic origins; farther west it is Basque; up north, it is Breton and Norman. Paris was a haven for refugees throughout its history. Even Napoleon, to whom the French pay homage, was from Italo-French Corsica. Can one claim that there is such a thing as, ethnically, a French race?
There is, however, such a thing as an Arab culture. Apart from the obvious racial and cultural minorities (the indigenous tribes of southern Sudan, Kurds in Syria and Iraq, Berbers in North Africa, and a few others), the rest of the population is culturally Arab. Culture is the language they speak, the poetry they recite, the songs they sing, the foods they eat, the music they dance to, and the history they share.
Trying to find ethnic slots in which to place various peoples is first an exercise in futility, and second in racism. Cultures do exist, however, and whether we like it or not, whether some scattered thinkers in and outside the Arab world like it or not, whether some self-hating Arabs like it or not, we are — for better or for worse — part of the Arab culture.
Arab Christians have contributed a lot to this culture, and they should be proud of their contributions. Those who deny this heritage are reneging on their cultural roots and trying to identify with some extinct civilizations. They are turning their backs on the Christian giants of Arab culture — the Gibrans, the Naimehs, the Bustanis, the Yazigis, the Zeidans, the various Khourys, the Abou Madis, the Rihanis, the Maaloofs, the Al-Akhtals (old and new), and yes, the Fayrouzes, the Rahbanis, the Al Roumis — and trying to find their heroes in the tombs of Byblos and the sarcophagi of Egypt.
Needless to say, many Arabs are dissatisfied with the current state of Arab affairs. Things do look frustrating, depressing and seemingly hopeless. During such periods of national malaise, there is a tendency among some intellectuals to deny even belonging to their own culture and to find an outlet in esoteric ideas and fanatic ideologies. That is one of many reasons why Communism took over Russia, Nazism took over Germany and radical Islamism is now holding itself as an alternative to secular Arabism. But the current torpor in our political landscape is no reason to create an imagined identity for ourselves from the ruins of defunct civilizations. Nor is it sufficient justification to distance ourselves from our Arab culture and attach ourselves to a technologically and militarily superior West, but whose past and present morality — massacres, wars, religious pogroms, colonialism, and ethnic cleansings, up to and including Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, Bagram and the unconditional support of Israel’s genocidal policies — are hardly occasion for great pride.
There are many agitators who have a political agenda and are keen to distort history and statistics to fit such an agenda, imagining ethnic differences where none exist. They are either alien to this culture — or have alienated themselves from it — and are trying to fabricate falsehoods and pass them off as history to uninformed listeners or readers. They are trying to invent for Arab Christians an artificial identity antagonistic to the environment they have always been part of, not realizing — or maybe they are — that by nurturing such a rift they might be creating among Arab Christians an anti Islamic 'fifth column', disloyal to its own culture and probably imperiling whole Christian communities in the Arab Middle East. And for what? To toady to Israel and its patrons in the US?
The millions of Christians are a dynamic part of the Arab landscape and should remain so. They should cooperate with the Muslims to develop a secular society where all citizens are equal, regardless of religious affiliation or ethnic (imagined or real) background. They should not be encouraged to adopt a confrontational attitude towards their compatriots, and they should refuse to become pawns of foreign powers trying to dominate, destabilize, and re-colonize the Middle East, as exemplified by the enormous military and financial backing bestowed over the years upon Israel and the recent military assault on Iraq. Perhaps the imperative of Christian Muslim harmony applies to Lebanon nowadays more than ever.
We Arab Christians should avoid at all costs to forge alliances with any new crusaders against Arabs or Islam. We should support the Arabs’ struggle today against these neo-crusaders who are masquerading as liberators and democracy promoters, and who are trying to disfigure Arab history and reshape Arab culture and values. Our contributions to Arab culture are immense. We really don't need some cultural defectors to instill in us a persecution complex and a hostile mindset towards our fellow citizens, when we should act, as we always did, as bridges between the Arab world and the West.
Arabs — Muslims and Christians — have their hands full right now trying to field the onslaught of Zionist and neo-conservative propaganda spewing out of the West, without having to contend with a contingent of self-hating Arabs in their midst. In this charged political atmosphere of demonization of Arabs and Islam, we should reclaim our role as defenders, interpreters, interlocutors, spokespersons of our geographical hinterland, of our Arab depth. We have helped the nascent Arab empire in its early years gain access to the Greek classics, we have helped reawaken Arab identity from its Ottoman stupor. Let us not allow Western and/or Israeli fundamentalists to cast a pall over it again.
When the crusaders entered Jerusalem in 1099, we, Arab Christians, were massacred along with the Muslims. The brutality in Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan clearly demonstrates that the morality of the new crusaders is no better than the morality of those who came here centuries ago.
Raja G. Mattar is a former Middle East regional manager of a multinational company and is currently a business consultant living in Beirut.
He can be contacted at ranimar@cyberia.net.lb
Monday, December 25, 2006
MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR 2007
JOYEUX NOËL ET BONNE ANNÉE 2007
-----------------------------
Semaine du 25-31 décembre 2006
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L’icône et l’islam : Pamela Chrabieh
3 décembre 2006, Radio Canada
Un reportage de Jean-Robert Faucher
Merci Robert et à toute l'équipe de Second Regard!
-----------------------------
'Voici la onzième édition des portraits de blogueurs, avec Pamela Chrabieh Badine'.
On peut trouver l'entrevue sur Dailymotion, Cent Papiers et YULBUZZ.
Merci à Philippe et Christian Aubry!
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Lundi 25 décembre 2006:
A tous mes amis-es, collègues, lecteurs et lectrices, je vous souhaite de tout coeur un Joyeux Noël et une Année 2007 empreinte de paix, cette paix que nous recherchons tous-tes d'une manière ou d'une autre, quel que soit l'endroit dans lequel nous nous trouvons. Pour la première fois, nous avons reçu mon mari et moi nos parents pour le réveillon de Noël. En dépit du beau moment que nous avons partagé, je ne vous cache pas la tristesse qui m'envahit ce matin du 25 décembre, comme si je pressens le caractère éphémère du bonheur... Comment être heureux en ces temps de guerres, de conflits, d'exclusions, d'inégalités et d'injustices? Comment avoir le coeur à la fête? L'année 2007 sera-t-elle meilleure que 2006? Y aura-il moins de carnages et plus d'amour et de convivialité? Je l'espère encore... Toutefois, au niveau local Libanais, les facteurs de conflit pèsent plus lourd sur la balance que ceux de la paix: les tensions internes entre le gouvernement et l'opposition se poursuivent, en dépit du semblant de statut quo adopté pour la période des fêtes de Noël, du Nouvel An et d'Al-Adha; la plupart des experts-analystes mettent en garde contre une escalade dès le début de janvier 2007; les journaux israéliens tels Haaretz avaient annoncé il y a quelques jours une offensive israélienne-round 2 au Liban en été 2007 etc. A croire que le Liban est marqué par la colère des dieux... A croire que toute la région Moyen-Orientale l'est... Pourtant, je ne suis pas fataliste. J'ai foi en la responsabilité citoyenne et la responsabilité humaine à faire trembler les montagnes de la violence et de la haine des différences.
En 1980, dans un numéro hors série du journal Le Matin consacré à Sartre, Emmanuel Levinas indiquait un chemin qui échappe à la fois aux embrigadements totalitaires qui ont marqué le 20e siècle - et qui marquent encore ce début du 21e siècle - et au refuge dans une spiritualité éthérée qui se tiendrait à l'écart des combats des êtres humains: "Que la liberté humaine puisse se retrouver à travers tout ce qui s'impose à l'homme, cela venait de Sartre comme un message d'espoir pour toute une génération grandie sous les fatalités par toute l'attente de notre siècle et que l'humanisme de l'éloquence - fût-il glorification des droits de l'homme - n'arrivait plus à convaincre de rien. Une nouvelle philosophie, c'est avant tout la parole rendue à ceux qui l'ont perdue dans la rhétorique où sombrent les grands projets (...). Angoisse pour une liberté d’emblée vouée aux autres, et non pas (..) angoisse pour ma mort, angoisse pour ce qui est le “plus mien”, dans le souci de l’humain que je suis pour mon être même. » (Emmanuel Levinas, Les imprévus de l’histoire, Éditions Fata Morgana, 1994, p. 149-150). En ce sens, l'action humaine est toujours possible, rassemblant tant ceux qui croient au ciel que ceux qui n'y croient pas. Il s'agit d'une philosophie de l'action et de la responsabilité qui refuse à la fois le désespoir et l'utilisation d'échappatoires. Selon Levinas, l'acte, "le premier acte intellectuel, c'est la paix. La paix, en entendant par là ma sollicitation de penser, précède le désir de connaître proprement dit, elle précède la thématisation objective. Il y a raison quand il y a paix, quand il y a rapport pacifique de personne à personne. » (Dans François Poirié, Emmanuel Levinas, qui êtes-vous ? Éditions de la Manufacture, 1987, p. 104) C’est l’acte éthique qui arrête la violence et institue l’autre, non plus comme le mal qu’il faut détruire, mais comme l’interlocuteur avec qui il faut débattre et qui peut évoluer.
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How can the Arab Christians survive?
By Rami G. Khouri
Daily Star staff
Saturday, December 23, 2006
"A commandment of love" was the theme that the Latin patriarch of Jerusalem, Michel Sabbah, stressed when I asked him last week about what Arab Christians should be doing to address the many challenges and threats in the Middle East today. I was especially interested in the role of Arab Christians because their plight is highlighted this Christmas week, even as a delegation of United Kingdom church leaders makes a timely Holy Land pilgrimage.
Christians experience the same pressures and challenges as the majority Muslim population living under Israeli occupation, the assault of Western armies, or the incompetent, autocratic mismanagement of their own Arab political leaders. A strangled Bethlehem, though, is likely to catch the attention of Western citizens and church leaders more than a stressed Alexandria, Aleppo or Casablanca. The four British pilgrims are the archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams; the archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor; the moderator of the Free Churches, the Reverend David Coffey; and the primate of the Armenian Church of Great Britain, Bishop Nathan Hovhannisian.
The focal point of their four-day visit is a pilgrimage to the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. Their trip and witness will help Christians and other people of good faith around the world better appreciate the impact of the Israeli occupation on all Palestinians, including Christian communities.
Sabbah welcomed the pilgrimage and noted that, "at a time when our communities in the two Holy cities of Jerusalem and Bethlehem are separated by a wall and checkpoints, the visit of the churches' ecumenical delegation is a reminder to us, to the Israelis and the Palestinians, and to the world, that the pilgrims' path of hope and love must remain open."
Hope and love stand in sharp contrast to the Israeli colonization and control policies in and around Bethlehem that have shattered the physical, spiritual and economic integrity of the community, by cutting off the built-up areas from thousands of hectares of agricultural land and water resources. The main culprits are Israel's separation wall to fence in the Palestinians, and an associated system of smaller cement walls, 27 Israeli settlements, and a network of electric fences and apartheid-like "Jewish settlers-only" roads and checkpoints, almost all built on land confiscated from Bethlehem's private owners. The result is a prison-like environment for the people of Bethlehem, 70 percent of whom now live below the poverty line. After Israel's attacks and reoccupation of Bethlehem in 2001 and 2002, some 3,000 Christians emigrated, representing 10 percent of the local Christian population.
Leila Sansour, the Palestinian chief executive of the Open Bethlehem project that works to preserve the city's physical, spiritual, demographic and economic integrity, wrote last week: "A UN report into Christianity in Bethlehem predicts that our community will not survive another two generations. We live from pilgrimages, and our city is closed. We have traditionally stored our wealth in land, and our land behind the wall has been seized. Our lives are intimately bound up, economically and socially, with the Christian community in Jerusalem, yet we are forbidden to enter that city, which lies only 20 minutes away."
When I met with Sabbah in Larnaca, Cyprus, last week, I asked him if he saw a particular role that Arab Christians could and should play. His reply was clear, and challenging: "My vision is that we Christians, whatever are our numbers, are Christians in and for our society, which is a Muslim Arab society. Christians have something specific to give as Christians, because of their belief in Jesus Christ and all the values that Jesus Christ taught us. This is an obligation. Our commandment is a commandment of love, and it is shows the way to build a society. Christian love is about accepting the other or not accepting him. It is about building with the other or refusing to build with him. All the Christian Arabs can bring to Arab society this love as a power of cohesion within the society ... to love themselves and show how to live together with the Muslims who are the majority in these societies."
He went on to say: "There must be a broad project, a social, economic, political project so that people together can see how they can prepare a country and homeland, and enrich every citizen so that he or she feels at home, content and secure, without any fear of the other. All citizens must have the same place and opportunities in terms of their social and political rights."
In replying to a question of mine about whether Arab Christians could play a role as bridges to the West, he answered: "We Christians can be a true bridge through all the churches that are present in the world. All of us together can have an impact. We have an obligation to understand Islam for what it is, therefore we have the obligation even to have alliances with Muslims, in order to build a new type of society, and bring this as a model of coexistence to the West."
Love, indeed, seems worth a try. In that spirit, I say Merry Christmas to all, and early Eid al-Adha and Happy Hanukkah wishes to my Muslim and Jewish brothers and sisters, hoping that all of us together will respond to Michel Sabbah's call for an ideology of love to replace this time of war.
He went on to say: "There must be a broad project, a social, economic, political project so that people together can see how they can prepare a country and homeland, and enrich every citizen so that he or she feels at home, content and secure, without any fear of the other. All citizens must have the same place and opportunities in terms of their social and political rights."
In replying to a question of mine about whether Arab Christians could play a role as bridges to the West, he answered: "We Christians can be a true bridge through all the churches that are present in the world. All of us together can have an impact. We have an obligation to understand Islam for what it is, therefore we have the obligation even to have alliances with Muslims, in order to build a new type of society, and bring this as a model of coexistence to the West."
Love, indeed, seems worth a try. In that spirit, I say Merry Christmas to all, and early Eid al-Adha and Happy Hanukkah wishes to my Muslim and Jewish brothers and sisters, hoping that all of us together will respond to Michel Sabbah's call for an ideology of love to replace this time of war.
---------------------------------------------
"It's more humane to cure your enemies than to kill them."
This quote is an excerpt from my website, organicMD.org, which is dedicated to promoting world peace by improving world health.
Please visit my page called Land of Milk and Honey. It offers unique, practical suggestions for the chronic conflict in the Middle East. I look forward to your comments.
Thank you.
Hugh Mann,
The Patient Doctor hughmann@organicMD.org
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Review of Land of Milk and Honey by Dr. Seth Ward, Director, Institute for Islamic-Judaic Studies at the University of Denver:
"I find your association of milk and honey with love and hate to be fascinating. As far as the Middle East, I don't think anyone has considered diet as a way to solve the problem. Politicians think that looking at political goods is the way to go: security, lands, human and political rights, and so forth. Looking at things like health and cultural considerations is off the scope for politicians and that is absolutely wrong. I don't think the goals of the Roadmap or any other plan can be achieved without attention to the kinds of issues you have indicated."
Review of organicMD.org by Paul Farmer, MD, PhD Professor of Social Medicine, Harvard Medical School:
"Your website is interesting and informative, along with being well-designed and easy to navigate. I think your over-all message is an important one for people to learn: that while pharmaceuticals have a significant role in healthcare, they are not the whole solution. Clean air, pure water, organic food, and the avoidance of toxins and addictions, as you explain, are key to good health. You list many practical, how-to solutions for people; I was particularly impressed by the depth of research that clearly informed your LOVE diet. This site will certainly prove useful to many people seeking to improve their lives and their health, especially patients suffering from chronic conditions that traditional medicine has not effectively addressed."
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NEEDS YOUR SUPPORT
27 decembre 2006
SOLIDA -
The SOLIDA movement (Support of Lebanese Detained Arbitrarily) has for years fought for the principles of Human Rights and the Rule of Law for Lebanon and its people.
We have catalogued the files of hundreds of Lebanese prisoners in Syria and Israel and have lobbied international institutions and governments to address this tragedy as a basis to help the Lebanese people undergo the psychological healing towards a genuine National Reconciliation. After operating for nearly 10 years from France, SOLIDA has moved to Beirut in May 2006. SOLIDA is a registered, independent, non-profit Lebanese organization that is not affiliated with any political party or religious denomination in Lebanon. Its work transcends political and sectarian differences in promoting the international principles of human rights and the rule of law.
27 decembre 2006
SOLIDA -
The SOLIDA movement (Support of Lebanese Detained Arbitrarily) has for years fought for the principles of Human Rights and the Rule of Law for Lebanon and its people.
We have catalogued the files of hundreds of Lebanese prisoners in Syria and Israel and have lobbied international institutions and governments to address this tragedy as a basis to help the Lebanese people undergo the psychological healing towards a genuine National Reconciliation. After operating for nearly 10 years from France, SOLIDA has moved to Beirut in May 2006. SOLIDA is a registered, independent, non-profit Lebanese organization that is not affiliated with any political party or religious denomination in Lebanon. Its work transcends political and sectarian differences in promoting the international principles of human rights and the rule of law.
At present, a small team of 10 volunteers is involved in:
- Monitoring human rights conditions on the ground in Lebanon.
- Supporting twelve victims of arbitrary detention in Lebanon.
- Tracking the missing and detained Lebanese in Syria and Israel.
- Pursuing a platform of National Reconciliation that can only be achieved by recognizing and healing the past, which should begin by accounting for those of us who remain missing.
- Laying the ground for a Rehabilitation Center in Beirut for all victims of torture and arbitrary detention to help them find jobs, re-learn to live with their families and reintegrate society.
This is the most difficult, but important, challenge: To help those among us who suffered the most, physically and psychologically, from the past decades of conflict and pain.
SOLIDA recently received sponsorship from the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Network Foundation, for the hiring of a Director who assumes functions this January 2007. Beyond this, the financial burden for the volunteers’ considerable efforts and the assistance we give to former prisoners is assumed by the volunteers themselves. Recently, two local benefactors contributed to replacing the computer equipment that was stolen from our premises this past October 2006.
We need your support.
We are issuing this CALL FOR ASSISTANCE because we believe that you, the Lebanese Diaspora, will support and nurture meaningful work that translates the success stories and accomplishments of Lebanese emigrants into real action in their homeland. We call on people who feel deeply about our work to make their financial contribution in small but regular amounts. To this effect, we have created a Paypal account which you can access online on www.solida.org
Thank you for answering this call and for making your contribution today. We know it resonates with your aspirations for a humane and compassionate Lebanon. Our struggle will never cease until we achieve the objectives of human rights and the rule of law, a true national reconciliation based on Truth and Justice, the uncovering of the fate of each one of the disappeared and missing, the review of all unfair trials, and the reparations owed to each victim of human rights violations.
WE COUNT ON YOU.
GO TO WWW.SOLIDA.ORG AND MAKE YOUR REGULAR CONTRIBUTION TODAY.
Or Contact SOLIDA at:
SOLIDA – Lebanese Center for Human Rights
Mar Youssef Center – 12th FloorDORA – BEIRUT
LEBANON
Tel: (+961) 3 887 108 ou (+961) 70 950 780
Email:solida@solida.org
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