NEWSPAPER COLUMNS
 ¶ Most Recent
¶ Miscellany
|
COMMENTARY
December 24, 2011
Midnight tonight
When Lord Sacks, chief rabbi in England, rose in the House of Lords to speak about the persecution of Christians, he quoted Martin Luther King. "In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends."This in turn was quoted in an excellent article in the Daily Telegraph this week. Fraser Nelson asked all the pertinent questions about the indifference displayed by the British Foreign Office to the persecution of Christians (along with other minorities) in Iraq, Iran, Turkey, Egypt, Algeria; indeed, throughout the Middle East. Why do our diplomats refuse even to raise the issue with their counterparts in these countries? The same could be asked of most western foreign ministries. Germany is an exception, and apparently Angela Merkel has, to her credit, interceded discreetly but forcefully to get some restrictions lifted on Catholics in Turkey. If Canada is doing something, it is even more discreet. But of course, formal restrictions on Christian life and worship in Muslim countries - which would be considered outrageous if they were applied to Muslims in any western country - are endemic. They vary not so much in content, as in enforcement, and as a rule, become heavier when any society is in convulsion, lighter when it is not. In other words, Christians, formerly Jews (before their general exodus, when Israel was founded), and other minorities such as Shia Muslims in Sunni lands, are accustomed to becoming scapegoats when things having nothing to do with them go wrong. And this is the case now. The "Arab Spring," which was welcomed this year as an expression of "democracy" by the West's political, media, and chattering classes, has brought social convulsion to one Arab state after another. Against the background of what is to my view instead a large catastrophe, Christian communities that have existed in each state since centuries before the arrival of Islam, are being eliminated. Joy was expressed in the U.S. this week, at the return of remaining American troops from Iraq (except those guarding extensive diplomatic enclaves), "in time for Christmas." Promptly upon their departure, all the democratic arrangements for which these troops had fought, began to unravel. Baghdad suffered more than a dozen major bombings in one long morning. Iraq's Shia prime minister, Nouri Maliki, had accused the Sunni vice-president of sponsoring violence, and the man had fled to protection in Iraqi Kurdistan. Countercharges, and counter-counter, fly, while the country returns quickly to the conditions of 2007, before the famous U.S. "surge." But with the Americans gone, Iraq now slips the rest of the way off the world media map. It may crawl back on with full-scale civil war. And perhaps, eventually, notice will be taken that Iran's revolutionary regime, already represented within Maliki's entourage, is using the disorder to attach Iraq as a satellite. This is not something even Shia Iraqis could want; but they will have it as a consequence of disintegrative war between Sunni and Shia, Arab and Kurd, abetted by an utterly corrupt and dysfunctional "democratic" political class. Meanwhile, tonight's Midnight Mass has been cancelled, so far as I can see through the Internet, at Christian churches throughout the country. Estimates of the number of Christians who have fled Iraq now approach or exceed one million; and the reason for their leaving may be read in graffiti sprayed over their empty and assaulted churches. This persistently reminds worshippers of past massacres, and promises they will be next. The collapse of once-peaceful Egypt into disorder has had similar effects, as the old secular military establishment bids to retain some semblance of its former power and pomposity, while the Islamist parties sweep parliamentary elections. In the first moments of Egypt's "Arab Spring," triggered by the country's relatively tiny and secular middle class, Coptic Christians were already feeling the rise in heat. But there were several fine displays of solidarity, in which leading Muslims attended church services in defiance of Islamist terror threats. As ever, in revolutionary situations, the heroic phase ended quickly. We're advancing now through the squalid phases. For the safety of their parishioners, night church services are already switched to broad daylight, and as in Iraq, there are ever-more-cumbersome security measures to pass through, to get into a church at all. Nothing can be done, or more certainly, nothing will be done by our own "progressive" governing classes, even to anticipate the coming fallout. Having contributed all in their power to ignite "democracy" across the Middle East, they will not be troubled by the consequences. The one thing we can do - those of us Christian tonight at Midnight Mass - is carry in our hearts a prayer on behalf of our brothers and sisters, prevented from attending. We must ask divine assistance, in terms of the Psalms. For among our human friends, we have little to expect except silence. David Warren
© Ottawa Citizen
|
Top