Real Christians, fake Arabs
An Iraqi Priest, talking about Christianity, Iraq, and the West. Just thought I would share.
Of course Christians have a really hard time in Iraq now, all Iraqis do but it’s been especially hard on its religious minorities and they’re now in danger of becoming extinct.
I was reading a pretty excellent essay the other day: Arab Christians are Arabs, here’s a bit from the conclusion:
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 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, 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 on 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 U.S.?
The millions of Christians are a dynamic part of the Arab landscape and should remain so. They should cooperate with the Moslems 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 becomes 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-Moslem harmony applies to Lebanon nowadays more than ever.
As much as I ultimately agree, and I’m glad to see views like this expressed, it disturbs me a lot sometimes that this is something that even needs to be argued.
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There is no such thing called Arabs.
Dear,
The issue of being Arab is simply against the history and this is not related for being Christian or Muslim.
Being Arab is a big lie innovated by Nasser. I like Nasser as a patriot but I dislike being arab as an idea.
I had the chance to travel to many countries which claimed to be arab countries and I will tell you my conclusion:
“There is no such thing called Arabs”.
Egyptians are descendent of the pharaohs and they are not arabs. Lebanese and Syrians are pheniciens, The maghreb countries are amazigs.
Sudanese are black africans.
So being arabs is just a big historical lie. It is just does not exist.
Christians have contributed to tghe human civilization in general and to the middle eastern countries. This is difenetly true.
But they contributed to their countries because they are citizens of their own countries not because they are Arabs or not.
This is irrelevant.
Thanks
Sameh, I’m Bahraini, what does that make me then, Bulgarian? Since there are no such thing as Arabs and you define people based on their geography and religion.
Your argument could be easily applied to any other country and region. No such thing as a Bosnian, no such thing as an American, no such thing as a Kazach. I don’t see the point of you running around saying there’s no such thing as an Arab, it’s a weak argument that not even history can back up.
There’s a pretty simple definition of an arab: a person who speaks arabic. That’s not something Nasser invented nor something his failures can take away. Egypt and Phoenician ancient civilization don’t exist anymore and their languages are dead. We should be proud of our history and honour it, but they are not our current reality, no matter how great they were.
Sorry I got caught up in that comment. Anyways I don’t think pan-arabism is the answer, I’d like to see a regional nationalism develop that isn’t tied to any one religion or ethnic group. The article, I think, speaks to why certain groups are developping their non-arab identities and it’s not out of that pride in their nation or history but to assert that they are a fundamentally different ethnicity from their fellow muslim countrymen, which to a large extent they are not. What I think is underdiscussed is that christians in arab countries are made to not feel arab by the majority because of the rise of an islamist brand of nationalism, which is something new. In the days of Nasser I could hardly see this question being raised, we could talk about Michel Aflaq, Hanan Ashrawi etc and the Christian contributions to the nahda and early Arab nationalism in the late 19th and early 20th century etc etc. I don’t see that as being the case so much these days.
can someone please ask the fake inhabitants of egypt to get out and go find a new home. They have zero connection to that black african temple of the world. they dont even understand what the land is about . how can u know what it is the pyramids represent and stilll call that your home like a fkin dummy. the pictures on th glyphs are black people, the statues are clearly of ancient black egyptians and you have a bunch of dum idiots claiming the land. dummies. get out.