Arab Christians abandoned and patronized by everyone
December 25th, 2007Christmas Day is as good a time as any for this Arab Christian to unload. We’re ignored, abandoned and patronized by everyone. The only time people think of us is when we are able to be used as a good argument against someone else. Let’s look at some of the problems and causes:
The “Arab” World really does not exist any more, except in the confines of the palaces of dictators, tyrants, monarchs and oppressors in the Middle East. It is really the Islamic World, today, and that is a tragedy. Not that it’s Islamic, but that what was once a secular world is today a tightly defined religious world.
And that leads to a quick segue. I mean, how do the zealous Muslims who advocate Islamic republics, governments, laws and societal constraints have the audacity, for example, to criticize Israel for being a “Jewish State?” I understand the opposition isn’t that Israel is Jewish, per se, but that it is a Jewish State established by immigrants mainly from Europe (these days Russia) on a country that had a Muslim and Christian majority. Still, it seems hypocritical for those who advocate Islamic States to criticize a Jewish State. But then, I’m a Christian Arab caught in the vise (or vice — you decide) of that argument.
I read an essay by a Muslim in America who wrote that he loves the Christmas Holiday season. But would it kill anyone to pay attention and understand a little about Muslims in America, he asked? Are you kidding me? More attention is paid to Muslims than any other religious group these days in America. Are you reading the mainstream, anti-Arab anti-Muslim media that counters its bigotry by filling its pages with patronizing pieces on “What is Ramadan,” and “Who is Muslim?”
How about the hugely celebratory media coverage of the little Iraqi child who was burned and “saved” thanks to the generosity of the American military? Go on, repeat after me: “Are you kidding me?” The kid was burned because of the American invasion. So we find a few Iraqis who have been hurt — children mainly — and we put them on a pedestal to showcase all the good things this country is doing to help Iraqis, that, if stacked up against all the bad things the American military is doing to undermine Iraqis, the pile of “good things” would be an ant hill in comparison to the pile of “bad things.”
What we are seeing is a contradictory concern for Muslims in the West. The West really hates Muslims but they compensate for that sin by pretending to care about Muslims in their reports.
And in all that mix of media manipulation by the Bush administration, the warmongers that support him and the media hate-mongers like Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity for example (and Daniel Pipes, too. I’m not afraid to mention that hate monger simply because a few people like some of the intelligent stuff he has to say), Arab Christians are left out in the cold. They can barely fit in what’s left of the creche near the Grotto in Bethlehem where Jesus was born.
So let’s get back to the Muslim guy who did make some good points about Americans not really understanding Muslims. Okay. They don’t. They don’t want to understand Muslims. They are only paying attention to Muslims because they are engaged in war crimes in Iraq, where thousands of civilians are being killed faster than they were ever killed by Saddam Hussein, who was murdered in an illegally conducted trial — if we bother to go by things like the INTERNATIONAL RULE OF LAW. Muslims in the West are being patronized by the Western tyrants who wrap themselves tightly in exaggerated claims of freedom and Democracy.
But, I have to ask my Muslims Brothers — “Yo Bro. Salamu alaikum My Brothers … Wa Ramat til alawho. Man. Wa baraktum, Dude.” (That’s how Led Zeppelin’s lead guitar player Jimmy Page might welcome someone using a religious Islamic greeting, instead of just a simple, “Salamu alaikum” which is the proper way to say hello to a non-Muslim without being disrespectful and overloading the greeting with religious stuff.)
They don’t have enough stories about “understanding Islam” in the West? Repeat after me: Are you kidding me?
How about a few stories about understanding the Arab Christians in the Islamic World? Do they put up Crucifixes in the main squares in places like Kuwait? Yemen? Pakistan? Should I list all of the Islamic Nations? Do they allow Nativity Scenes to be erected to honor Christian traditions in any of those Islamic countries? In many, you could go to jail if you tried to convert a Muslim to Christianity — as many Muslims do actively trying to convert Christians to Islam in the United States. They mail out Qur’ans all the time in highly publicized campaigns to Americans — Christian Americans — and no one puts the senders in jail. They may viciously slander them as people like the late Rev. Jerry Falwell and all his hatefully driven evangelists have done when referring to Islam as an “evil religion.”
I see the hate against Muslims all the time on the streets of America. You want to build a Mosque in Orland Park, a suburb of Chicago. Sure, but only after 600 screaming, wild-eyed Christian neighbors get up in front of a microphone and plead that if they build a Mosque, Bin Laden and al-Qaeda will be coming to the streets of this suburban community with more than 50,000 residents. That was in 2004. And I am still waiting. Haven’t seen one. Maybe the map that Bin Laden hangs on the wall of his cave where he is hiding and leading the new Islamic revolution got burned and the part showing progress in Orland Park is not clear, or something. Oh yea. According to the 600 screaming Crusaders who attended the hearings on the Orland Mosque proposal, Bin Laden had Orland Park in his sights!
But that hate against Muslims does not justify our closing our eyes to the discrimination that continues to exist not just in Israel — something always pointed out for political purposes, especially around Christmas time — and it is justified. But not alone. The discrimination continues against Christians in the Islamic World, too. We can be Christians as long as we keep to ourselves. We are “tolerated,” we’re told, by the “tolerant” Muslim World. We’re a “protected” people.
Hey. I don’t want to be protected. I want to be EQUAL!
So the next time you turn around and say “Hey, We are Christians and Muslims and there is no difference,” that’s a lie. It is not true. Christians are not treated as equals. We’re tolerated and that’s patronizing and discriminatory. And until I see the Crucifix raised as a symbol of Christianity in front of one of the palaces and government offices of the Islamic Governments not just during Christmas time, but during Easter, too. I won’t accept the claim that we are equal because Christians are not being treated equal.
Christian Arabs are being discriminated against and brushed off in the West. Christian Arabs are not recognized, are excluded from the growing trend of “Interfaith” meetings taking place between Muslims and Jews (for example). And most Americans I know — no matter how often I tell them that I am Christian, not Muslim — insist I am a Muslim, like the lady who came up to me after a speech I gave after Sept. 11, 2001 and said, “I can’t believe you abandoned your Christian faith to become an Arab.”
The disconnect between the reality and the fantasy is amazing in America. I think Americans live more in the fantasy of Hollywood movies than they do in the reality of the world around them. They put up pictures of Bethlehem — O Little Town of Bethlehem — from the days of Jesus, on their walls at Christmas. And they sing hymnals about Bethlehem at their churches. The fantasy Bethlehem is what they pray to. Meanwhile, the real Bethlehem is under siege and being destroyed. The land is being taken by the Israeli government to expand new illegal settlements like Har Homa, and even Gilo (where my land sits under the shadow of Gilo in a purgatory of Israeli government red tape designed to insure that no non-Jewish owner can ever do anything with their land. It can only be taken from them, or it sits fallow, uncared for an undeveloped.) The Wall Snakes through the heart of the city’s main entrance, and Bethlehemites have to crawl through a maze of alternate routes to get to and from their homes. The once prosperous main strip of businesses has been decimated by the Wall.
Americans don’t hang up that picture of Bethlehem on their walls at Christmas time.
Sadly, many Israelis who pretend they want peace insist the wall is for security and not just another typical Israeli government land grab. They won’t criticize their own government as strong as they should because, well, Jewish Israelis feel they are under siege, too, I guess. But that’s no excuse for allowing an injustice to continue. It takes courage and strength to say the right thing no matter where the injustice exists. The Wall is an abomination. Calling the Apartheid Wall is not critical enough. It’s disgusting.
And Christian Arabs are being discriminated against just as equally in the Islamic World where we live pretending to be equal when we are not equal at all. We can be Christian to ourselves. But we can’t express our Christian views in any manner in any Islamic nation that in any way suggests that we might be converting a Muslims to Christianity. Christianity is all about missionary messages, so, Jesus, it’s hard to talk about Jesus without sounding like a Jehovah’s Witness. The Islamic Governments don’t showcase our religion by putting up our icons in front of all the great Islamic government offices at Christmas time. Can someone send me a picture of an Islamic Government office that has a giant Christmas Tree and Christmas lights decorating the entrances? I’d love to see it. I am sure there might be a few.
This is the speech the Pope should have given, instead of those whiny, “soft” prayers of submission that he gives every Midnight Mass. Like he is begging for respect. I don’t want a woosy Pope speaking on behalf of my religion. I want a Christian Salahuddin to scream about the injustice and to demand that the injustice be addressed, and redressed. That the oppressed be freed, regardless of their religion, and that the oppressors, regardless of their religions, too, be reprimanded and punished. Or better yet, banished.
Can the Pope say something about Bethlehem, or has he conceded the city already?
And, oh, Jesus. I got so carried away with my rant. Don’t let me forget to say, Merry Christmas Tiny Tim. (Ah ha! If you really knew the Christian traditions, you would immediately respond with Tiny Tim’s response, “A Merry Christmas to us all; God bless us, every one!”)
Ray Hanania
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Merry Christmas, Ray. I loved your article. I wish I could confidently claim that I speak on behalf of all Arab Muslims when I say: we are equals; we are one. I wish ..
christians are not equal in many ways, but it’s weird that you didn’t mention a single law that discriminates against them or a single specific government–by name–or specific incident. that is kind of a meaningless call if you don’t give specific items for action. i am not sure if you are entirely aware either that christianity is different in different places? why should somebody from the middle east know about tiny tim? you think arab christians in the arab world actually know or care about that story? i would hardly say that that is a christian tradition so much as it is an american or english one.
Ray
That is a cool cool rant, right on man.
Luv and good wishes.
Alan
Hey Anon … I am not sure where you are concerned about laws against Christian Arabs … in Israel or in the Islamic World … African Americans continue to face discrimination in the United States, yet there is not one law that orders that discrimination. Must it be a law, or just a practice? And, if you can’t find one incident on your own, maybe you are not looking?
Jesus can’t you do your own work for a change? Just kidding. Of course, maybe you also missed the satire in the preceding message
Merry ChristmaChanuKwanzaEid …
Ray Hanania
It is not unusual that one might say that you can’t talk about Jesus with out sounding like a Jehovah’s Witness because Jesus is the leader of Jehovah’s Witnesses, and as history has shown if every body suddenly came to live like Jehovah’s Witnesses, as taught to them by their leader, I dare say the explosive problems of the middle east, and indeed all the world, would fizzle out to nothing.
Yo Ray, ever hear of a pity pot? You sure go on! I used to live in Michigan(USA) and worked at Ford. There were guys from all over the world in there. I knew guys from Yemen, Israel, Lebanon, Egypt, Syria, Palestine, Jordan, Iraq, Europe, Africa, Asia, India, Mexico, Greece, Turkey, South America, Russia, and all over the USA. Dearborn, Michigan has the largest settlement of arabic people outside the middle east and was just around the corner. I hunted deer with some arabic guys and learned what “Kalal” was. Those guys were lots of fun, we laughed much together. When I went to Allentown, PA for my Syrian pal’s wedding, it was the first time I ever saw an Eastern Orthodox church or saw one of their ceremonies. I’ve been to “haflis” and learned to “debki”. I had arabic guys at my wedding and taught them “polka”. I didn’t ever care what religion they were–the question was never a big deal. I have many american friends that could be Catholic, Jews, Episcopals, Adventists, Baptists, Quakers,or whatever. I really don’t know, never inquired and don’t much care.
What I do care about is: What are these friends like? Do we laugh and play and work well together? What commonality makes us friends? Religion factor is senseless to me. You and your Higher Power can handle that….it’s not my business.
Growing up, I had fistfights with blacks, asians, arabs, whites and native americans…..so what? That’s growing up in America….played hockey and shot hoops with all those guys too. Still have no idea where most of those guys went to church.
Americans are NOT resposible for arabs killing each other in Iraq, Dude. They were doing a fine job of that BEFORE Bush sent in the troops, and are still at it. Americans are trying to get them to QUIT. They can’t seem to get the hang of that. Ever heard the term..”One’s own worst enemy”? They got that down. For every 1 insurgent the US kills, the “factions” kill 100s. How nuts is that? Americans helping badly wounded kids? What’s wrong with that? Guess you think the Americans should just leave them to the mercy of whoever?
Quit blaming America. 9/11 started the ball, dude. And who was it hi-jacked those planes? It wasn’t irate Catholic nuns, Dude.
There are rules in the Koran about Christians and Jews in Islamic countries, right? Relax, the Sharia and those rules don’t count in the USA. You make or break yourself here.
Just because Americans aren’t pulling the trigger does not mean they are not killing.
You have a short memory. All started way before Bush, it started when the West decided to play god with the rest of the world. It got worse when America funded and empowered the tyrants in Iraq. It got even worse when the same tyrants took a stand against the West.
Sadly, ones again you have a really really short and narrow minded memory. 9/11 is the result of America meddling in the business of Middle Eastern countries and last time I checked, it was Saudi Arabia was the nation most of the 9/11 hijackers came from NOT Iraq. Was even one of them from Iraq? Why aren’t I seeing Saudi Arabi being bombed? Give me a break dude…
BTW… all start not when 9/11 happened, it started when Christians decided to take over the world.
Ray,
Salam to all our Arab Christians inside MiddleEast and outside
I hope you have a beautiful new year. Marhaba and Merry Christmas Ray
I am not seeing other religous symbols being put up in publich places in Canada. Aren’t Western nations secular? Well from what I see seclar except when it comes to Christianity.
Christmas is also a national holiday in Bangladesh and Indonesia even though Christans make a very tiny percentage of the population. When am I going to see a Muslim holiday being nationalised in America or any Christian nation for that?
The core dogma of the Watchtower organization is that Jesus had his second coming ‘invisibly’ in the year 1914.Their entire doctrinal superstructure is built on this falsehood. Jehovah’s Witnesses door to door recruitment is by their own admission an ineffective tactic.
They have lost membership in all countries with major internet access because their false doctrines and harmful practices are exposed on the modern information superhighway.
There is good and valid reasons why there is such an outrage against the Watchtower for misleading millions of followers.Many have invested everything in the ‘imminent’ apocalyptic promises of the Jehovah’s Witnesses and have died broken and beaten.
Jehovah’s Witnesses are a cult because they try to cut you off from others who do not have the same beliefs, including family. Yes,you can ‘check out anytime you want but you can never leave’,because they can and will hold your family hostage.
The Watchtower is a truly Orwellian world.
The ‘message’ is their false Gospel that Jesus had his second coming already in 1914.The problem with this,is it’s not just a cute fairy tale, Jesus warned of the false prophets who would claim “..look he is here in the wilderness,or see here he is at the temple”
The Watchtower’s Gospel “kingdom” is a man-made “different version”.(Gal.1:8)
of course u are correct, Ray.and things appear to have gotten worse over the past ten years, just from reading about it in the media.Certainly, Doesnt look positive in Gaza, or Indonesia or Pakistan, or Bangladesh.or Saudi Arabia.
However, re North america it is different-
I think that if xmas trees are seen in public spaces in
Canada there would be menorahs- In nyc area if one symbol is shown, then, they all are. Oh and there is no alternate side of the street parking in nyc due to a muslim holiday, which was put in place due to the popukation and the fact that it is recognized as a fair thing to do.
Christmas Day is the only religious
Federal holiday in the US, but here’s the list of recognized holidays. Some are secular, some Christian, some Jewish, four Muslim, etc.
I’m not sure what you mean by “nationalized.” For the ones above, you can take the day off work without penalty: the boss doesn’t have to pay you, but he can’t hold it against you. That’s the legally required minimum: in practice I’ve found employers to be really accommodating.
That might have worked better if I’d actually included the link, huh?
us holidays
[...] Arab Christians abandoned and patronized by everyone. [...]
The Christian Congolese have it worse.
See http://zmagsite.zmag.org/JulAug2007/snow.html
Umm Ray…a lack of Christmas trees and nativity decorations being prominently displayed is not the major problem confronting Arab Christians. What would putting up a crucifix do for us? It is far more social discrimination from Muslims, not the government that’s the problem.
R E Konrad, you wrote “Americans are NOT resposible for arabs killing each other in Iraq, Dude.”
One thing that those on the political right and left have in common is that they pretend what is going on in Iraq is just a civil war.
How can what is going on in Iraq just be called a civil war, when it is foreign governments (mainly USA and Britain) that
#1) bombed the country and destroyed its infrastructure
#2) rounds up thousands of Iraqis and jails them without justification
#3) makes decisions when elections are to take place and whether the results are valid
#4) benefit more from reconstruction projects than the Iraqis
#5) use agent provocateurs to fuel the violence, in order to have an excuse to continue occupying Iraq
#6)can break into jails to release prisoners against the Iraqi’s governments wishes. (Remember when two British men where caught disguised as Arabs carrying explosives and weapons in their car? Their fellow British soldiers broke into the jail they were in and helped them to escape) see http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=20051015&articleId=1089
The United States had helped Saddam Hussein into power and supported him strategically and financially, when he was committing his worst atrocities. The Iraqis have become scapegoats for U.S. foreign policy.
Well, Randall, I’m going to assume that everything you say is absolutely true, but I still have to give RE his point. After all, if every American in the world dropped dead tomorrow do you really think the violence would stop?
Newsflash, Pakistan is not a Middle Eastern country nor does it have a population of Arab Christians. Why must you continue to fucking lump Pakistan with the rest of the Middle East?
As for crucifixes in Pakistan, perhaps this blog post will help educate you on your ignorance of Pakistan. In addition, in the early 60’s, Pakistan has seen a Christian occupying the position as the Chief Justice, A.R. Cornelius.
MyTwoCents,
So would it be alright if some foreign power bombed the U.S. infrastructure, jailed thousands of Americans without justifications, controlled the elections and flow of wealth, and used agent provocateurs to sow racial and religious violence because as soon as the foreign power dropped dead, the Americans would still be fighting each other.
RandallJones,
It would mean Americans were partly to blame, wouldn’t you say? To put it another way: I don’t care how good his excuses are, the guy pulling the trigger is part of the problem.