25
Dec
2007
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Arab Christians abandoned and patronized by everyone

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Christmas 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