Mideast Youth » Nadia (Canada & Iraq)

Real Christians, fake Arabs

Nadia (Canada & Iraq) — Tue, 08 May 2007 18:37:38 +0000

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.

The 2007 "Let's Get Free" Mideast Pageant

Nadia (Canada & Iraq) — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 18:44:30 +0000

Ok guys Monday will be the night when we decide who is the most beautifully rad middle eastern woman that wants freedoms besides the right to wear make up. I will consider any suggestions till Monday.

Here are my nominations:

From top: Nawal el Saadawi (Egyptian feminist,) Marjane Satrapi (Iranian artist/writer,) Hanan Ashrawi (Palestinian activist/politician,) Leila Khaled (PFLP,) Amira Hass (Israeli journalist,) Tali Fahima (Israeli shit disturber,) Meena (martyred founder of RAWA.)

Late entries:

FIGHT!

One face of the Iraqi Refugee Crisis

Nadia (Canada & Iraq) — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 18:15:58 +0000

C/O Current TV

Just under a million Iraqis are living in Jordan, well over a million in Syria with more in Egypt and Lebanon, as well as about 2 million internally displaced this is a sadly underaddressed consequence of the war. The family in that video were typical of those actually leaving the country in that they had the income to support themselves without working temporarily, but those savings run out quick and some Iraqis have been in exile since the start of the war. Jordan meanwhile is buckling under the strain of hosting what is equivalent to one sixth of its total population and Iraqis are no longer welcome there. 50,000 Iraqis are still leaving their homes per month and it’s becoming less clear where they could go. Syria’s also tightening its restrictions and recently Human Rights Watch noted that Iraqis in Amman are subject to random deportation to their death back home, sectarian discrimination, as well as families being broken up at the border.

As for Europe, well some countries have been decent (Sweden and Ireland,) others like France, Germany and the Netherlands were taking to giving asylum to very small numbers of Iraqis that applied. Germany, Holland and some other countries have recently taken to loosening regulations with regards to granting asylum to Iraqis and the EU has pledged to take in more refugees, but the total number of asylum claims filed in Europe was about 20,000 and the UNHCR hopes to resettle this many Iraqi refugees in the coming year.

Britain and the US have been even worse what with the UK’s highly publicized deportation flights for failed asylum seekers. The United States took in less than 500 Iraqis since the war started though they recently have seen th error of their ways and said they could take in as many as 20,000 this year.

But what about the rest of them? The ones living in abject poverty outside Iraq and the ones in abject poverty and under threat inside that can’t afford the trip or the passports? Amazingly not even that aspect was being addressed. Last year at the height of the displacement the UNHCR’s budget shortfall (2/3 of the $29million they requested) for the middle east was so great that their staff had to cut even their most basic of operations. Since that the US ponied up just under $18 million of their $60 million annual budget while the war costs $8 billion a month.

The conference on humanitarian relief for the war last week brought a lot of promises but we’ll see how many of them get fulfilled.

A Happy Anniversary to the Nakba as well.

Nadia (Canada & Iraq) — Mon, 23 Apr 2007 19:57:41 +0000

59 years and counting.

On that note, I don’t know how many of you are familiar with the Doha Debates, they’re a pretty excellent BBC series, so I thought I would post the most recent one on the Palestinians’ right of return.

[googlevideo]http://video.google.ca/videoplay?docid=-4569308870222840878[/googlevideo]

Ali Abunimah is the editor of Electronic Intifada, the debate continued after the show in email form here. It’s worth a look.