Understanding being a Christian in the Middle East

An excellent article below. It clarifies terminology in an enlightening and succinct way. If you have the time (the article is rather long), I whole-heartedly recommend it.

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(telegraph.co.uk) - Two more Christians murdered in Iraq on Monday night and another three yesterday, as the community is driven to extinction.

And on the Today programme earlier this week there was yet another segment about this persecuted minority, perhaps suggesting that the media are waking up to what many Iraqis themselves call “genocide” (the word, incidentally, was coined in 1936 after a previous massacre of Iraqi Christians).

However the Left largely remains in denial about the situation faced by Middle Eastern Christians, despite widespread evidence by various human rights organisation. The Guardian had a piece on Friday in which the writer argued that this was part of a ‘clash of civilisations myth’:

One article in Foreign Policy went so far as to suggest the church attack might spell “the end of Christianity in the Middle East” altogether. Yet such generalisations play into the hands of radicals wanting to perpetuate the clash-of-civilisations myth. Though anti-Christian feeling may be rising on the extreme radical fringe of some Arab societies such as Iraq, this should not obscure the harmony that has long been a characteristic of other parts of the Arab world.

However, as Robert Fisk has suggested declining Christian numbers could also be largely due to demographics and favourable immigration conditions rather than increased persecution.

In fact, large parts of the Arab world remain tolerant and display deep inter-communal harmony. The fact that most of Iraq’s displaced Christians have fled not to the west but to other Arab states, notably Syria and Jordan, seems to illustrate this.

Moreover, at a broader societal level across the region, it seems wholly unjust to suggest Arab Muslims are suddenly turning on their Christian compatriots. A radical fringe in each state may share the extremist views of al-Qaida, but that does not mean they are accepted by mainstream society. Even Islamists such as Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood expressed their disgust at the Baghdad bombings, and called for Cairo to protect its churches. This issue varies across the region more than generalist commentators are allowing for.

Christian numbers may be diminishing and the radical fringe may sadly be gaining the upper hand in certain pockets such as Iraq, which the international community should rightly condemn. However, the Arab world in general remains a place where Christians and Muslims have lived side by side for centuries, and look certain to continue doing so. Perhaps we should be celebrating this fact rather than exaggerating the extent to which the whole region is suddenly becoming anti-Christian.

Yes, cynical old British media. There we are focusing on the one unfortunate incident where dozens of people happened to be slaughtered in a church, when we could have focused on literally dozens of Iraqi churches where no one was murdered by Islamists that weekend...

Complete article here.