http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/c550b90a-6d13-11e0-83fe-00144feab49a.html#axzz1KWZukZoZ
Middle East: Hard to Bear
By David Gardner
In a square in Nazareth, right below the Basilica of the Annunciation, a Koranic verse warns that “whoever seeks a religion other than Islam, it will never be accepted of him, and in the Hereafter he will be one of the losers”. Yet it is the spectre of losing in the here-and-now that most haunts the dwindling number of adherents to Christianity in the land of its birthplace.
By Anthony Shadid
Middle East: Hard to Bear
By David Gardner
In a square in Nazareth, right below the Basilica of the Annunciation, a Koranic verse warns that “whoever seeks a religion other than Islam, it will never be accepted of him, and in the Hereafter he will be one of the losers”. Yet it is the spectre of losing in the here-and-now that most haunts the dwindling number of adherents to Christianity in the land of its birthplace.
Christians – as well as Jews – helped the rise of Islamic civilisation by plugging it into the Hellenist legacy. In its decline, they were custodians of this heritage and of the Arabic language. It was Christians who disproportionately drove the “Arab awakening” of the 19th and 20th centuries, not just through a new Arabist politics but in education, publishing, medicine and science.
Open to the world and set against the Turkic-centred late Ottomans, Christian Arabism had a sound logic. “Arabism was launched by the Christians, partly as a form of self-defence against the Ottoman Turks,” says Fadi Malha, a Maronite lawyer. “It obviously couldn’t be Sunni Islam; that was the religion of the empire.”
Pan-Arab nationalism, however, became the alibi of a network of Sunni strongmen, generally supported by the west. It turned out to be an ideological wild goose chase into an autocratic dead end – which Christians abetted. “Christians have become too elitist, linked to the status quo and cocooned in their minority status,” says Philip Madanat, an evangelical activist in Jordan. “They are not spearheading reform as they used to. They are losing pre-eminence, supporting diversity but clinging on to these regimes, ready to depart if things go awry, whereas their duty is to be protagonists of social change.”
Yet some of the Maronites, hitherto seen as a barometer of Christian well-being in the region, still manage to convey superiority alongside vulnerability, preferring to live in a tribal past than a plural present. Samir Franjieh, a centre-left intellectual from a leading Maronite clan, sees an opportunity. “If Muslims and Christians take part in a common struggle for the same values, the problem of coexistence is resolved. We have to foment a new nahda [awakening] in this part of the world and the way forward is for Christians to play a proactive rather than defensive role [in] a new Arabism, democratic and plural rather than nationalist.”
Yet the spectre of an eastern Mediterranean empty of Christians is still haunting for many, not just because it would uproot a 2,000-year-old heritage but because it would burn the bridges between east and west.
“The beauty of this land is that it is a mosaic,” says Bishop Abu el-Assal in Nazareth. “If the Christians leave, what will be left of that? The Middle East represents the intermingling of civilisation and the three Abrahamic faiths. If that finally goes, this will cease to be Terra Santa; it will be a museum.”
Iraqi Christians mark a restrained Easter
By Jane Arraf
Iraqi Christians marked a restrained Easter weekend as fear of attacks kept many from openly celebrating their most sacred day of the year and church officials urged them not to give up on the country.
Like other minorities, Christians, because of their small numbers, have been disproportionately hit by violence. Many blame the United States for the turmoil that replaced the relative security they enjoyed even under Saddam Hussein’s repressive regime. Some of those who remain are a testament to resiliency.
“It is a disease of emigration,” he says. With the traditional escape routes closing as more countries in the Middle East are engulfed by unrest, Turkey has become the default route for Christians fleeing Iraq.
Of more than 1 million Christians in Iraq before 2003, there are believed to be only about 650,000 left. The exodus has raised doubts about the future of Christianity in the region where it first took root.
Security Forces Kill Dozens in Uprisings Around Syria
BEIRUT, Lebanon — Security forces in Syria met thousands of demonstrators with fusillades of live ammunition after noon prayers on Friday, killing at least 81 people in the bloodiest day of the five-week-old Syrian uprising, according to protesters, witnesses and accounts on social networking sites.
From the Mediterranean coast and Kurdish east to the steppe of the Houran in southern Syria, protesters gathered in at least 20 cities and towns, including in the outskirts of the capital, Damascus. Cries for vengeance intersected with calls for the government’s fall, marking a potentially dangerous new dynamic in the revolt.
But despite the bloodshed, which promised to unleash another day of unrest as the dead are buried Saturday, the scale of the protests, so far, seemed to fall short of the popular upheaval of revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia. Organizers said the movement was still in its infancy, and the government, building on 40 years of institutional inertia, still commanded the loyalty of the military, economic elite and sizable minorities of Christian and heterodox Muslim sects who fear the state’s collapse.
In that, the government faces perhaps its greatest challenge: to maintain its bastions of support with promises for the future and threats that its collapse means chaos, against the momentum that the vivid symbols of martyrdom have so often encouraged.
The government’s determination to keep larger cities somewhat subdued may have led to some of the highest death tolls. Protesters in some towns on Damascus’s outskirts said security forces fired at them to prevent them from marching toward the capital. And in Azra, protesters said, government forces were intent on keeping them from Dara’a, a poor town 20 miles away that helped unleash the revolt in March.
Bodies on streets as Syrian army sweeps Daraa
Agence France Press
DAMASCUS - Thousands of troops backed by armour swept into the flashpoint Syrian town Daraa Monday, killing and injuring an unknown number of people and leaving bodies lying in the streets, activists said.
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Analysis/Apr/22/Sadr-militia-threat-a-worry-to-fragile-Iraq.ashx#axzz1KWbq2Ag6
"We have many indications that the government will extend the pact ... we will use all possible means ... to prevent the extension of this pact," said lawmaker Bahaa al-Araji, a senior member of Sadr's bloc.
"Snipers have taken up positions on the roofs and tanks are in the centre of the town... Bodies are lying in the streets and we can't recover them," one activist said, asking not to be named for security reasons.
Activist Abdullah Al-Harriri told AFP earlier on Monday: "The men are firing in all directions and advancing behind the armour which is protecting them.
"Electricity is cut off and telephone communications are virtually impossible," he said.
Iran on edge as ally Syria fights for survival
For Iran, its ties with Syria represent far more than just a rare friend in a region dominated by Arab suspicions of Tehran's aims. Syria is Iran's great enabler: a conduit for aid to powerful anti-Israel proxies Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
Should Assad's regime fall, it could rob Iran of a loyal Arab partner in a region profoundly realigned by uprisings demanding more freedom and democracy.
"Iran and Syria represent the anti-US axis in the region. In that respect, Iran wants to ensure that Syria remains an ally," said Shadi Hamid, director of research at The Brookings Doha Center in Qatar. "The problem is that Iran's foreign policy has become quite inconsistent."
Iran's ambitions to expand its influence in the region could suffer a "critical backward step" if Assad's regime is toppled, said Theodore Karasik, a regional affairs expert at the Dubai-based Institute for Near East and Gulf Military Analysis.
"Egypt's revolution could be considered a strategic loss perhaps for the West," he said, "but a change in Syria would seriously rearrange the security order in the core of the Middle East and could leave Iran with an even bigger loss."
"When it comes to looking after its own interests, the Iranian regime is very pragmatic, especially since they know that Assad would do the same to them if the shoe was on the other foot," said Javedanfar. "When it comes to choosing between friendship and its own interests, to Iran's rulers the former is easily expendable."
Opponents of Yemen's Saleh divided over deal
The Daily Star
SANAA, Yemen - Deep divisions within Yemen's opposition appeared to doom an Arab proposal for the president to step down within a month, raising the prospect of more bloodshed and instability in a nation already beset by deep poverty and conflict.
A coalition of seven opposition parties generally accepted the deal. But thousands stood their ground Sunday in a permanent protest camp in part of the capital, Sanaa, and their leaders said they suspect Saleh is just maneuvering to buy time and cling to power. The protesters say the established opposition political parties taking part in the talks with Arab mediators do not represent them and cannotturn off the rage on the streets.
A coalition of seven opposition parties generally accepted the deal. But thousands stood their ground Sunday in a permanent protest camp in part of the capital, Sanaa, and their leaders said they suspect Saleh is just maneuvering to buy time and cling to power. The protesters say the established opposition political parties taking part in the talks with Arab mediators do not represent them and cannotturn off the rage on the streets.
International pressure is also bearing down on him to leave, including from the United States, which had backed his rule with millions in financial assistance and military aid for fighting the active al-Qaida branch that has taken root in the country.
A bloc of Gulf nations, including powerful Saudi Arabia, has been trying to broker an end to the crisis, fearing the potential blowback of more instability in the fragile country on the southern edge of Arabia.
But the protesters in the streets, who are from an array of different backgrounds and are not represented in the talks, reject the proposal outright and want nothing short of Saleh's immediate resignation and his trial on charges of corruption and for the killings of unarmed protesters.
Sadr militia threat a worry to fragile Iraq
Reuters
BAGHDAD: Moqtada al-Sadr's recent threat to unleash his Mehdi Army could revive radical elements in Iraq and pit the once-feared militia against both Iraqi and U.S. troops.
Sadr's warning, issued on April 9, the eighth anniversary of the day U.S. forces toppled Saddam Hussein's statue in Baghdad, reveals a delicate balancing act by Sadr and the new, Shiite-led government he played a major role in forming.
The anti-American Shiite cleric said he would escalate military resistance and "unfreeze" the Mehdi Army if U.S. troops remain in Iraq after Dec. 13, when they are scheduled to depart under a security pact between Washington and Baghdad.
"We have many indications that the government will extend the pact ... we will use all possible means ... to prevent the extension of this pact," said lawmaker Bahaa al-Araji, a senior member of Sadr's bloc.
"It is true the Mehdi Army wouldn't be as strong as it was. But the re-arming would not be an issue for Moqtada at all," one Shiite legislator said on condition of anonymity.
"The important issue regarding his source of strength is that there are many of his followers who are ready to sacrifice their souls for his sake," the lawmaker said.
Sadr's warning came not long after a visit by U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who pressed Baghdad to decide if it wants U.S. troops to stay and help fend off a festering insurgency. About 74,000 American troops remain in Iraq.
Most Iraqi officials only hint at a possible resolution.
Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari told a local newspaper if Iraq needs help, particularly for training, "it will be subject to mutual understanding" with Washington. Maliki's office said recently that Iraq was "looking forward to future cooperation with the United States in the field of arming and training".
Iran, Iraq sign agreements on Iranian opposition
By ASSOCIATED PRESS
TEHRAN: Iran and Iraq on Sunday signed agreements to return each others’ detainees, which could lead to the forced repatriation of an Iranian opposition group based in Iraq, Iranian state TV reported.
The countries’ respective justice ministers signed agreements that including provisions for the repatriation of each others criminals and convicts to their country of origin, which could include members of the People’s Mujahedeen, an Iranian opposition group long based in Iraq.
Iraqi Justice Minister Hassan Al-Shimari took the opportunity of the signing ceremony to repeat his country’s stance that the group, once close to previous ruler Saddam Hussein, would be expelled from the country by the end of 2011.
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