“Some of my best friends are Christians” or “We grew up with a Christian family next door and never felt any different”; common sentences in many parts of the Middle East and often repeated to fit various minorities across the world, Jews, Blacks, Coloureds, Shia and Sunnis. Sentences that could be heard in the streets of Baghdad, Damascus or Cairo, inthe rare gatherings where the plight of any minority was debated.
Christians and Jews are mentioned in the Quran as the “People of the Book” and are accepted as believers:
“Those who believe, those who are Jews, and the Christians and Sabaeans, all who believe in Allah and the Last Day and act rightly, will have their reward with their Lord. They will feel no fear and will know no sorrow. (Surat al-Baqara, 62)
In countless verses the Quran exhorts Muslims to accept Christians and Jews as believers to be integrated among Muslims and treated equally. This was never really applied but as a result they were tolerated within Muslim society, albeit at an inferior status. In practice at various times they were subjected to head taxes jizyah, banned from many positions and professions, forbidden from bearing arms and subjected to residence and clothing restrictions, but usually would be allowed to coexist without explicit threats of extermination.
Over the ages, the virulence of the discrimination waxed and waned according to the political and social circumstances of the ruler. Often a more liberal interpretation of the teachings of the Quran would soften the burden on non-Muslims. On the whole, early Islam was too busy conquering the rest of the world to worry about eliminating the various minorities that lived under its rule. After the C12th with the beginning of the decline of the Muslim empire massacres and brutal discrimination became more frequent and widespread. The birth of the Ottoman Empire in the C16th brought relatively greater structure to the discrimination as Turkish rule extended to many new alien ethnic and religious groups. Nevertheless, pogroms of Christians continued throughout to the late C19th and early C20th with Armenians, Assyrian, Greeks and Maronites of Mount Lebanon as victims.
Today the plight of Christians – and all other minorities in the Middle East – harks back to the middle ages of Islam. In Iraq, Syria, Libya and Pakistan the days of genocide, mass extermination or ethnic cleansing and exodus to safe havens have returned. Christianity no longer has an accepted presence in these parts. The absence of government and the lawlessness have irreversibly destroyed any structures that could accommodate minorities in the future. When governments manage to become established and do not engage in active extermination, they will not move to stop it if perpetrated by extreme groups within their societies. The grief of massacred Christians is significantly more bearable than the instability caused by provoking fundamentalist groups of local population. These countries will see mass migration of Christians to Europe, the United States, Canada and Australia but also to neighboring countries like Jordan, Lebanon and Egypt putting further pressure on minorities there. The protection and help that the West could provide to these minorities in their own countries only exacerbates their isolation, prompting accusations of treason, disloyalty and betrayal, paradoxically further confirming their alien status in the communities they live in. Only a balkanisation of the region could have any hope of finding a safe haven for these minorities.
In more stable societies, those not prey to civil war or insurgencies, such as Egypt, Lebanon and Morocco the situation of Christians and minorities in general, is different.
In Lebanon, Christians are under siege. Their dominance of Lebanese society until the mid-seventies was absolute as they represented the majority of the population. A famous rule in the bureaucracy then stated that for every 5 Muslims there had to be 6 Christians appointed. After the civil war they no longer dominated and other confessions insisted on sharing power, Shia, Sunnis and others. The early 1990’s saw a new compact agreed between the warring parties. Power would be split 50/50 (the nosfeyasolution from nosf :half) between Muslims and Christians. The rule for the bureaucracy was amended accordingly to 5 to 5. To date the system worked for the most part (notwithstanding constant Syrian meddling). Today pressure is again growing for a change in the existing status quo to a tholthiyawhereby Sunnis and Shia each get a third (tholth) of power with Christians the last third. This does not bode well for the future of Lebanon. Lebanese Christians, contrary to Christians everywhere else in the Middle East, fight back and will not hesitate to take up arms if threatened.
Ultimately a balkanization of both Syria and Lebanon and a federated system in Iraq might be the only solution for preserving the Christians and more generally the minorities of Iraq and the Levant.
In Saudi Arabia and more generally the Gulf countries the problem has never arisen. There are no Christians in Saudi Arabia nor are there churches or any other places of worship that are not mosques. There is no discrimination against Christians because there are no Christians nor will there ever be. The few there are expatriates working in the country and their worshiping is strictly controlled. The exception is The United Arab Emirates where all the ruling Family of Al Nahyan are enlightened and tolerant, they accept all religions. Exceptionally Sheikh Zayed Al Nahyan, the President of the Emirates, financed the building of a Church in his country.
In this light Christians in Egypt might feel lucky as their plight is debated in the relatively calmer surroundings of a country that is not divided on sectarian lines. Christians still represent the remnants of the original inhabitants of the Nile valley. Their treatment benefits from a past that lived in a comparatively more enlightened era of Islam and a more cosmopolitan society, Egyptian society is too sophisticated to tolerate government sponsored discrimination. It is not however committed enough to the principles of tolerance, freedom of worship or human rights to actively fight discrimination or the occasional sectarian flare up with the attendant church burning. The evolution of the status of Christians in Egyptian society is illustrative of their status in the rest of the Middle East and probably a good predictor of any future they might have in the region. Before the 1952 revolution by army officers there was general tolerance of Christians in Egyptian society. Although not treated completely equally they were accepted in most strata of society and in the vast majority of professions and administrative positions. Following the 1952 revolution and the massive changes in Egyptian society Christians continued to benefit from the benign neglect of the military. Eventually the animosity towards Israel and more generally the West started to translate into enmity towards their coreligionists, Jews and Christians. By the early 1960’s almost all Egyptian Jews had been expelled from Egypt. As Christians were more numerous and better integrated into Egyptian society, they did not suffer as much although a slow voluntary emigration movement had begun. While there was never any overt government sanctioned discrimination Christians found it impossible to join the army, intelligence agencies, the higher reaches of government and an increasing number of professions. Meanwhile the Muslim Brotherhood were quietly infiltrating the various reaches of Egyptian society, destroying the education system that had been neglected by the military as they consolidated their hold over the country. By 1974 after the Yom Kippur war, the realignment of the Egyptian regime with the West and President Sadat’s policy of containing communists in Egyptian institutions led to a greater tolerance of Islamists and the Muslim Brotherhood. With this an insidious discrimination began to take hold in schools and universities, the administration, the military and most institutions in Egypt. Religious teaching in schools emphasized the exceptionalism and uncompromising stance of Islam, other religions were demonized and children were warned increasingly of the danger that lurked next to them with their Christian neighbours. Instead of teaching greater integration children were taught diffidence and suspicion of Christians. Ignorance widened the divide between the two communities, feeding greater intolerance and extremism. Gradually the Muslim Brotherhood had managed to distort the minds of entire generations of Egyptians. When the generations educated in the 70’s, 80’s and reached positions of power in civil society, religious institutions, the administration and the government, discrimination against Christians became more entrenched. The Islamist insurgency of the 90’s pushed the government of the day towards a more conservative stance in all aspects of society; discrimination, while not advocated explicitly, was tolerated. Sectarian flare ups were settled informally among community elders not in the courts. Crimes against Christians became more frequent, more violent and not punished, again with the aim of appeasing Islamists or not provoking a xenophobic population, increasingly less tolerant. Cries of outrage from the Muslim and Christian urban middle class filled the media, calls for justice sprang from all quarters, only to end in hurriedly manufactured reconciliations between the two communities, leaving lives destroyed and the guilty unpunished.
The future of Christians in the Middle East looks grim. If not decimated in Iraq and Syria they will have Lebanon and Egypt as safe havens. In Lebanon their situation remains precarious, with the strong sectarian tradition in the country they are bound to lose more ground. The hope is that they will reach the status quo of a stable equilibrium with a semi-autonomous enclave in the country. In Egypt looks more promising, pervasive subtle discrimination will continue for the foreseeable future and be silently tolerated by both the authorities and the population at large. The occasional flare-up of sectarian strife, especially in Upper Egypt, will cause sporadic and short lived bouts of introspection and moves against the more flagrant discrimination practices, such as church building and repair, dress codes for children in schools and the like. Christians will thrive in business, less so in liberal professions, much less in government and not at all in the army and intelligence community.
The West cannot help. Any assistance is seen as further proof of the treachery and disloyalty of the Christian community against the interests of their own country. A bleak future but then think of the alternative in Iraq and Syria.