![]() ![]() They'll soon be limited to a residual presence and will be condemned to keep a low profile.ĭespite the official indifference of Westerners, the fate of Middle Eastern Christians affects the most intimate corners of what we could call our consciousness of civilization, and those who, one way or another, are getting into action for them call to mind the highest ethical demands of civic commitment. We know that in less than a century, the demographic weight of Middle Eastern Christians has dropped in an unprecedented fashion. They represent the trace of lost worlds that we refuse to sacrifice altogether to oblivion.īut in the case of Christians, it's also about getting rid of a people, as if their submission is no longer enough. The old stones aren't just old stones: They are evidence of a human desire to immortalize oneself, from one time to another. The war against remembrance is the uninhibited expression of savagery. The most radical Islamism doesn't just want to make men disappear it wants to erase the memory of men. How can we not see that this is a frightening form of nihilism, an annihilating enjoyment, a destructive exhilaration? For Islamists, it's about erasing all traces of what is foreign to Islam, as if the religion's reign can't endure the mere reminder that in these locations and in times gone by, men worshipped other gods, kept a different faith. Think about the Buddhas of Bamiyan, blown up in March 2001 the destructive fury inside Mosul's museum in 2015 or in Palmyra the same year. Because it doesn't just impact Christians. We need to have a comprehensive view of this gruesome undertaking. Now, Middle Eastern Christians feel abandoned, especially when they refuse to leave a region of the world in which they put down their roots. Over the past few years, Putin's Russia has claimed that role, as if it was being called to take over as Europe renounces its Christian origins. But who is willing to play that role? France was, for many years. For ISIS, it's about making Christians understand that this land is no longer their home.įor a long time, we've been saying that Christians in the Middle East needed a protector. ISIS has claimed responsibility for the attack, the organization having made no secret of its goal to eradicate Christianity from the region, either by murdering Christians or by expelling them massively. We know the result: at least 43 dead - a massacre. Justifiable outrage over what, in reality, is a steady massacre gets dismissed as reactionary whim.īut as the savage attacks against two Coptic Christian churches in Egypt on Palm Sunday reminds us, the war of extermination being waged against Christians in the Middle East is very real indeed. Those same critics accuse anyone who feels passionate about the cause of Christians in the Middle East of actually concealing a shameful islamophobia or an identitarian view of Christianity. And in our societies, people who express concern over the fate of those Christians are suspected of cozying up to the far-right, which has managed, apparently, to appropriate this cause and make it an ideological marker. And yet Islamists present them as invaders or foreign agents soiling a land that should be exclusively dedicated to Islam. As if Christianity is destined to die or have no more than a residual existence in what used to be its cradle.Ĭhristians have been rooted in the region for 2,000 years. MONTREAL - The Western world has long gotten used to the persecution of Christians in the Middle East, as if their bad lot is inevitable and has to simply be accepted. ![]()
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