Ledarbloggen
Ivar Arpi
Ivar Arpi
Jag har i några ledare skrivit om de kristnas situation i Mellanöstern, och mer specifikt i Syrien (22/8, 27/8, 4/9). I Spectator har Robin Harris skrivit en tänkvärd text om de kristnas situation.
In the Middle East, reflective people are unimpressed by promises of democracy. In particular, Christians there have understood, after centuries of experience, that western promises are worthless, because westerners never stay engaged. Christians reckon that their only guarantee of survival is stability; that their only hope for equality is secularism; and that their two great enemies are Islamic zeal and anarchy. And they are right, even if that makes no sense to Britain’s neocon Prime Minister and his advisers.
Wherever any strongly Islamic regime is in power, Christians suffer. It is an immutable rule. And the more Islamic the state, the harsher the treatment Christians receive. Since the Arab Spring, every upheaval or election in the Middle East has brought some brand of Islamist to power. In every case, Christians are threatened.
Och avslutningen av texten är värd att citera:
This refusal to acknowledge the systematic maltreatment of Christians by Islamic governments is, of course, shameful, but also revealing. The facts are well known, but they are ignored. They embarrass, because they expose the impotence of the West, whereas its leaders like to pose as statesmen arbitrating the future of nations. But they also embarrass modern liberals generally, because they show how little has changed in the great religious and cultural struggles that dominate history.
In May, Pope Francis canonised some 800 martyrs. These Otranto martyrs were all beheaded by the Ottoman Turks in 1480 for refusing to convert to Islam. What now faces Christians in the Arab world, as the West flounders, blunders and postures, may yet provide further reminders of Otranto.