Abstract
The enthusiasm that greeted the Arab uprisings of 2011 and was displaced by disillusionment. According to Mitri, demands for democracy continued in efforts to shape a new social and political order. Many Christians emphasized their common ethno-cultural identity with Muslims to form the “pact of citizenship” that superseded the former dhimma pact. However, this development also intensified Islamic self-awareness that resulted in violent self-assertion and a reaction to the failures of modern, more or less secular, independent and authoritarian governments. This resulted in two approaches: opting for an exclusively minority-centered militancy or choosing silence out of fear or resignation. A third, as yet unrealized, approach is a return to the “pact of citizenship” that would bind Christians and Muslims together.
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Notes
- 1.
“One of the most destructive forces in the Middle East, Obama believes, is tribalism—a force no president can neutralize. Tribalism, made manifest in the reversion to sect, creed, clan, and village by the desperate citizens of failing states, is the source of much of the Muslim Middle East’s problems, and it is another source of his fatalism.” See Jeffrey Goldberg, “The Obama Doctrine: The U.S. president talks through his hardest decisions about America’s role in the world.” The Atlantic, April 15, 2015. http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/04/the-obama-doctrine/471525/
- 2.
“DAESH is a transliteration of the Arabic acronym formed of the same words that make up ISIS in English: ‘Islamic State in Iraq and Syria’, or ‘al-dowla al-islaamiyya fii-il-i’raaq wa-ash-shaam’.” Depending on how it is conjugated in Arabic, the word can mean “to trample down and crush.” But it can also mean “a bigot.” ISIS has reportedly threatened to cut out the tongues of anyone it hears using the term. Government officials choose the term to avoid using other, more common, names for the group. Using “Islamic” and “State” together offers legitimacy to the group, some believe. See: Patrick Garrity, “Paris Attacks: What Does ‘Daesh’ Mean and Why Does ISIS Hate It?” ABC News, November 14, 2015. http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/isis-terror/paris-attacks-what-does-daesh-mean-why-does-isis-hate-n463551
- 3.
“Classical Islamic law considers that only Muslims are full citizens of an Islamic society. As for the kitabiyyin (the ‘Peoples of the Book’), they continue to benefit from their ‘privileges’ (their own law), under the protection of the Islamic State, but remain in the status which is subordinate from a political and civil point of view.” Bernard Botiveau, “The Law of the Nation-State and the Status of non-Muslims in Egypt and Syria,” in Andrea Pacini, ed. Christian Communities in the Arab Middle East: The Challenge of the Future (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998), 112.
- 4.
“Middle Eastern Churches were not able to inherit a developed political culture, as they never had any experience of power. In the modern nations of the Mashreq, Lebanon alone has offered them the opportunity for it, which explains the stumbling pace and the tragedies of the last fifty years.” Jean Corbon, “The Churches of the Middle East: Their Origins and Identity, from their Roots in the Past to their Openness to the Present,” in Andrea Pacini, ed. Christian Communities in the Arab Middle East (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998), 99.
- 5.
“When the Council of Middle Easter Churches was established in 1974, the first aim listed in its constitution was the survival of the Churches. For the same reason the seven Catholic Patriarchs sent a pastoral letter to their faithful on Christian presence in the East: witness and mission: ‘We have chosen presence as an element of faith, which means that our presence in society in which we live is a sign of God’s presence in the world. We are therefore called to be ‘with’, ‘in’, and ‘for’ society, not ‘against’, ‘outside’, or even ‘on the margins of it.’ This is an essential requirement of our faith, or vocation and our mission.” Corbon, op. cit., 106.
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Mitri, T. (2018). Christians in Arab Politics. In: Ellis, K. (eds) Secular Nationalism and Citizenship in Muslim Countries. Minorities in West Asia and North Africa. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-71204-8_5
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