A troublesome insight from a reliable source – From his days of sojourn in The Europa hotel in Belfast when bombs at the front door were a test of proprietor Billy Hasting’s resolve and determination, journalist Robert Fisk came to prominence as a fairly articulate commentator on events in the city and island. Obviously one did not always agree with him, but he had that persistent and acute knack of stating what was obvious to him when others either preferred to ignore it or shied off it.
He is still at it. He admitted over the weekend that he was in the wrong place at the wrong time… and that is something the sure-footed, news-wise, Fisk seldom has done. However, his reasons were fair. He was in Cairo when with the benefit of hind-sight, he felt he should have been in Damascus.
His report will not comfort anyone concerned about either Egypt or Syria whose leaders over several decades have seen themselves as men of destiny in the Arab world. Egypt sits at the cross roads of east-west and north-south axises in the Arab world. Syria is a critical location in relation to Iran and Iraq with whom it has sub-international Islamic sectarian alliances and a common foe in Israel. Add to that the Russian and Chinese support it gets, and there is a ready ticking international powder keg which has been exploited to thwart any effective UN intervention in its ever-developing civil war.
So much for the “real politik”. Back to Fisk. He had left Lebanon where 15 people had just died in an over-flow of the Syrian struggle. He was in Cairo to cover the trial of former president Hosni Mubarak, when as he said, up popped the president of Syria on his television screen, to say that “his army was not responsible for the massacre at Houla a week ago. And there was Assad, talking of the most serious crisis since the end of colonialism.”
Robert Fisk put his finger on a tender spot when he stressed that the new contender in Egypt, “Ahmed Shafik, the Mubarak loyalist, has the support of the Christian Copts, and Assad has the support of the Syrian Christians. The Christians support the dictators. Not much of a line, is it?”
Having lived in Northern Ireland during the years of violence in Northern Ireland and attempted to witness to the reconciling power of Christ, I can readily recall that long period when one was frustrated and annoyed at continually having to respond to assumptions when outside of the province – and particularly to those of fellow Christians – which interpreted the basic ingredient of the ongoing conflict in my home area as being religious. That experience together with a greater awareness of news manipulation has made me extremely wary of relying on news reports, interpretations and accounts of problems elsewhere in the world. To say that I have “a hermeneutic of suspicion” would be a most economic description in addition to my natural disposition to cynicism.
But I have found Fisk to be fairly reliable. So his view of the Christians of Syria and Egypt, troubles me. The only explanation I can offer is that perhaps they are working on the basis that the devil they know as their president, may be better than the devil who replaces him. Life was cheap enough at times in Northern Ireland, and that affected our thinking. Syrians and Egyptians have lived through much worse. Being a small but significant religious minority in areas dominated by militant forms of another world faith makes for a necessary caution on a daily basis.
I travel with Fisk’s view that this is not an Arab ‘spring’ but an Arab ‘awakening’ which is happening in places as diverse as Lybia and Yemen as well as Egypt and Syria. I agree with his concern about Washington’s political strategy in respect of Egypt which the USA is determined must be the friend of Israel and the virtual guarantor of the security of that state’s oil supplies. The critical weight of the politics and finances of liquid gold is never far away, and in a variety of ways, in the politics of what we used to call the Middle East. The USA and the UK to a lesser extent are currently brokering the Arab Brotherhood as being the best alternate to Mubarak. Time will tell.
The Churches and Christians in the west need to be wary that for their government’s political ends, they are not sold a political overview which pumps up the old style dictators like Mubarak as being the preferred style of ruler of the indigenous Churches and Christians, and that they are preferable to a more fundamentalist form of Islam like the Brotherhood.
Our brothers and sisters in Christ in these areas continue to need our prayers, and we need to find reliable and trustworthy Christian voices in those areas to inform and help shape our prayers. Their peace and ours may depend on this.
Houston McKelvey