In The Middle East, The Arab Spring Has Given Way To a Christian Winter -- Rupert Shortt, The Guardian
Attacks on Christian communities from Iraq to Egypt undermine the region's struggle for broader freedoms.
The line about the American general meeting the Arab Christian isn't as familiar as it should be. "When did your family convert?" the general asked. "About 2,000 years ago," the Arab answered wryly.
The general's ignorance is widely shared. Take but one example from closer to home. Over-zealous teachers in London have recently been pulling Syrian Orthodox refugees out of school assemblies in London, on the basis that Arab children must by definition be Muslims. The truth, of course, is that Christianity is an import from the Middle East, not an export to it. Christians have formed part of successive civilisations in the region for many centuries – they were, as Rowan Williams has pointed out, a dominant presence in the Byzantine era, an active partner in the early Muslim centuries, a long-suffering element within the Ottoman empire and, more recently, "a political catalyst and nursery of radical thinking in the dawn of Arab nationalism".
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My Comment: As I have said on many occasions in this blog .... persecution and violence against Christians is one of the most under-reported stories in the world.
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