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Your Holiness, reach out بِسْمِ اللَّهِ الرَّحْمَنِ الرَّحِيمِ
Michel Kilo, the Syrian Christian
thinker, writer and human rights activist, penned this appeal to Pope Benedict XVI on the occasion of
his three-day visit to Lebanon. The appeal, which I rephrased
in English, appeared yesterday in Arabic
on all4syria.info:
Your Holiness, I wish to address you in the name of
God, who Muslims call “the Gracious, the Merciful.”
I am not, Your Holiness, a believer in all what
religions put forward. But I believe they preserved the human race by sanctifying
human life, which is imprinted with the very image of its Creator.
In my view, the obligation to preserve human life is
the greatest of the Divine messages.
Without it, we wouldn’t have witnessed today’s
humankind, or lived its inventiveness and achievements. We wouldn’t have formed
entities replete with flaws and shortcomings.
Without it too, individuals wouldn’t have sanctified
the life granted them by their Creator, who tolerates their thoughtlessness and
numerous mistakes because He is “Gracious, Merciful.”
I am, Your Holiness, Syrian, Arab and Christian. I am
a citizen in a region that managed, throughout its long and tortuous history, to
fuse its human, religious, cultural and political components.
True, the region was not all too familiar with the
concept of tolerance. But is still upheld and breathed tolerance hundreds of
years before John Locke
published his book “A
Letter Concerning Toleration.”
I have no doubt in my mind Your Holiness is aware of
and thankful that this region coined most terms that founded human civilization.
I am referring to terms like religion, abstract thought, numbers, agriculture,
domestication of animals, metals melting, statehood, ways to control nature,
writing, music, painting and dance…
Your Holiness is also aware that the message of Islam
-- the region’s last religion -- recognizes and reveres its two preceding
monotheistic faiths, Judaism and Christianity.
Suffice to read Your Holiness what the Quran says of
Jesus (Issa) --“And we gave Issa, the son
of Mary, clear arguments and strengthened him with the Holy Spirit” [Chapter
Two, Verse 87] – or Mary -- “And when
the Angels said: O Mary! Allah hath chosen thee, and made thee pure, and hath
preferred thee above (all) the women of creation.” [Chapter Three, Verse 42].
Your Holiness would surely note the difference
between these wordings and all that was penned about Jesus and Mary over time.
Your Holiness, as soon as you mention Jesus, a Muslim
would immediately and piously say “Issa, peace be upon him.” If you mentioned his
mother’s name, the Muslim would solemnly refer to “Maryam, peace be upon her.”
Lastly, Your Holiness is aware that Christianity
survived in this Levant, its
cradle for over 2000 years. It did so alongside other religions and spiritual
persuasions, the most important of which is Islam. And Islam is imbued with
some things Christian.
Muslims are akin to Christians in some aspects of
their tolerant religion. Otherwise, they would not have respected our presence
in their midst, even though their religion prescribes Da’wa or Islamic
missionary activity.
But they always believe in God’s mercy, which commits
them to be merciful towards God’s creation.
True, this has not always been the case. Equally
true, this has mostly been the case in the largest part of history.
Otherwise, how would one explain the continued
presence of Christianity in the Levant after the Crusades, which the Muslims
called the wars of the Franks
simply to avoid defaming the Cross?
And who protected Christianity and Christians after
the Franks were routed by Muslim armies that co-opted Christian fighters?
I tell Your Holiness in all frankness that the mutual
sense of belonging is what protected both sides.
Didn’t Syrian cities’ Christian welcome with open
arms their cousin Muslim forces as they strove to engage the Byzantine Church’s
Crusaders? And didn’t a Christian fighting in the Muslim army exclaim during
the Battle
of al-Qadisiyyah: “I swear by al-Kaaba
that I have slain Rustam.”
The Christian fighter was referring to the powerful
commander of the large Persian force confronting the Muslim army.
Today, innumerable attempts are being made to sever
this historic partnership.
The attempts are mounted by an assortment of
Christian and Muslim sides as well as by hardliners and fanatic institutions
and organizations that have espoused confessional views.
On the Muslim side, such views are formulated in the
most retarded and intransigent parts of the Islamic world. They don’t challenge
Christianity only, but primarily nonradical Islam.
In the Christian corner, there are extremist Churches
that perceive the Muslim as an enemy with whom they have been forced to live.
They don’t see him as a partner or kindred who shares the belief in God and His
mercy.
There are clergymen who consider themselves
combatants engaged in a belated battle that should have been settled a long
time ago. Today, these churchmen are the chief stokers of the fire engulfing the
two sides’ believers. The fire they are stoking is no different than the fire
stoked by foolhardy Muslims.
The problem is that these clerics are turning their
back on Your Holiness, perhaps without you knowing. They are waging their
battle under banners they claim are your own. They say you share their views
and you are part of a world hostile to Arabs and Muslims. They advocate a
ravaging confessional war that has had no place in our Levantine history. They wish
for an armed conflict to mirror the inter-Christian wars that once broke out in
Europe. They see themselves as fighting on Europe’s side and on the side of
Your Holiness and what you represent.
You have, Your Holiness, to restrain them and put
them in their place with unequivocal language.
You have to bring them back to their senses, reminding
them there is no, -- and will not be -- a Christian-Muslim war.
They have to be told that Christianity does not back
any war on anyone, especially not the war the Syrian regime is waging on its
people in the name of fighting terrorists. It is an open secret that the regime
has always embraced, nurtured and trained terrorists before making common cause
with them inside Syria and elsewhere on Arab and Muslim territory.
The Quran orders: “And slay not the life which Allah hath forbidden” [Chapter 17, Verse
33].
The Syrian regime’s warplanes are not killing the
enemies of Jesus Christ. They are bombing peaceful cities and villages without
possibly distinguishing between a terrorist and a child or woman or elderly or
youth. This means hundreds of unarmed and innocent civilians are probably
killed for every insurgent who took up arms in self-defense against the
regime’s oppression and blind violence.
The Syrian regime is not fighting a battle in defense
of Christianity to earn the sympathy of Christian Churches and clerics. It is
fighting to defend its tyranny, benefits and oppressive and abusive policies
while claiming to be secular.
In fact, the regime’s only religion is a cult of personality.
The regime is not fighting a battle to defend
Christians either. Christians are under no risk except from the foolishness of
some of its Churches and clerics. Such foolishness got them to the stage of
blessing and celebrating the killing of children, women and elderly people in
the false belief that they are party to a salvation war against terrorism and
extremism. They don’t see regime violence as being either terrorist or
extremist. It’s also as though a genocidal regime’s victory justifies sacrificing
the life of a single human being.
How could such Churches claim to be faithful to Jesus
of Nazareth, the greatest opponent of violence in human history?
Return the Church to its senses, Your Holiness.
Remind the Church that what
kept Christianity in the Levant after the Franks’ wars was the stand Christians
took in support of justice. Together with their Muslim cousins, Levantine
Christians faced up to submission. They cannot today tolerate regimes that are
incapable of ruling people seeking freedom and democracy without using
artillery, tanks and warplanes to suppress them.
The Levant’s Christianity is
in great danger, Your Holiness, not because it is threatened by Muslim
fundamentalism, but because it is manipulated by Christian fundamentalists and
a mentality adopted and practiced by some Christian churchmen. Their inhuman
and immoral policies and stances are a betrayal of Jesus of Nazareth.
The visit of Your Holiness
could mark a turning point in the history of Christianity and Islam. Don’t participate
or approve of the temples’ demolition over the heads of Arab Christians.
Stretch out your blessed hand to spare Arab Christians the follies of their
Churches and clerics.
