Letter to a Christian from the East

Ralph Watchi,M.D. -This article was inspired from the reading of ?a letter to a Hindu? written by Leo Tolstoy.� The contents and ideas of the letter influenced Ghandi in his journey towards freeing India from the British occupation.It is believed that the percentage of Christians in the Middle East has dropped from 20 percent during the 20th century to 5 percent in the early 21th century.� The Western thinkers attribute the massive exodus of the Eastern Christians to radical Islam.� But some Eastern Christians believe that the greatest threat to their existence is the Western ideology interference in the Middle East.There are only ten millions of Christians in the Middle East distributed mainly in Irak, Egypt and Lebanon.� They grew up with their Muslim countrymen.� They share the same land, speak the same language, eat the same food, enjoy the same music,� share the same traditions and think alike in many aspects. But the music has stopped for the Iraqis Christians when the western powers, and for obscure reasons, invaded Irak in 2003.� Indeed, Iraqis perceived the US invasion as a Christian army invading a predominantly Muslim Irak.� These Muslim to whom violence was applied, arrived at a similar conclusion with regard to those who have employed violence to them.� And this thought process set up in motion a series of events leading to a disruption of the Christian-Muslim bond and to a rise in anti-Christians feelings where Iraqis Christians were being hunted, murdered and forced to flee the country.��The anti-Christians sentiments were not limited to Irak, but they also splashed into Egypt where Egyptian Copts were murdered by the ?Muslims Brotherhood?.� And more recently, 20 Christians Egyptians were killed inside a church during the New Year Eve 2011.But Egypt shares a common frontier with Israel and Palestine.� And ideas about how to solve the dispute between Israelis and the Palestinians are a major challenge.� Those ideas coming from French, British, and American leaders (most of them being western Christians) have been banging against one another.� And new ideas have been generated over the years.� Unfortunately, the supply of new ideas is drying up.� And the failure of the main broker, the USA, to turn the peace process between the Israelis and the Palestinians into a just and lasting peace is also perceived by the Muslim world as a conspiracy by the Christians from the West.� Lebanon is the only country in the Middle East where Christians still retain considerable amount of power.� Unfortunately, a group of Christian leaders who represent around 40% of the total Christians population in Lebanon are still working behind the scene with the Western powers to try to solve the internal Lebanese affairs.� But if the Western powers are still capable of enslaving this minority of Christian?s leaders, it is because the latter recognize violence and the use of force as a fundamental principle of social order.� Lebanon has witnessed the ?use of force? between different groups over the past thirty years.� And violence did not advance the Christians position in Lebanon.� Quite the contrary, violence has caused a massive exodus of the Christians.� By contrast, there are leaders who throughout history have used peaceful and non violent means to keep their country united, such as the actions of Ghandi during the British occupation of India, and Lech Walesa during the Soviet control of Poland.Why should an Eastern Christian kill a Muslim?� Why should a Muslim kill a Muslim?� Tolstoy said in ?a letter to a Hindu?-Why should we resist evil and participate in evil?� Why can?t we trade hatred expressed in violence with love expressed in self-suffering-� Tolstoy insists on the recognition of love as the highest morality-� The Western influences have created a more extremist environment in the Middle East over the past forty years.� They are focusing on religious differences to ignite civil unrest and wars between Christians and Muslims and between Sunni and Shiites within the Muslim religion.� They decide who should be subjected to violence to the benefit of others.� The Western Christians leaders are rooting out the Eastern Christians from the birthplace of Christianity. The Eastern Christians leaders should free themselves and struggle against the obscurity and intentional distortions of the Western foreign policy in the Middle East. They should learn to love, coexist and solve their differences with their Muslims countrymen and most importantly stay away from gun factories.�

Source: http://www.tayyar.org/Tayyar/News/PoliticalNews/en-US/Christian-mt-2492477480.htm

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