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The shifting fortunes of Middle East Christians / A Thread. Today @newlinesmag, we publish an essay by @aelghossain about #Lebanon's #Maronites. It serves as a lesson in understanding how minorities have both dominated and been dominated by others in ME 1/ https://newlinesmag.com/essays/maronite-christians-and-the-third-way/
This political aspect is very much a lived experience of minorities in the Middle East, but one too often missed. Religious minorities are not merely protected or persecuted; they are active participants in the region, both "rabid militants and accommodating moderates" 2/
You can see this in @shellykittleson's essay, highlighting the difficult relationship between #Kurds and #Arabs in eastern #Syria. Though a minority, Kurds sometimes dominate; there is a political tussle for power that goes beyond ethnicity and religion 3/ https://newlinesmag.com/reportage/the-changeling-of-deir-ez-zor/
As @aelghossain writes, “monks found their fortunes still depended on men who ran empires – and on a few acts of God”. In living among faith groups, the politics mattered at least as much as, perhaps more than, faith. This is especially so in #Lebanon's contested politics 4/
That is where I think the discussion on #Christianity in the Middle East too often misses the mark. Instead of seeing it as a contest of faith - of two rival faiths, with different doctrines - it is more illuminating to see it as a contest of politics 5/
Contrast Anthony writing of Muawiya, one Muslim commander, praying in the church of Golgotha in Jerusalem, with Mehmed II, 1,000 years later in @Nick_Ashdown's piece, walking into St Sophia and ordering it converted to a mosque. 6/ https://newlinesmag.com/essays/the-symbolism-of-imperial-power/
Muawiya was a politician. Kneeling in #Golgotha was a symbol of his respect for the faith, just like politicians visit other religious spaces. He knew that a few years earlier Sassanids had burned those churches. This is what a modern politician would do after a hate crime. 7/
Mehmed II wasn’t doing that; he arrived in the role of a conqueror. But even then, he wasn’t seeking to supplant a faith for the sake of it; he was seeking to shock his opponents beyond the battlefield and awe those he had conquered. Militaries in the modern world do the same 8/
That contrast is important to understand the intensely political history of religious minorities in the region. How entwined faith and politics are, not merely affected by other faiths in the region, but affecting them too. @aelghossain's piece is a vital part of that story 9/
