Subj: Lebanon and Syria Conference

Dear Friends,

I am sending this from an Internet cafe in Beirut, so I hope the formating is a bit better than the last posting on Africa. For the last two weeks I have been in the Mideast to do some research and participate in a most interesting symposium and dialog on Islamic- Christian relations in the context of "September 11th" - i.e., the terrorist attacks on the United States.

The symposium, held in Beirut, Lebanon and Damascus, Syria, was sponsored by the Reconciliation Walk, a well-know Christian initiative that has sought to undo the legacy of the Crusades, as well as the Middle East Council of Churches, and the National Committee of Muslim/Christian Dialogue in Lebanon. The Syrian portion of the meeting was held in Damascus under the sponsorship of the Reconciliation Walk, the Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch and the Patriarchate of the Near East and Antioch.

While the larger subject of Christian-Muslim relations was often overwhelmed by the recent events in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, substantial progress was made in discussing Muslim-Christian relations in the wake of September 11th and the "war on terrorism."

Matthew Hand, Middle East director of the Reconciliation Walk, framed the issues in his opening paper, saying that "The question of violence in religion, and in particular the common notion among Christians in the West, that Islam is in essence a religion of violence" was of central concern.

Hand said that "This assertion has been stated outright as a fact, or raised as a suspicion, in virtually every article and public commentary on the events of September 11...Thus, while the president of the United States, and many Christian leaders have affirmed Islam as a religion of peace, it is clear that the vast majority of Western Christians, especially those who would describe themselves as evangelical in the United States, are still suspicious of Islam's fundamental nature, believing that Islam is not only intrinsically violent, but that it is essentially evil."

The symposium's Arab participants - both Christian and Muslim - underscored that this assessment is also understood and keenly and painfully felt in the Mideast. Participants in the symposium repeatedly expressed their hostility toward Osama bin Laden and his sympathizers as a tiny minority of Islamists that had in effect hijacked the religion of Islam through unilateral terrorism in the name of their religion.

One of the principal presenters at the symposium was Dr. Fawad Gerges, a Mideast specialist who teaches at Sarah Lawrence College in the U.S. and appears frequently as a commentator on ABC news in the Unites States. Gerges, a Lebanese native who has studied and taught in America for 25 years, gave some interesting insight from his well- informed perspective. Gerges said that since September 11th the U.S. has been profoundly changed, and that this has resulted in considerable fear and loathing of Islam by many Americans.

Moreover, Gerges said that this situation was reflected by a "reverse mirror image" in the Arab world, where there is deepening anti- American sentiment, not just among radical Islamists, but among the general population.

Citing a Gallup poll on Muslim/Arab and American attitudes since Sept. 11th (which polled people in nine predominantly Muslim Arab nations in December and January), Gerges noted that 69% of Arabs harbor deep resentments toward U.S. foreign policy, and that despite American efforts to make the case for the war on terrorism, 77% were against the U.S. war in Afghanistan.

Even more surprising, 72% of Arabs said that they did not believe that Muslims were behind the Sept. 11th attacks, often citing the widely held Mideastern theory that the Israelis were most likely the agents ultimately responsible. Gerges noted that Muslim antagonism toward the U.S. was principally due to American foreign policy and not based on cultural or religious issues, such as jealously of American prosperity or an anti-Christian bias. According to the Gallup poll, the two nations with the most positive attitude toward the United States were Lebanon and Turkey.

Religious Freedom in Lebanon and Syria

On a more positive note, I was pleasantly surprised by the existence of real religious freedom in both Lebanon and Syria, two predominantly Muslim nations with large Christian minorities. Lebanon deserves some special comment in this regard.

When Lebanon received her independence from France in 1943 (in the midst of WW II), there was a majority of mostly Maronite Catholic Christians in the country. Tensions between the Maronites and the three Muslim communities (Shiite, Sunni and Druze) eventually led to the prolonged and notorious Lebanese civil war (1975-91), which killed 150,000 and all but destroyed the most cosmopolitan and prosperous nation in the Middle East.

The civil war was a complex affair which was fought between Yasser Arafat's armed Palestinians, who were aided by some sympathetic Lebanese Muslims; both the Christians and Muslims formed private militias to further complicate matters. Since the war was formally ended a decade ago, the Lebanese have embarked on a tentative journey of healing and reconciliation, and have much to teach the world concerning religious tolerance and freedoms.

Most surprisingly, after the civil war, there has been a remarkable healing process between the Muslim and Christian communities, who have reintegrated to form a common Lebanese identity. This has resulted in a particular sensitivity to religious freedom issues.

Lebanon has 18 different religious communities or traditions - 13 of them Christian, from Catholic Maronites to various shades of Eastern Orthodoxy, Protestant denominations and the various Muslim traditions as well as a few adherents of east Asian religions. There is now religious freedom in almost every way, except for one important footnote - evangelical Protestants have been slightly marginalized and stigmatized due to the fact that they have been identified with Western - and particularly American - support for Israel. However, this issue appears to be on the way to resolution, as the symposium allowed an opportunity for the Lebanese evangelicals to be interviewed by the Shiite Hezbollah television network Al-Manar in Lebanon, in which these issues were discussed in a positive light.

In Syria, we found a similar situation, although under different political realities. Lebanon is a relatively free and democratic nation, while Syria (which still controls Lebanon militarily) is a tightly controlled secular state with a Muslim majority that has been dominated by the rule of the Assad family since 1971, with a very tight security service of some 15 different (and often competing)

branches.

Nonetheless, we found a remarkably tolerant and diverse religious life in Syria, one of the most ancient sites of Christian faith. Christians are said to comprise some 12-15% of the population, although accurate figures are all but impossible to come by. Syria's Christian minority is largely Eastern Orthodox (in its several different varieties) and has existed side-by side with Islam from the very beginnings of Islam in the 7th century - some scholars say that Muhammad's first encounters with the theological concept of monotheism occurred in Syria while he was a young caravan trader, when he entered into a dialog with two Christian monks.

It was interesting to discover that much of this tolerance between the Muslim and Orthodox Christian communities was the result of many centuries of living side-by-side and working out differences, and the fact that the Orthodox are not associated with the Medieval Crusades, which were carried out by the Latin (Catholic) Church from the 11-13th centuries. The historical legacy of the Crusades is still keenly felt by Muslims in the Mideast, as well as the eastern Orthodox Christians, who were often attacked by Crusader armies. The Great Schism of 1054, which separated Christendom into somewhat hostile Eastern and Western branches, occurred only 50 years before the First Crusade.

Finally, both the Muslim and Christian participants in Lebanon and Syria expressed great pleasure and appreciation that a delegation of Western Christians (comprised mostly of British and American citizens)

had come to the Mideast at such a volatile time to discuss such important matters. All who were involved felt it was a very hopeful and substantial first step in helping to resolve real misunderstandings between the West and the Arabs, before the situation escalates into a true "clash of civilizations." We hope to continue the dialogue in the future.

- Mark Albrecht

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