Excerpts from The Monks of Tibhirine: Faith, Love, And Terror in Algeria by John W. Kiser; St Martin's Press Feb 2002.

The Monks of Tibhirine is the story of Christians willing to die serving a Muslim flock during the political nightmare that unfolds in Algeria during the 1990s. The decapitation of seven French Trappists kidnapped from their monastery in the village of Tibhirine provides the thread for this real life drama of sacrificial love-of Christians who put their lives at risk for their Muslim friends, and Muslims who risk death for Christians.

Based on a unique assemblage of intimate journals, interviews with survivors, family members and friends, this book about love and terror takes the reader inside the monastery to share the fears, the hopes and the faith of the men who live out their Christianity as they think Christ would have-with fraternal love towards all, without expectation of reward, and sharing the same risks of violent death as their Arab neighbors. The neighbors, in turn, recognize the monks as hospitable, sincere men of God, and call them " true Muslims ...."

Excerpt : the land, the men and their faith, politics

Chapter One: (The monks' funeral establishes the setting of the story)

>From a certain angle, the Basilica of Notre Dame d'Afrique looks like a

giant camel on its haunches, contemplating the Aleppo pine and eucalyptus covered hills that form an amphitheater around the port of Algiers. Its tall neck is formed by an elegant Byzantine tower connected to a large redbrick body trimmed with blue tile, surmounted by an enormous gilded cupola that for over a hundred years was a beacon for Christian Europe to come and civilize the land the Arabs called the maghreb-where the sun sets. The newcomers did their work well. French visitors sailing into the Bay of Algiers experienced a sense of homecoming and breathtaking beauty. Algiers was the Nice of North Africa, France's Mediterranean pearl with promenades along the sea, bustling cafes, elegant gardens with elegant women, and imperial architecture. La Grande Poste, la rue de la Republique, la place Delacroix provided a reassuring sense of familiarity. In the spring of 1996, Algiers, "la blanche," looked like a scabrous bag lady. Once admired for the brilliant snowiness of the white washed Casbah rising up the Sahel Hills, she now reeked of decay and failure with crumbling, pock marked buildings, ubiquitous stray cats and putrid, garbage filled streets. Churches that had been mosques before the French arrived were again mosques. Notre Dame d'Afrique is the last citadel of a Christian presence that measures itself in hundreds in a country of twenty nine million Muslims.

On Sunday afternoon, June 2, mourners had gathered on the steps to watch the seven coffins be carried into the basilica. There were simple fellaghs in white skullcaps, sun baked Algerian working men in ill fitting dress jackets and a scattering of European men and women. Each casket was covered with a blanket of red roses, supported by four sapeurs pompiers in the traditional dress of the French fireman: white spats, gray uniform with red stripes down the pants, topped by an oversized silver helmet of medieval proportions, polished to a mirror finish. Soldiers with Kalashnikovs patrolled the area around the basilica and kept watch from rooftops. Killing people who came to the funerals of their victims was a favorite tactic of the terrorists...

Chapter 6: (The monks are surrounded by Muslim villagers in the Atlas and employ their services both in the garden and as gatekeeper)

The monks had been advised not to hire Mohammed as le gardien. The responsibility of watchman, they were told, would put him in the awkward position of having to say "no" to friends. He might also be criticized by other Muslims for protecting foreigners. The monks did not regret having ignored the advice. For an Arab, the monks found Mohammed unusually candid. He knew how to say what was on his mind, but always with courtesy and sensitivity. To these good qualities were added a strong sense of responsibility and a diplomatic way of getting others to do things right.

Surveying the monastery and its neighbors from the summit, a few hundred yards higher, was another guardian, on top of Abd el-Kader Rock. She was the one to whom the monks sang Salve Regina each night at the end of Compline before going to bed. To the local Muslims, she was Lalla Mariam, the Virgin mother of Jesus who, by a miraculous birth, gave the world a holy apostle, free of sin.

Over the years, Muslim women from the surrounding villages had worn a path to her feet through the dense cork-oak forest to seek her aid and blessing for sick children or a safe pregnancy. Women having difficulty getting pregnant might well have thought that this particular Lalla Mariam had special powers. She was one of the few statues in existence that depicted her in a family way. Rarer still, both her arms were broken off at the elbow and her stomach had been gouged with a chisel.

When the attack first occurred, the monks felt as though their own mother had been violated...

Chapter 7: Revolution (Outbreak of riots in 1988 that killed over 500 people, including children, and eventually produced a new constitution which legalized a multiparty system; Ali Benhadj is a popular imam opposed to the military government which he accuses as being a government of " luxury, waste and self importance") ...

"Socialism, democracy, dictatorship," Ali would say later to his youthful audiences were "dung droppings in the garbage of the human spirit." "For Muslims", he wrote in the Islamist newspaper El Mounquid (The Holy Warrior)

a year after his release from prison, "liberty is constrained by the law of God, not by rights of others... rights change and liberty is an illusion that can be trampled by the state. True liberty comes from submission to God."

An Algerian Robespierre, Ali Benhadj was the virtuous one-a model of austerity, humility and incorruptibility to his admirers. He lived simply. Imam Ali didn't own a TV. He preferred a moped to a car. "You would never see him walking down the street with a pizza in his mouth," a youthful admirer proudly noted. Ali Ben Mohammed Benhadj Habib Ben Salah lived with his mother- in- law, wife and four children in a two- room apartment in the poor Kouba neighborhood of Algiers. Imam Ali was compassionate. He had time to sit on doorsteps and talk with the poor. Even if he could do nothing for them, he made them feel better.

In February of 1989, four months after the government's meeting with the imams, a new constitution was adopted that swept away the political monopoly held by the FLN since 1962. It introduced rights unknown for twenty seven years. Freedom of expression and assembly, freedom of conscience, the right to form independent unions and to strike were explicitly granted for the first time since independence. An Algerian perestroika was born.

But was this real change, or just an old whore in a new dress? Many wondered. Le pouvoir was clever, especially when it came to keeping power over the flow of oil money. Weren't the diverse political currents inside the FLN simply being exteriorized? And wouldn't a democratic looking government that had to beat down, if necessary with undemocratic means, a theocratic, backward looking Islamist movement that frightened westerners with its anti modern ways and rhetoric be more easily tolerated than continued single party dictatorship?

Chapter Nine: (concern about growing violence begins to affect the liturgy. The prior of the monastery, Christian de Cherge, wants to omit references to hatred and enemies of the Lord.)

Hatred and violence in the psalms was becoming a sensitive subject at the weekly meetings of the liturgy committee. They knew that references to Israel and the "enemies of the Lord " found in the psalms were being omitted from the liturgy by certain of the priests in Algiers anxious not to offend Muslims. "They speak against you wickedly; Your enemies take your name in vain... Do I not loathe those who rise up against you? I hate them with perfect hatred, I count them my enemies..." Psalm 139 could give the wrong idea. Would Muslims think the enemies of the Lord meant them?

Christian understood perfectly well the importance of the violence in the psalms. He called them a cry that says, "God be just, so I don't take justice into my own hands. I know I can't be just when I am angry." The psalms reminded him of the violence in himself, something he believed was at the core of every person. Nevertheless, Christian thought it was insensitive to be singing psalms of violence when violence was increasing all around them.

The brothers were in agreement. Christian was being too sensitive. The liturgy was built around the psalms. They were an ancient patrimony handed down from the desert fathers who sang the very same psalms centuries ago.... If certain verses offended, they could be explained. It is clearly written in the Koran that God gave the psalms to David. A greater problem for the brothers was the way they sang to the Lord.

Seven times a day, the monks make love with their hearts, their souls and, above all, with their voices. Theirs is a physical love of harmonic vibration, of notes and chords, a longing, romantic love of the troubadour for the inaccessible woman of his heart. Like a cherished love letter, the words of the liturgy are inhaled like fine mist into the depths of their being. And the word is made flesh. Their love is individual, but singing that love together unites them as a community in God.

Since Christian's appointment of Celestin as cantor, singing God's praises had become as much a source of discord as unity. Within the committee, Christophe was officially responsible for the liturgy, but Celestin, with his better ear and musical knowledge, was in charge of the singing. Christophe had been a monk for seventeen years. He knew how monks were supposed to sing. Celestin sang like Celestin. He sang too high. He stood out. Monks are supposed to sing in a measured, Gregorian monotone, together, and with a passion that burns like a steady flame. . ..

Chapter 12: (The monks have just experienced the intrusion of six terrorists on Christmas Eve 1993. They are terrified that they would return with demands which would force them into complicity. Their bishop pays a visit to dissuade them from leaving)

Bishop Teissier arrived three days later to discuss the situation. Christian had phoned him about the community's vote to leave for a safer place, at least temporarily. Of the four bishops in Algeria, the bishop of the diocese of Algiers was primus inter pares, and recognized by Muslims and Christians alike as the head of the Church in Algeria. Teissier was worried about the impact a sudden departure could have on the remaining Christian community.

Henri Teissier had been bishop of Algiers since 1981 when Duval became archbishop. He had come from Aix en Provence and spoke fluent classical Arabic. Anywhere else, Teissier could have been taken for a banker or insurance salesman. Sitting in the chapter room wearing his gray business suit and tie, he spoke quietly and soberly, saying he needed time to explain the situation to the rest of the Christian community. The monks were too well known throughout the country. If they fled without warning, it might cause the remaining Christians to panic. He wondered about the effect on their neighbors in the village... the ties they had created with them, their good opinion of the monks. Could they just leave them all of a sudden? Poverty, yes, that too has different forms. Wouldn't it be a poor showing indeed to leave, but with a little life boat in Algiers or Fez when the neighbors have none? What kind of a lesson in poverty is that..... to be poor only as long as it's convenient to be poor? he wondered out loud. If they definitely wanted to leave, Teissier wished that it be gradual.

Christian asked his brothers to reflect on what they had heard the bishop say, and reach a decision according to what gave them the most peace. Each was to meet privately with him that evening to tell him the decision before reconvening in the chapter room the next morning. As each brother came to visit Christian after Compline, they all had a similar response. " I am not at peace with the decision to leave."

http://www.monksoftibhirine.com/excerpts.htm