9 Sep 2013

Beirut’s Christians: a community in fear

Not everyone of course will speak openly. Even here in Beirut, they fear they may not be safe should President Obama act – apparently in defiance of world opinion as things stand.

Those from Beirut’s Christian community who will speak are damning about the prospect.

And they are convinced absolutely that US bombing is going to happen.

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Mazen Abboud, a researcher on Christianity in the Middle East speaks for many. He said: “Look at Iraq. Look what happened after the western involvement there. Now there are none there. Gone!”

He makes a sweeping gesture of despair and resignation – that the same thing is happening right now in Syria.

One word on everyone’s lips in Christian Beirut is Maaloula (pictured above).

Every twist and turn of the propaganda over what is happening in this ancient Christian settlement (and possible World Heritage site) is followed.

For Beiruti Christians, like Homs, like Aleppo, it is another pogrom upon Christian Syria perpetrated as they see it, by Sunni Muslim al-Qaeda fighters.

Of course in all this fear, there’s oversimplification of a deeply complex civil war.

Across town in front of a small Christian shrine, Vrej Ohanian meets us. An Armenian Christian from Aleppo, his parents remain over the border at home in the war zone.

“It must be the case,” he insists, “that the Americans want to fight with al-Qaeda.

“They want to push the Christians out of Syria. It is a policy,” claims this urbane, educated IT manager in fluent English.

It has come to something that such people passionately believe this is what is happening.

And they absolutely believe that airstrikes which look less likely by the day will, in fact, take place. They say congress will be won round.

Moreover, they fear this could rip apart Lebanon’s brittle atmosphere of commerce, bling and superficial tolerance in pursuit of money across mosque and church.

All that, in a city whose typical image is that of a flashy hoarding for Burberry, with glitzy malls and gin-palaces cruising the marinas, even as they still repair the shell damage from the long years of civil war.

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