ARAB SPRING/ Christians in the Middle East

As we contemplate the Arab Spring, it is evident that the repercussions of the disorder following the fall of the regime in most Arab countries and especially Egypt, has left the Christian minority in an increasingly vulnerable position. In part, this vulnerability is due to the fact that, in most Arab countries, Christians had to abide by the regime that gave them protection and some sort of equality.

Nowadays, we see images of violence and attacks against Christian communities and churches, and almost naturally we would like to associate those images with and blame them on the revolution. However, despite the state of public disorder and lack of control that the revolution caused, it is not the origin of these attacks. These attacks are not exclusive to this period of time. In fact the history of violence against Christians goes back before January 2011.

The source of these attacks is a strengthening of the voice of fundamentalism, which has always existed, an extremist vision that tends to perceive the Christians as an extension of the West and its evil. Moderate Muslims are scandalized and do not identify with these acts, but the truth is that
Christians are not and have never been in any “ideal” conditions under the falling regimes, and will probably not be in the period to come under any national council or different political force, no matter what faction will be ruling. In the past period, despite the fact that, from a political standpoint, Christians were subjected to the same undemocratic system as the rest of the population, from the social aspect, their position as part of the wider nation was weakened, as fundamentalist perceptions permeated many public circles and affected what seemed, only on the surface, to be a type of equality. For Christians, times are ever more turbulent: many of them have already left their homeland; others decided to stay and face the process of political and cultural change happening in their societies.

The complexity of the Christian existence in the Middle- East can be characterized by the terms survival, perseverance and presence.