April 1996, pgs. 29, 95

Christianity and the Middle East

Prayers For Peace in Bahrain

by Rev. L. Humphrey Walz

At the initiative of Provost Derek Taylor of St. Christopher's Anglican Cathedral in Bahrain, Protestant, Orthodox and Roman Catholic residents of that Gulf nation dedicated the first week of February to vigils in their churches and prayers in their homes for an end to the waves of vandalism, including destruction of property and loss of life, that have been disrupting the peace of the island state for over a year.

Ecumenical correspondent Roy Kletzman reports from the Bahraini capital of Manama that a homemade bomb explosion in the Royal Meridien Hotel there on Jan. 18 during an international oil conference triggered mass arrests of possible suspects. He cites the anti-government Bahrain Freedom Movement's claim that "any person who has delivered a speech or a sermon during recent months has been detained or taken to unknown locations."

The violence also has been blamed on foreign groups allegedly out to destabilize the government. Some news media in the region have specifically cited Iran as a major fomenter. Iranian officials deny the charge.

Amidst the related turmoil, the Christian 7 percent of Bahrain's mainly Muslim population of 570,000 has had uninterrupted good relations with members of the majority faith.

Armenian Church Leader Visits Iran

"The Islamic Republic of Iran, diplomatically isolated from the Western international community and from its Gulf neighbors, is a country where, according to Amnesty International, human rights are not respected." So stated Ecumenical News International's Bulletin for Feb. 13. In this judgment other responsible reports have tended to concur.

Catholicos (top-level ecclesiastical church official) Aram Keshishian of the Armenian Orthodox Church, the world's oldest continuing Christian body, was encouraged to check out that situation and report back to the World Council of Churches, of whose Central Committee he is moderator. He visited Iran, met with local members of his denomination there and talked with President Hashemi Rafsanjani and other government officials. His subsequent remarks to a press conference before leaving Iran have led skeptics to suggest efforts to have other church leaders seek to follow up with greater investigative scope.

Catholicos Keshishian expressed "satisfaction that the rights of our [Armenian Orthodox] community are respected. Even if there are some difficulties and expectations of minor importance, I am sure that they will be dealt with in an appropriate way by the authorities—I found in Iran a deep sensitivity and concern for the rights of minorities—I also noted a readiness to engage in serious dialogue with Christianity"

We await further enlightenment on the subject.

Peace Advocates Issue Rights Handbook

"This is an exciting time in the Middle East,a time of historical changes in the relations not only between states, but between governments and the people they govern. People throughout the region have rising expectations of humane and responsible leadership and increasing confidence in their own ability to change oppressive practices and un-representative governments. The demand for an end to human rights abuses has become an indigenous movement. Meanwhile, the U.S. government and Western governments in general have shifted their policy priorities from championing human rights to promoting market development."

Thus writes Director Corinne Whitlatch of Churches for Middle East Peace (CMEP) in the introduction to that body's new Middle East Human Rights Advocacy Handbook. The chapters that follow are almost encyclopedic in their authoritative coverage of varied aspects of the theme, yet are written in succinct and readable journalistic style.

Virginia Sherry of Human Rights Watch/Middle East produced its country-by-country report of politically motivated killings, torture, arbitrary arrests and denials of fair public trial, along with violations of freedom of expression, peaceful assembly and of association.

Dale Bishop's chapter on "Religious Freedom in the Middle East" spares no country in his account of violations. Neil Hicks sums up:

"Human rights advocacy in the Middle East remains a hazardous occupation. Prominent human rights advocates have been assassinated, "disappeared," or imprisoned. Human rights groups experience denial of the right to register as legal associations, restrictions on their access to official information, and blocking of their access to the local media.

"The voices of local advocates are now a major part of the debate on human rights."

"In the face of these obstacles, the energy and courage of local advocates provide ample evidence that the human rights idea has taken root among Middle Eastern peoples. The unelected authoritarian governments which rule in almost all the region's countries are making great efforts to suppress local human rights movements, but are finding it difficult to halt the momentum. The fax machine, satellite television and electronic mail confound the censor and facilitate the dissemination of information exposing the crimes of governments against their own people. The voices of local advocates are now a major part of the debate on the human rights situation in the region."

The rest of this little (56-page) paperback is rich in resources. Its summaries of human rights perspectives from the area's ancient and present religious traditions are by competent Christian, Jewish and Muslim scholars. Its counsel on how to get through to U.N. decision makers is realistic about limitations, demands and expectations. It sorts out approaches to the State Department's Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor. It notes USAID's declared but neglected goal of fostering human rights in the countries aided. It also revives hope in the value of alerting your senator or member of Congress on specific human rights cases but reminds us of citizen responsibility for initiative and supportive follow-through.

Its directory of pertinent periodicals is valuable. Its listings of concerned denominational and ecumenical offices in Washington and human rights organizations in the Middle East include addresses, phone and fax numbers and, in the U.S., the names of persons to contact in each instance. Subsidized by the U.S. Outreach Fund of the Middle East Institute and the Franciscan Province of the Immaculate Conception of New York, it is available at $1 plus $1.01 postage from CMEP, 221 Constitution Ave. NE, #21, Washington, DC 20002. Denominational book services also carry it.

Hanan Ashrawi's Palestine on Video

Human rights activist Hanan Ashrawi, her family and associates, reflect Palestinian character and culture at their harassed and hampered best. That all this could be conveyed in a single lively, entertaining, instructive, graphic and moving 50-minute video seems impossible. Yet British documentary filmmaker Mai Masri has done just that for Med Media which aired it in Europe, North Africa, Southwest Asia and the United Kingdom in December and January under the title "Hanan Ashrawi: A Woman of Her Time." The video now has just been made available in the USA as noted below.

Born into a patrician Ramallah family that considered privilege something to be shared, she is grateful that her father, a medical professional and a political liberationist, saw to it that his convictions on women's rights were fully enjoyed and shared by his wife and five daughters. An Orthodox Christian in a largely Christian Arab city, he sent Hanan and her sisters to the neighboring Quaker Girls' School. Among her remembrances is her father's arrest and imprisonment for resisting a government decree he considered unjust. She came to class the next day with embarrassed reluctance, but her teacher had her stand and receive applause for her father's courageous integrity. She went on to the American University of Beirut and the University of Virginia, but returned to the West Bank to become a professor at Bir Zeit University, dedicating her spare time, often her full time, to striving, with or without the Palestine Liberation Organization, to bring some semblance of fair play and consistent humane treatment to her people under Israeli domination.

We see her striving determinedly but unsuccessfully with an Israeli guard to allow an elderly Palestinian to take his wife past a checkpoint to the only hospital available,beyond the barrier, in Jerusalem. We watch helplessly as Israeli soldiers drag a Palestinian family out of its ancestral home which bulldozers proceed to level in preparation for yet another illegal Jewish settlement. We see Uzi-toting Israeli soldiers using truncheons to beat up the unarmed civilians, including empathetic Jews, carrying picket signs of protest against mistreatment of Palestinians. And we begin to understand some of what prompted the Jerusalem Christian Conference described by Grace Halsell and Rosemary Reuther elsewhere in this issue (pp. 10 and 121, respectively).

The film is available in video cassette form for $58 a copy, postage paid, in the USA from Americans for Middle East Understanding, Room 570, 475 Riverside Drive, New York, NY 10015-0241.

Ashrawi's memoir, This Side of Peace, highly recommended as an inside view of Middle East diplomacy, her people and her own life, is offered by the AET Book Club at $15 (see page 128).