PROTECTION OF SYRIAN CHRISTIANS IS A JUSTIFICATION FOR A RUSSIAN MILITARY INTERVENTION

After the Imperial Orthodox Palestine Society in Russia announced
the establishment of a centre "for the protection of Christians"
in Moscow, the Russian Foreign Ministry announced in a statement
on Wednesday [16 October] that 50,000 Christian Syrians requested
Russian citizenship to protect them from "Western-backed terrorists."

On behalf of 50,000 assumed Christians, the statement charged that
these terrorists' aim is to "abolish the existence of Christians
using the most horrible means, including brutal killing of civilians."

The statement quoted these Christians as saying: "The request to
Russia for protection does not mean that we do not trust the Syrian
Army and our government. However, we fear a conspiracy by the West and
rancorous extremists who are waging a violent war against our country."

In light of the fact that modern Russia, which has not been known for
taking interest in any one's rights (including the rights of its own
citizens), how can we explain this extreme humanitarian concern for
the Christians in Syria?

This statement reminds us of the Orient issue when Russia and Western
states began an offensive to dismantle and divide the Ottoman Empire
among themselves. One of the historical moves during that period was
the Ottoman state's signing of a treaty with Russia in 1774 under which
the Ottoman state gave Russia the right to protect Orthodox Christians.

Afterward, the Ottoman Empire made concessions for more than 150 years
during which it lost its influence in Bulgaria, Armenia, Romania,
Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia-Hercegovina, Cyprus, and the Balkan states.

In addition, it gave Britain the right to take care of the Jews,
occupy Arab territories, establish the State of Israel, and achieve
what a British writer terms "a Peace to end all Peace."

The Russian Foreign Ministry's statement reduces the Syrian revolution
that broke out for political, social, and economic reasons to a war
launched by "takfiriyin" [those who hold other Muslims to be infidels]
against an impeccable "secular" regime.

Instead of talking about a conflict between Sunnis and Shi'is, a view
promoted by the supporters of the regime when the Iranian stand suits
them, the Russian Foreign Ministry feels more comfortable when it
talks about a conflict between Muslims and Christians. Thus, as is
observed in the statement, the Russian Foreign Ministry outdoes the
Western nations' "Christianism" and blackmails the Syrian regime in
its same favourite game.

It is obvious that this move has nothing to do with Christians,
Muslims, minorities, or majorities. Rather, it has to do with
intentions for a colonial political project where there will be no
need for a military accord or strategic alliances between the Syrian
regime and Russia. All what Russia needs is to have 50,000 Syrians
holding its citizenship in order to move its army to protect them
from the "takfiriyin."

Russia's long-standing claim that there is a permanent danger to the
Christians who reside in Arab countries is the use of religion for
a political objective. This also has been a claim promoted by the
leftist and rightist Western propaganda that uses it as a pretext to
call on the Arabs and Muslims to stop mixing religion and politics.

The involvement of an educated (or numerical) majority of Muslims
in this issue becomes a kind of harboured criminal move to pounce
on non-Muslims. It ignores the larger historical persecution of
the Christians of the Orient at the hands of the West's "crusader"
Christians. The Christians of the Orient suffered more persecution
at the hands of the West's Christians than they suffered at the hands
of their Muslim compatriots.

The most terrible manifestation of this Orientalist and imperial move
is the existence of Israel itself. Even though Israel is the biggest
force in the Middle East and has 200 nuclear warheads, it claims (as
a Jewish state) that it fears the dreadful Islamic countries around it.

This ill-intentioned statement about the protection of minorities hides
enormous contempt for tens of thousands of victims from that "majority"
that has no protectors at a time when the Syrian regime's forces kill,
slaughter, rape, torture, starve, and effectively annihilate people
not only from among that persecuted majority, but also everyone who
stands up against them, no matter to which sect he belongs.

The farce lies in the terrible exaggeration of the concern for
"minorities" at a time when the Syrian regime's killing machine
is busy eliminating those who stand against it as the sound of the
assumed concern drowns out the sound of knives and artillery guns
that kill people.

The lie of the distinction of the "minority", which Russia claims to
protect in Syria, from other "minorities" that the Syrian security and
military machine continues to repress in Syria's backyard (including
the Georgian Christians) exposes politics' despicableness, opportunism,
and contempt for people's dignities and rights.

Al-Quds al-Arabi [Arab Jerusalem], 

London, UK