The Politics of Christian Minorities in the Middle East
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ANCIENT CROSSES AND TOWER-KEEPS: THE POLITICS OF CHRISTIAN MINORITIES IN THE MIDDLE EAST Paul Stanley Rowe Department of Political Science McGill University, Montreal July 2003 A Thesis submitted to McGill University in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy ©2003 Table of Contents Table of Contents List of Tables and Figures Abstract/Resume i Acknowledgements Chapter One - Religion, Politics, and Religious Minorities in the Arab World Chapter Two - Religion as Belief 3 Chapter Three - Theoretical Approaches 6 Chapter Four - Egypt: the Church as Mother 10 Chapter Five - Lebanon: Confrontation and Retreat 16 Chapter Six - Palestine: Embracing the Struggle 24 Chapter Seven - Conclusions: Ancient Crosses and Tower-Keeps 31 Bibliography 36 List of Tables and Figures Figure 1.1- Historic Origins of the Middle Eastern Churches 1 Figure 2.1— Conceiving Religion as a Political Variable: Common Versions 4 Figure 3.1- Causal Variables 7 Figure 3.2 - Niebuhr's Models and Orientations to Pluralism 7 Figure 3.3 - Classifying Emphasis on Voluntary Commitment by Orientation to Pluralism 8 Table 5.1- Attachment to Group Leaders by Sect in Lebanon 18 Table 5.2 - Level of Satisfaction with Group Membership 18 Table 5.3 - Attitudes to the Political Order 191- Figure 5.4 - The evolution of Christian-dominated groups in Lebanon 20 Figure 7.1 - Egypt: Causes and Outcomes 32 Figure 7.2 - Lebanon: Causes and Outcomes 32 Figure 7.3 - Palestine: Causes and Outcomes 32 in Ancient Crosses and Tower Keeps: the Politics of Christian Minorities in the Middle East Abstract The interplay of religion and politics has been a consistent theme in the comparative politics of identity, and more specifically with regard to Middle Eastern politics Yet coverage of religion and politics in the region is generally focused on the Muslim majority and neglects the existence and impact of non-Muslim religious elements in Middle Eastern societies. The most prominent of these are the various groups of Christian Arabs. This work begins with a reassessment of common comparative theoretical approaches to the study of religion and politics. It introduces a critical and dynamic constructivist approach to religion, defining it as belief'. Using belief the political environment, and relative demographics as a guide, it creates four general types of Christian groups as a means to understand Christian group activation. These types match up with three general modes of engagement with the outside political culture in Middle Eastern contexts: competitive-nationalistic systems, neo-millet systems, and secular non-sectarian systems. These analytical tools are applied to the political activity of Christian groups in three Middle Eastern polities: Egypt, Lebanon, and Palestine. In Egypt, a stable neo-millet system is the result of the dominance of a single deferential organization among Christians: the Coptic Orthodox Church. In Lebanon, years of competitive nationalistic politics have given way to an emergent neo-millet system as a result of the decline in identity-based nationalistic parties and the increasing prominence of the traditional Church hierarchy. Among Palestinians, nominalism, deference, and voluntaristic activism mix to create a neo-millet system with aspects of other systems of engagement. This study concludes that neo-millet systems are the natural outcome of a strongly identity-focused religious belief system among Arab Christians, one the author terms "tower-keep" theology. However, the dynamics of change fostered by new styles of belief, the challenges of responding to an eroding population base, and the influence of diaspora communities and coreligionists abroad all point to new systems of engagement to come in the future. IV Resume L'interaction de la religion et de la politique est un theme constant de la politique comparative de l'identite, particulierement en ce qui concerne la politique du Moyen- Orient. Cependant, le reportage sur la religion et la politique dans la region se concentre generalement sur la majorite musulmane et neglige l'existence et l'effet des elements religieux non-musulmans dans les societes du Moyen-Orient. Cette oeuvre commence avec un reexamen des facons theoriques et comparatives dont on a historiquement aborde l'etude de la religion et de la politique. On presente une facon d'examiner la religion qui est critique et dynamique, selon laquelle on definit la rehgion comme croyanoe. Ayant recours a la croyance, a renvironnement pohtique et aux demographies relatives comme guides, on etablit ici quatre types de groupes generaux qui nous permettent de comprendre 1'activation des groupes Chretiens. Ces groupes correspondent a trois moyens d'entrer en rapport avec la culture pohtique de l'exterieur au Moyen-Orient, les trois moyens etant: les systemes competitives-nationalistes, les systemes neo-millets et les systemes seculaires non-sectariens. On se serf de ces outils analytiques pour etudier 1'activite pohtique des groupes Chretiens de trois administrations politiques du Moyen-Orient: lTigypte, le Liban et la Palestine. En Egypte, la dominance d'une seule organisation Chretienne, HEglise orthodoxe copte, a donne naissance a un systeme stable du neo-milletisme. Au Liban, des annees de politiques competitives et nationalistes ont cede a un systeme neo-millet qui resulte de la declin des parties nationalistes basees sur l'identite, ajoutee a la prominence acroissante de lfiierarchie traditionelle de l'eglise. Parmi les Palestiniens, le nominalisme, la deference et 1'activisme benevole ont tout contribue a un systeme neo-millet qui comprend des aspects d'autres systemes d'interaction. Cette etude termine par conclure que les systemes neo-millets sont le resuhat naturel d*un systeme de croyances rehgjeuses qui sont fortement concentrees sur l'identite parmi les Chretiens arabes, ce que 1'auteur appelle une theologie de «donjon». Cependant, les dynamiques de change encouragees par de nouveaux styles de croyances, les defis de comment reagir a une base de population en diminution, ainsi que l'mfluence des communautes disapores et les corehgionnaires etrangeres indiquent tous que de nouveaux systemes d'interaction viendront a Favour. Acknowledgements I would like to thank the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) for the provision of a doctoral fellowship to pursue this research. Thank you also to Rex Brynen, my supervisor at McGill, who pored over several versions of each chapter and provided invaluable commentary. In the early stages, Professors Mark Brawley and Narendra Subramanian of McGill provided helpful comments with regard to my thesis proposal and direction. Field research was made much more effective through the helpful assistance of many friends and acquaintances. Among these were Bishop Thomas of Qusiya and his staff; Jeff Auty and Edmond Khoury of Eastwood College in Lebanon; as well as the Arab Baptist Theological Seminary in Mansourieh, Lebanon. I also appreciate the bibliographical and library assistance provided by St. George's Cathedral in Jerusalem and the library of the American University in Cairo. My friend and colleague Stacey Van Dyk was kind enough to read over drafts of this thesis and provide her input, in hopes of making it more accessible to a wider audience. Finally, my wife Andrea and many of my friends have provided all kinds of help throughout, from moral encouragement to simple discussions of the direction of this thesis. While each of these has been extremely helpful in my work, any deficiencies in the end result are of course my own. Chapter One - Religion, Politics, and Christian Minorities in the Arab World Religion and Middle East Politics In the past two decades there has been a surge of interest in the relationship between religion and politics generally and in the Middle East in particular. It would be fair to say that this interest was encouraged by the rise of religious groups as important substate actors and by the tragic events that have quickened the average person's interest in matters otherwise obscure. For example, the emergence of religious groups as central actors in the politics of Middle Eastern countries in the early 1980s prompted scholars and policymakers to take new notice of these societal and political actors. The apparent sudden appearance of radical Islamic groups throughout the region took many by surprise with their ferocity and their ability to mobilize public support. In Iran in 1979, a mass movement of the lower and middle classes, mobilized in the streets and bazaars and led most prominently by the Ayatollah Khomeini, was the first of a series of radical religious groups to bring new light to the topic. Soon afterward came the emergence of radical and terrorist groups claiming solidarity with the Palestinian cause and with Muslims around the world. To many eyes these groups forged an avenging force against Western cultural, military, and commercial imperialism. In the late 1980s, the continuing warfare in Afghanistan and Lebanon, among other places, provided incubators for these groups. To many in the west, these groups were synonymous with intolerance, violence, and terror. What is more, they were largely assumed to be expressions of the most fundamental tenets of Islam. The events of September 11, 2001, certainly another "date that will live in infamy", have only broadened and popularized the scope of this debate and made it more relevant and emotive. The involvement of radicals that claimed Islam as their justification for engaging in the most atrocious acts of terror has made the Middle East and religion a topic of daily concern on television sets, radio talk shows, and personal conversations world wide. The scholarly response to these developments over the past decades has been extensive and varied. Religion as a topic of concern in Middle Eastern politics has long been a central component of area specialization and forms a challenge to generalized scholarship of politics, history, sociology, and anthropology. Milton Esman wrote in the 1980s that The manifestations and expressions of ethnic politics in the Middle East are in most respects similar to those that have been observed throughout the Third World.