Ecumenical News International, Switzerland
Sept 2 2006
Israeli bombs united Christians, Muslims in Lebanon, says envoy
Peter Kenny and Stephen Brown
Geneva (ENI). Lebanon’s minister of culture, Tarek Mitri, says the 34
days of fierce fighting between Israel and the Hezbollah movement
forged unity between the country’s Muslims and Christians, despite
many people questioning why the war started.
"Lebanon is still besieged," said Mitri, despite United Nations
Security Council Resolution 1701 passed on 12 August. "We hear every
day of new conditions that Israel is imposing," said Mitri saying its
southern neighbour was refusing lift a blockade it imposed in early
July. This began after Lebanon-based Hezbollah seized two Israeli
soldiers and Israel replied with a month-long bombardment.
The Lebanese minister was speaking to journalists on 2 September
during a meeting of the central committee, or main governing body, of
the Geneva-based World Council of Churches where he was responsible
for Christian-Muslim dialogue from 1991 to 2005.
"Lebanon thinks of itself as a society that is tolerant, pluralistic
and democratic," said Mitri, who represented his country as foreign
minister at the United Nations in New York in August, while the UN
Security Council resolution seeking a halt to fighting was being
hammered out.
Mitri said because he was dispatched to New York he was not able to
meet a WCC delegation that included a Roman Catholic bishop, which
travelled to Beirut, Jerusalem and Ramallah during the fighting. It
was under the leadership of the Rev. Jean-Arnold de Clermont, who is
also the president of the Conference of European Churches.
Earlier in the week, de Clermont reported back to the WCC leaders
about the visit. "The unanimous message we received in Lebanon from
both the non-Christians and Christians whom we met, that a
democratic, multicultural and multi-confessional Lebanon is not only
possible, but is needed to guarantee peace throughout the Middle
East," he said.
Addressing the WCC governing body, Mitri said the people of Lebanon
had drawn encouragement from the solidarity shown by groups like the
WCC.
"Some of you may have lived in areas that are besieged and the visit
of friends from different parts of the world is a gift from God,"
said Mitri appealing to the church grouping not only to help the flow
of humanitarian aid but also to pressure governments for the peace
process in the region to be resumed.
"Spare no effort as well to allow small countries such as Lebanon to
survive," urged Mitri, who is a scholar of Christian-Muslim relations
published in Arabic, French and English. "That means pressure on
Israel."
The first meeting in Geneva of the WCC’s main decision-making central
committee since it was elected in February in Brazil at a once every
seven year assembly, is paying special attention to the role that
churches can play in the Middle East.
And answering a question on how US denominations could help Lebanon,
Mitri said, "The American people in general and the churches in
particular have a real role in challenging the blanket demonisation
of people and religion in the name of the global war on terror."
Mitri noted at his press conference there had been a history of good
relations between Christians and Muslims since the end of a civil war
during the 1970s, but there had not always been good relations
between religious communities.
"It is not religious wars that have divided us, but wars that divided
religious communities," said Mitri who studied chemistry and
philosophy at the American University of Beirut and holds a social
science doctorate from the University of Paris-X.
Explaining the complexity of Lebanese politics, and the difficulty of
classifying religious identity, Mitri cited the fact that Hezbollah
has a parliamentary ally in Michel Aoun, a Christian Maronite general
during Lebanon’s 1970s civil war, who has the backing of many
Christians.
Mitri said of Aoun’s Free Patriotic Movement: "The movement is not
particular friends of ours [the current Lebanese government]." But
its alliance with Hezbollah had helped ease political tensions
between Muslims and Christians, he noted.
During the Israeli onslaught on Lebanon, Mitri said most of the
victims of the bombing of "150 000 homes" were Shiite Muslims. "Many
of them were welcomed in Christian houses and monasteries," he said,
noting that, "in a fractured society like ours this is always a
pleasant surprise."
:: Muslims and Muslim related groups make up almost 60 per cent of
Lebanon’s population. Shiite, Sunni, Druze, Isma’ilite, Alawite or
Nusayri are seen comprising this group. The 39 per cent of the
Lebanon population that is Christian is made up of Maronite
Catholics, Greek Orthodox, Melkite Catholics, Armenian Orthodox,
Syrian Catholics, Armenian Catholics, Syrian Orthodox, Roman
Catholics, Chaldeans, Assyrians, Copts, and Protestants. Other
religious groups are believed to account for just over 1.3 per cent
of its population.
:: Under Lebanon’s laws; the president is required to be a Maronite
Christian; the prime minister, a Sunni Muslim, and the speaker of the
Parliament, a Shiite Muslim.