Christians in the Arab World
Beyond Role Syndrome
In this relatively short presentation, I hope to address the question of the Christian
presence in the Arab world. Rather than addressing this in a horizontal way, however, I opt
for a more provocative vertical approach that focuses on one aspect of the problem, namely
the issue of role, and analyzes it in depth. I am aware, however, that this aspect is
interwoven with several other aspects that I am not dealing with here, but would have to
be accounted for in a fuller evaluation of the prospects for a Christian future in the Arab
world. Consequently, my choosing a rather unilateral vertical approach is by no means
intended as a reductionist or dismissive interpreta- tion of the problems posed.
Arab Christians and the Ideology of Role
Over the past two decades, there has been a proliferation of scholarly literature, by
Christians as well as Muslims, emphasizing the role played by Christians within ArabIslamic civilization.1 This role is perceived not only in terms of the Christian contribu- tion
to the rise and blossoming of Islamic culture in the classical era but also with reference to
the major achievements of Christian scholars during the revival of Arabic science and
literature on the threshold of the 20th century known as al-Nahà a.2 The core of the Christian
contribution from the middle of the 19th century onwards is usually delineated along lines
of culture and politics. It is claimed that Christians have decisively shaped modern Arab
humanism and paved the way for the rise of Arab nationalism. On the whole, Christians are
thought to have been both intellectually and psychologically better equipped than were
Muslims to become the forerunners of the Arabic “renaissance” because they had no
reservations about adopting and propagating modern Western ideas and social models.
It is also well known that Christians in the Middle East today are extremely anxious about
their steadily diminishing numbers and feel threatened by an ascending Islamic
extremism.3 Whereas some attempt to downplay such feelings, stressing the capacity of
Christians to find their place in the future Arab world and to be useful as much for
themselves as well as for other Arabs, others acknowledge the legitimacy of the Chris- tian
anxiety yet tend to locate the problem in the more general framework of the political,
economic and cultural crisis of the Arab world.4
Bringing up the unique Christian role in Arab-Islamic civilization and praising how useful
Christians have often been for Arab culture, and thus for Muslims, displays a lot of
sympathy for Arab Christians. Yet it also smacks of being a latently ideological approach,
which we could refer to as “role ideology.” As an ideal-type, this ideology might be sketched
as follows: In order to survive, Arab Christians should prove to be profitable. Their
existence in the Arab world depends on their ability to play an advantageous role for their
neighborhood. Along these lines, Arab Christians would continuously feel impelled to
convince their Muslim counterparts that their existence is beneficial, and thus socially and
psychologically affordable.
Such a role ideology is not only how some Muslims conceive of the Christian pres- ence in
the Middle East, it can also be adopted by the Christians themselves. This is obviously a
more delicate phenomenon and by far more pernicious. For in this case, Christians not only
seek to prove their efficaciousness and productiveness to their Muslim neighbors, but
primarily to themselves. In the final analysis, they would derive not only their self-respect
but also their self-legitimization from a role they suppos- edly have played in the past and
continue to play today and in the future. When appropriated and internalized by Christians,
the role ideology might be termed a role syndrome. More often than not, multifaceted
Christian discourse betrays the existence of such a syndrome.
A role ideology might take several forms. The classical and most widespread form is to
affirm that Christians have functioned as a bridge between East and West,5 that they are
predestined to explain Islam to the West and Western values to the Muslims since they
share with the West, on the one hand, an allegedly Christian culture, or at least a common
belonging to the Christian faith, and on the other hand, they share with Muslims the same
language.
The role discourse is by no means exhausted by the bridge metaphor. It can also be present
in overemphasizing the cultural role played by the Christians shortly after the rise of Islam
or within the context of the modern Arabic revival, especially on the eve of the 20th century,
or in excessive stress on Christians’ pedagogical achievements from the first printing press
in the Middle East to today’s Christian universities in Lebanon and Palestine. In addition, a
recent variation on the role motif involves the claim that the existence of Arab Christians,
especially in Palestine, serves to show that the Middle East conflict is not a religious one
between Judaism and Islam but a national one between the state of Israel and the
Palestinian people.
Certainly, the very emphasis on the Christian achievements, past or present, need not be
blameworthy. Yet a discourse that presumes a real or fictional Christian role turns out to be
dangerous as soon as it is intended, interpreted or received as implying that Christians
must be productive and beneficial in order to have the right to live in the Middle East. In
other words, role discourse may suggest that Arab Christians deserve to exist there as long
as the Arab-Islamic culture takes advantage of them. Whenever they cease to be useful,
their presence in the Middle East would no longer be valuable, and it would be permissible
to get rid of them, or at least to tolerate them as superfluous social elements.
A further harmful consequence of the role syndrome depicted thus far is that a lot of
Christians exhibit an obvious tendency to answer the question about Christian identity in
the Arab world by resorting to role discourse. In other words, they seem to equate identity
and role, or to extract their identity from the actual or mythical role they allegedly have
played. The fatal implications of such an approach are only too obvious. For whenever the
Christian role fades – which undoubtedly is the case today when Christians no longer need
to be a bridge between East and West, because Muslims have ready access to Western
culture – then an identity crisis eventually emerges. This can be observed currently among
the Arab Christians. In final analysis, role ideology risks putting Arab Christians under
continuous pressure to prove their usefulness. It also appears as a symptom that Arabs,
both Christians and Muslims, have failed thus far to renounce. The value of the human
person is derived not from belonging to a social group which is psychologically urged to
play a certain role but rather from the very fact of being a person. Hence, in a way the role
ideology is reminiscent of those medieval times in which the Christians were “protected”
by the Muslim community according to the dhimma-system, which dealt with them not as
individuals with rights and duties, but as a collective entity.
Conclusion
The recent upheavals in the Arab world have been interpreted in different ways: as a bread
revolution, as an uprising for freedom and human rights or merely as the fruit of a
conspiracy engineered by the West in order to overthrow a number of regimes hostile to
U.S. politics. Be that as it may. It seems to me that the “Arab spring,” despite all sorts of
pullbacks, hesitations, and disappointments, provides Christians a chance to heal their role
syndrome and recover that spirit which marked the onset of the 20th century. Then they
advocated for several types of nationalism, hoping to overcome sectarianism and to
integrate religious identity within a broader framework of citizenship in a modern sense.
Far from seeking to rehabilitate the nationalisms of the past, as though the experiences of
more than a hundred years were insignificant and devoid of influence, Christians today are
invited to rediscover, along with Muslims, the value of genuine citizenship as well as how
indispensable it is for establishing modern and free Arab societies. Genuine citizenship not
only collides with communitarianism and whatever social structures we have inherited
from the Middle Ages. It also wards off anxiety, fear and all kinds of protective mechanisms
nourished by our current role syndromes.