Note by Transnotitia: In this interview conducted by Raheel Dandash in 2014, Dr. George Corm, a Lebanese Maronite economist and historian, lays out his views on a number of thorny, controversial issues. Topics addressed include class conflict, nation-building in the Middle East, and triangulated Abrahamic conflict. It is always interesting for us Westerners to hear a political commentary on the conflict in the Middle East by someone who’s actually from the Middle East, and not just some random Westerner posing as an expert from the decadent urban jungle he lives in.
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Raheel Dandash: To what extent did Arab Christians participate in the development of the modern Arab state’s structure, that is, compared to their contributions in the 19th century, when the avant-garde of the Arab Renaissance movement was mainly Christian?
Dr. George Corm: First, I must interject here and correct an all-too-common misconception, the main promoters of which happen to be some of the great Arab intellectuals, such as Hisham Sharabi – may he rest in peace – who wrote about a Christian/Muslim divide. He argued that Christians, because they were Christians, were most enthusiastic about importing Western and European enlightenment ideals, whereas Muslims stood as a barrier against such efforts at revitalizing the Arab intellectual scene. This idea is contrary to historical facts, for many Christians took a traditionalist stand no different than their Muslim brethren. Both groups believed that its members, as mashriqiyyin (From Mashriq-Arabi), could not import everything from the West, and especially not its materialist worldview and endless pursuit of property and money. Both groups held that the East should, instead, preserve its spiritual roots, traditions, and ways of life.
Furthermore, the more radical adopters of European, post-French Revolution, liberal ideas were the sheikhs of Al-Azhar, headed by Refa’a Rafi al-Tahtawi, Mohammad Abdu, Ahmed Amin, and Ali Abdul Razek, who authored the famous book “Islam and the Origins of Governance”; at the same time, Christians, we are told, did not criticize Islamic institutions, because did they not want to hurt the feelings of Muslims. As a result, we’re told to always refute the idea that the Arab Renaissance was a Christian achievement. Such claims are usually put forth by Westerners, and carry within them the seeds of sectarian divisions, which is what makes them such a dangerous misconception.
Raheel Dandash: What I was asking was whether they had a more prominent role in the movement, considering the many factors that could have made it easier for them (Levantine Christians) to play an important role.
Dr. George Corm: Although Arab Christians played a prominent role, the Muslim role is equally important. It is inaccurate to say that Christians played a dominant role in triggering the Arab Renaissance. They were not the avant-garde. Tahtawi’s book appeared in 1826; in contrast, we did not see any Christian writings until the late 19th, early 20th centuries. Unfortunately, we have been brainwashed by the West to believe that the Arab Renaissance was neither authentic nor an organic outgrowth of the times and peoples, seeing that is was mainly a Christian endeavor. I must insist that this idea is contrary to actual historical facts.
Raheel Dandash: How do you explain the plethora of missionary work undertaken in the 19th century, the privileges that Christians received, their openness to the West at that stage, and the role of all this in bringing about the Arab Renaissance?
Dr. George Corm: The openness of Muslims was no less important or critical, as evidenced by the first Egyptian educational mission to France in 1826, led by Refa’a Rafi al-Tahtawi. The great Lebanese thinker Khaled Ziadeh wrote two wonderful books that explain how Muslims interacted with the French Revolution and how the French Revolution affected the Muslim mind. I am amazed not only by the extent to which we’ve readily accepted Western ideas and histrionics about ourselves, but also by the extent to which these ideas have been enshrined in the minds of people. This was part of the Arab internal reactionary campaign, whose primary purpose was to shatter the possibility of an open and enlightened Islam, to preserve our backwardness and promote a political system through which tyrants can control the culture and livelihood of ordinary people. Today, we are witnessing the culmination of this war on the idea of a liberal (deriving from Liberty not liberalism) Arabism, be it Muslim, Christian, Druze, etc. Thus, we must pay special attention whenever one echoes or parrots the same slogans as Western academies. I’ve attended so many lectures and read so many books claiming that the Arab Socialist parties were the intellectual fruit of the minorities, where in fact the Arab Baath party attracted millions of Muslims, and the same thing can be said about the Communist parties as well as the Arab nationalist movement. This idea is very offensive, and unfortunately, we are completely falling for it, to such an extent that the works of Sayyid Qutb and Ibn Taymiyyah seem to have become the core of Islamic religious belief. This is part of the conspiracy against Arabs.
Raheel Dandash: Christians in the Middle East, especially after the Arab Spring, are barely hanging on in Iraq, Egypt, Syria, etc.
Dr. George Corm: Muslims do not live better than Christians. If we take the daily situation in Iraq, for example, there are bombings targeting Shi’as in their Husayniyat and other places where they congregate. The problem is that the demographic reserve of Christians is much smaller and has been decreasing for decades now, one reason for which being the fact that dictatorships pushed many Christians to emigrate from Syria and Iraq. If we take the Lebanese situation, for instance, ever since the nineteenth century, Europeans have been igniting sectarian conflagrations which have led Christians to emigrate. Following the collapse of the Ottoman Sultanate, a great many Christian people migrated, many of whom were Greek and Armenian. Thank God that part of the Armenian population chose to settle in Arab countries – Syria and Lebanon in particular. Armenians blended and integrated quite wonderfully with the Arab milieu, and today are committed to their respective Arab states and to coexistence. Therefore, we must bear in mind the full picture: it is true, of course, that the sedition we’re witnessing in the Arab world primarily targets the demographically-weaker elements; yet today, Muslims share the same impulses that have carried Christian migrants to foreign shores. Networks of Muslim families from Australia, Canada, Europe and the Arabian Gulf are attracting evermore members of their extended families from the region’s battlefields.
Raheel Dandash: We should note that under the dictatorial regimes and the rule of Arab nationalists, where Arab identity prevailed over other identities, Christians lived rather harmoniously, for the most part, and were well integrated into their societies. What changed? Why was the situation of Christians under dictatorships better than it is now? Is it because totalitarian Arab regimes can structurally protect the rights of Christians?
Dr. George Corm: We cannot divide our communities along sharp Muslim/Christian lines, for that would neither be a healthy nor correct approach. Today, Muslims and Christians alike live in a state of sedition. As I’ve already mentioned, since the demographic stock of the Christian element is small, it is more afraid to emigrate. Yet it dreams of emigrating as much as the today’s Muslim element. I remember when, a few years ago, a research institute polled a sample of the Arab youth and found that 52% of them wished to emigrate. Christians are not the only problem here.
Raheel Dandash: But, the media talks of Christian apprehension and frustration stemming from the fact that they have suffered most.
Dr. George Corm: Are Muslims not worried or apprehensive as well? If you were a Sunni Iraqi or Shi’a, wouldn’t you be worried too?
Raheel Dandash: Minorities are more worried, no?
Dr. George Corm: Is the Sunni element in Iraq comfortable? Sectarian crises and strife stem from a certain ‘colonialism of the mind’.
Raheel Dandash: What was the reason for the Pope’s latest visit to the Middle East? Did he visit because the Christian presence is threatened? How do you frame the visit?
Dr. George Corm: We must not forget that Palestine, the Arab world and Antioch is the cradle of Christianity. It is thus natural for the Pope to come to this region, and many a Pope before him did in fact visit the region. We forget the basics, which proves that we’re culturally and intellectually brainwashed.
Raheel Dandash: But difficult circumstances mentioned by the Apostolic Exhortation ultimately prompted the Pope’s visit, right?
Dr. George Corm: As a human being, I cannot analyze things with a sectarian lens; objective political and socio-economic factors lead to sedition, and the current upheavals hit the majority as much as the minorities. I don’t even use the terms “majorities” and “minorities”, given that they’re imported from Western literature. Yes, if there’s a majority in the house of representative, if political parties have a majority and/or a minority of seats, then we can say there’s a majority and minority in politics. That said, it’s not about minorities, but rather about whether we want to preserve the religious pluralism of the Mashriq.
Raheel Dandash: We saw how it doesn’t matter whether the Syncretic movements are nationalist, Marxist or Islamic: in hindsight, they gave impetus to the rise of the issue of minorities. How should a discourse be formulated in a way that unites the various communities yet also retains their religious specificities?
Dr. George Corm: The discourse must integrate and unite, especially since We the people of the Mashriq – and not Middle Easterners – belong, going back to ancient times, from the days of paganism and even after the emergence of Christianity and Islam, to religiously plural societies. I’ve analyzed the jurisprudence of the issue of Muslim/non-Muslim relations in my PHD thesis. The Quranic text is crystal clear; the noble Prophet’s message is a message to all mankind: “O men! Behold, We have created you all out of a male and a female, and have made you into nations and tribes, so that you might come to know one another.” The Quranic text also protects the people of the Book, and the Dhimma system was effective in its own time. However, if we were to compare the Dhimma system with contemporary democratic political theories, then we can naturally conclude that the former has run its course. During the European Middle Ages, there were mass persecutions and expulsions of any non-Catholic element; both Muslims and Jews suffered. The Islamic caliphate holds both Jewish and Christian elements as part of the social and intellectual life of the larger community.
Raheel Dandash: You have pointed out that the Dhimma system is now passé, does that mean that it is no longer in force today?
Dr. George Corm: If we take the example of Syria and Iraq, the answer is yes.
Raheel Dandash: But are those countries secular?
Dr. George Corm: The Copts in Egypt do face certain problems despite the civil or secular state, but I attribute these problems to poverty rather than to a sort of racism against Egyptian Copts by Egyptian Muslims. We should note that problems/clashes– and I’m not necessarily talking about the latest events – happen in poor rural areas, where resources are scarce and people are anxious to secure their daily bread, leaving the door open to fanatics who add fuel to the fire, leading to riots and Coptic property being seized or burned.
Raheel Dandash: Why? Are they richer?
Dr. George Corm: They’re not rich. Whatever occurs is confined to the poor of Egypt, who tear at each other’s throats. Even in the Lebanese war, the motives for expelling Christians from certain villages, for example, or expelling Shi’as, boil down to the resource scarcity. I’ve kept a close eye on this topic during the civil war. Today, I urge us all to consider economic and social factors, or else our analyses will lead to racism and sectarianism. History – our history – is one of coexistence. This idea also applies to Arab/Kurdish relations in the Mashreq, and Arab/Amazigh (Berber) relations in the Maghreb.
Raheel Dandash: You mentioned the nationalist era, saying that the nationalist discourse did not contribute to the emergence of the issue of minorities. But others say the opposite: namely, that a nationalist discourse and oppressive state practices led to the emergence of this issue.
Dr. George Corm: During the era of Arab nationalism, although there were indeed dictatorial regimes, no Islamic discourse provoked non-Muslim or non-Sunni Muslim people in the region. Christian communities were integrated into the discourse. On the other hand, Amazigh and Kurdish elements felt a bit estranged, due to linguistic barriers.
Raheel Dandash: What about the Muslim Brotherhood?
Dr. George Corm: The Muslim Brotherhood’s oppression is largely exaggerated. The historical narrative largely overlooks the persecution of the communist parties. More than half of the generation from the 1950s and 1960s favored Socialism and Marxism.
Raheel Dandash: What I mean is that the marginalization of religious thought is what led to feelings of persecution, thereby causing the emergence of a well-known narrative according to which the majority is oppressed.
Dr. George Corm: Sorry but this narrative is a Western Orientalist discourse currently being adopted by Takfiris and other hardline religious movements. Sayyid Qutb and other Muslim Brotherhood members were imprisoned and eventually executed due to their political struggle with the state. Many secularists were imprisoned and killed in their prison cells.
Raheel Dandash: But they’re a large, politically-excluded group…
Dr. George Corm: Why the selective memory? Others were excluded as well… The most important party in Sudan was the Communist Party, which was ruthlessly nipped in the bud. To avenge their persecution, Communists attempted a coup. We must put what happened in its proper historical and geopolitical context. I mean, back then, the United States, together with Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, were prepping and training the Arab and Muslim youth of different nationalities in Pakistan for jihad in Afghanistan. The war for liberation had become a war against Atheism, and this mutation marked a dangerous ideological turn. Suddenly, we had an army of Takfiris, an international squad, working on behalf of American imperialism. We saw it happen. A part of these Jihadi networks was deployed in the Balkans, which helped dismantle Yugoslavia and contributed to the emergence of an Islamic state in Bosnia. They also fought in Chechnya, in the Philippines, and now, in Syria and Iraq.
We are indoctrinated by mass media to think in terms of sectarian paradigms, and the big onus is on the media and education institutions, especially universities. Whenever a student wants to do a doctoral degree in Arab universities, for instance, he is unfortunately given a topic on his own sectarian roots, which is something I strongly protest.
Raheel Dandash: Certain foreign actors are fueling sedition in minorities as a trump card – a rather inexpensive one – and as a way to promote certain interests. Do you think minorities are aware of the underhanded game they’re being used in? How will they react to it, considering the circumstances they’re in and the fact that their very existence in the region is under threat?
Dr. George Corm: If we react or act as Christians, then we’ll inevitably lose the battle. The same idea applies to the Shi’a. In fact, it would only help fuel sectarian and civil strife. A reaction must thus be based on universally accepted humanitarian principles, namely, the idea of a return to the noble message of the Prophet and the message of Christ. This message renounces sectarianism (tribalism), viewing it as an essentially anti-religious impulse. Such is the only way forward, realistically, for the people of the region. Let’s now turn to the “assumed” peculiarities and identities of different religious and sectarian groups. We must note that, once we adopt this discourse, we immediately fall into Israeli and Western colonial hands, into “divide and rule” politics. The sectarian discourse started when the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), headed by Yasser Arafat, was headquartered in Beirut. Back then, there was a rift with the Syrian regime, so the Syrian army began pouring into Lebanon and the PLO attacked Hafez al-Assad, saying the regime was an Alawite client state, thus providing Israel with the greatest favor one could ever offer. I wrote an article a while ago on the “Zionization of the Arab mind”, in which I explained that the Zionist logic of exclusion seeped into the minds of some of our leaders, though not all of them.
Raheel Dandash: Was the Nationalist discourse so fragile/shallow that it was easily finished off, allowing religious discourses to supplant it?
Dr. George Corm: This is a false, illusory image. When was the nationalist discourse fragile/shallow?
Raheel Dandash: If it was so real and had such deep roots, why did it end so easily?
Dr. George Corm: We must go back and consider the geopolitical environment, the rise of Saudi Arabia and the petro-dollar, as well as the Iranian Revolution, which, lest we forget, was as much led by secularists as clerics, until the secular elements were suppressed and the Iranian regime became ‘Islamist’. The Iranian Revolution took all the anti-imperialist literature and gave it an Islamic slant, which is one of the secrets behind the Iranian regime’s success. At the same time, it managed to create a religious atmosphere in the region. Saudi Arabia was then obliged to legitimize its Islamic credence by putting forward its own Islamic project. Now, due to their financial strength, both Iran and Saudi Arabia were able to buy out the media and invest in projects across the Arab and Muslim world. As a result, the Wahabi sect became the dominant force in Sunni Islam, while on the Shi’a side, the Wilayat al-Faqih doctrine won over a larger audience. The entire region was caught in the pincer-like movement of two religious groups seeking to destroy/neglect the entire heritage of the Arab Renaissance, as well as the memory of the great heritage that was the Islamic civilization of the Abbasid era.
Unfortunately, Arabs have forgotten important chunks of their history. Why and how were Arabs, Iranians and other nationalities able to attain such heights in the history of mankind and civilizations? Because Islam was at the height of its openness; religious freedom did in fact exist, as illustrated by a certain pluralism of sects. So, why the memory hole? Why don’t we study this era, and why doesn’t it play a bigger role in the collective unconsciousness?
Raheel Dandash: Given the growing national, ethnic and sectarian tensions in the Arab world, some believe that the Arabs have only two options: separatism (that is, dismantling the current borders and creating small cantons along sectarian and ethnic lines), or, alternatively, creating a new, democratic political and civil contract based on individual liberties. Which option is more likely to happen, in your opinion?
Dr. George Corm: Muslims, Christians, Sunnis, Shi’as and Druze coexisted in the region for 1,300 years. What led the social fabric to collapse? Here, I must recall how nineteenth-century European powers planned to dismantle the Ottoman Empire by meddling in its internal affairs. The great massacres of Greek and Armenian populations occurred during the dismantlement of the Ottoman Empire, a colossal event which left a lasting mark on the collective consciousness and unconsciousness of the Christian community. That said, the Arab element’s openness and univeralism makes it quite different from the Turkish element. In Mount Lebanon, for instance, there were no massacres between Muslims and Christians. Massacres began when France and England intervened, prior to the colonial era. During the feudalist period, peasants of different sects belonged to the same feudal lord, with the exception, that is, of intermittent battles for water resources and land. We should note that, during the Crusades, which lasted for 250 years in the region, there were massacres against Christians, while on the other hand Muslim conquests were not characterized by these massacres. The sort of Takfiri Islam we see today is not a religion, it is an outright political beast. And if you cannot approach things from what I call the secular/earthly perspective, then you won’t understand anything, and you’ll become the victim of the West’s colonialism of the mind. So, when I tell you that I’m a proponent of secularization, it’s not because I love the West. Let us assume for a moment that there weren’t any Christians in the region. What political organization could bring together the Shi’a and Sunni sects? If we cannot remove religious and sectarian loyalties from politics, then we’ll inevitably remain stuck in a continuous civil war.
Raheel Dandash: If separatism is an unrealistic option, then what can we say about Sudan?
Dr. George Corm: Two different peoples were forced into an unnatural arrangement: North Sudan is Arabized, unlike the South. Plus, there are religious differences: South Sudan is Christian and Pagan. The central Sudanese authorities abused their powers when they enforced Sharia law on everyone. As a result, the South naturally demanded their independence. As for Lebanon, Syria, Palestine, and Iraq, we share the same language, traditions, religions and history.
[Translator’s note: This interview was published in early 2014, since then it’s become quite clear that separatism has hardly solved South Sudan’s problems: (https://www.cfr.org/interactive/global-conflict-tracker/conflict/civil-war-south-sudan )]
Raheel Dandash: In your opinion, does separatism become an applicable option wherever Islamic law is enforced?
Dr. George Corm: Christians cannot advocate for such an option. Take Syria, for instance: separatism is pretty much impossible over there because its populations are so geographically entangled. Yes, the country is currently carved into zones of influence; Russia obviously wields a great deal of influence West of the Euphrates and the seacoast; Turkish Kurds in Iraq’s Kurdistan region do too; and there are areas where Sunni Takfiri groups hold sway on behalf of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey. However, it’s simply impossible to view these areas as separate states. I mean, the Israelis spent a year trying to divide Lebanon into smaller sectarian cantons, but to no avail…
Raheel Dandash: What is your take on intra Islamic-Christian dialogue conferences? To what extent do you think it addressed the problems of Christians in the Mashriq?
Dr. George Corm: This also has no meaning due to our state of intellectual dependency: we are falling for Western philosophical concepts and ideas. What does an Islamic-Christian dialogue mean? After coexisting for thirteen centuries, are we only now starting to want to establish a dialogue? The problem is not religious, but political in nature. The largest Christian force in Lebanon today, for example, has allied itself with Hezbollah. So, remind me again why we need a Christian-Muslim dialogue?
Analyzing secular/earthly issues through the lens of religious loyalties and sectarian perspectives is something that the colonial powers used to further their “Divide and rule” strategy. When the French landed in Algeria and Morocco, they immediately worked to accentuate differences between the Amazigh (Berber) and Arab populations, while in Syria and Lebanon, they worked hard to create rifts between the different “creeds”. Yes, I prefer to use the word “creed” instead of “majority” and “minority” …
Raheel Dandash: In your opinion, was the Ottoman millet system a safeguard against the extinction of Christian rights?
Dr. George Corm: In my doctoral thesis I argue that the Ottoman millet system was a good system in its day, given what had happened during the ancient Jewish era, when biblical accounts narrated the war of annihilation of non-Jewish elements, like what’s happening today in Israel or even like what happened in Europe during medieval times, when Christians did not tolerate Muslim or Jewish existence within their midst. But Muslims, especially Arab Muslims, ignore their past. We should remember that the Arabs were the most lenient. The religious extremism we see today comes from Indian Muslims, particularly Pakistan. Even Sayyid Qutb was influenced by a Pakistani called Maududi. We Arabs are easygoing and simple: for us, Islam means leniency, mercy and tolerance.
Raheel Dandash: What are your thoughts on the Islamist project? Can it guarantee the rights of Christians in the East, or did it increase Christian fears of political Islam?
Dr. George Corm: It doesn’t guarantee the rights of anybody, not even those of women. Talking about it is a waste of time, but we must come up with a viable alternative, as we have a poor populace that is easily brainwashed by Wahabists, with no alternative in sight. People are afraid to voice their desire for a secular and civil rule, due to the polarization from both the Saudis and Iranians. Muslims are afraid to take a secularist position. Some of them even use doublespeak by replacing the word “secular” with “civil” to make it sound less “blasphemous”. So, the struggle continues. The war on the Arab mind goes on. There’s clearly a long road ahead, but we can’t give in.
Translated by Sufyan Jan