LCCC ENGLISH DAILY NEWS BULLETIN
July 10/2018
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani

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Is Islam "Exceptional"?
A. Z. Mohamed/Gatestone Institute/July 09/18
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/12635/exceptional-islam
"Western observers... will need to accept Islam's vital and varied role in politics and formulate policies with that in mind, rather than hoping for secularizing outcomes that are unlikely anytime soon, if ever." — Shadi Hamid, author of Islamic Exceptionalism: How the Struggle Over Islam Is Reshaping the World.
"'Islamic exceptionalism' is neither good nor bad. It just is." — Shadi Hamid.
"As the transition from pre-modernity to modernity proceeds with its twists and turns, the Muslim world, over time will progress and develop to the point that eventually there will arise a theology, as occurred in Christendom, consistent with the needs of Muslims and reconciled with modernity." — Salim Mansur, author of The Qur'an Problem and Islamism: Reflections of a Dissident Muslim.
In early May, the Brookings Institution held a lecture and panel discussion in India on the question of whether Islam is "exceptional" and what it means for the future of Western democracy. A main speaker at the event was Shadi Hamid, author of a 2016 book, Islamic Exceptionalism: How the Struggle Over Islam Is Reshaping the World.
Hamid, an American Muslim, repeated the thesis of his book, summarized in an op-ed in Time magazine.
"Because of its outsize role in law and governance, Islam has been — and will continue to be — resistant to secularization," he wrote. He explained:
"Unlike Jesus Christ, the Prophet Muhammad was a theologian, a preacher, a warrior and a politician, all at once. He was also the leader and builder of a new state, capturing, holding and governing new territory. Religious and political functions, at least for the believer, were no accident. They were meant to be intertwined in the leadership of one man.
"Second, more than merely the word of God, for Muslims, the Quran is God's direct and literal speech. It is difficult to overstate the centrality of divine authorship. This does not mean Muslims are literalists; most are not. But it does mean the text cannot easily be dismissed as irrelevant."
This means, he added, that "Western observers... will need to accept Islam's vital and varied role in politics and formulate policies with that in mind, rather than hoping for secularizing outcomes that are unlikely anytime soon, if ever."
To clarify that his position is not necessarily critical, he wrote, "'Islamic exceptionalism' is neither good nor bad. It just is."
Islamists might be likely to welcome Hamid's understanding of Islamic "exceptionalism" more than his value-neutral assertion that it is "neither good nor bad."
Muslims frequently describe Islam as the "religion of truth" -- superior to all others. As it is written in the Quran (3:19):
"Indeed, the religion in the sight of Allah is Islam. And those who were given the Scripture did not differ except after knowledge had come to them -- out of jealous animosity between themselves. And whoever disbelieves in the verses of Allah, then indeed, Allah is swift in [taking] account."
Many of the Western world's politicians, academics and members of the media tend to treat Islam differently from other religions and ideologies. They claim it is a "religion of peace" -- abused by a small minority of radicals to justify terrorism -- and that it is compatible with democratic values.
Hamid, however, appears to do neither.
According to Middle East Institute scholar Hassan Mneimneh:
"Hamid's work can be understood as an invitation to sober the discussion about Islam and politics on two connected fronts: 1) disabusing some Western circles of the reductionist and patronizing notion that Muslim societies will eventually follow the Western template toward liberal democracy, and 2) calling for an acceptance of the depth of the cultural and conceptual differences between Muslim and Western societies."
Mneimneh nevertheless added that, "Hamid seems to accept the Islamist notion of the uncontested primacy of a totalitarizing religion, and that 'universal' values are basically a Western import."
Hassan Mneimneh (left) and Shadi Hamid (right) at a panel discussion for The Middle East Institute, July 27, 2016. (Image source: Middle East Institute video screenshot)
It should be of great concern that even a self-described liberal such as Hamid -- one who said he feels "a bit uncomfortable making this claim, especially now with anti-Muslim bigotry on the rise" -- leaves little room for optimism where the ability of Islam to undergo a reformation is concerned. He does not appear even to think it is necessary.
Salim Mansur, author, among other works, of The Qur'an Problem and Islamism: Reflections of a Dissident Muslim, disagrees. In a recent article, he wrote:
"The Muslim world currently appears trapped within the parameters of the pre-modern world, based on its quasi-nominalist view of God. The Sufi understanding of God as universal love seems not fully to meet the Muslim world's urgent need to figure out how to negotiate modernity without abandoning the God of the Qur'an. "The fury of the internal upheaval inside the Muslim world -- the Muslim rage that is incomprehensible to non-Muslims -- will eventually exhaust itself when a sufficiently large segment of the Muslim population reconciles reason and revelation to discover that God never meant any religion, including Islam, to be a burden preventing man from threading a relationship with Him in harmony with human nature. "As the transition from pre-modernity to modernity proceeds with its twists and turns, the Muslim world, over time will progress and develop to the point that eventually there will arise a theology, as occurred in Christendom, consistent with the needs of Muslims and reconciled with modernity."
*A. Z. Mohamed is a Muslim born and raised in the Middle East.
© 2018 Gatestone Institute. All rights reserved. The articles printed here do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editors or of Gatestone Institute. No part of the Gatestone website or any of its contents may be reproduced, copied or modified, without the prior written consent of Gatestone Institute.

US Immigration Debate’s Ugliness is Nothing New
Stephen Mihm/Bloomberg/July 09/18
The Census Bureau reported this month that the white population in much of the U.S. is dying off more quickly than it is being replaced. By contrast, among Hispanics, births continue to exceed deaths.
The figures for 2017 are further evidence of a profound demographic shift that is predicted to make whites a minority by 2040 or earlier. The data dovetails with President Donald Trump’s increasingly inflamed rhetoric on immigration. As more than one pundit has observed, he has been able to channel a resurgence of xenophobia and a growing anxiety over the future of white America. Americans went down a similar road well over a century ago, when a prominent group of thinkers dominated public discourse over immigration in the U.S. They articulated white anxiety in ways that would ultimately have profound and enduring effects on public policy: quotas that targeted immigrant groups deemed undesirable, even laws against miscegenation.
Then, as now, decades of heavy immigration had started to transform U.S. demography. To native-born whites, the growing influx of Jews, Slavs, Italians and other groups was going to remake the America they knew.
For some whites, this was an intolerable prospect. The sociologist Edward Alsworth Ross gave voice to those anxieties in an essay in 1901. He famously used the phrase “race suicide" to describe the likely fate of the people he called “Anglo-Saxons” — by which he meant the would-be descendants of the group that dominated England from the fifth century until the Norman Conquest, though he also included Scandinavians and Germans.
Ross believed that those peoples constituted a separate “race” far superior to other Europeans, to say nothing of the peoples of other lands. Ross took aim at the immigrants from those lesser places in a book published in 1914: “The blood now being injected into the veins of our people is sub-common.”
He conjured a dire scenario. The working classes gradually delay marriage and restrict the size of the family as the opportunities hitherto reserved for their children are eagerly snapped up by the numerous progeny of the foreigner. The prudent, self-respecting natives first cease to expand, and then, as the struggle for existence grows sterner and the outlook for their children darker, they fail even to recruit their own numbers.
For Ross and others, the solution was simple: Restrict immigration. He was not alone in offering this prescription. A few years earlier, the economist Francis Amasa Walker had portrayed the threat in existential terms. He described the European immigrants from “every foul and stagnant pool of population” as criminals, idiots and paupers. Walker proposed that all immigrants be forced to post a $100 bond upon entering the country. This would effectively keep out the poor from Eastern and Southern Europe, Walker believed, but would not be a deterrent to the arrival of tens of thousands of “thrifty" Swedes, Norwegians and Germans who usually had some savings. But it was Madison Grant, a wealthy New Yorker, dilettante, “scientific” racist and author of the bestselling book “The Passing of the Great Race,” who did more than anyone to guide public opinion along these lines.
His book was a peculiar combination of faux erudition and historical fiction, warning readers that the nation’s “altruistic ideals” and “maudlin sentimentalism that has made America ‘an asylum for the oppressed,’ are sweeping the nation toward a racial abyss.”
Grant’s titular “race” was the Anglo-Saxons, though he was fond of Norwegians and other Scandinavians, Germans, and, of course, the British. But everyone else — Jews, Italians, and other “inferior races among our immigrants” — he despised. Grant counseled sharp restrictions on immigration from anywhere except a small circle of “Nordic” countries.
He also provided the preface for “The Rising Tide of Color: The Threat Against White World Supremacy,” written by Lothrop Stoddard and published in 1920. A journalist and polemicist, Stoddard argued for limiting immigration as a way to preserve the purity of the “Nordic” race in America. Like Grant, he believed that unrestricted immigration of “inferior” races would “sterilize” the white population, suppressing the native birthrate. The two men would successfully lobby for anti-miscegenation laws in the U.S.
Like many scientific racists, Grant and Stoddard were enthusiastic eugenicists. Grant proposed a program of mass sterilization that would target criminals, “the diseased, and the insane,” as well as “weaklings” and “perhaps ultimately to worthless race types.” The book was translated into multiple languages, including German. Adolf Hitler read it, and reportedly wrote Grant an admiring letter, describing the book as his personal “bible.”
Grant influenced the course of history closer to home as well. He served as an adviser to the sponsors of the Immigration Restriction Act of 1924, which shut down immigration from the countries he despised but set aside 6,400 slots a year for immigrants from the tiny country of Norway.
All these thinkers eventually fell out of favor in the 1930s. But judging from the tone of the immigration debate today, 21st-century versions of these ideas may be on the horizon.

World Cup Generals and Not a Drop of Blood Spilled
Ghassan Charbel/Asharq Al Awsat/July 09/18
No meetings have been scheduled. Telephone calls are forbidden. The unease of the guards is understandable. They are hoping for a result that would not ruin the mood of the absolute ruler. The guards confirmed that victory was guaranteed and the listener responded with a quasi-smile. The entourage only says things that it believes will assure him. Based on his orders, they left him alone with the television screens.
The president does not want witnesses to see him during a critical time. He does not want to appear elated, emotional, disappointed or angry. He will not venture out to watch the match at the stadium. It will be difficult for him to suffer defeat on his own soil and before his people and to listen to the clapping of the crowd as if they are attempting to bandage the wounds of his loss. Medvedev went to the stadium. Medvedev can play. He can win and lose. The president cannot. His destiny is to win at any game he plays.
This is a football match, not a confrontation between two countries or two armies. It must end with a victor and a loser. He is trying to convince himself and preparing for the worst.
There is no need for exaggeration. The result of the game will not determine his fate or that of his country. He does not like to lose. The idea of the defeat is stifling to him. His experiences have made him addicted to successes and victories. He has been roaming the field since the beginning of the century. He advances, retreats and makes a maneuver. He has the ball and maneuvers around his enemies. He scores a victory against them and savors humiliating them.
He has been a major goalscorer since the beginning of the century. Forget about Ronaldo, Messi and Neymar.
He is competing on the pages of history. He is competing against Peter the Great, Catherine the Great and Joseph Stalin. The White House changes the names of its players, but he remains to play, maneuver and score.
He smiles as if football matches are a substitute to wars between nations. If Germany and France face off, then the French recall the image of Hitler strolling down the Champs Elysees. If France and England face each other, then British newspapers will recall the Napoleon files and the Battle of Waterloo. It is as if countries are searching for the demons of the past and as if they enjoy rubbing salt in each other’s wounds.
He is supposed to make due with the success of hosting the World Cup. John Bolton, who does not like his country, stated that the United States will later on benefit from Russian expertise.
He is obsessed with the image: his own image and the image of his country in his shadow. How wonderful would it be if the series of wars would end with Russia’s victory on its own soil and for its players to lift the trophy. For this trophy to be placed in his office next to the trophy of Crimea, the trophy of Daraa and many others. How wonderful it would be for him to wake up the next day and head to Helsinki to shake Donald Trump’s hand at another World Cup where he would emerge the victor for the very fact that this meeting was even held.
Football and its ability to spring surprises and make heroes and stars confuses him. Young men occupying the world’s attention and rallying a whole country behind them. They reap massive wealth and enter the history books at an early age. Football becomes the talk of generals. A young player launches a shot and the world holds its breath to see if he scores in the enemy net. Power, fame, bets, tense nerves and rival fans have left their fates at the feet of players, hoping for a victory that has become tied to national dignity. How difficult it must be to be the sole focus of the fans and cameras and for your talent to betray you by missing a shot at goal.
He anxiously follows the stubbornness of the Croatian team against his national team. The first to take the penalty shot appeared to be trained by the KGB to keep his nerve, not show emotion, mislead the enemy and take the golden opportunity to take a shot that cannot be deflected by the goalkeeper. This shot breaks the spirit of the keeper and his team.
Football is a deceptive game. It has disciplined those who were deemed as strong. Germany lost early as if Angela Merkel’s government, embroiled in a migrant dispute, did not have more problems to deal with. Some have tried to find a scapegoat, blaming Mesut Ozil, a Turkish native, especially after he took a photo with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
The debate over football and national sentiments was reignited.
Others retorted that if it weren’t for migrant players, teams such as France and Belgium, would not have made it to the World Cups semifinals.
Others left the tournament with their wounded generals. Argentina with Lionel Messi, Portugal with Ronaldo, Brazil with Neymar and Spain lost its way.
The British have forgotten about Brexit and they have turned their attention to a country whose regime is accused of sending a nerve agent to their land. The “three lions” have ended their years-long disappointment and Harry Kane has cemented his status among the greats. His coach Gareth Southgate has earned praise for the team spirit that allowed the group to claim victory. Britons could be forgiven for forgetting the occupant of 10 Downing Street, but not the name of the national team captain and coach.
The match wore down the nerves of the president. He witnesses Croatia celebrate the victory and its president dance near Medvedev. Putin drank the poison. It is important for him to be a skilled goalscorer in Helsinki and shake Trump’s net, who is shaking the NATO, European Union and global trade nets. The World Cup is a time of generals who have earned their medals without spilling a drop of blood. But it is only a fleeting season. Tomorrow, the world will return to the clutches of old generals, who mercilessly manipulate the world’s stability and economy.

UK Parliament: Little Interest in Grooming Gangs
Andrew Jones/Gatestone Institute/July 09/18
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/12662/britain-parliament-grooming-gangs
The approach the British authorities have taken in response to this national disaster appears largely based on countering secondary issues -- most notably, individuals that protest the grooming, including at one point the arrest of parents attempting to rescue their daughter from her abusers.
There also seems to be a tacit alliance with much of the media to silence public discourse and, when all else fails, outright suppression.
In response to Britain's ongoing sexual grooming scandal, a group of 20 MPs signed an open letter to recently appointed Home Secretary, Sajid Javid, urging coordinated action.
As the UK Parliament has 650 MPs, the 20 signatories constitute a mere 3% willing to support the protection of children subjected to gang-rape, trafficking and torture, and at times murder. Such a paltry number of politicians willing to speak out against child sexual slavery seems yet more evidence of the moral bankruptcy of Britain's political elite and how low the country appears to have sunk.
Britain's media elite have ignored the letter. Reporting has been limited to the local press in Oxford and Rochdale -- areas afflicted by grooming -- as well as a few alternative media outlets such as Breitbart London, and indirect reference on Sky News.
Of the British Parliament's 650 MPs, a mere 20 were willing to sign an open letter to support the protection of children subjected to gang-rape, trafficking and torture, and at times murder. Pictured: The Palace of Westminster in London, meeting place of the Houses of Parliament. (Arpingstone/Wikimedia Commons)
A key signatory of the letter, Rotherham MP Sarah Champion, whose constituency was made infamous by grooming, was forced from Jeremy Corbyn's Labour Party front bench in 2017 for speaking openly about the prevalence of "British Pakistani men" in this type of child sexual exploitation. Given that Sajid Javid, then Communities Secretary, spoke in support of Champion, it is perhaps intentional that this letter was addressed to him in his new role as Britain's first Muslim Home Secretary.
Javid's Muslim faith and Pakistani heritage place him in an untouchable position regarding accusations of racism or bigotry, should he continue to address the uncomfortable ethnic and cultural realities of grooming. Prior to becoming Home Secretary he touched on these and could now continue to say what needs to be said and act effectively -- in ways many other politicians could not -- without being pilloried by the UK's largely left-leaning media.
In his new position, there are two principal opportunities Javid could grasp.
First, there is the opportunity for British authorities at least to begin making amends for decades of failing defenceless children. Irreparable harm has been done to countless lives -- and continues to be done. There is also the inestimable harm done to public trust in the police, the media, social services and the government.
In terms of the UK's social fabric, the grooming scandal has been for many the rock on which the ill-conceived multiculturalism of modern Britain shattered. Now, intensified by the current fevered atmosphere in the UK, the approach the British authorities have taken in response to this national disaster appears largely based on countering secondary issues -- most notably, individuals that protest the grooming, including at one point the arrest of parents attempting to rescue their daughter from her abusers.
There also seems to be a tacit alliance with much of the media to silence public discourse and, when all else fails, outright suppression.
This strategy, if it can be called that, doubtless not only makes a bad situation worse; it also bodes ill, as the sleeping giant of Britain's white working class begins to wake up.
The second opportunity Javid could grasp is uprooting what is beginning to look alarmingly like a nationwide organised-crime network. The euphemistic term "grooming gang" has been rejected by many for the earthier term "rape gang"; yet "gang" gives the impression of sporadic and isolated activity, mainly perpetrated by lawless youths. The reality of this nationwide sexual exploitation is that it is evolving towards being a mafia-like "terrorist network". Children are transported (page 7/79) around the country to be abused in pre-arranged locations, and this trade interfaces with illicit drug dealing and other criminal activity. "Grooming" would be better termed the "child sexual-slave trade".
In allowing this criminality to fester for decades, the British authorities have effectively become criminal themselves as accessories after the fact. They could also be accused of breaking not only domestic law but international treaties regarding child protection, such as the Convention on the Rights of the Child and Optional Protocol on the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution and Child Pornography.
As the abuse is largely perpetrated by "(South) Asian" criminals, UK authorities now find themselves in a bind. To act with concerted government and police action may increase existing community tensions. Alternatively, by not acting, faith in the country's institutions and laws -- and minority communities themselves -- will continue to deteriorate among large sections of the public. As that may not happen immediately on the watch of the current crop of feckless UK politicians, there is most likely the inclination among them to kick this human tragedy down the road.
Let us hope, though, that Sajid Javid remains true to his 2017 support for Sarah Champion and at least tries to put an end to these criminal networks that have long since operated on "an industrial scale".
Thus far, the response to this national disgrace has been painfully slow and low-profile. There have been a few prosecutions of major perpetrators, but many may never be brought to justice. Thousands of the victims have been denied compensation or health and social assistance; and there have been no prosecutions of culpable officials. Police misconduct proceedings have as yet yielded no results -- despite the accusation, reported as far back as 2015, of an officer having sex with abuse victims. The only "punishments" delivered have been the retraining of a single Crown Prosecution lawyer and the stepping-down of some Rotherham city councillors. All this is woefully inadequate for the alleged facilitation of mass child-rape -- a public inquiry is needed.
*Andrew Jones, a journalist, is currently based in Europe.
© 2018 Gatestone Institute. All rights reserved. The articles printed here do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editors or of Gatestone Institute. No part of the Gatestone website or any of its contents may be reproduced, copied or modified, without the prior written consent of Gatestone Institute.

Institutionalizing ‘fatwas’ and controlling them
Hassan Al Mustafa/Al arabiya/July 09/18
Fundamentalist groups have often had a field day in interpreting and adapting religious texts to suit their own purposes, review them outside their temporal and objective meanings and employ them in inapplicable contexts — be they events, subjects and eras — as well as use them as weapons against others.
Exploiting religious texts to issue fatwas has been essential for Islamist movements. The assassination of former Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, the attempted murder of novelist Naguib Mahfouz, the massacres committed by the Armed Islamic Group in Algeria, as well as the suicide operations carried out by al-Qaeda and ISIS are all based on fatwas used by terrorists.
This approach of arbitrarily issuing fatwas seeks to find a textual reference that justifies partisan action. It contradicts the foundations of ‘ijtihad,’ the origins of jurisprudential deductive reasoning among Muslim scholars and the concept of the modern state and its civism. This state is based on the principle of institutionalizing work and organizing it according to laws imposed on everyone and that are the state’s supreme reference.
Exploiting religious texts to issue fatwas has been essential for Islamist movements. The assassination of former Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, the attempted murder of novelist Naguib Mahfouz... The suicide operations carried out by al-Qaeda and ISIS are all based on fatwas used by terrorists
As such, many countries are now working on controlling the sway of ‘fatwas’ and trying to institutionalize them, so that violent groups and those that lack religious competency are not able to exploit them.
Avoiding exploitation of fatwas
Last June, the UAE Council of Ministers ratified the formation of the Emirates Fatwa Council under the chairmanship of Sheikh Abdallah bin Bayyah along with a number of experts that include women.
In addition to his religious expertise, Bin Bayyah is known for his strong conscience regarding the importance of the development of Fiqh, and a deep understanding that change in time and place directly impacts judgments. In addition, he is far from extremism and believes in a more tolerant and open-minded religious discourse. He is also the president of the Forum for Promoting Peace in Muslim Societies which focuses on overcoming sectarian divisions and mitigating sectarian tensions.
Before this council was formed, the Muslim Council of Elders, chaired by Al-Azhar Sheikh Dr. Ahmed Al-Tayeb was established. All these institutions aim to transfer Fiqh and religious discourse that was in accordance with the circumstances of earlier times to a level suited for the transition of Arab societies into modern civil states.
Rescuing Islam from the hands of extremists is not an easy task. As such, it necessitates extensive political and diplomatic work.
The UAE’s Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed visited the Vatican and met with Pope Francis where they emphasized the importance of dialogue between religions and the promotion of the values of tolerance and coexistence among peoples. This comes within the UAE’s work to restore the status of an Islam that is open to others, a humanistic Islam that does not distrust those with different doctrines but seeks to create common space for different religions and communities, to undermine the threat of conflict and wars in the world.
In the past decades, the Arab Gulf has been a harmonious place for co-existence among its various components, while ensuring its durability, thus preventing the exploitation of fatwas and their use for creating civil strife and accusing the society of infidelity and immorality. It is a responsibility that necessitates constant action and joint civil and government efforts.

Modern states are those designed for the citizen
Mohammed Al Shaikh/Al arabiya/July 09/18
Life experiences in the modern era have proved that the civil state is the best and ideal model that can achieve security, stability and the desired social welfare. All countries across the world are either a purely civil state or a military state.
There are only two states that are ruled by clerics and they are the Vatican and the mullahs’ republic in Iran. The Vatican is just a formal state, with no army or authority, and it is formally located within the Italian Republic.
The military state is mostly a failed state, on both the medium and long terms, and I will talk about that later in another article. The mullahs’ state in Iran is a purely religious state, which resembles the pattern that had spread in Europe before eventually vanishing.
It is currently facing real challenges, which according to all indicators, they will inevitably topple it. The religious state is only concerned with spreading its ideology, and to achieve this goal, it would sacrifice people, money, economy and services, like what is happening in Tehran.
These countries usually produce opportunists who raise similar slogans but seek to seize opportunities to make illegitimate gains, exactly like what happens in Iran. The religious state and political religious movements strongly believe in suppression and force, and in striking anyone who opposes them or rebels against them with an iron fist.Shedding blood, for example, is one of their most important means of imposing their views. Usually the uprisings and the revolutions against religious states end in civil wars which are marked with “sacred slaughtering” as leaders justify murder to their followers since their goal which they view as sacred is supporting the ideology no matter what the consequences are.Iran is in a real catastrophic crisis as it cannot fulfill the demands of its people within the country and cannot justify its foreign misadventures
Suffocated crisis
People, as history taught us, might be submissive to suppression and endure oppression, but they will not be submissive forever. The mullahs’ state in Iran is going through a suffocating economic crisis, and it does not have the practical tools that would make it capable to meet the demands of revolutionaries and demonstrators. In addition to the fact that the requirements of the goals dictated by Khomeini, their sacred leader, before his death, concerning exporting the revolution, expanding through invasion, recruiting followers, and imposing the Shiite doctrine by the force of weapons, also require huge financial resources which Iran will not be able to provide due to the tight US sanctions. Iran is in a real catastrophic crisis as it cannot fulfill the demands of its people within the country and cannot justify its foreign misadventures, which increases financial expenses by the day.
I believe that the fall of the religious State of Vilayat-e Faqih, would be inevitably followed by the fall of all the political Islam movements and organizations. Not only Shiite political Islam groups like the Lebanese Hezbollah and the Shiite Islamist movements in Iraq will fall but Sunni political Islam movements will also fall.With the collapse of all these movements, terrorism would weaken and shrink, and people would turn away from it thus it will become part of a history that was and ended, just like what happened to the Khawarij movements Islamic history has known.
All what I want to say here is that Iran’s failed Islamic experience which is about to collapse and vanish, in addition to the results of the so-called Arab Spring and the terrible failure of these Islamized revolutions, prove that the inevitable solution is the civil state experience.

Présence chrétienne ou présence du Christ ?
Antoine COURBAN | OLJ/09/07/2018
À Bari, en Italie méridionale, se sont retrouvés samedi 7 juillet, à l’initiative du pape François, la plupart des chefs d’Églises chrétiennes du Proche-Orient, pour une rencontre œcuménique d’échange et de prière en faveur du Levant ensanglanté et de ses populations victimes des conflits entretenus par la volonté de puissance des hommes et leur insatiable appétit du profit.
Cette réunion survient dans la foulée du cinquantième anniversaire de la Réunion des Œuvres d’aide aux Églises orientales (ROACO), comité pontifical créé en 1968 et présidé d’office par le préfet de la Congrégation pour les Églises orientales. Lors de cette célébration à Rome le 22 juin dernier, le pape avait explicitement dénoncé les « deux péchés » qui affaiblissent la présence des chrétiens au Levant. Il y a d’abord la « volonté de puissance » des grands de ce monde dont l’unique préoccupation est de mettre la main sur les richesses de l’Orient, faisant fi des hommes, de leurs traditions et de leur foi, suscitant ainsi des flux migratoires dramatiques vers d’autres cieux, notamment ceux d’Europe. Mais, l’évêque de Rome a également pointé un autre péché, « celui de certains prêtres, certains prélats et certaines congrégations religieuses qui reçoivent le denier de la veuve mais vivent dans l’opulence ». Il a poursuivi en disant qu’il souhaiterait voir ces « épulons chrétiens » se dépouiller un peu plus et mieux partager avec leurs frères et sœurs afin de contribuer à protéger la présence du christianisme au Levant, au travers des traditions chrétiennes vénérables et diverses, ainsi que de l’impact des actions sociales multiples des chrétiens. On rappellera que les « épulons » étaient, dans la Rome antique, un collège sacerdotal dont les prêtres avaient pour fonction d’organiser les festins et de présider les banquets destinés aux divinités. Ce faisant, le pape mit l’accent, au Proche-Orient, sur la « présence du Christ » lui-même, comprise comme expression d’un témoignage spirituel, moral et civilisationnel, plutôt que la « présence chrétienne » comprise comme simple visibilité du poids démographique et sociopolitique d’un ou de plusieurs groupes particuliers. La présence du Christ exige donc la protection de toutes les traditions spirituelles, le respect de toutes les libertés religieuses et des droits de tout membre de la famille humaine.
Une certaine confusion entre politique et religion avait surpris les observateurs, dans la teneur du communiqué, publié le 14 avril dernier, par les patriarches d’Antioche résidant à Damas (grec-orthodoxe, grec-catholique, syriaque-orthodoxe), au lendemain des frappes américaines en Syrie suite à l’utilisation de gaz toxiques contre les civils. Exprimant plutôt la position du régime syrien, le texte du communiqué portait en exergue le verset célèbre du prophète Isaïe parlant du Messie à venir, de cet « Emmanuel/Dieu-avec-Nous » que reprend souvent la liturgie chrétienne : « Écoutez ô nations et tremblez car Dieu est avec nous. » On connaît malheureusement la récupération politique et guerrière que de nombreux royaumes et puissances ont faite de cette notion messianique de l’Emmanuel ; le Gott-mit-Uns des troupes nazies étant un exemple de sinistre mémoire.
En compagnie du patriarche œcuménique de Constantinople et de la plupart des patriarches de l’Orient, le pape François n’a cessé de dénoncer à Bari cette volonté perverse des puissants ainsi que l’insatiable appétit des nantis. Il mit en cause « l’indifférence qui tue… le silence de tant et la complicité de beaucoup ». Il invita les chefs d’Église qui l’entouraient d’être « une voix qui lutte contre l’homicide et l’indifférence ». Certains prélats ne parvenaient pas à se libérer de la confusion, commune en Orient, entre politique et religion. Le patriarche syriaque-orthodoxe Ignace Ephrem II a encore une fois pris fait et cause pour le régime syrien, invitant les réfugiés à rentrer. « Je leur assure que leur retour est sûr », déclara-t-il, reconnaissant que le régime syrien a certes ses défauts, mais qu’il est largement préférable à une domination islamiste.
Mais au même moment au Liban, deux formations politico-confessionnelles, le Courant patriotique libre (CPL) et les Forces libanaises (FL) lavaient leur linge sale, mais « chrétien » tout de même, en public ; s’accusant mutuellement de ne pas respecter l’accord bilatéral de Meerab, qui permit l’élection de Michel Aoun à la présidence de la République. Le public libanais a pu ainsi apprendre que ces deux formations, imitant le modèle milicien Hezbollah-Amal, avaient décidé de prendre la société chrétienne en otage, se réservant exclusivement sa représentativité dans la vie publique. De plus, l’accord en question aliène, semble-t-il, le domaine public puisqu’il réserve la répartition des fonctions publiques, réservées aux chrétiens de diverses obédiences, au bon vouloir de ces deux formations dont la nature et l’identité ne sont ni cléricales, ni morales, ni spirituelles, et qui représentent uniquement leurs propres membres.
Témoigner pour le Christ ? Témoigner pour des chefferies claniques? Être chrétien ou ne pas être : telle est la question shakespearienne insoluble de cette « présence chrétienne » en Orient que tout le monde souhaite instrumentaliser et exploiter.