A document discussed Sunday by the Christian “Lady of the Mountain Gathering” rejected “any attempt to link the fate of the Christians to the fate of the oppressive and tyrannical regimes” in the region.
The gathering was held at the Regency Palace Hotel in Adma, north of Beirut, at 9:30 am Sunday. Around 500 politicians, intellectuals and civil society activists took part in the conference.
Below is the full text of the document discussed by the conferees:
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“The Lady of The Mountain Gathering”, Lebanon – October 23, 2011
Dear friends,
The following document which is up for discussion is divided into three parts: What we want to remind of in the light of the church’s positions, our refusal of the political positions which expose the Christians to grave dangers, and what we want to do in order to renew the role of the Christians in Lebanon and the Levant.
First: what we want to remind of:
1- We want to remind of the church’s role in launching the Lebanese Spring which formed the first sign of the Arab Spring.”The Maronite Bishops’ appeal on September 20, 2000″ has put the foundations to end the Syrian tutelage and restore sovereignty, independence, and free will (…)Lebanon, which had been an arena for foreign domination, now became an arena of its citizens’ testimony in order to achieve their liberty, and it became a momentum for the biggest popular uprising in the modern age. The church, with the participation of most of the Lebanese people, was able to carve the history of Lebanon with the tools of righteousness and faith after the long nights of injustice. It managed to save the nation and restore the state.
After the assassination of Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri on 14 February 2005, the Independence uprising was a historical moment which opened the door of national salvation through an unprecedented unity of the Lebanese people. The Syrian army’s withdrawal from Lebanon on April 26, 2005, after 30 years of tutelage, was the culmination of the unity of all Lebanese, residents and emigrants, and a dream come true.
2- We want to remind that the Church has been a pioneer in its call for a civil state which is modern and democratic, based on – as it was stated in the Maronite Patriarchal Synod – the reconciliation between citizenship and pluralism, and on the “clear discrimination, to the extent of separation, bewtween religion and state, rather than reducing religion in politics or forming policies on religious obsolete bases.” this issue today is being strongly discussed in all the countries which have been liberated from tyrant regimes.
3- We want to stress the role of the Church in elaborating a concept of “living together” that goes beyond the mere coexistence among different groups or communities to a distinctive type of life which would give everyone an opportunity to communicate and to interact with others so that both parties shall enrich their character by mutual learning, and that while sutstaining the particularisms and the differences that would turn out to be a source of enrichment for all.
Second- What we reject:
1- We reject positions which put the Christians in confrontation with the Arab Spring which is based on the values of freedom and justice. These values lie at the basis of human dignity, away from the logic of ideologies which divide the world into two camps -good and evil- and on which the dictatorial regimes established its basic legitimacy. This Arab Spring is “good news” for Lebanon which had remained for more than half a century the subject of vigorous attempts to make it similar to the regimes surrounding it through attempts to Arabize its regime. But today, in its quest to get rid of last century’s slaveries and the historical marginalization, the Arab region is taking examples from the meaning of Lebanon in its freedom, democracy, and pluralism values, and its openness to the world.
2- We reject any attempt to link the Christians fate to the fate of the oppressive and tyrannical regimes which have turned the Arab world into a big prison and have historically marginalized its citizens, moving them from the present and the future. this is a moral stance imposed on us by our belief in the human being and his right to dignity and freedom. We will not accept to be with the executioners against the victims. This is also a national position. These oppressive regimes are responsible for a war which had cost us dearly: 144,240 dead, 17,415 missing, and 197,506 wounded, in addition to the destruction of our cities and villages, the migration of hundreds of thousands of our children, the fragmentation of our society, confiscation of our institutions, universalizing corruption, turning the judiciary in to a tool to settle scores…
3- We reject all attempts aimed at reducing the authentic Christian presence in the Middle East, and converting the Christians into a mere minority seeking protection for itself. The dispute is not, as some portrayed it, on whom we entrust with the task of protecting us – the protection of foreign states like Syria, Iran, or the West, or an internal “Shiite” protection to face a “Sunni” threat, or an internal “Sunni” protection to face a “Shiite” threat. The dispute is over the principle of protection which turns the Christians into “dhimmis”, and makes them lose their role and presence. This is unacceptable.
4- We condemn the deluge of violence directed against the Arab Spring. It is the violence of the authoritarian regimes in the face of the legitimate demands of their people. At the same time it is the violence of extremist forces which still cling to crumbling ideological religious beliefs, and try hard to stop the wheel of history.
Third: What we want:
1- We want to launch a civil dynamism in the Christian society which is able to communicate with similar civil dynamisms from other communities and from the civil society in order to bring the life back to the Lebanese Spring. We also want to work with the democratic forces which have emerged in the Arab Spring in order to develop new foundations for a Democratic and pluralistic Arab World able to regain its role and position in the world after half a century of enforced absence.
2- We want to recover the historical Christian role in the Middle East and contribute in the rebirth of a second Arab renaissance which would establish a new culture – culture of living together – since today, living together, equal in rights and duties and different in our various affiliations – because of the enormous qualitative changes introduced by globalization – has become a serious challenge not only for the Arab world, but for all mankind.
3- We want to work on ending the decades of an ongoing cycle of violence, and to build a peaceful Lebanon in cooperation with all who were faithful. Today we stand before a fateful moment: Either bring back Lebanon to what it was in the past three decades – a free violence yard to regional and external forces which responds to the illusion of some who think that their future needs more bloodshed and destruction – or re-develop Lebanon and turn it into a country of well-being and where the state is able to perform its duties.
First peace for Lebanon needs us to draw lessons from the previous war, and to perceive, as stated in the Maronite Patriarchal Synod, that the fate of each and every one of us is interlinked, and that the salvation of Lebanon will either be for all of Lebanon or it will not be, since this country is not for one group at the expense of another.
Second, peace for Lebanon needs the state to regain it sovereignty which had been lost since 1969, and to ensure its exclusive right in possessing the armed forces. The presence of two armies in one country is no longer acceptable or justifiable, where one army is under the command of the legitimate authority, while the other is under the command of a political party or a foreign state.
Third, peace for Lebanon needs to liberate the state from the conflict of it communities on it, and initiate, based on the Taef agreement, in building a civil state, so that these communities concerns will not remain the prime mover of the Lebanese history.
Fourth, peace for Lebanon needs an end to the dark era in the history of the Lebanese-Syrian relations, and support for the forces who are struggling for a democratic system in Syria. This is a prerequisite for establishing sound relations between the two countries which will ensure the interests of the Lebanese and the Syrian people.
Fifth, peace for Lebanon needs to turn the page with the Palestinians and to support the efforts to establish an independent Palestinian state which is the condition for a lasting peace in the region.
Dear friends,
Determining the Christian role in the Arab Spring is not a private Christian matter. It is a Muslim matter also, since ” Christians in the Levant”, as it was stated in the first letter of the Catholic Patriarchs of the East, “are inseparable from the cultural identity of the Muslims. And the Muslims in the Levant are inseparable from the cultural identity of the Christians. In that sense, we are responsible for one another before God and history.”