A Bit Less Oppression: A Bit of Hope?

In the Muslim-majority countries of Middle East, life has long been difficult for those who follow Jesus. They’ve been beaten, jailed, and killed when times were bad. When times were good, they were merely confined to the lowest and least-paid jobs, and denied educational opportunities. They don’t even hope for freedom of speech.

Such conditions are not restricted to the Near East; they are found in places like Bangladesh and beyond.

Jesus followers were heartened in 2016, therefore, when at least one small aspect of this harsh oppression was moderated in Egypt. As historian Jayson Casper writes:

“Long live the crescent and the cross!” shouted Egypt’s parliament in joy. All 39 Christian members joined the two-thirds majority to vote to end a 160-year practice instituted by the Ottomans requiring Christians to get permission from the country’s leader before building churches. The long-awaited reform was promised by the 2014 constitution after the overthrow of Muslim Brotherhood president Mohamed Morsi.

For nearly two centuries, Jesus followers had to ask permission simply to gather for prayer or worship. In practice, this meant that the answer was usually ‘no.’

In the late 600s and early 700s, when Islam expanded westward from Arabia across North Africa, in Egypt, as in the other lands conquered by Muslim armies, churches and synagogues were burned, and the construction of new ones was forbidden.

At various points in time over the intervening millennium, brief periods of leniency emerged, and a precious few such worship buildings were constructed, but often only to be again destroyed by a reinvigorated Islam which emerged after these periods of moderation.

Jesus followers are a small fraction of the population in Egypt. After centuries of suffering from Islamic hegemony, will they be allowed to quietly and peacefully gather for prayer? The events of 2016 seem to suggest that they will.

But over the centuries, they’ve seen such moments of toleration quickly evaporate. Will Islam reassert itself, or will tranquility prevail? The Jesus followers of Egypt have seen too much, and experienced too much, to naively raise hope. But perhaps there is cause for cautious optimism.

Assessing U.S./Russian Relations

The diplomatic situation between the United States and Russia decayed steadily after early 2009. Vladimir Putin, who has been alternately the President and the Prime Minister of Russia, managed to outmaneuver the Obama administration.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, using a firm diplomatic hand, had kept Putin within some manner of boundaries until January 2009, when she left office.

When Hillary Clinton became Secretary of State in 2009, her ambiguous use of the word ‘reset’ introduced an uncertainty in U.S./Russian relationships, an uncertainty which Putin was quick to exploit.

In short order, Russian behavior became noticeably more aggressive, e.g., in the Crimean Peninsula and in Syria.

One German newspaper, Bild, carried comments by German foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeyer. Writing in the UK’s Independent newspaper, Caroline Mortimer reports:

In a piece for German tabloid newspaper Bild, Frank-Walter Steinmeier wrote: “It’s a fallacy to think that this is like the Cold War. The current times are different and more dangerous.”

Putin was able to use, for eight years, the equivocation of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama to foster Russian expansionism. As Steinmeier’s comments reveal, other nations were disappointed that the U.S. had failed to continue managing Putin effectively.

Jews in Spain: the Best of Times, the Worst of Times

From the fall of the Roman Empire in 476 A.D. until the Islamic invasion of the Iberian Peninsula, Spain offered more than mere tolerance to Jews: until 711 A.D., Judaism flourished in Spain.

After the end of Roman rule, Jews and Christians lived in a peaceful and even cooperative coexistence. Spain was governed by Goths, who'd set up a monarchy there. The Goths showed no interest in persecuting Jews.

The Muslim military leader Tariq ibn Ziyad led an invasion force which arrived by boat from northwestern Africa in 711. By 712, his army defeated Spain’s King Roderic at the Battle of Guadalete. Shortly after than, Islam controlled most of Spain, although small pockets of resistance remained in the Northwest.

Soon the Muslims would boast about having burned “thousands” of synagogues and churches. Whether the numbers were that large is not clear, but the fact that they would brag about arson reveals the nature of their occupational forces in Spain.

Conditions for the Jews became even worse in the 12th century. A new wave of Islamic military forces took over Spain. These were, according to historian Ken Spiro, the “cruel Muslim Berber Dynasty” known as the “Almohades.”

Ken Spiro also notes that the Jews “excelled in trade.” Because “the Jews became traders who covered the Far East,” they were directly impacted when Islam effectively blocked most or all land routes between Europe and places like India and China.

With Muslims controlling Egypt, Arabia, Syria, Persia, and the surrounding areas, the traditional caravan routes were blocked.

The great voyages of discovery, many of which launched from Spain or Portugal, were attempts to find alternate routes to connect Europe with India and China, bypassing the obstinate Muslims.

One of these explorers, seeking safer routes to the Far East, was, of course, Christopher Columbus. Many historians now consider it possible or even probable that Columbus was Jewish.