20 April 2018

"UNHELPFUL"!

"UNHELPFUL". That was the word used by Boris Johnson's Foreign and Commonwealth Office to describe a mission last Saturday. Members of the House of Lords, and some Anglican Clergy, went to Damascus.

They included Michael Langrish, emeritus Bishop of Exeter. I spent some years in his Diocese; I can assure you that he is not an eccentric; not some wild firebrand; not a barmy Trot.

They met Syrian hierarchs and politicians. They went to the Liturgy on Sunday.

I was not previously aware through the British Media of the united statement by three Patriarchs of Syrian Churches, both Catholic and dissident, condemning the recent Western military intervention in Syria. Such things just don't seem to grab the headlines, do they? Western politicians and journalists never have shown the slightest interest in the beleaguered Christian communities which have lived in the Middle East since centuries before Islam was even invented. Considering the determination of the cultural elites here in the West to destroy the last remnants of Christendom in our own sick and depopulating countries, this is hardly surprising.

What we are seeing in Syria is simply the current stage of  'the Arab Spring' so enthusiastically encouraged by Western politicians. While they were cheering it on, they never thought it would lead to anything like the Syrian catastrophe. Of course not. They anticipated a comfortable domino effect of regime-change which would lead to "Parliamentary Democracy" throughout the Middle East ... you know, Black Rod, the Mace, State Opening of Parliament, and all that.

President Assad of Syria, despite his British background, unaccountably refused to act out the script they had written for him. He probably felt nervous reservations about being hauled out of a sewer, sodomised with a knife, and then shot, like Gaddhafi in Libya. It's all a matter of these little details of perspective, isn't it? Middle-Easterners often haven't been to Eton and so they don't see things in the same balanced sort of way that Boris does. Western politicians have never forgiven Assad for this appalling lack of good manners in refusing to walk down the path they had mapped out for him. For a decade, their foolish mantra has been "Assad must go; ruat caelum".

There have been atrocities galore in Syria. I don't applaud anybody who has had any part in any of them. And, among those who seem to me to have a big share of guilty responsibility, are all the Western politicians who encouraged "the Syrian moderate opposition" to believe that, were they to take up arms against Assad, they would get our support. Nod Nod, Wink Wink. Until: "Oops-a-daisy there's a Russky round the corner. Sorry; you're on your own after all".

I do wish that the political class in my country could grasp that political situations are rarely as univocally straightforward as they like to believe. Stuff ... the unexpected ... happens, and it's not the FCO cat but other people who do the dying. This simple historical reality is, curiously, beyond the comprehension of outwardly sane people many of whom read PPE at Oxford (to be pedantic: that is one crime Boris has not committed). Perhaps the sum of human happiness would be increased if that particular faculty could have a (precisely targetted) cluster-bomb dropped on it.

'UNHELPFUL'. I know all about that word. It is part of the vocabulary Establishment People use in my country when they want to effect a disdainful put-down. It avoids explanation, because an explanation can always be analysed ... an explanation might prove to be a hostage to Fortune. And UNHELPFUL doesn't sound too shrill. UNHELPFUL just means "You're not playing my game my way and you weren't elected to the Buller and you're an oik".

I wonder what sort of fees David Cameron is currently charging on the Lecture Circuit.

9 comments:

Gillineau said...

Amen. None of the elite have any dog in the fight; their sons, fortunes, futures or status will ever be damaged by their advocacy of violence. If they had to send an immediate family member into front line combat in any conflict they instigated, maybe a female one just for added reapwhatyousowness, then maybe they'd not be quite so 'western values' in their geopolitics.

J Tempest said...

Islam is a Satanic plan to destroy Christendom that to date has had a fair amount of success, most obviously in the Middle East and North Africa. The West has been aiding and abetting them intermittently since the rise of Luther and Protestantism. The latest attacks on Syria and the Assad regime endanger the large Christian population in that country. Inviting and 'welcoming' Muslim migrants into Europe is part of this plan. Resistance is seen as "unhelpful" by those that are knowingly or ignorantly supporting the plan.

Mick Jagger Gathers No Mosque said...

Remember when Duyba, POTUS George Bush, said they (Islam) hate us because of our freedoms?

That claim would have had to have had several weather balloons attached to it just so it could rise to the level of inanity. They hate us for what we have been doing to them.

As for the evil of terrorism, it is terrorism to bomb those poor souls from tens of thousands of feet in the air and to invade and occupy their countries. The long and ugly and Unjust military actions in the M.E. by countries that once comprised Christian Civilisation is the cause of the terrorists hatred of us - the wonder is that their hatred of us is not universal within Islam.

Now, imagine that you are living where you are living at this moment and Islam had a war machine with unlimited reach and was daily bombing you, your family, and relatives and friends and humiliating your country and culture.

If you could make it into an Islamic country and inflict as much damage and terror against citizens of the country it is hard to imagine a majority of your fellow countrymen calling that terror (even though it would be).

Bring our troops home, quit the M.E. and leave the Islamic countries alone. America has been meddling in the M.E. since the 1920s (owing to our oil secreted underneath their land) and what do we have to show for it?

Death, destruction, debt, and fixed delusions about spreading democracy where there is neither history of it nor desire for it.

Basta...

Kneeling Catholic said...

Father,

I have an Armenian friend who was raised in Jordan and Jerusalem. I was working with him back in 2011 when 'arab spring' broke out. He knew alot about the different countries involved and at the time, he had nothing but glowing words for President Assad. I'm told that is the general attitude of Middle Eastern Christians towards Assad.

Mr Grumpy said...

The regime change in Iraq for which Boris voted has been a great boon to Christians, has it not? And that in a country where the alternative wasn't a Sunni theocracy.

Victor said...

@kneeling catholic? From what I have heard and read IT seems to me that many Arab Christians are first Arabs, then Christians, and their admiration for Assad is due to him being a ruthless fighter for Arabness. It all boils down to nationalism... Anyway, when Christians root for a mass kürzerer, one should question the christianness...

Fr John Hunwicke said...

Dear Victor

Yeah, well, I suppose you're right. But it seems like asking a high degree of sanctity to expect ordinary Christians to support a group that wants to kill them rather than the politician who affords them some protection against their would-be murderers. Doubt if I could manage it.

How sure are you that Assad kprides himself on being an Arab. I thought he was a ...

Kuezerer is an interesting word ...

Victor said...

Autocorrect... Was supposed to be murderer ;)
Assad is an Arab by nationality. His religious beliefs do not play into this.
There are plenty of alternatives between Assad and IS. When the whole thing started six or sehen years ago, it was Assad against young people wanting more democracy and liberty. The revolution was taken hostage by the radicals only after Assad started brutally suppressing it. But the Christians stood by Assad from the beginning! I feel very strongly for our brethren in syria. But we cannot acquit them completely from having brought this over themselves...

Fr John Hunwicke said...

Doubtless you know best. I thought he was an Alawite. I thought racist panarabism died with Nasser and more nuanced identitities are now the order of the day. I suppose you blame the former Christian population of Iraq ... and the Copts ... etc. ... for their fates.