MidnightWatcher – Prophecy in Motion

By Massimo Franco – “This is what seems to have happened. The new ruling classes differ from one country to the other but they tend to have in common a stronger Islamic identity. Their more extremist factions push to punish Christian minorities for what is perceived as a double original sin: being allies of former hated regimes, and being ‘agents of western values’, although they have been living there for 2,000 years or so. The result is that the prospect of their extinction as a community is growing.

It has happened already in Iraq, due to the ‘Anglo-American war’ started in 2003. At that time, the number of Chaldeans, the Christian Iraqis, was between 800,000 and 1.4 million. In 2009-2010, it was estimated are between 400,000 and 500,000, and rapidly decreasing. Cairo’s violent repression shows a similar process is under way in Egypt as well, where they still represent roughly 10% of the population.

This represents a georeligious tragedy for the Vatican, which always tried to maintain a frustrating dialogue with Islamic authorities, and which right up to the end persisted in invoking a pacific coexistence in the area.

But it is also a geopolitical failure for the west, and paradoxically for Islam as well. Christian communities have been historically a bridge between western and Arab culture; and a factor of moderation and mutual understanding between the two worlds. Their dramatic decline signals the collapse of this symbolic bridge, and the growing strength of an ‘Arab street’ fed with consumerism but also with prejudices and a widespread hostile mood against Christians.” Read more.

And the ‘Arab Street’ isn’t just anti-Christian, either: