Each day, the news casts air accounts of the horrors in Syria. Each day there is talk of armed intervention by other nations to end the slaughter of the innocents. Each day the reasons for non-intervention are recounted. We see and hear images and sounds of war.
We hear the opinions of those we are expected to believe. Too much is left out.
Syria in 2012 is only a chapter in a story that began long ago.
As a land within the area recognized as the cradle of civilization, Syria is old in history. It has been overrun by invaders who, in turn, were expelled by other invaders. Whether or not they were impelled by religious beliefs, as the Israelites were in the conquest of Canaan, invaders wanted land, plunder and power.
Those of us with biblical knowledge find in modern Syria the annals of a province of the Roman Empire and the names of cities closely associated with the Acts of the Christian apostles. From the Middle East the new offshoot of Judaism was taken to Europe as a crutch to support failing Roman power and to create the Holy Roman Empire. From Europe at a later time, Christian Crusaders journeyed to the Middle East to save the shrines of Christianity from occupation by infidel Islam. The more selfish among the soldiers of the cross were well aware of the opportunities for plunder that were inherent in their campaigns. The Crusades were as much about wealth and power as about religion
Over the centuries, both in Christianity and Islam, blood has flowed freely because of differences in doctrines. The deadly violence continues among the competing sects of Islam. It is not always easy to know whether the vicious contests in religious doctrines are, in fact, attempts to seize political power - and land and wealth.
Modern Syria is governed by the Ba'athist Party, which is the Arab Socialist Party.
For 29 years, supreme power belonged to Hafez al-Assad. During that time, religious differences were downplayed. His maniacal son, Rashad al-Assad continued to downplay religious differences, but when threatened by popular uprisings, unleashed a murderous defence of his position of power. Assad, and many of his associates, are members of the Alawite sect. This small division of Islam was once of little importance. Alawites in the Syrian government are now willing to murder their own people rather than surrender the power gained under the Assads, father and son.
Israel compounds the situation. Stalwart defenders of Israel, such as the United States, Britain and Canada, fear the Syrian civil war will create a fundamentalist regime that will threaten the survival of Israel. They also fear Israel, one of four nuclear-armed nations that have never signed the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty, will release a holocaust of destruction and radiation in its own defence.
No religious doctrine is provable in the present life. Death and destruction are real, visible and provable. Years ago while touring in Ireland during the worst years of bloody violence, a tour guide told me that not one article of religious belief was worth the death of even one human being.
She was Catholic married to a Protestant. She believed what she said. I believe it, too.
