The Maronite patriarch certainly has a special understanding of the meaning of democracy and the conditions that must be met to achieve it, an understanding that differs from that of other people. In his recent interview with Reuters, Patriarch Beshara Rai did not hesitate to describe the Syrian regime as “the closest thing to democracy” among Arab regimes. He justified this by saying that Syria does not say it is an Islamic state, although the president of the country must be a Muslim. The strange thing is that Rai contradicted himself in the same interview. He acknowledged that the Syrian Baathist regime is a “hard-line, dictatorial regime.” However, he clearly defended the regime, saying, “There are many like it in the Arab world.” Moreover, Rai's defense of the “democratic” nature of the regime hides its sectarian nature, which governs the affiliation of people holding the leading posts in that country's political and security bodies. This defense ignores the fact that any other Arab regime, with the exception of the former Baath regime in Iraq, has not committed, and would not dare to commit, the crimes against its own people that have been committed by the regime in Damascus. In a near-adoption of what the Syrian official media have been saying, Rai does not forget to cite the “reforms” that the regime of President Bashar Assad is undertaking. He skillfully informs us that the Syrian president announced these reforms last March, but neglects to note that ever since these “reforms” began, more than 8,000 people have been killed in Syrian cities. It is not the first time that the Maronite patriarch defends the Syrian regime, and cast doubt on the future of uprisings during the “Arab spring,” saying that it is turning into a “winter.” He made similar comments in the past, during his visit to Paris last summer, after a meeting with the French president, and before making a visit to the United States. These stances generated wide-scale criticism by the two countries whose positions on the Syrian regime are well-known. It ended with a near-boycott of the patriarch by senior American officials. In the aftermath, media circles in Bkirki hinted that Rai was misquoted, even though he was speaking directly to a French radio station. The same thing happened after the patriarch's most recent interview, in a bid to deny the comments, which generated criticism and controversy, inside and outside Lebanon. However, the agency that obtained Rai's comments insisted that its work was professional, and did not permit any “correction” of an interview that was recorded on tape. Just as with the visits to Paris and Washington, Rai's comments represent an unsuccessful prelude to his trip to Jordan, which is scheduled to be followed by stops in Qatar and Kuwait. The stances of these three countries and their leaders vis-à-vis the Syrian uprising and the Assad regime are well-known. This would require, for the sake of diplomacy, that the patriarch spare himself and his post the embarrassment that he will encounter during his meetings with these three leaders. Rai's insistence on these stances on the uprising of the Syrian people means that what the man says represents no slip of the tongue, or the confusion that accompanies the assuming of a new post. With these comments, Rai is taking a gamble by placing the sect that he represents in an unenviable position, that of defending a butcher against his victim, and defending injustice against the values of justice, and the right of a leader to exclude people. Certainly, such a defense has nothing to do with the teachings of Christianity, or the simplest precepts of humanity, which call for supporting the victims of injustice against the unjust. Above all, the patriarch's stance harms the national role that the Maronite patriarchate has always played in defending the country's sovereignty and rejecting any dependence on the outside world. It prompts a large segment of the Lebanese, both Muslims and Christians, to be cautious about dealing with a religious figure who adopts such biased stances. This is not all. Rai also risks earning the hostility of any future regime in Damascus, and of the governments that have taken shape amid the wreckage of former oppressive regimes in the Arab world. The strange thing is that Rai calls for the protection of Christians in the east, while his comments only lead to increasing the anxiety about this presence, by creating a situation of gratuitous hostility to the wide surrounding region in which Christians live.
