Christians dream of Syria without Assad, Islamists

ICC Note: In many cities throughout Syria prior to the country’s uprising, Christians and Muslims lived side-by-side as friends. “That is the Syria that I would like to live in again,” Mariam told Agence France-Presse. There is growing concern among the Christian community, however, of the Al-Nusra Front, a jihadist group fighting the regime that has gained more influence in some cities than the Free Syrian Army. Christians fear that if the regime falls, Al-Nusra will attempt to impose an Islamic state in Syria. “We Christians… will have no place in this country, and we will leave,” said Mariam’s husband, Abu Ibrahim.
By Jose Rodriguez
3/14/2013 Syria (Agence France-Presse) – Abu Ibrahim says he and his family are the only Christians left in Syria’s devastated city of Deir Ezzor, and he is terrified Muslim extremists could make their already difficult life hell.
Yet every Sunday, he and the family peacefully hold prayers in a house they share with 15 soldiers from the rebel Free Syria Army (FSA), all Sunni Muslims.
But this is no paradox.
Abu Ibrahim’s wife Mariam, a silver cross hanging from around her neck, recalls fondly the Deir Ezzor she knew before the uprising against the regime of President Bashar al-Assad broke out two years ago.
In a mixed neighbourhood of Christians and Sunnis, “we all lived in peace with each other. We had many Muslim friends who came to our house for Christmas and we would go to theirs to break the fast during Ramadan.”
“That is the Syria that I would like to live in again,” she says wistfully.
She and her husband are not troubled by Muslims per se. Indeed Mariam cooks and washes for the FSA fighters, saying “they are like my children.”
What they do fear is the Al-Nusra Front, a jihadist group that is better financed, armed and organised than the FSA and that has muscled it out as the primary rebel force in Deir Ezzor.
There are widespread fears that if the regime falls, Al-Nusra will attempt to impose an Islamic state in Syria, where Christians, Sunnis and Alawites, the offshoot of Shiite Islam to which Assad belongs, have coexisted for centuries.
“When Assad falls, we will see what their true intentions are,” says Abu Ibrahim.
And if that were to happen, then “we Christians… will have no place in this country, and we will leave.”
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