J gave me a beautiful pair of earrings for Christmas, designed by a Jordanian jeweller friend of ours. The Arabic calligraphy reads: 'Tawakalt ala AIlah: I put my faith in the hands of God.'
On Christmas day, Queen Rania of Jordan posted a photograph on her Facebook page of a Muslim religious leader here in Jordan, offering Christmas wishes and shaking the hand of a priest in central Amman, standing in front of a giant tree. Next to the photo she wrote: 'This is Jordan, and God willing, this is how it always will be. Merry Christmas.'
In a recent issue of Prospect, the former Bishop of Rochester, Michael Nazir-Ali, warns about the status of Christians in this region, and increasing persecution. Before the beginning of Islam in the 7th Century, nearly all of the Arab world, including North Africa, was Christian, with the great Christian cities including Damascus, Alexandria, Edessa and Constantinople. And after Islam the region's three main religions were as they are today - Jewish, Muslim and Christian. But the creation of the state of Israel in 1948, as well as the 1967 and 1973 wars, meant that many Jewish communities moved from other parts of the region to settle in Israel, leaving Christians as one of the only minorities in countries such as Egypt, Iraq and Syria. And since the increase of fundamentalist Islam (which began in the 1950s), it is chilling to read of attacks on churches in Egypt and their forcible conversion into mosques, as well as the murder of clergy in Iraq and Syria; not to mention the 'fitna' (division) between Sunni and Shia which seems to know no limits, and means that cities like Falluja are once more in the headlines, intrinsically linked to events in Syria, through the same merciless fault lines.
At our new year's eve party I had an interesting conversation with an Egyptian and a Brit about the need for leaders in this region, particularly in regard to Palestine. With the death of Mandela still fresh in the news, we cited him as an example. 'There is no hope for Palestine,' said the Egyptian. 'It's far too late for change, and what would an Arab Mandela be able to achieve after all this strife?' The Brit disagreed. 'Who would have thought', he said, 'that Mandela would have achieved as much as he did, so late on in the apartheid struggle, and so late on in his life? No one ever imagined change was possible, and look what happened.'
I've nearly finished Sarah Bakewell's book about Montaigne, and I'm reading it slowly so as not to finish it too soon. I will feel a loss without it to hand. But Montaigne saw such similar struggles - this time within Christian factions, between Protestants and Catholics. Brutal massacres and civil strife punctuated his lifetime, such as the St Bartholomew massacres in 1572, when over 10,000 people in France were slaughtered in just a week. 'There is no hostility that exceeds Christian hostility', Montaigne wrote. And rather than joining the ranks of extremists of the day, and believing that the apocalypse was coming, and that this was the will of God, he chose to follow the Stoic model: a person who behaves morally, moderates his emotions, exercises good judgement and knows how to live. While the extremists prepared for the apocalypse, Montaigne's camp preferred to think ahead to a time when the 'troubles' would be history, and to plan the building of this future world.
According to a recent Channel 4 documentary there are plenty of people in Iraq, Syria and beyond, who believe that this Sunni: Shia fitna is the beginning of the end. But who are the current day Stoics who encourage us to plan and build for when everything sooner or later calms down, which it must. But perhaps not in our lifetime.
Would we abandon our children during tempestuous teenage years just because we may not live to see what they become in their 50s? Like Montaigne, we should believe things will pass, and strive for better planning afterwards. 'Those living in the present assume things are worse than they are, because they cannot escape their local perspective.' When feeling swamped by a situation, he recommends imagining your world from a different angle or scale - as a commotion in an ant colony seen from high, high above.
On Tuesday I am interviewing a 91 year old man here in Amman, who belongs to the oldest Muslim family in Jerusalem, who in the 7th Century were nominated as guardians of the key to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre to avoid clashes between rival Christian sects for control over the church.
Last Tuesday I watched a film about the Palestinian village of Safad that lost its entire population of some 12,000 Arab inhabitants after Jewish paramilitaries took control in 1948. Before the film began I got chatting to an archaeologist, who works with her husband (also an archaeologist) between Jordan and Israel. She knows Jerusalem, Israel and the West Bank extremely well, and takes part in digs there for four months every summer. I asked her how she dealt with the civil problems there and she replied: 'I think the best bit about our kind of work is that we're pre-historians, so often we're dealing with things that we find that are from before man existed. Last year we discovered some carbonised lentils that we now know are pre-human. I have to say, that was pretty exciting.'
I get the feeling that Montaigne would have put those carbonised lentils in the same bracket as the ant colony.
On Christmas day, Queen Rania of Jordan posted a photograph on her Facebook page of a Muslim religious leader here in Jordan, offering Christmas wishes and shaking the hand of a priest in central Amman, standing in front of a giant tree. Next to the photo she wrote: 'This is Jordan, and God willing, this is how it always will be. Merry Christmas.'
In a recent issue of Prospect, the former Bishop of Rochester, Michael Nazir-Ali, warns about the status of Christians in this region, and increasing persecution. Before the beginning of Islam in the 7th Century, nearly all of the Arab world, including North Africa, was Christian, with the great Christian cities including Damascus, Alexandria, Edessa and Constantinople. And after Islam the region's three main religions were as they are today - Jewish, Muslim and Christian. But the creation of the state of Israel in 1948, as well as the 1967 and 1973 wars, meant that many Jewish communities moved from other parts of the region to settle in Israel, leaving Christians as one of the only minorities in countries such as Egypt, Iraq and Syria. And since the increase of fundamentalist Islam (which began in the 1950s), it is chilling to read of attacks on churches in Egypt and their forcible conversion into mosques, as well as the murder of clergy in Iraq and Syria; not to mention the 'fitna' (division) between Sunni and Shia which seems to know no limits, and means that cities like Falluja are once more in the headlines, intrinsically linked to events in Syria, through the same merciless fault lines.
At our new year's eve party I had an interesting conversation with an Egyptian and a Brit about the need for leaders in this region, particularly in regard to Palestine. With the death of Mandela still fresh in the news, we cited him as an example. 'There is no hope for Palestine,' said the Egyptian. 'It's far too late for change, and what would an Arab Mandela be able to achieve after all this strife?' The Brit disagreed. 'Who would have thought', he said, 'that Mandela would have achieved as much as he did, so late on in the apartheid struggle, and so late on in his life? No one ever imagined change was possible, and look what happened.'
I've nearly finished Sarah Bakewell's book about Montaigne, and I'm reading it slowly so as not to finish it too soon. I will feel a loss without it to hand. But Montaigne saw such similar struggles - this time within Christian factions, between Protestants and Catholics. Brutal massacres and civil strife punctuated his lifetime, such as the St Bartholomew massacres in 1572, when over 10,000 people in France were slaughtered in just a week. 'There is no hostility that exceeds Christian hostility', Montaigne wrote. And rather than joining the ranks of extremists of the day, and believing that the apocalypse was coming, and that this was the will of God, he chose to follow the Stoic model: a person who behaves morally, moderates his emotions, exercises good judgement and knows how to live. While the extremists prepared for the apocalypse, Montaigne's camp preferred to think ahead to a time when the 'troubles' would be history, and to plan the building of this future world.
According to a recent Channel 4 documentary there are plenty of people in Iraq, Syria and beyond, who believe that this Sunni: Shia fitna is the beginning of the end. But who are the current day Stoics who encourage us to plan and build for when everything sooner or later calms down, which it must. But perhaps not in our lifetime.
Would we abandon our children during tempestuous teenage years just because we may not live to see what they become in their 50s? Like Montaigne, we should believe things will pass, and strive for better planning afterwards. 'Those living in the present assume things are worse than they are, because they cannot escape their local perspective.' When feeling swamped by a situation, he recommends imagining your world from a different angle or scale - as a commotion in an ant colony seen from high, high above.
On Tuesday I am interviewing a 91 year old man here in Amman, who belongs to the oldest Muslim family in Jerusalem, who in the 7th Century were nominated as guardians of the key to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre to avoid clashes between rival Christian sects for control over the church.
Last Tuesday I watched a film about the Palestinian village of Safad that lost its entire population of some 12,000 Arab inhabitants after Jewish paramilitaries took control in 1948. Before the film began I got chatting to an archaeologist, who works with her husband (also an archaeologist) between Jordan and Israel. She knows Jerusalem, Israel and the West Bank extremely well, and takes part in digs there for four months every summer. I asked her how she dealt with the civil problems there and she replied: 'I think the best bit about our kind of work is that we're pre-historians, so often we're dealing with things that we find that are from before man existed. Last year we discovered some carbonised lentils that we now know are pre-human. I have to say, that was pretty exciting.'
I get the feeling that Montaigne would have put those carbonised lentils in the same bracket as the ant colony.
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