Greetings!
As Rep. Keith Ellison said yesterdayday, in a congressional hearing for human rights investigations in Syria, "political debate should be resolved in the ballot box, not the torture chamber." Although Bashar al-Assad has consented to UN Ambassabor Kofi Annan's plan for ending his regime's violent crackdown (thanks, perhaps, to Russia's cooperation in recommending it), it is unlikely that Assad will comply in democratic reforms that would surely spell defeat for him. My hope is that the violent repression is ending due to this international diplomatic pressure, but my fear is that a compromise will have to be struck which honors both the ballot box and the torture chamber. At the risk of sounding naive, though, I want to say that the stage is quite perfectly set for something that God has done before, and will do again. St. Paul, the eager persecutor of the book of Acts, was converted on his way to Damascus in Syria. Why shouldn't it happen again, today, to Assad? We can and should encourage nonviolent resistance in Syrian civil society, because, as hard as it is not to fight back, we as Christians know that military resistance is already defeat. The nations must support civil society, lift up the poor and heal the wounded, and denounce the violation of human rights. 9 Syrian generals have already defected; it would be nice to convert a few more. But to be truly faithful, I think we might do well to pray for the unlikely: that the God of love would personally appear, with the glory of justice, to all those proud spirits who dare to kill the women, men, and children who share the image of God. In peace, Taylor Reese Program Associate, Pax Christi USA (Photo: Caravaggio, "The Conversion on the Way to Damascus") |
