Tea at Trianon: "The West Has Betrayed Us"

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Sunday, November 22, 2015

"The West Has Betrayed Us"

Syrian Christians are abandoned. The Patriarch speaks:

"Be careful, the situation in Syria is not like the Egyptian, Tunisian or Libyan. It is much more complex, and conflict will create only chaos and civil war." This is warning from the head of the Syrian Catholic Church, Moran Mor Ignatius Joseph III Younan.

In an interview with Le Messager, the official publication of the Catholic Church in Egypt, the patriarch emphasized that Christians in Syria "are trapped in a terrible situation." The dwindling population faces "sectarian and ethnic" warfare and "terrorist groups that use Islam as an excuse to 'purify' areas under their control in the name of religion."

"We Christians are not able to live in this chaos that produces militias, armed gangs, terrorist groups and Islamic parties," His Beatitude stressed. "But when we maintain a firm stand against these phenomena, then the West accuses us of being dictatorial."

According to Younan, Western democracies have for years conspired "against Syria and have produced the destruction of the nation's infrastructure, the demolition of houses, towns, villages, monuments and archaeological sites."

He labeled this outcome as the result of "foolish politics and of a conspiracy, under the pretext of bringing democracy to the region."

"Our nations do not easily accept democracy because there is no real separation of religion from the state," he explained. "Minorities beg to be represented in front of the Muslim majority, and they feel like immigrants in a foreign land. We Christians have been in these lands for thousands of years, long before Islam."

"The politicians of the West — and in particular those of the United States, Britain and France — are in favor of an endless conflict in Iraq and Syria," which in turn "has produced groups of terrorists."

The Syriac patriarch noted that both he and the rest of the Eastern patriarchs have "spoken out clearly to the West from the very beginning," explaining that the situation in Syria is much more delicate than anticipated. According to Younan, "they [the Western powers] listened and responded: 'No, the Assad regime will fall in a few months,'" which the patriarch notes has not yet happened, as he predicted.

In the five years since, the people of Syria, and Christians in particular, have received "no support" in dealing with the dangerous mess that has been created.

"The West has betrayed us," asserted Patriarch Younan. (Read more.)