Syria's Christians Side with Assad Out of Fear
Many of Syria's 2.5 million Christians are supporting President Bashar Assad amidst ongoing protests in the country. They prefer a brutal dictator who guarantees the rights of religious minorities to the uncertain future that Assad's departure would bring. The president is exploiting their fears of Islamists for his own ends.
The rebellion against him was just a few days old when Syrian dictator Bashar Assad summoned his country's Christian leaders to the presidential palace in northwestern Damascus. Syrian Orthodox Patriarch Ignatius came. He is 78 years old and critically ill, but still a powerful figure. Bishops and archbishops representing Catholics, Armenians, Aramaeans and Assyrians were also present. In total, there were a dozen religious leaders, representing around 2.5 million Syrian Christians.
The message they received from their head of state was short and simple: Either support me, or your churches will burn.
It seemed Assad, himself a member of the Alawis, a branch of Shia Islam, didn't want to assume that Syria's Christians would continue to remain aloof from politics. Sensing that not only his authority but perhaps his very survival was at stake, he resorted to the same means his father, Hafez Assad, once used to maintain power: pressure and violence.
President Assad is a very cultured man," says Gregorios Elias Tabé, 70, the Syrian Catholic archbishop of Damascus. He calls all the media liars and the demonstrators nothing but terrorists. Every Sunday, he preaches at St. Paul's Chapel on the southeastern edge of Damascus' old town, which takes its name from the Apostle Paul, said to have escaped from the city here 2,000 years ago. Syria's Christian congregations are among the oldest in the world, and the archbishop would like them to continue to exist for many years to come -- which gives him a reason to take Assad's side.
"We're a nation of 23 million," Tabé says, "and no law can ever satisfy everyone. That's true in every country -- there are always 10 percent who are sacrificed." It's a state of affairs he can accept, as long as Christians aren't the segment of the population being sacrificed.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,800450,00.html
Der Spiegel is a very good news source
this could get tricky