Enabling Oblivion: Global Activism and the Erasure of Middle Eastern Christians

Abstract

The relative ignorance of Armenian narratives in the analysis of current affairs in the Middle East raised by several authors in this roundtable is symptomatic of a larger problem facing ethno-religious minorities in the region. Until the 1990s, Western exposure to Middle Eastern Christianity in both academic and popular contexts was minimal at best. Outside specific studies of notable groups, scholars largely ignored non-Muslim religious sects. At the level of popular discourse, political Islam had illuminated the majoritarian religious impulses of the region, contributing to common Orientalist stereotypes of Arab and Muslim political culture.1 The presence of several million indigenous Christians, the vast majority of whom represented ancient indigenous communities, was largely ignored among academics and journalists. The notable exception was Lebanon, where Christian participation in the drama of the civil conflict of the 1980s was often noted in the press and occasionally scrutinized in academia.