Why our world today is uncannily - and worryingly - like the one Jesus was born into 2,023 years ago

From The Mail Online

Written by NIALL FERGUSON 

Niall Ferguson is Milbank Family Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford, a Visiting Professor at the London School of Economics, and columnist with Bloomberg Opinion

Dated: Saturday, 23 December 2023, 01:43 - here is a copy in full:

Why our world today is uncannily - and worryingly - like the one Jesus was born into 2,023 years ago

The story of Jesus's birth is rarely told with much 

attention to its historical context 

It happened during the reign of the first Roman emperor. A child was born in an obscure farm building in a Middle Eastern province of the empire. 

All kinds of strange events occurred around the time of His birth, including a massacre of children, ordered by the Judean King Herod.

Along with some bewildered shepherds, three foreign 'magi' (wise men) found their way to the child's birthplace. But no one in the imperial capital Rome paid much attention.

This proved to be a mistake, as the birth of this child would ultimately transform the empire — and the world — for ever.

The story of Jesus's birth is rarely told with much attention to its historical context. But this year the circumstances of the time seem uncannily relevant. The Middle East is in just the kind of turmoil that had led the Romans to impose their imperial rule on Judaea.

And the United States is in just the kind of political crisis that led the Roman republic to become an empire under Augustus Caesar. In other surprising ways, too, what we are living through is similar to what the people of the early first century experienced.

Like our ancestors two millennia ago, we inhabit a distressing spiritual vacuum marked by pleasure seeking and unbridled consumerism. 

Christianity, the old religion, has become hollow to us, even as we go through the motions of recollecting the story of Christ's birth.

Let's begin with the war in the Middle East, which I believe will ultimately lead the United States to send troops back into the region, despite the painful memories of the 2003 Iraq invasion and subsequent occupation — which, in truth, are painful only for the families of the relatively small number of U.S. service personnel who were killed (3,519) or wounded (32,000) there. God bless them and their British counterparts this Christmas.

Most of us have strongly held but casually informed political opinions on the Middle East. On one side, supporters of Israel — not all of them Jews — regard it as obvious that Israel has a right to defend itself after the horrendous atrocities perpetrated against Israeli civilians by Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) on October 7.

Supporters of the Palestinians, some of whom shamelessly celebrated those atrocities, insist that the Palestinian resistance is justified because of the wretched conditions in Gaza and the lack of Israeli commitment to a viable Palestinian state. Arguments about the issue will ruin many a family Christmas this year.

However, this debate about whose cause is more just — the Israelis' or the Palestinians' — misses the point. 

The reality is that, in the 50 years since the last surprise attack on Israel on the Holy Day of Yom Kippur (October 6, 1973), it has proved impossible for Israel to find a peaceful modus vivendi with the Palestinians.

Israel made peace with Egypt at Camp David in 1978. It made peace with Jordan in 1994. It signed the Oslo Accords with the Palestine Liberation Organization in 1995. 

And, under the Abraham Accords of 2020-21, Israel normalised its relations with the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco.

Indeed, it was about to reach a similar rapprochement with Saudi Arabia when the slaughter of the innocents happened on October 7, freezing if not killing the negotiations.

The United States is in just the kind of political crisis that led the Roman republic to become an empire under Augustus Caesar

There are two obvious reasons why peace with the Palestinians has proved elusive. First, the Palestinian Authority established under the Oslo Accords has proved to be an oxymoron — it lacks any kind of authority.

Second, many Palestinians themselves have preferred the path of violence, turning to Hamas and other terrorist groups for leadership, apparently oblivious to Hamas's true character as a criminal racket. 

While ordinary Gazans bear the brunt of Israel's war of retaliation, the Hamas mafiosi live in luxury in Qatar on the money sent to Gaza by naive international donors.

But there is a third explanation for the agony of the Holy Land, and that is geopolitical. The Abraham Accords were one of the diplomatic triumphs of Donald Trump's administration. 

Yet Joe Biden decided to change course, opting to try to revive the obviously dead Iran nuclear deal, the 'Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action' of 2015.

That deal was President Barack Obama's attempt to induce the Islamic Republic of Iran to suspend — not to end — its nuclear weapons program in return for relief from U. S. sanctions.

It did nothing to prevent Iran using the money it received under the deal to finance terrorist organisations throughout the region, including not only Hamas and PIJ, but also Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen.

That was why Trump abandoned the nuclear deal and re-imposed sanctions on Iran. It was why in 2020 he killed one of Iran's principal malefactors, Qasem Soleimani, the commander of the Quds Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

The present crisis in the Middle East is, therefore, the result of a combination of Iranian aggression and American pusillanimity.

Consider the passivity with which Washington has reacted to a succession of Houthi attacks on U.S. bases in the region and, most recently, merchant shipping in the Red Sea. 

Why send two aircraft-carrier strike groups to the region if you have no intention of using them for fear of 'escalating' the crisis?

However, the haplessness of the Biden administration's foreign policy is not the main reason why Trump is now narrowly the favourite to be the next president of the United States, though the perception that Biden is drifting into new 'forever wars' is playing its part.

The probability of Trump's re-election on November 5 next year is now, in my view, above 50 per cent. The prediction market agrees. So do most recent polls.

Despite his sea of legal troubles — and perhaps partly because of them — the former president is the clear frontrunner to be the Republican nominee, about 50 points ahead of Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis. 

And Trump is well placed to defeat Biden in a rerun of the 2020 contest, especially if you look at his polling leads in key swing states.

The crucial issue is not Biden's foreign policy flops. Nor is it his advanced age, though even a majority of Democratic voters admit that, at 81, he is too old to be president. The key issue is 'Bidenomics,' a term devised by the dotard president's handlers.

Trump is well placed to defeat Biden in a rerun of the 2020 contest, 

especially if you look at his polling leads in key swing states

Objectively, by most conventional measures, the U.S. economy is in good shape — certainly in better shape than Britain's or Europe's. Unemployment is low (3.7 per cent). Inflation has come down substantially (to 3.1 per cent, compared with a peak of 9.1 per cent in June last year). The financial markets are rooting for interest-rate cuts next year. 

But voters have still not forgiven the administration for the inflation they suffered last year. They also sense that a slowdown is coming, if not a recession — the inevitable result of the Federal Reserve's interest rate hikes.

As a consequence, Biden's polling on this key issue is terrible: on average, nearly 61 per cent of voters disapprove of his handling of the economy, and 65 per cent his handling of inflation. An even higher proportion (69 per cent) think the country is 'on the wrong track'.

Though he has not sunk as low as Jimmy Carter in 1979, Biden's position is uncomfortably similar to that of Gerald Ford and George H. W. Bush at the same stages in their only presidential terms.

I do not entirely blame my fellow Americans for considering re-electing Trump. His first term was much better for the average U.S. household — who saw their real income surge 9 per cent before Covid struck, after 17 years of stagnation — than most elite media coverage would have you believe.

However, in view of all that has emerged about Trump's unconscionably reckless conduct between election night 2020 and the storming of the Capitol on January 6, 2021, I fear that his return to the White House could mark the beginning of the end of the American republic and the first step towards an unconstitutional American empire.

And I worry that Trump will be able to justify overriding the constitution by pointing to both domestic and international emergencies.

At home, there will inevitably be 'mainly peaceful' (i.e. partly violent) protests in Democratic strongholds if Trump is declared the election winner.

Abroad, Trump will inherit a triple global crisis in Ukraine, Israel and potentially also Taiwan. Even if China's President Xi Jinping does not risk blockading the island he covets, it would not surprise me if Hezbollah opened a new front against Israel in the New Year.

Consider how the Roman republic died as the ruthless political operator Octavian — Julius Caesar's adopted son — asserted his power.

He became emperor by steps: first as one of the second triumvirate — an alliance between three rival statesmen, Octavian, Mark Antony and Lepidus, giving them absolute power; then as lifetime commander-in-chief (imperator), tribune and censor; and finally as 'princeps civitatis' (First Citizen) with the title 'Augustus'.

What made the Roman Empire possible — indeed, necessary — was the need to end a state of recurrent civil war at home and of geopolitical crisis abroad, especially in the Middle East, but also in central Europe — Rome's Ukraine was Germania — and even in unruly Britannia, conquered by the Romans after AD 43.

Augustus won power by ousting Lepidus and then defeating Mark Antony and his lover Queen Cleopatra and invading Egypt, which he subsequently annexed. It was Augustus, too, who incorporated Judaea, including Herod's kingdom, into the Empire. It was a Roman census that required Joseph and the pregnant Mary to travel from Nazareth to Bethlehem.

And this brings me to the other major resemblance between our time and the time of Jesus's birth 2,023 years ago.

One reason why Donald Trump's return to power is now a possibility is that we in the West inhabit a moral and ethical wasteland. If we were still a truly Christian civilisation, Trump would stand no chance of becoming president again.

A people who were committed to the teachings of the Old and New Testaments would have no hesitation in identifying him as a serial violator of at least half the Ten Commandments and, therefore, morally unqualified to occupy the highest office in the republic.

Yet the U.S. today is only nominally a Christian country, in the sense that a majority of Americans still identify as Christians of one denomination or another.

According to survey data, both faith and observance have significantly declined in the 20 years since I have lived and worked there. In the 1990s, 90 per cent of Americans identified as Christians. It's now down to two-thirds. Weekly church attendance has also slumped.

In this respect, the U.S. is beginning to resemble England, where less than half the population (46.2 per cent) now say they are Christians. More than a third (37.2 per cent) say they have no religion, according to the 2021 census.

Like the people of the Roman Empire 2,000 years ago, we are almost entirely consumed by the pleasures and preoccupations of this world. One of many symptoms of our spiritual bankruptcy is the epidemic of mental ill-health sweeping the English-speaking world.

Dark days may lie ahead. It is some comfort, surely, that a saviour could be born at such a time

Another symptom is the slump in fertility rates as more and more couples opt to have just one child or no children at all.

Whatever people may say when they rationalise this decision to limit their reproduction below the replacement rate (to sustain the species), in truth the decision to restrict or forgo parenthood is an implicit expression of despair.

For there is no greater joy to be had in this world than that of bringing a baby into it. It is, I would argue, the ultimate affirmation of faith. Yes, we know that every child is doomed, as are we, to experience suffering and, inevitably, death.

And yet we know that the delights of life are worth all its trials and its inevitable end. A Christian knows that we humans are more than mere naked apes. We know that God made us 'in His image'.

It is, thus, no accident that at the heart of the Christian faith is the Nativity. The greatest story ever told begins with the birth of a baby boy, immaculately and divinely conceived, to a young Jewish woman. 

And the story ends, not with His cruel crucifixion in Jerusalem, but with the conquest of the Roman Empire itself by the religion founded by Him — Christos, the Anointed One of the Lord God.

This Christmas, let us remind ourselves that His 2,000-year reign over the faithful began not only amid a Middle Eastern crisis, but also in the period of transition from republic to empire.

Dark days may lie ahead. It is some comfort, surely, that a saviour could be born at such a time.

View original: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12895595/world-today-uncannily-one-Jesus-born.html#comments

ENDS

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Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, said to be Jesus's birthplace  

Mail writer Richard Pendlebury pictured inside 

the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, said to be Jesus's birthplace 

Source: How Bethlehem became the backdrop to violence and fear as war comes to the West Bank, Richard Pendlebury report

ENDS 

Understanding the Sudanese Civil War. Muslim Brotherhood is to blame. Janjaweed's home is Darfur

"The first thing [Sudanese] Pastor Kuku says when I ask him about the situation [in Sudan] is that the Muslim Brotherhood is to blame. “As far as they are concerned, they must be in control,” he says. “No one is allowed to govern the country while they are around — the country will be ruined, or they rule it… They feel that anyone else who might rule are infidels.” 

The Brotherhood is an Islamic organization active in many countries. It supported the old dictator al-Bashir, and now supports his successor al-Burhan. The trouble is, Kuku says, the Brotherhood does not feel any sense of patriotism or belonging to Sudan. Their loyalty is to the Brotherhood. If they can rule Sudan, good — if not, let it be destroyed. If Sudan is ruined, they can move on. That’s their perspective.

The Janjaweed, which is currently occupying the capital Khartoum, isn’t any better. The Janjaweed just want to loot and pillage, in Kuku’s view. They don’t feel that they will get to keep Khartoum, so they want to destroy it out of envy and spite". Read more.

From The Stream
By PETER ROWDEN 
Dated 24 November 2023 - here is a copy in full:

Understanding the Sudanese Civil War

Flickr/Steve Evans/CC BY-NC 2.0

Wars are too quickly forgotten. A conflict starts and the whole world watches. When it drags on with no resolution, the world moves on — especially if there is no ideological battle being fought, or if another, fresher conflict grabs our attention.

Such is the case with Sudan. The world may be ready to let the violence there fade into the background, seeing it as another Yemen or Somalia, a place of perpetual violence better left ignored. But the people of Sudan, including the large Christian minority in the country, cannot move on.

Civil war has been raging in Sudan for over six months now. The cost in human lives is mind-boggling. An October 15 UN report reveals that perhaps as many as 9,000 people have been killed, 5.6 million have been displaced, 25 million are in need of humanitarian aid, and 19 million children have been unable to attend school.

On October 31, I sat down with a Sudanese Pastor, Younan Kuku, to talk about the situation. Pastor Kuku hails from the Nuba mountains on the border between Sudan and South Sudan. He currently lives in another Arab country where he pastors a church of Sudanese refugees and expatriates.

The Background of the Conflict

Sudan is a diverse country. Dozens of tribes speak dozens of languages and adhere to a mixture of religions — Muslim, Christian, and traditional animism. Some tribes have Arabian ethnic origins, speak Arabic as their mother-tongue, and consider themselves Arabs. Many of them live the traditional Arab lifestyle of nomadic pastoralism.

Oher tribes speak a variety of African languages and identify as African. Many are settled farmers who do not want nomadic pastoralists roaming over their lands. These differences — “Arab” vs. “African,” Muslim vs. Christian, agriculturalist vs. pastoralist — are the roots of the ethnic, religious, and economic conflicts that have beset the country for decades.

For thirty years, Sudan was ruled by the dictator Omar al-Bashir, an Islamic extremist from an Arab tribe who wanted to impose Sharia law throughout the country. He adopted a policy of ethnic cleansing with the aim of turning Sudan into an Arab Muslim nation. For this the southern part of the country, which was predominantly “African” and Christian/animist/syncretistic, seceded in 2011 to become the world’s newest independent nation, South Sudan.

Three other regions are controlled by rebel groups and have dreams of succession or overthrowing the government in Khartoum, but are not strong enough. They reside in the vast Darfur region in the west of the country, the Nuba Mountains in South Kordofan State on the southern border, and Blue Nile State in the southeast.

In the Darfur region, al-Bashir used an Arab militia group called the Janjaweed to carry out his genocidal plans while avoiding implication in the crimes. Eventually, the Janjaweed was made official and integrated into the Sudanese military government as the Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

In 2019, a popular uprising unseated al-Bashir. He ended up in jail, and Sudan ostensibly began the transition to democracy. However, many of al-Bashir’s people remained in place in the government and the military.

In 2021 the military initiated another coup, overthrowing the civilian transitional government leadership. General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan became the leader of the country. Burhan’s grip on Sudan was not strong, so he kept up the pretense of a transition to civilian rule. He left al-Bashir in jail, perhaps partly because al-Burhan would rather be in change than second fiddle.

For more than a year, the country was consumed with pro-democracy protests demanding that al-Burhan step down.

In April 2023 the leader of the RSF/Janjaweed, Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (usually referred to as simply “Hemedti”), took advantage of al-Burhan’s unpopularity and the overall instability, and attempted to overthrow him. He portrayed himself as the true champion of the Sudanese people — despite the fact that it was he who oversaw many of the atrocities in the past Darfur conflicts.

The two men are now fighting over control of the country, but as far as most Sudanese people are concerned, both are villains.

“No Sense of Belonging”

The first thing Pastor Kuku says when I ask him about the situation is that the Muslim Brotherhood is to blame.

“As far as they are concerned, they must be in control,” he says. “No one is allowed to govern the country while they are around — the country will be ruined, or they rule it… They feel that anyone else who might rule are infidels.”

The Brotherhood is an Islamic organization active in many countries. It supported the old dictator al-Bashir, and now supports his successor al-Burhan.

The trouble is, Kuku says, the Brotherhood does not feel any sense of patriotism or belonging to Sudan. Their loyalty is to the Brotherhood. If they can rule Sudan, good — if not, let it be destroyed. If Sudan is ruined, they can move on. That’s their perspective.

The Janjaweed, which is currently occupying the capital Khartoum, isn’t any better. The Janjaweed just want to loot and pillage, in Kuku’s view. They don’t feel that they will get to keep Khartoum, so they want to destroy it out of envy and spite.

Khartoum

As a result, there are not many residents left in Khartoum proper, Kuku says — the city is mostly empty. However, people remain in the poorer urban areas on the edges of Khartoum proper, such as Omdurman and El-Haj Yousif. Residents of those areas don’t have the resources even to leave. Many of them came to Khartoum in the first place fleeing Darfur and other war torn areas of the country.

There is no real government in Khartoum. In the days of Omar Bashir, at least there was a government, Kuku says. “Now everything is ruined.”

I can see why any leadership at all would seem preferable to the current state of things. A video recently circulated in the Sudanese community that showed an iconic skyscraper in the capital burning. Khartoum does not have many skyscrapers, and I was shocked to see it destroyed — it had been perhaps the most impressive part of the skyline when I visited the city in 2022, a symbol of progress and development. Now it’s gone, and Khartoum is on its way to becoming a dystopian waste.

If the Janjaweed retains any control in Sudan, it will most likely be in its home turf of Darfur.

Darfur

“There many voices saying that Darfur must secede,” Kuku says.

In fact, people in Darfur have wanted to secede for a long time. The Janjaweed will support that idea, Kuku predicts, so that they can be left in charge of Darfur, and give the rest of Sudan to the al-Burhan and the Muslim Brotherhood.

However, the atrocities committed by the Janjaweed were part of the reason that many people in Darfur wanted to secede in the first place. If the Janjaweed takes over Darfur, the region could be left in the hands of a government just as genocidal as al-Bashir’s. The African tribes in Darfur want independence from Sudan, but not like this.

“I think it will happen,” says Kuku.

Nuba Mountains

Meanwhile, the rebels in the Nuba mountains don’t want to get involved in the war at all, because they consider both sides their enemies — and if they side with one side, the other side would punish them if it won.

So they are staying out of the conflict as much as possible. However, they are seizing the opportunity to re-take control of their own region, while the Sudanese military is otherwise occupied. The Nuba Mountains has its own functioning autonomous government. They have been thinking about independence for a long time. Kuku thinks that if Darfur secedes, the Nuba Mountains will ask for independence as well. But if there is any sort of peace compromise, they will be patient and hope for a better situation under the new government.

The Christian Community

Meanwhile, the Christian community scattered throughout the country is caught in the middle of the war. Both sides of the conflict are Islamic extremists. Kuku thinks that if the conflict resolves in any sort of compromise or peace agreement between the factions, there is hope that Christians may experience a little relief. But if the country is simply divided between Hemedti and al-Burhan, it could become very hard for the Christians in the new regimes.

Unfortunately, Christians don’t have much say in what happens to the country. They are left to make the best of it.

As reported here previously, the Christian community in the city of Wad Madani has been active in taking care of people flooding in from the capital. The situation remains very hard in Wad Madani because of the huge number of displaced people. People are sleeping in the schools, under trees, and beside houses, Kuku says.

The situation in the northern city of Atbara is similar.

The route for aid to reach the suffering people in Wad Madani and Atbara is through the Muslim Brotherhood in Port Sudan. Kuku indicates that although there is corruption, it is possible for some aid to actually reach them, especially if it is designated for the churches and not for the government. But not nearly enough aid is being sent.

The Future of Sudan

Most people in Sudan are Muslims, but they are not extremists and do not agree with the Brotherhood. The majority adhere to Sufism, a charismatic or mystical form of Islam that many Islamic extremists consider heretical. Syncretism and Muslims-in-name-only are also common.

Many people in Sudan, especially young people from the capital, want the Sudan to remain united. The younger generation wants change, and they want democracy, but they do not want the country to fall apart.

But politicians have other loyalties and think differently, Kuku says. The Sudanese people don’t want the Muslim Brotherhood to rule the country, nor the military. They want a civilian government. But the military won’t allow it.

“As far as I’m concerned, if Sudan remained one country it would be strong,” says Kuku.

I mentioned to him that on October 26, the RSF/Janjaweed and the military resumed peace talks in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

“It won’t succeed,” says Kuku simply.

Neither side is serious about peace right now. The military leaders only understand the language of threats, Kuku thinks. If a more powerful military forced them to stop tearing the country apart, they would listen. But mere admonitions of peace won’t do anything. Both sides are treating the war like a game.

Please continue to pray for Sudan, especially our Christian brothers and sisters there.

 

Peter Rowden is a friend of The Stream living in the Middle East.

View original: https://stream.org/understanding-the-sudanese-civil-war/

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Postscript from Sudan Watch Editor 

Notes to self:

Which countries call the Muslim Brotherhood a “terrorist organisation”? To date, the countries that have labelled the MB as a “terrorist organisation” are: Egypt, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and the United Arab Emirates. 

Who are the Muslim Brotherhood? The MB is the oldest political Islamist group in the Arab world. It is not allowed to operate as an official political party in some Arab countries.

Who are the leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood? The supreme leader of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt is Mohamed Badie, who is currently in prison, having been sentenced to a number of life in prison and death sentences for a variety of charges.

Why do Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates dislike the Muslim Brotherhood? In 2013, Saudi rulers threw their weight behind Egypt’s brutal crackdown on Muslim Brotherhood supporters. In March 2014, the kingdom designated the Muslim Brotherhood a “terrorist” group.

Source: Al Jazeera (2017)
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From Wikipedia the free encyclopedia - Muslim Brotherhood:

The Society of the Muslim Brothers better known as the Muslim Brotherhood is a transnational Sunni Islamist organization founded in Egypt by Islamic scholar and schoolteacher Hassan al-Banna in 1928.^[23] Al-Banna's teachings spread far beyond Egypt, influencing today various Islamist movements from charitable organizations to political parties.^[24]

Sudan
Further information: National Islamic Front, National Congress Party (Sudan), and Islamism in Sudan

Until the election of Hamas in Gaza, Sudan was the one country where the Brotherhood was most successful in gaining power, its members making up a large part of the government officialdom following the 1989 coup d'état by General Omar al-Bashir.^{[citation needed]} However, the Sudanese government dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood affiliated National Islamic Front (NIF) has come under considerable criticism for its human rights policies, links to terrorist groups, and war in southern Sudan and Darfur.^{[citation needed]}

ENDS