Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 Page 6 Page 7 Page 8 Page 9 Page 10 Page 11 Page 12 Page 13 Page 14 Page 15 Page 16 Page 17 Page 18 Page 19 Page 20 Page 21 Page 22 Page 23 Page 24 Page 25 Page 26 Page 27 Page 28 Page 29 Page 30 Page 31 Page 32 Page 33 Page 34 Page 35 Page 36 Page 37 Page 38 Page 39 Page 40 Page 41 Page 42 Page 43 Page 44 Page 45 Page 46 Page 47 Page 48 Page 49 Page 50 Page 51 Page 52 Page 53 Page 54 Page 55 Page 56 Page 57 Page 58 Page 59 Page 60 Page 61 Page 62 Page 63 Page 64 Page 65 Page 66 Page 67 Page 68 Page 69 Page 70 Page 71 Page 72 Page 73 Page 74 Page 75 Page 76 Page 77 Page 78 Page 79 Page 80 Page 81 Page 82 Page 83 Page 8416 Plough Quarterly • Spring 2016 give us hope that love crosses the boundaries between religions, ethnicities, and cultures. The shock created by the news and images of ISIS is immense and has released opposing forces. At long last, within Islamic orthodoxy there is growing resistance to violence in the name of religion. In addition, over the last few years we’ve witnessed the emergence of a new mode of religious thought, perhaps less in the Arabian heartland of Islam than on its peripheries in Asia, South Africa, Iran, Turkey, and (not least) among Muslims in the West. This process is similar to Europe’s re-creation of itself after the two World Wars. Perhaps I should mention at this juncture Europe’s project of unifica- tion, which – despite the frivolousness, superficiality, and even open despisal shown toward it by our politicians and by us as a society – remains the most valuable political achievement of this continent. How often on my travels people mention Europe to me as a model, almost a utopia. Anyone who has forgotten why there needs to be a Europe should look at the gaunt, exhausted, frightened faces of the refugees who have left everything behind, given up everything, and risked their lives for the promise that Europe still represents. That brings me back to the second of Father Jacques’s statements that I found remarkable, namely his comment about the Christian world’s attitude to him and his Syrian neighbors: “We mean nothing to them.” As a Muslim, it is not my place to reproach the Christians of the world for their unconcern, whether toward the Syrian or Iraqi peoples in general, or toward their brothers and sisters in the faith in par- ticular. And yet such reproaches are hard to suppress when I see the public indifference in our country to the truly apocalyptic disaster playing out in the Middle East, one which we try to keep at bay with barbed wire fences, warships, bogeymen, and mental blinkers. Only three hours’ flight from Frankfurt, entire ethnic groups are being exterminated or expelled, girls are being enslaved, many of human- ity’s most important cultural monuments are being blown up by barbarians, and cultures are disappearing, taking with them an ancient ethnic, reli- gious, and linguistic diversity that, unlike in Europe, had still partly persisted into the twenty-first century. Yet we do not band together and stand up until this war strikes us here, as it did in Paris, or when the people fleeing from this war come knocking at our gates. It is a good thing that – unlike after Sep- tember 11, 2001 – our societies have opposed terror with freedom. It is exhilarating to see how so many people in Europe, especially Germany, are supporting refugees. But too often, this protest and this solidarity remain apolitical. We are not having a broad debate in our society about the causes of terror and of the movement of refugees, or about how our own policies may be exacerbating the disaster taking place near our borders. We do not ask why our closest partner in the Middle East is Saudi Arabia, of all countries. We do not The day after Father Jacques was abducted, the Muslims of Qaryatain flooded into the church to pray for him.