J’ai vu ces images pour la première fois sur le site de partage de musique, blogs, photos et vidéos Mtaemsa’s Multiply Site.

Je fus capté par la tristesse de cet humour noir … il y a en elle de l’ironie , un humour jaillissant des cendres de la détresse et du drame quotidien.

Alors que le monde suivait avec joie les jeux olympiques a Beijing, les Palestiniens restaient embourbés dans leur amère existence sous l’occupation - des images qui expriment plus que jamais la tragédie de ce conflit israélo-palestinien qui sévit. On y lit l’âme de tout un peuple toujours fier de son identité, même lorsque le monde entier jouit d’un répit des conflits politiques.

En tant qu’arménien croyant et engagé en politique, j'ose encore espérer malgre tout que les prochains jeux olympiques qui se tiendront a Londres en 2012 ne reproduiront pas les mêmes images car les palestiniens, les israéliens et le monde entier mérite mieux .”

If memory serves me right, I have been contributing to SOMA for well over three years now. And every time I put my thoughts down on paper, I tend to inject an optimistic note into the most pessimistic scenarios. This is not a case of “pessoptimism” that disguises itself in the form of the fabled ostrich hiding its head in the sand, or even of foolhardy pietism in the face of adversity, but simply one of compelling forward any items of good news that add hope to the daily afflictions or ordeals of ordinary Iraqis from all backgrounds.

So today, again, I do not wish to indulge my pen with the horrible stories of bloody attacks and sorrowful deaths screaming out of many parts of this once-fertile Babylonian land. What I wish to do instead is to explore the fresh hope that is highlighted by the latest UN analytical report on the different territorial disputes in Iraq - including those between Kurds and other communities in Iraq. The publication of the comprehensive multi-chapter report is slated to be completed by next October and will endeavour to facilitate a UN-brokered deal that could defuse tensions over Kirkuk let alone over other regions of Iraq.

According to the UN mission chief in Iraq, this report being drawn by lawyers, academics and diplomats is the fruit of extensive field investigations into the history and make-up of thirty to forty parts of Iraq where local government is in dispute. The UN hopes it would produce a document that adjudges the merits of competing claims - including those in the oil-rich and demographically challenged Kirkuk. In so doing, its methodology also argues against holding a referendum on the future of the city that would inevitably pit Arab and Turkmen residents against Kurds. Rather, it adopts the more judicious approach of negotiating a broad political deal for the whole area that would be sanctioned by all political parties and then put to a ‘confirmatory referendum’.

I, like many of my readers, am acutely aware of the simmering tensions in Kirkuk. It is about oil, of course, but not about oil alone. Although any local governance of Kirkuk would effectively control oil supplies and tap important revenues, there is another potent psychological factor at play here. It is a throwback to the times when former president Saddam Hussein “arabised” this city and its environs with the import - sometimes forcibly - of many Iraqi Arabs from other governorates and cities in order to shift population numbers. It is also about raw control and sheer power, as evidenced by the fact, for instance, that the provincial elections of October 2008 have been stalled again since the Iraqi parliament failed to pass the necessary electoral law.

Yet, my overriding fear for Iraq today is that such critical tensions could lead to renewed outbreaks of violence between Arabs and Kurds and cause more dehumanising carnage at a time when the devastating sectarian feuds between Shi’is and Sunnis have noticeably begun to subside despite occasional deadly outbursts.

Much like elsewhere, it is clear that coming up with sensationalist media headlines by revved-up journalists or facile political assessments by supine politicians are both dangerously redundant. After all, there are multiple facets to the Iraqi equation, which is why the UN - not the current coalition government headed by PM Nuri al-Maliki or the occupying forces headed by the USA - is the most appropriate body to deal with this dispute.

At the expense of being labelled naïve once more, let me come back to my initial premiss in order to caution all major political players in Iraq of the political “boomerang” theory, whereby the constant pursuit of maximalism eventually rebounds on its claimants - if not now, then in the future. History must have surely taught us all this much by now? Cleaving Iraq, dismembering its federated adhesion and sapping further its natural strengths for the sake of partisan interests would hurt everyone and render the country prey to more - not less - instability. Would it not be wiser - and politically more astute in the long term - to learn from the Arabic maxim that one bird in the hand is better than three on a tree? Otherwise, Iraqis of all persuasions might end up losing not only the birds they hold but also the whole tree. Would it not also be wise to avoid creating fragmented and bellicose parts to define an Iraq that struggles to move from the past into the future?

Last week, a radio journalist called me and inquired whether I had spotted an article that had been published on page 19 of the Daily Telegraph. When I professed ignorance - I am not much of a Daily Telegraph reader - she proceeded to inform me that this piece was authored by a foreign affairs correspondent called Damien McElroy with the title Iraq's Christians form new militias to combat Islamic extremists.

Although I was a tad dismayed by the tabloid-style sensationalism of the title, I have no grounds to doubt the overall integrity of the information. After all, I am quite conscious of the precarious situation impacting indigenous Christians in Iraq today. The village of Karamlis that McElroy refers to in his piece lies less than 20 miles east of the northern provincial capital of Mosul which has become increasingly inhospitable to Christians. Readers might perhaps recall that Archbishop Paulos Farai Rahha was kidnapped and later died there, and this area contains many churches - the likes of the Chaldean Catholic Mar Addai church - that constitute ineradicable signs of Christian witness. Yet, the many kidnappings, as well as constant threats and coercions against Christians, simply negate the sanguine picture we are fed of unstoppable democracy-driven and freedom-friendly values that are ostensibly spawning all over Iraq.

Indeed, many of us who have been following the daily staple of tragedies experienced by all Iraqis of all confessions, including the ever-shrinking minority communities, would surely admit that the plight of Christians has been alarming. Here is a community that is two millennia old and counted over 800,000 members in 1993. Yet, today, its numbers have at least been halved and many of its harassed members have either emigrated to the West, are refugees in neighbouring Syria, Jordan and Lebanon, or have become internally displaced in safer zones.

However, despite those recurrent incidents targeting Christians and other minorities, it is one thing for me to admit that they are caught up in the midst of ferocious Sunni-Shi’i political-ideological wars for the future profile of the country, and another to suggest that Iraqi Christians should take up arms and form militias in their (admittedly distressed) efforts to defend their beleaguered communities from an onslaught by Islamist extremists. Why?

Unless Christians are careful as to how they react to the hardships challenging them on a daily basis, they could end up as cannon fodder and be sacrificed on the altar of expediency by the major players in the country. After all, indigenous Christians are small in numbers, and do not have access to the kinds of arms and wherewithal that would protect them against onslaughts from extremist elements. Upping the ante is most likely to provoke more retaliation and engender more isolation, especially when neither Western powers and coalition forces, nor Islamist radicals and salafist bullies, are truly interested in those communities that have kept the mosaic of the Middle East so diverse, and therefore so rich, for centuries. From the invaders and occupiers of Iraq to its own political factions, religious extremists and self-serving bigots, hardly anybody is paying much attention to their welfare since doing so might well intersect larger political agendas. True, previous petitions for help have fallen on deaf ears, yet militias that espouse a show of power might exacerbate the situation further let alone amplify internal dissensions amongst Christians.

Does this mean that I am advocating submission, or attempting to deny communities across the whole country their inalienable right to self-defence? Not really, since my biblical interpretation of Jesus’ teachings on meekness does not translate into an unfettered invitation to turn the other cheek, be mistreated, brutalised and violated by others - be those “others” next-door community neighbours, unwelcome Samaritans or total strangers. However, one major concern relates to the broader long-term consequences of such protectionist tendencies - whether through the taking up of arms, or the carving out of Christian zones in, say, the Nineveh Plain - and the dreadful probability that they could boomerang and worsen the current plight of Christians with nobody willing or able to succour them.

Yet, this is where mainline Muslim religious scholars and practitioners as well as human and minorities’ rights organisations, must spare no effort to help tackle the critical perils facing communities such as Christians who are being viewed as power-building and money-making pawns in a vile and irreligious game entitled ‘the future of Iraq’.

Sadly, Christians in some parts of the Arab Middle East - from Iraq to Egypt and even Gaza today - are increasingly finding themselves in overcharged sectarian environments where religious identity, no longer common citizenship, has become the norm. In radicalised settings, those local Christians whose ministry has always been one of bridge-building and reconciliation could one day become ‘open season’ for victimisation. This is why it is imperative to find ways whereby all those Muslims and Christians of good will together claw their way out of this quagmire. Otherwise, everyone could be sucked into an untenable situation that would eventually rebound against the whole region, re-map its myriad realities and drag all its peoples into the creeping pitfalls of danger, despair and darkness.