In The people of the Middle East,
Muslims and Christians alike, hold their breath as Pope John
Paul II ends his historic and rich life, remembering too well,
his policies, tolerance, and humanity, which imposed themselves
on the Arab East since he became pope in 1978. The first pope to
enter a mosque, in Damascus in 2001, John Paul II captured the
hearts of Arab Muslims for his never ending calls for dialogue
between Muslims and Christians, for his objections to the war on
Iraq in 2003, and his declared sympathies with the Palestinians
living under Israeli occupation. "We wish him good health," said
Mohammad Husayn Fadlallah, the Grand Shiite Ayatollah of
Lebanon, where 900,000 Catholics live. He added: "We hope that
the course of dialogue charted by the Holy See would lead to all
religions converging on faith in God and on confronting the
world arrogance that is treating people unjustly." Dr Mohammad
Habash, the Islamic deputy in the Syrian Parliament, echoed
Fadlallah's remark and said: "I share the appeals and prayers
for the soul of Pope John Paul II, a humble man of dialogue,
forgiveness and openness." John Paul II was an extraordinary and
formidable man by all accounts, and the influence, respect, and
popularity that he had in the Middle East, which is
predominantly Muslim, is a phenomenon. The Arabs of the East
have been plagued with oppression and dictatorships for the
better part of the 20th century, the same kind of oppression
that John Paul II fought against for the better part of his
life, under the Nazis during World War II, and under communism
in Eastern Europe. Many Arabs, Muslims and Christians alike, saw
him as a mirror image of their suffering, hoping that like him,
and through his message, they can overcome their hardships. His
continued calls for love and peace reached millions in the Arab
World because his message was one that the Arabs, and Muslims in
particular, were hungry for, having lived the 20th century in
constant war with Israel, and under authoritarian regimes
throughout the Middle East.
Karol Wojtyla, the first Polish pope
in the Roman Catholic Church's history, was elected to office in
1978 after the sudden death of his predecessor John Paul I. Only
58 years old, he was the youngest pope in history, and the first
non-Italian pope to assume office in 450 years. He stayed in
office for 27-years, longer than anybody expected. As a youth,
the Pope loved sports, acting, and theatre. He studied theology
in secret during World War II under the Nazi occupation of
Poland and went into hiding in 1944 when a crackdown on the
clergy and their disciples took place, where many of his friends
were arrested. He remained loyal to his native Poland, and when
coming to papal office, made his first visit to his homeland,
then still under Communist rule, coming again nine times, the
last being in 2002. During his first visit in 1979, he made his
famed remarks to the Poles: "Do not be afraid (of tyranny),"
triggering mass resistance to Communism. He also prayed at the
Nazi concentration camp at Auschwitz, near his home town Krakow.
In October 1979, the Pope made headlines by addressing the
United Nations in New York, and one year later, began a tour of
Africa, visiting Zaire, Congo, Kenya, Ghana, Burkina Faso, and
Ivory Coast. The Pope created a reputation for himself as a
globe-trotting ambassador for Christianity, love, peace, and
harmony between peoples of different political and religious
views. In June 1987, he received US President Ronald Reagan at
the Vatican, and December 1989, received his Soviet counterpart
Mikhail Gorbachev. In 1991, he worked relentlessly to prevent
the outbreak of war in the Gulf, trying in vain to mediate
between President George Bush and Saddam Hussein. In April 1986,
he made a visit to the main synagogue in Rome—the first ever by
a pope, and prayed with Rabbi Elio Toaff. Fifteen years later,
in May 2001, he made history once again by visiting the revered
Omayyad Mosque in Damascus, with Syria's Grand Mufti Ahmad
Kaftaro, making headlines and endearing himself to the Muslims
by taking off his shoes in reverence at the gates of the mosque,
and putting on white slippers in respect. His groundbreaking and
controversial gestures continued, showing up in Sicily in May
1993 to denounce the Mafia, then angering the Arabs by signing
an accord establishing diplomatic relations between the Vatican
and Israel in December 1993, three months after the Palestinians
signed the Oslo Peace Accord with the Israelis. One year later,
he angered many Israeli right-wingers by establishing contact
with the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) of Yasser
Arafat, which many in Israel and the Western world considered a
"terrorist" organization. In 2000, as part of his Jubilee 2000
pilgrimage to the lands of the Bible, he went to Egypt and
Jordan, making more headlines with a public statement seeking
forgiveness for the sins and faults committed by the Christian
Church in its 2,000 years of history. In March 2000, he went to
Israel and the Palestinian Territories, being the first pope to
do so in 36 years, following the footsteps of Moses and Christ.
An estimated 100,000 Catholics reside in both Israel and
Palestine, 4,500 of them residing in East Jerusalem. From there,
the Pope repeated his request for forgiveness, this time to the
Jews, for the sins committed by the Church, and expressed his
deep sympathies with the Jews for the atrocities committed
against them by the Nazi regime of Adolph Hitler during World
War II. He then visited Bethlehem and Dheishe, a refugee camp
for the Palestinians, calling for an urgent solution to the
plight of the millions of Palestinians uprooted from their homes
after the creation of Israel in 1948.On May 13, 1981, the
controversial Pope suffered an assassination attempt when a Turk
fired at him from close range, wounding him in the abdomen, the
left and right arm. After recovery, John Paul II visited him at
his cell in December 1983 and pardoned him, reminding the world
of the forgiveness that Jesus Christ preached, lived and died
for.
The Pope visited over 129 countries
in 27 years, spending a total of 571 days away from the Vatican,
and according to the London-based al-Hayyat daily, his travel
equaled three times the distance between earth and the moon. The
only countries he never visited were Russia, Vietnam, and China.
A prolific leader with great magnitude, he delivered over 10,000
speeches and gathered crowds to hear him, which at one point,
reached 4 million in Manila. Most remembered in this part of the
world is the Pope's historic visit to the Omayyad Mosque in
2001. Driving his popemobile through the narrow streets of old
Damascus, he waved to the assembled crowds that were chanting
"We love you, John Paul II." They were a combination of Muslims
and Christians. Earlier, at a mass held at a football stadium in
Damascus, he addressed the thousands assembled in French,
saying: "In this holy land, Christians, Muslims and Jews are
called to work together with confidence and boldness and to work
to bring about without delay the day when the legal rights of
all peoples are respected and they can live in peace and mutual
understanding.” He went to the Qunaytra village, the principal
town in the Golan Heights, occupied by Israel in 1967, and
added: "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called
sons of God. From this place, so disfigured by war, I wish to
raise my heart and voice in prayers for peace in the Holy Land
and in the world." He went on saying: "We pray to you for the
peoples of the Middle East. Help them to break down the walls of
hostility and division and to build together a world of justice
and solidarity. Lord, you create new heavens and a new earth. To
you we entrust the young people of these lands." Probably most
striking in the Pope's speech, which is being remembered by the
Syrians today, as the US threats increase on Damascus, are the
remarks: "In a special way we pray for the leaders of this noble
land of Syria. Grant them wisdom, farsightedness and
perseverance; may they never yield to discouragement in their
challenging task of building the lasting peace for which their
people yearn." John Paul II signed off in Quntaytra with the
same words that the Middle Easterners, and Syrians in
particular, are bidding farewell to him today: "Salam! Salam!
Salam! Amen!