by Dr Vacy Vlazna
Forty years ago, Mother Agnes Mariam de la Croix, was a hippie traipsing around India, when she had a profound ‘road to Damascus‘ experience.
She returned to Lebanon and joined the enclosed Carmelite order which restored icons. She was astonished to find an icon with five layers dating back to the 11th century Church of Antioch from which she draws her religious roots and identity.
For 18 years she has been the abbess of a 6th Century Syrian Monastry of St James the Mutilated which was in ruins when she arrived and which she also restored.
The impetus of restoration drives her prophetic quest to restore her beloved Syria mutilated by hordes of foreign jihadists that have overtaken the opposition Free Syrian Army (FSA) fighting Assad’s government forces.
Mother Agnes Mariam’s monastery is in the diocese of Homs situated in the maelstrom of Syria’s tragedy. As witness to the atrocities of war, she courageously challenges the western media coverage that manipulates the war as a simple conflict between the Assad regime and the FSA representing the people’s uprising.
As witness, for her, the truth that had to be told was the sinister complexity of Syria’s spring. The FSA has been infiltrated with al-Qaeda ‘rebels’ which are ironically backed by the USA and the EU.
The ‘rebels’, she explains, are Islamist puppets fighting a proxy war for US and EU strategic and economic interests in the Middle East.
In a meeting hosted by Professor Stuart Rees at the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, she explained the jihadists don’t care about Syrians, Syrian freedom or democracy. They are, she insists, determined solely to turn Syria into an Islamic caliphate.
She points out that initially Christians and Alawites were targeted prompting the mass exodus of Christian Syrians to swell the wretched refugee camps. Now, she says, Al-Qaeda is slaughtering members of the FSA.
According to Mother Agnes Mariam, the latest move by the US and the EU to arm the ‘rebels’ is criminal given 70% of Syrian people support Assad. She compares the misrepresentation of the rebels by western powers to justify their imperialistic intervention in Syria with their invented weapons of mass destruction that justified their illegal war in Iraq which continues to smother the people of Iraq in the chaos of sectarian violence and in the devastating legacy of US depleted uranium on the families of mutated babies.
Peace will come, she affirms, when the foreign extremists leave and then Syrians will negotiate peace and democracy amongst themselves. The solution has to be internal.
Feisty, realpolitic-sharp and soft spoken, Mother Agnes Mariam and her companion, Sister Carmel are presently touring Australia including meetings with Pax Christi, the World Council of Churches in Sydney, the Romero Community in Adelaide, Melbourne and in Canberra with Bob Carr. Mother Agnes Mariam stated that there has been a promising shift in Australia’s policy.
Mother Agnes Mariam belongs to an admirable sisterhood of nuns around the world who speak truth to power such as our own Sr Susan Connelly who has championed East Timor’s rights and protested the war on Iraq; like 82 year old American, Sister Megan Rice presently facing a 65 year sentence for a Plowshares action against nuclear weapons; like 71 year old Sister Sheila Salmon incarcerate for 100 days for criminal trespassing at the School of Americas, Fort Benning which trains foreign military in the art of torture or like the activist nun Dorothy Stang murdered while campaigning to protect the Amazon rainforest.
Such remarkable women are an heroic inspiration to all women and a prophetic inspiration to all people showing by example that justice is not a word but an act of great love for the Suffering Other.
- Dr. Vacy Vlazna is Coordinator of Justice for Palestine Matters. She was Human Rights Advisor to the GAM team in the second round of the Acheh peace talks, Helsinki, February 2005 then withdrew on principle. Vacy was coordinator of the East Timor Justice Lobby as well as serving in East Timor with UNAMET and UNTAET from 1999-2001.