Christian emigration
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Christian emigration is the migration of Christian people from countries that have a high percentage and majority of non-Christians. Areas that have been particularly affected by Christian emigration include the Middle East, the Indian Subcontinent and the Far East. Today, the majority of Middle Eastern people in the United States are Christian.
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[edit] Christian emigration from the Middle East
Many Christians have emigrated from the Middle East, a phenomenon that has been attributed to various causes included economic factors, political and military conflict, and feelings of insecurity or isolation among minority Christian populations. The higher rate of emigration among Christians, compared to other religious groups, has also been attributed to their having stronger support networks available abroad, in the form of existing emigrant communities. Lebanon has experienced a large migration of Lebanese Christians. These Lebanese Christians have migrated to North and South America, Europe and Australia before, during and since the 1975-1992 Lebanese Civil War. Higher Muslim birthrates, the arrival of Palestinian refugees, and the expansion of the original Lebanese mutasarrifa to include areas populated largely by Muslim have contributed to reducing the Christian proportion of the Lebanese population. Lebanese Christians still remain culturally and politically prominent, forming something under 40% of the population. Since the end of the Lebanese Civil War, Muslim emigrants have outnumbered Christians, but the latter remain somewhat overrepresented compared to their proportion of the population [1].
In the Palestinian Territories, there has been considerable Arab emigration and Christians are disproportionately involved. Of the total Palestinian Christian population of Israel and the Palestinian territories, it is estimated that 35% has emigrated since 1967 [2]. Reasons for this have included various forms of discrimination by the Israeli authorities against non-Jewish residents, as well as a range of socioeconomic factors. Since the outbreak of the Second Intifada in September 2000, there has been an upsurge of emigration from the Palestinian Territories, and again Christians have been disproportionately represented. Various political, security and economic factors have been implicated in this wave of emigration (ibid). However, recent years have also seen an influx of Christian immigrants to Israel from Ethiopia and Eastern Europe, with up to 41% of immigrants arriving from the former Soviet Union being non-Jewish (ibid).
Since the United States-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the resulting breakdown of law and order in that country, many Syriac speaking Assyrians and other Christians have fled the country, taking refuge in Syria, Jordan and further afield. Despite Assyrians making up only 3% of Iraq's population, on October of 2005, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees reported of the 700,000 Iraqis who took refuge in Syria between October 2003 and March 2005, 36% were "Iraqi Christians."
[edit] Christian emigration from the Indian Subcontinent
Christians have also fled India and Pakistan, especially in response to the increased violence towards Christians after the start of the 2001 War on Terrorism, in addition to anti-conversion and anti-Christian laws enacted by many states in India.
[edit] Christian emigration from communist states
Repression of religious practice and persecution of those involved in religious organisations were among the contributory factors in emigration from the Soviet Union and former communist states in Europe. Many Chinese Christians have left China because of anti-Christian sentiment and discrimination in their homeland partly due to the communist rule, but also to popular resentment towards Chinese Christians for political or cultural reasons.
