The so-called ‘Arab Spring’ has already had a number of unforeseen consequences.
One of the least welcome is what has been happening to the Christian church in the Middle East.
Most Middle Eastern countries – whether they follow Sunni or Shia Islam – have sizeable Christian communities.
Traditionally, they have lived peacefully with their Arab neighbours, carving ancient cities like Damascus, Beirut and Jerusalem up into Muslim, Christian and Jewish quarters.
But as the old ruling tyrants fall, a new, more intolerant Islam is rising.
A recent Telegraph article by Spectator editor Fraser Nelson describes “a new evil sweeping the Middle East: religious cleansing.”
In Egypt, where Coptic Christians have lived for 2,000 years and still form ten per cent of the population, churches have been firebombed by Islamic fundamentalists.
Today in Egypt, those moderate Muslim elders, who once formed a human shield around their Coptic brothers, are themselves under siege.
In Iraq, two thirds of the country’s 1.4 million Christians have fled since attacks on Baghdad churches and the murders of scores of Iraqi Christians.
Maronite Christians in Lebanon have been bombed and priests in Tunisia murdered.
Ironically, in Syria, the 2.5 million remaining Christians support President Assad.
They prefer a brutal dictator who guarantees the rights of religious minorities to an uncertain future.
Moderate Muslim Imams say the attacks contradict all religious teachings.
The problem is that the victors in the Arab Spring are turning out to be hard-line Salafists, well organized members of a mutant and fundamentalist strain of Sunni Islam, whose agenda is religious warfare.
So, the bloodshed goes on, and is spreading.
Reports from northern Nigeria last week described the massacre of Christians by Islamic extremists.
Unable to help them, the Nigerian government has instead given them until today to leave the country.
Christians, or not, we live in a country where we have the luxury of being free to choose.
Religious freedom must be an important pillar of our foreign policy, as William Hague promised.