The Good Friday, the long agony of the Christians of Iraq and Syria will
continue. These countries have a far older Christian tradition than western
Europe – it was to Damascus that Saint Paul was
travelling when he
was struck down and converted – but it really does seem as if it is now coming
to an end.
More than a decade of war has seen the Christian people of Iraq
driven from their homes, sometimes three times, as the frontlines have passed
over them, until a remnant has found shelter in Kurdistan. In Syria the
Christian minorities were somewhat sheltered by the Assad regime, which means
these communities have a degree of sympathy for it that is not shared by the
western nations they look to as their other protectors. They, too, have been
displaced in immense numbers.
In the territories controlled by Islamic State, the treatment of
Christians, as of Yazidis, has been recognised as genocide by the US. It is Isis
that destroyed the
ancient communities around Nineveh, now Mosul, and Isis that has
institutionalised the rape of captive women and children. In the rest of Syria
and Iraq, the outbreaks of murderous hostility to Christians are much less
organised, although both Sunni and Shia forces, when they are not slaughtering
each other for their heresies, have proved capable of slaughtering Christians
for their religions too.
Nor should we forget the supposedly more moderate
Sunni jihadis supported by Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states. Any part of the
world where crucifixion is deployed as a quasi-judicial punishment, even when
mostly inflicted on corpses, is one from which Christians have very good
reasons to flee.
Where should they go, and what should we do to help them? Neither question
has an easy answer. The fantasy that western military intervention could ever
produce a more secure and stable Middle East has been discredited since the
invasion of Iraq. In the end, the conclusion of that crime and folly, as well
as those of local actors, including the Assad regime, has been that Europe
itself is less secure and stable, and the countries we supposedly liberated are
a ghastly wasteland. But neither can we offer all of the refugees asylum here.
That would likely be impractical politically, even if it were feasible in terms
of resources. It doesn’t follow that the refugees have any moral duty to stay
where they are.
Still less should anyone in this country or in Europe lecture
them to that effect. There is something rather unpleasant about the spectacle
of Christian leaders, some of them from the churches and communities most
affected, preaching from the safety of Europe about the duty of these
communities to remain where they are so that the tradition of Christianity in those countries is not broken. People in danger will make their
own decisions about where to go, and their choices must be respected.
Nonetheless, the hope must be that these people can return to their
ancestral homes once peace comes. There is nowhere in the region that would be
suitable for large-scale resettlement anyway. Even in those countries where
there is no active and ongoing persecution, Christians are second-class
citizens at best. Even in Iran, where there are guaranteed places for
Christians in parliament, and a Christian is the captain of the national
football team, there is no real
concept of religious freedom and the legal penalty for converting to Christianity can be death. In
Egypt things are slightly better since the fall of the regime, which had
encouraged a great deal of violence against the ancient Christian communities
there, but it can’t be easy for Christians to feel safe.
We have to hope that this will not be a permanent condition, and that the
Christian minorities there will once more find an honoured place among their
neighbours, as they have done for most of the past 2,000 years. In the meantime
there is still a great deal that the west can accomplish, even if
our powers are not miraculous. Although it would be counterproductive as
well as wrong to discriminate in their favour when deciding which refugees
to help, it is just as important to ensure that we do not go along passively
with the discrimination that Christians do suffer even in refugee camps.
The
aid that we give must be sustained: the generous aid this government has given
to refugee camps in Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan has done far more good than the
scattering of bombs so noisily dropped on Isis. In the end, though, what the
Christians of the Middle East need is the same as their Muslim neighbours, or
anyone else – peace, justice and security. There may be very little that this
government can do on the ground, but those should be the aims of our policy.
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