Never the one without the other

The fascination and value of a presence: that’s how the Christian minority in the Middle East might be defined, were it not for the fact that violence, abuse and persecution are placing its very existence in doubt. The number of Christians in the Middle East is gradually being reduced. Their survival is at risk. So too is the quality of life of this area of the world that is so strategic for the destinies of peace and war that are inextricably interwoven. Christians, as the latest events in Iraq testify, are living in a situation of suffering, but also one that is rich in potential. Middle-Eastern Christians have key figures within their communities, without whom, and without whose reflection and action, the Muslim world itself is destined to a reversal. The Christian presence signifies otherness. Its disappearance would decree not only the end of those who disappear, but also the crisis of those who remain. So it’s a question that also concerns the West. Daniele Rocchi on behalf of SIR Europe discussed these questions with the Jesuit Father and islamologist Samir Khalil Samir, one of the experts on Islam who is most closely listened to by Benedict XVI.Christians in the Orient are living in an ever more critical phase and their number is constantly declining. What would their disappearance mean for the Middle East? “This crisis is increasing the trend to leave the Middle East. The latest, very grave acts of violence represent a tragic blow for Iraq. The massacre in the Syrian Catholic church will lead many Christians to emigrate to the West. Given their condition of fragility, every blow struck at them is aimed at making them flee the country. The bishops and the recent Synod for the Middle East insist in saying that Christians must strive to remain, not least for the mission that Christians have in the Arab and Islamic world. The flight of Christians from the Middle East, and hence their disappearance from this region, would be a double loss: first for Christianity – without oriental Christianity the universal Church would lose a tradition essential for its life, as John Paul II recalled when he spoke of the two lungs of the Church, that of West and East, both of which are needed if it is to breathe properly -; and also, indeed especially, for the Islamic world”. Why would it be a loss also for the Islamic world?“Christians represent an element of diversity and the Islamic world needs it, especially at this time when it tends to be inward-looking and to oppose everything that is alien or different, the West in primis and anyone who represents otherness, even if he is a Muslim of a rival group. We see this in countries like Iraq and Pakistan where Sunnis and Shias are at war against each other. Moreover, the flight of Christians would deprive the Middle East of an important contribution on two levels: in the first place, on the level of skills and capabilities. Christians, in fact, are persons with a rather high cultural/educational level, higher than average. Their departure risks weakening the quality of society. Moreover, they represent different principles; they insist on human rights, on equality between everyone, meaning by everyone believers and non-believers alike. Christians have a more open approach, aimed at the dignity of the human person, and insist on the concept of democracy and – a very important aspect – on the distinction between politics and religion. Christians have the seed of the secular principle, in the sense of freedom of conscience, enshrined in the Gospel: “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s”. A distinction that has not always been drawn in the history of the Church, even if there has been a progressive awareness, based on the Gospel, that has led peoples of Christian tradition, in Europe in particular, to understand that in relation to politics, everyone must be equal, even if not Christian. The flight of Christians from the Middle East would represent, also for this reason, a grave loss for Muslims, as was recognized during the Synod by Muhammad Al-Sammak, political adviser of the Grand Mufti of Lebanon for Sunni Islam, who in his address insisted both on the cultural tradition of Christians in modern and contemporary history, and on the aspect of human rights and civil liberties”. By strangling the Christian presence what message is the East sending to the West?“It needs to be said in the first place that the attitudes [of Christian repression] are those adopted by weak groups and in opposition between each other. The prime enemies of these terrorist groups are Muslims themselves – and this is shown by the attacks they mount against their own people: they attack those who are totally defenceless. In Iraq, Shias, Sunnis and Kurds all have armed groups. Christians, by contrast, have no weapons, because they have chosen the way of non-violence. It’s up to the institutions to defend the Christian community, as requested time and again by its own leaders. Attacking the West through Christians, whom militant Islamists consider linked to it on account of their faith, is a vile attitude, since Iraqi Christians have no particular link with the West, still less with Western policy. Indeed they are more oriental (and more Arab) than the Muslims, in the sense that they inhabited this land before the Muslims. Oriental Christians are not linked to the West, neither politically nor militarily”.Is it enough, in your view, to alleviate the pressure on Christians, to explain to the Islamic world that neither does the West represent Christianity, nor do the Christians of the East represent an extension of the West? “Muslims make a twofold error of principle: they consider the Arab world Muslim and the Western world Christian. The West, it’s true, was born from a Christian tradition, but nowadays the West, long secularized, no longer appeals to the Gospel to make laws. The Christian of the East, due to his own faith, may better understand the West that has Christian roots. The Christian can thus serve as mediator, between the Islamic world (to which he belongs by history, language and culture) and the Western world (which he accepts because of the Gospel and a shared Christian faith). Attacking someone who acts as mediator is tantamount to killing oneself, it’s suicide, and that’s precisely what is happening”.Might not a culture of rejection embodied by the Muslims who arrive in the West, as by those who already live there, bring with it negative repercussions for the West itself, where islamophobia is spreading?“They are two correlated phenomena: in the past, when Muslims arrived in the West they tried to integrate themselves in Western culture, and did not have needs or demands of their own: then cases of islamophobia were not ascertained, but only cases of racism that could not be attributed to Muslim faith. Today however the situation has changed. We are witnessing a mass Islamic emigration to Europe, which brings with it Muslims with a strongly ingrained and fundamentalist Islamic culture”.What do you mean?“A Christian of the Middle East, who is an Arab exactly like a Muslim, and who arrives in Europe, does not assert his needs in terms of dress, food and traditional customs. On the contrary he tries to integrate himself by learning the language, culture and laws of his host country. The same does not go for the Muslim, who by contrast has a political axe to grind by the very nature of Islam, i.e. a particular vision of the society he wants to realize, and this creates difficulties. Two models are thus established, the Western model and the Islamic model formed since the 7th century. The Chinese, for example, does not claim a place of worship from the State, but if he wishes to have one he strives to do so in compliance with the law. The new Islamic tradition, which originated at least 40 years ago, inculcates a fairly aggressive project of the islamization of society, beginning with the oriental countries (I think, for example, of Indonesia and Egypt). The whole of the Islamic world has changed for the worst over the last 40 years, and not so much in relation towards others as in relation towards themselves. It proposes a salafite model of a return to the 7th century, a model that is hardly adaptable to modernity, in the light of its ever more numerous claims and demands, such as demanding mosques (who prevents you from buying the land on which to build them, in conformity with the town-planning regulations of the country in question?), having breaks from work in order to pray, or claiming the right, in Ramadan, to stop working early in order to fulfil the prescribed rites and prepare dinner. No other believer makes requests of this kind: I think of the Muslim girls who cannot practice sports together with boys, of the Islamic women who can only be visited by women doctors in hospital. Other specific demands are the veil, the niqab, and the burka which are not Islamic demands, but demands only of some countries”. All this has given the image of Islam as a group that does not wish to be integrated in Western society…“Islamophobia is the fear of this form of salafite Islam, which is a minority but which is hyper-active and makes a lot of noise. The solution is well known: that Muslims should control their own society, that they should accept the culture and principles of their host society. Europe for its part must redefine itself, rediscover its own identity, also by helping those countries whence Muslim migrants come. It might be useful, therefore, to establish cultural centres in the countries of origin that would help prepare those who wish to emigrate, by teaching them the language, culture and laws of the host country. What’s needed from both sides is a heightened awareness of the migratory phenomenon. This represents, in my view, an urgent need for Europe”.How much can what was said at the recent Synod help the Oriental Churches to form a common front to stop the exodus of Christians, help Christians to regain their rightful place as the original inhabitants of this land, and remove the temptation of self- ghettoization that weighs on local communities?“The Synod reaffirmed that exclusive responses for Christians alone are not needed. We form part of a people. Everything must be done together with Muslims. Each law must be issued for all citizens, without discrimination. ‘Laicity’, in the sense of the freedom to believe or not to believe, is not something anti-religious and the Synod insisted on this point. We need to start out from shared principles. We don’t want a State against religion, still less a State in which one religion is hostile to another. We don’t want to give privileges to anyone. It’s injustices and despotism that make everyone suffer. That’s why we want a State that takes account of the needs and rights of the poorest. Religions give priority to orphans, widows, the sick and the poor. What we need are ad hoc laws and sacrifices by those who are better off. What we need is solidarity”.