David Quinn“Christians here in Ireland need to ask ourselves what we would do if we were in Syria”, writes David Quinn
For the vast majority of Irish people following the siege of Aleppo in the media, it a clear-cut case of the ‘good guys’ vs the ‘bad guys’. The good guys are the rebels. In our imagination, they are freedom-fighters who will turn Syria into a liberal, Western-style democracy if they win.
The bad guys are Assad and his Russian ally, Vladimir Putin.
In fact, it would be better to regard this conflict as ‘bad guys’ vs ‘bad guys’. It is a bit like Hitler vs Stalin, or Iraq vs Iran when those two countries were engaged in a long war back in the days of Saddam Hussein. It is a case of choosing the lesser of several evils and it can be hard to know who is the least of these evils.
Last week, a delegation of very senior Syrian clerics visited Ireland. The main item on their agenda was an appearance before a sometimes hostile Oireachtas Foreign Affairs Committee.
The senior clerics were Dr Ahmad Badreddin Hassoun (the Grand Mufti of Syria), Patriarch Ignatius Aphrem II (head of the Syriac Orthodox Church) and Patriarch Gregory III Laham (head of the Melkite Greek Catholic Church, which is in communion with Rome). They had also been in the UK, on a visit facilitated by Aid to the Church in Need.
Conflict
Accompanying them were other clerics, doctors who had served on the front line of the conflict, and several journalists covering the visit. I spoke to various members of the group, and that only made it more apparent how misguided it is to view the Syrian conflict as a fight between good and evil.
It also became apparent that the clerics, without actually saying so, are terrified of what a rebel victory would mean for their communities, especially the Christian communities because in Syria it is not only ISIS that savagely persecutes Christians and other religious minorities. Other rebel groups do the same.
In Aleppo, for example, one of the main rebel groups is Fateh al-Sham, formerly called Al-Nursa which is closely linked to Al-Qaeda. It has turned its guns on numerous Western-backed rebels groups during the conflict.
The Western-backed groups, like the Free Syrian Army are not powerful enough to win the civil war. That has been one of the problems. No group has been strong enough to win the conflict quickly. But no sane person would want Al-Nusra or ISIS to win, least of all Syria’s Christians.
So, this is the situation faced by Christians and others in Syria; they are having to choose the lesser evil all the time because there is no ‘good guy’ capable of winning the war. The absolute best we can hope for is a compromise settlement following peace talks. This might lead to Assad stepping down from power in favour of a compromise government. But even if this is agreed, the Jihadist groups must still be defeated because they will never agree to peace.
I spoke to Patriarch Gregory III while he was here. He said that every side is responsible for atrocities. He said he did not want Syria broken up into autonomous regions, which is one peace proposal, because Syria has always been a ‘mosaic’.
He was interesting on the refugee question. He wants Syrians to be helped to stay at home, not leave. He said that when German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, opened Germany’s borders to refugees last year, many left the refugee camps in and around Syria who “did not need to leave”.
He was grateful to Ireland for taking in the handful of Syrian refugees who have so far come here but it was clear his first priority is for Syria to have a future and it cannot have a future if everyone is gone.
Grave danger
His own Melkite community has been very badly affected by the war and the Christian presence in the Middle East is in grave danger because so many Christians have been killed or driven out. It would be an immense cultural disaster and a defeat for humanity if Christians were no longer present in any significant numbers in countries where they have the most ancient roots.
On this point, the latest Aid to the Church in Need report on the persecution of Christians worldwide is clear. Called ‘Persecuted and Forgotten’, it details the fate of persecuted Christians in the West and elsewhere in the two-year period, 2013–2015.
‘Forgotten’ is the correct word, because the persecution of Christians continues to be a sorely under-reported story. Nor it is a story that Churches in this part of the world have drawn sufficient attention to. How many Irish Catholics really know what is happening to their fellow believers in places like Syria, Iraq and Nigeria? For how many it is a pressing concern, even in their prayers?
The under-reporting by the mainstream media stems in no small part from a lack of sympathy. There is a failure to see Christians anywhere as a victim group because Christians in the West were so powerful for so long.
When the Syrian religious delegation was here last week, some politicians saw them as pro-Assad ‘stooges’ and therefore dismissed them. It is very easy to do that, but those who dismiss them in this manner need to came up with a realistic way to end the Syrian war that does not involve the Assad regime. Otherwise they are merely pontificating about the war at a great distance from it.
Christians here in Ireland need to ask ourselves what we would do if we were in Syria. Who would we support? Would we know better than the current leaders of Syria’s Christians what is best for their communities? Maybe we do, but we need to say what that is, and what side in the conflict we should support that has a realistic chance of bringing that tragic and bitter war to an end.