David QuinnWe should ensure that Christians are proportionately represented in our refugee intake, writes David Quinn
Lost amidst all the analysis and coverage of the refugee/migrant crisis has been the fate of Middle Eastern Christians trying to flee their ancient ancestral homes.
Last year when the monstrous and barbaric ISIS took over great slabs of northern Iraq we learnt that they had presented the Christians of Mosul, the country’s second biggest city, with three choices; convert, pay a punitive tax or flee. If they did none of these things they would be killed.
This has been the choice presented to Christians wherever ISIS has taken over. In Iraq many Christians have fled into the Kurdish-controlled areas of the country.
In Syria they are either hiding inside the country itself or have fled into Jordan, or more likely Lebanon.
The expulsion of the Christians from Mosul did get some coverage, but if truth be told not all that much. It received far less coverage, for example, that the seizure of schoolgirls in Nigeria by Boko Haram, another fanatical Islamist group. The girls remain in captivity. Many have been forcibly ‘married’ off to Boko Haram fighters.
Michelle Obama drew attention to their plight. So did every second celebrity, it seemed. But the main reason for the attention these very high profile people paid to these victims of Boko Haram was not that they were Christians, but that there were girls.
Consistency
For the sake of consistency you would have imagined that the same level of attention would have been paid to the kidnapping of seemingly thousands of Yazidi women and girls in Iraq by ISIS, again to be made little more than sex slaves.
The Yazidis are neither Muslim nor Christian. Their religion is very ancient. They are considered idolaters by ISIS, a terrible crime in Islam, and their fate has been even worse than that of the Christians.
When the Yazidis were driven out of their ancestral lands in Iraq the world did pay attention.
It paid more attention to them than to what befell the Christians of Mosul and elsewhere. All the same, they seem to have been all but forgotten now as well.
Indeed, for a long time all of the peoples displaced by the conflicts in Iraq and Syria were forgotten by the international community whether Muslim, Christian or Yazidi.
Now that refugees are pouring into Europe we can no longer ignore them. They have forced us to pay attention to them and they have ignited a huge debate about how best to respond.
I’ve wondered, though, about what proportion of the refugees are Christian. I have found it very hard to get an answer because no-one seems to know for sure.
Aid to the Church in Need tells me that between half a million and 700,000 of Syria’s pre-war population of about 1.7 million have fled the country. They have no idea how many have sought asylum in the West or are among the current flow of refugees arriving in Europe.
They do not know who would know. This is not because they lack expertise. It’s because no-one seems to be collating the figures.
I put the same question to the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and they didn’t know either.
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, has said Syrian Christians are avoiding the refugee camps because of fears that they will be further persecuted by Islamist groups in the camps.
A great many of the Syrian refugees coming to the West are coming from the Turkish camps where there are very few Christians. It seems highly unlikely, therefore, that there are many Christians among the Syrians currently heading West.
We need to find out what is happening because if it is the case that Syrian Christians are finding it harder than Syrian Muslims to make the trek to Europe, then that is a further sign of their vulnerability and surely any refugee policy worth its salt must seek out the most vulnerable.
It is with this kind of thinking in mind that Archbishop Welby has contacted British Prime Minister, David Cameron, to ensure that Christians are not effectively excluded from Britain’s intake of Syrian refugees.
Indeed, a coalition of 14 faith groups has accused Britain and America of ignoring the plight of Christians.
Will Ireland’s bishops (both Catholic and Church of Ireland) make contact with Enda Kenny in order to ensure that Christians are proportionately represented in our refugee intake?
Of course, there are some who suggest that no more attention should be paid to the Christians than any other persecuted group in the region. They correctly point out that Muslims are killing one another as well as members of other religious minorities.
This is true, and it’s important to say it. But surely the extra vulnerability of the Christians in these countries has to count for something in the greater scheme of things?
The fact is that the Christian populations of the Middle East have been shrinking rapidly for decades as Muslim militancy grows.
The situation gets worse all the time.
The arguement that the turmoil in the Middle East is creating many victims would be akin to saying World War II created many victims and victim groups and therefore singling out any one group for special attention would be perverse and unjust.
However, the fact is that in any war some groups are more vulnerable than others, as the Jews were in World War II.
Indeed, there is a Jewish peer in Britain, Lord George Weidenfeld, who is devoting his considerable resources to finding safe havens in Europe for Syrian Christians. Over time he wants to rescue 2,000 Christian families.
Why is Lord Weidenfeld doing this? It is because when he was a teenager, Christians (the Plymouth Brethren to be precise) rescued him from Nazi-ruled Austria. He is now 95 but has never forgotten this and feels there is a debt to be repaid now that Christians in the Middle East are in such trouble.
Am I suggesting here that the West should give refugee status to Christians ahead of Muslims? I’m not, or at least not at present. All in need should be helped.
But I am suggesting that we need to find out as a matter of urgency whether Christians are being left behind to a disproportionate extent compared with other refugees and if so, to do something about it up, including airlifting them directly out of the trouble spots.
