Paul KeenanThe Vatican has called for a ‘shared commitment’ against terrorism, writes Paul Keenan
A most interesting perspective, with a religious dimension and relevance to the current geopolitical situation in Syria-Iraq, was offered by a veteran politician last weekend.
Somewhat lost among television schedules, attempting to cram in as much breaking news as possible on the US-led coalition’s unfolding campaign against militants of the Islamic State (IS), was a broad-ranging interview conducted by the CNBC broadcaster with the former President of Israel, Shimon Peres.
In the interview recorded before the first bombs began to fall on Syrian targets, and broadcast after Britain’s Parliament voted to join the military action against IS, Mr Peres, referring directly to “wars today in the name of religion”, ruminated on the need for a greater space for religious leaders in those institutions. He name-checked the United Nations which was established to deal politically and militarily with conflicts.
Stating that, where religious conflicts flare, “the UN is out, the diplomats are out”, the elder statesman posited a parallel arrangement wherein religious leaders come together with their ‘expertise’ and share the fruits of their engagements with secular leaders via the United Nations.
The suggestion of this religious dimension is, perhaps, the more notable when one looks again at the wealth of media coverage offered on the IS crisis over the course of the last week. Certainly there was no shortage of sound bites from Western leaders such as America’s President Obama and Britain’s David Cameron, together with input from military chiefs past and present and politicians for and against bombing as a tactic against IS.
Yet how many outlets covered the genuine and relevant intervention offered by Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin to the United Nations just a day after the raids began? How many readers of The Irish Catholic can point to a secular news agency which quoted Armenian Catholic Archbishop Boutros Marayati of Aleppo, Syria, on his frontline perspective on the bombings? “People here do not have a clear view of what is going on,” Archbishop Marayati said of his congregation in the wake of the first air strikes, “but certainly [they] do not see the perpetrators of the bombings as ‘liberators’. The prevailing sentiment is that the raids will not solve the problems, and may even increase them.”
Overlooked
One report and one opinion among many, but the prelate’s mostly overlooked viewpoint has the weight of being formed in ‘real time’ and ‘on the ground’. And, for the record, it is a perspective shared by the International Red Cross in its work at the forefront of the Syrian conflict.
For his part, Cardinal Parolin’s September 24 address to the UN (the same day as Mr Obama’s), as part of the body’s summit, ‘Threats to international peace and security caused by terrorist acts’, moved beyond political rhetoric on common threats and international cooperation to delve into that which must ultimately be faced when seeking responses to groups such as IS: the very ‘why’ of their existence.
“International cooperation must also address the root causes upon which international terrorism feeds,” the cardinal insisted. “In fact, the present terroristic challenge has a strong socio-cultural component. Young people travelling abroad to join the ranks of terrorist organisations often come from poor immigrant families, disillusioned by what they feel as a situation of exclusion and by the lack of integration and values in certain societies.
“Together with the legal tools and resources to prevent citizens from becoming foreign terrorist fighters, governments should engage with civil society to address the problems of communities most at risk of radicalisation and recruitment and to achieve their satisfactory social integration.”
The cardinal noted too that “people of faith have a grave responsibility to condemn those who seek to detach faith from reason and instrumentalise faith as a justification for violence”.
Taking together all commentary and debates over the last week, it becomes quickly clear that this vision of a shared commitment between governments, civil society and people of faith as offered separately by Cardinal Parolin and Mr Peres is worthy of further examination by the various parties.
Take, for example, David Cameron’s nod towards the need for answers beyond bombing during his address to Parliament. “Bombs kill terrorists but good governance kills terror,” he said. A worthy sentiment, yet how workable without reference to faith leaders in an Islamic setting wherein faith and politics are tightly intertwined? (Or indeed to Christian leaders, whose congregations are lauded as honest brokers between Sunni and Shia communities – witness the words of Jordan’s King Abdullah II earlier in September when he insisted that Muslims must protect Christians now because “Arab Christians have had a key role in building the Arab society and in the defence of our nation”.)
Or deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg’s words in concluding the parliamentary debate: “The greatest antidote to their [IS] perversion of Islam is moderate Muslim communities.”
Moderate
Again, not an unreasonable suggestion, but voices of moderate Islam alone have not yet pricked the collective conscience of IS. Indeed, when one prominent Australia-based Muslim community leader, Dr Jamal Rifi (a founding member of the Australian Christian Muslim Friendship Society) took a critical stance, he became a lightning rod of hatred and backlash from anonymous IS supporters.
Thankfully, as ‘Church and state’ edge slowly towards a realisation of the value of a shared commitment, voices such as Dr Rifi’s are becoming the more numerous within Islam as IS increases its catalogue of horrors.
From Egypt, the al Azhar University, perhaps the most respected theological entity across the Muslim world, has launched an online campaign insisting the IS cannot bear the title ‘Islamic’ and calling on media outlets to further disseminate this.
In America, meanwhile, the Council on American-Islamic Relations has roundly and publicly denounced IS as “antithetical to the faith of Islam” and its violence as “un-Islamic”.
Muslim members of civil society, too, have sought a voice. From that community in France, thousands rallied to the main mosque in Paris in a show of solidarity against the beheading, in Algeria, of French hostage Herve Gourdel.
These voices are necessary to counter those such as the Syrian rebel grouping Jabhat al Nusra, which now seeks to claim that military action against IS is actually a “war against Islam”. Media coverage of religious voices in the West would also serve to convince that IS actions are not a war of ‘Islam against the rest’ (many of the heads displayed on spikes by the group are of Muslims who paid the ultimate price for standing against it).
Likewise, broader coverage of interventions such as Cardinal Parolin’s would serve to prove that the drive against IS is not a campaign of ‘hawkish crusaders’. “Pope Saint John Paul II reminded us in the wake of the tragic events of September 11, 2001 that the right to defend countries and peoples from acts of terrorism does not provide licence to meet violence with violence, but rather ‘must be exercised with respect for moral and legal limits in the choice of ends and means. The guilty must be correctly identified, since criminal culpability is always personal and cannot be extended to the nation, ethnic group or religion to which the terrorists may belong.’”
Hard power can hold the IS advance, making room for soft power which may ultimately defeat it.