The region was lacking nothing but the disasters of nature, for the earthquake disaster is a tremendous and historic humanitarian catastrophe in Syria and Turkey, and unfortunately it is a region of recurring earthquakes, and there is no doubt that it is a dreadful tragedy for the Syrians. Dr. Tarek Mitri says “a catastrophe after injustice and displacement atop forced migration; what has been brought down upon the Syrians is almost without parallel”(1),, and it was striking the eagerness of the Syrians inside for one another in this catastrophe, despite the collapsed living and economic situation in all our countries.
But unfortunately, attention was immediately diverted from saving people’s lives — where every minute makes a difference and a person dies — to the American sanctions, under the pretext that the sanctions prevent the entry of aid. Thus came the statement of the heads of the churches “lift the siege on the Syrian people”, in addition to the statement of the Middle East Council of Churches, which contains several points that can be illuminated in this historic responsibility, in the light of the Gospel.
The first point: the statement is addressed to the United Nations as if it is the one imposing sanctions and a siege on the Syrian people, whereas the truth is that there is no siege as happened in Iraq previously, for example (oil for food), and the one imposing the sanctions is the United States with what is called the Caesar Act, which is imposed on institutions and personalities and not on the people. Here is the first stumbling block: not knowing who imposed the sanctions and on whom.
The second point: the statement affirmed that the unjust sanctions prevent the entry of aid to Syria. This talk puts the statement and those who adopted it in a position of lacking credibility, unless it is a populist proposition, especially with the confirmation of the provision of donations from Canada and the European Commission and the sending of direct aid from Arab countries, and what America itself confirmed. The greatest calamity is that the Syrian foreign minister Faisal al-Miqdad himself(2) confirmed that: “the United Nations resolutions are clear in this field: humanitarian aid is not subject to any sanctions, and everything that helps confront these disasters is permitted, and the decision taken on the 10th of last month allows the delivery of any aid regardless of the sanctions”. What the foreign minister confirmed puts the statement in an awkward position, and unfortunately without credibility and with ignorance on the international and private level, especially since we are speaking here of the level of heads and a council of an international level with moral and ethical influence. Meanwhile, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock called on Tuesday for Russia to help press Syria to allow the entry of humanitarian aid to the victims of Monday’s earthquake quickly and without any additional obstacles. So the problem is elsewhere.
The third point: the statement ended with “hastening to support relief and rescue efforts, far from any political considerations”. Since the humanitarian catastrophe and the discourse put humanity as the support, why did no one speak of the children, the elderly, the women and the families in the Syrian governorate of Idlib? Do we not say in our prayers: God sends rain upon the righteous and the wicked and makes His sun rise upon the just and the sinners? And Jesus says ” love your enemies”. Do we not build our institutions on the values of the Gospel and of man? And why were no humanitarian aids sent to the Syrian governorate of Idlib, with the convoy heading to Aleppo, Hama and Latakia? Are the values of humanity relative values that apply according to political orientation, while the Charter of Human Rights upon which the statement relied stipulates the dignity of man apart from his affiliation, his belief and his political orientation? Are the values of Jesus relative values? Whereas sending aid would have confirmed that the statement is truly “far from any political considerations”.
The negatives of the statement, the most important of which are:
1. Considering the statement’s wording a political wording biased toward a particular political party, and consequently: the commitment of the ecclesiastical institution to a political party is a risk, because no party can claim that its social, political and economic analysis is free of defect and does not need reconsideration, correction or rejection. The Church’s commitment to a political party burdens it with the responsibilities of all the defects in this party’s ideology. Therefore one must distinguish between the Church’s engaging in political issues and expressing its opinion on them, and its commitment to a political method or ideology(3). Consequently, it and its members become a party in a political conflict, bearing the burden of its failure, whereas it should have committed itself to the party of values and the party of every “man coming into the world” (Jn 7:1) for whom Jesus came.
2. The second point: the loss of credibility before the international community especially, and consequently exposing itself to the risk of the religious institution becoming an unacceptable mediator in civil society, because for the international community it committed itself to a political party, which makes its work and its preaching in the name of Christ difficult, and for the sake of man and humanity in society, and hinders the work of those belonging to it in the lands of emigration.
Summary: I do not say at all that the Church should distance itself from the morality of politics, but from politics itself. As Gandhi says: “those who claim that there is no common relation between religion and politics understand nothing of religion”(2). What unites religion and politics is the service of man, whatever his religion, race and position. Therefore the Church’s role is to work for man, not for political positions that change in the worlds of states, so that it is harmed and harms. Patriarch Ignatius Hazim says “the Orthodox Church walks in the footsteps of its leaders, and they alone either give it life or choke it, as happens in many cases”(3).
The necessary question: who is the party that God favors in this catastrophe and for whom the Church should work? Therefore the Church must carry the program of its Master’s work, who came for every man in this world. If the values of the Gospel are not fit for the morality of politics, then they are not fit even for prayer; and if what we believe in we do not walk in, then we are in schism and deception; and if the Church is not the Church of man, it becomes a burden on existence.
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References:
1. Dr. Tarek Mitri, his personal page on Twitter.
2. Interview of the Syrian foreign minister on Al-Mayadeen channel, dated 7/2/2023
3. The book Orthodox Liberation Theology, the Russian model, Father Sami Hallaq the Jesuit, Dar al-Mashriq, Theological Studies, Beirut Lebanon, 2001, 17.
3. Adib Musleh, The Saintly Politician Mahatma Gandhi, Geniuses series 1, Al-Bulisiyya Library Publications, first edition 1992, 394.
4. Ignatius IV Hazim, Fragrances of Antioch, the Patriarch’s speech in the Vatican 1983, p. 336.
5. Church and State, Georges Khodr / S. Troitsky, “Know Your Church” 3, An-Nour Publications, 1982