To my brothers in faith, all Christians
For more than a decade the revolution against injustice began, and today this victory has come, on the eighth of December, which became a great beacon for millions of Syrians who were wronged, shackled, tortured, and burned in the fire of Assad’s injustice, and to be a dawn for the ending of the dark night that imprisoned us, and a triumph over the persecution by iron and fire toward those who demanded freedom and dignity, and the cold persecution toward the loyalists and the religious communities altogether, through intimidation and terror.
The ousted president was not a protector of minorities; rather, he sheltered behind the minorities, all the minorities, and turned them into tools for extending his authority and made them fuel for his survival and the protection of his throne.
We are in this country before the political regimes, and we have lived with the Muslims for fourteen centuries; we lived with them, as the popular proverb says, through the sweet and the bitter. And we do not want anyone to protect us from our partners in the homeland; rather, we seek protection in them and they in us. For here is Russia present before our eyes, of which many boasted that it is here to protect the Christians, but in the end it left the people of Mhardeh, Suqaylabiyah, Wadi al-Nasara, and the rest of the Christians to their fate.
And I repeat what Fares Bey al-Khoury said when General Gouraud told him that France is here to protect the Christians from the Muslims: he said, ‘I, as a Christian, from this pulpit bear witness that there is no god but God.’ Fares Bey al-Khoury, the Christian who was the prime minister of Syria and also held the post of minister of Islamic endowments“Sheikh Abdul Hamid al-Tabba’, the deputy of Damascus in the parliamentary council, said: We in the Islamic bloc appreciate the efforts of His Excellency President Fares Bey al-Khoury and his long struggle for our freedom and independence, and we entrust Fares Bey al-Khoury with our endowments as much as we entrust ourselves”.
And as Patriarch Ignatius Hazim says, the destiny of the Eastern Christians and the Muslims has been united since the Crusader campaigns against our country; we fought together and built together the Arab civilization, and we fought the Ottoman occupation together, and today our destiny is also united in the overthrow of the repressive regime and in the building of a new Syria.
I will not mention all the Christian opponents who tasted his hell — and among their works are May Skaf, our father Paolo, George, Roger, and Tony. I will content myself with mentioning what Patriarch Ignatius Hazim said in a letter to the opposition figure Michel Kilo when Hafez imprisoned him“Tell the professor that he is not alone in prison, for we shall all remain prisoners until we attain our freedom”, and how Patriarch Ignatius, the Patriarch of the Arabs, refused Hafez al-Assad’s request for a letter against the Muslim Brotherhood, saying to him: you will not find in our Church anyone who accepts to send you such a letter, not because we are with the Brotherhood, but because sending it would annul the charter of common life between us and the Muslims that has existed for fifteen hundred years. This letter will not reach you even if our gallows are erected.
As for the present fear, it is a natural fear, and all of us have fears. This fear is not dispelled by any assurances from any international or local power, but by one matter alone: that we not remain neutral. Jesus says ““So then, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will vomit you out of My mouth.”, for rights are not obtained by pleading. We must not remain spectators and beg for our rights, as some religious leaders do, and sing the praises of coexistence, which is the lowest level of life. For coexistence is for farms, and we want a homeland, not a farm. We want it with complete freedom, complete citizenship, and complete rights, and we will offer our duties in full. We want a homeland of justice.
And I say it in plain words: do not wait for the church leaderships to speak, and do not wait for the clergy. If we want it to be a civil state, everyone must speak and not leave the voice to the clergy alone. We are the Church, not only the clergy. And we want to be dealt with as citizens in a state, not as a flock belonging to a king and a leader. Work, for this country is for all of us. We do not want our voice to be mortgaged to any religious leadership whatsoever, because we want a state in which there is a separation between the religious institution and the political one. We do not want a state whose constitution is drafted by clergymen, from whatever religion they belong.
Today are fateful events, and whoever is not up to the responsibility let him resign. And reject every religious discourse that speaks of minorities and majorities, for ‘minority’ is a political term used to justify the intervention of colonial countries in our land. Patriarch Ignatius Hazim says: “In the realm of quality there is no minority and no majority, for truth, correctness, authenticity, and seriousness can all come from a single person”. And in Syria there is no minority and no majority; we are all Syrians, citizens of one homeland. And we must not demand the rights of the communities but rather the individual rights of every human being. We do not want rights only for the communities; we want a just system that grants the believer his rights just as it grants the non-believer his rights.
Come to political, rights-based, social, intellectual, and economic work, and to the establishment of organizations for human rights, children’s rights, women’s rights, and personal status, and organizations for freedom of religion and belief for every Syrian, and organizations that defend the wronged and the oppressed, and the formation of a youth and women’s forum, and the creation of general conferences and cultural and political forums. We must work to form civil-society organizations and to join the existing organizations that were founded by those who revolted against this regime. We must not remain neutral; rather, we must join in the work with our partners in the homeland, and volunteer in the police and the army. O intellectuals who were silent in the era of Assad, your time has come to speak.
I beg you not to drown in thinking about clothing and the Christmas tree, or about whether we shall pray or not pray. Pray, raise the trees, and celebrate, and do not wait to inform so-and-so and take so-and-so’s permission. This country is our country, and we are not guests in it. But beware of being content with the joy of raising the Christmas tree or with celebrating the feast, these are all expressions of freedom but not complete freedom. These are important matters but not the most important. We must work so that individual freedom is stipulated in the constitution and protected by law and by the institutions of the state. And this does not happen without our engaging in political work. We must undertake the political struggle leading to democracy, and the road is long, and no one will walk it on our behalf. Begin founding parties and joining others. We must launch workshops, not only to distribute aid, but to build thought and political work toward democracy and the civil state.
As for the fear of Islamophobia, Metropolitan Elias Tohme says:
This term became well known in the last century, and its meaning is the fear of Islam. This fear has been renewed and extended with the appearance of Jabhat al-Nusra and ISIS, especially with the declaration of the Caliphate state in Iraq. And because of all the foregoing, there is today a confusion between extremism and religious commitment. I do not understand precisely why there is annoyance at the hijab or beards, for example, or other Islamic appearances (which not all Muslims agree upon). Religious commitment should be a cause for reassurance and not the opposite. The certain matter is that no one should try to impose any of the appearances of religiosity upon others, because that is an infringement upon individual freedom. Among the Muslims there is the committed, the secular, the liberal, the socialist, and the extremist. And the matter is likewise among the Christians and all the other components.
We must not fear Islamic religious appearances, for Islamic culture is part of the identity of our country and part of our civilization, exactly like Christianity. For just as we want to express our faith and our culture, the others have the same right, equally with them.
And whoever is afraid of extremism and of the extremist religious and Islamic parties, let him work to found liberal parties and others. Whoever remains silent and keeps being afraid and begs for his rights will end up with no rights. The fear of extremist parties or voices reaching power is dispelled by founding parties that call for the values of democracy, citizenship, and individual freedoms. And those extremist voices and parties must not be alone in political work. On the other hand, by founding a civil constitution and agreeing upon the supreme values of the state and upon the form of the state, and neutralizing the state from religion before the citizen, then it will not matter who reaches power, whether an extremist, a liberal, or a socialist. And on the other hand, extremist parties and voices exist everywhere in the countries of the world, and this is diversity and richness, but the important thing is that they not be the only voice. There are people who have chosen extremism and people who have chosen freedom in its other forms. If we want to be free, we cannot impose the form of their lives and their thoughts upon others, and we do not accept that anyone impose the form of our life upon us. Whoever wants to be an extremist is free, and whoever wants to be moderate is free.
As for appearances, such as a flag there or a slogan there, they must not arouse panic and fear. And we must realize that we are in a transitional period and will see much and hear much. It does not matter if a flag or a slogan is raised here or there; we must focus on the goal, for the road is long. The King of Britain bears the title “Defender of the Faith” and “Head of the Church of England” but the British constitution guarantees everyone’s rights with absolute equality. Everyone has equal rights — Muslims, Christians, Buddhists, Hindus, atheists, the non-religious, and others. Every Syrian has the right to choose the form of his life.
Then beware of sectarian and denominational work and insularity; rather, you must cry out a thousand times: I am a Syrian and I will work to build a Syria for all Syrians. Butrus al-Bustani says: I am for the service of this homeland and I do not accept to be a stranger in it. So join all the political parties and civil organizations; work with every Syrian from the Sunnis, the Druze, the Alawites, the Shiites, the atheists, and the non-religious, with all the spectra of this society.
I also address the Christians in the lands of displacement and exile. We must work together by forming organizations abroad as well, in order to contribute internally, for tomorrow the embassies will open again, and work will begin on a constitution for the country and on elections. We must have a strong voice that contributes to building democratic Syria. Many have acquired sufficient experience to understand the meaning of the state being a state for the human being, and the meaning of law, freedoms, and respect for human rights and dignity. We must take the initiative now, here, to work, for the intoxication of victory for some, or the fear of change for others, has ended, and the time of building has come.
All the Christians, and those close to the centers of thought-making in the West, must explain and say that the civil system and the civil constitution alone are capable of protecting not only the Christians but of protecting Syria, and also the countries surrounding it, we do not need some regime to protect the Christians or to protect any other component; we need a just state. We must work to achieve justice, which alone is the goal of all political work.
In the end, I do not tell you to be at ease, for extreme ease is a cause for worry, and also do not be afraid, for fear kills the future. And I remind you that the building of the state does not happen overnight, and Syria will not become a state comparable to the rest of the countries merely by the change and overthrow of the regime. The building of the state needs long years; we must work so that we may give our children a homeland of dignity, sovereignty, freedom, and democracy.
O my joy, Syria is free. Christ is risen.