Few Christians in the Middle East but more influential than ever before

The phrase that heads this article is from the Chaldean Patriarch of Baghdad, Louis Raphael Sako. It was quoted by Monsignor Pascal Gollnisch, who presented at Casa Árabe the establishment in Spain of L'Oeuvre d'Orient, the French association which has been working for more than 160 years in the service of the Eastern churches. 
    
I confess that, despite having visited the countries that make up the incandescent magma of the Middle East on numerous occasions, I have never been given such an unusual view of the presence of Christians there. When the media informs us that a Christian missionary is killed in the world every fortnight; when inter-ethnic wars have caused the Christian population in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon to decrease; when there is rarely a day without an attack on a Christian church, and finally when, except in the land of cedars and in Israel, there is no religious freedom, the cliché that is forged is that Christianity is persecuted in that region as never before. 

Nothing could be further from the global reality if it is Pascal Gollnisch who explains the geopolitics of the Middle East with the clarity and subtlety of the best analysts. When you are a minority, and Christians are, life is not easy," he says, "but we must not confuse discrimination and occasional violence with persecution, which is the constant and sustained attempt to eliminate all traces of a particular belief or culture and those who practise it. 

A vision of Eastern Christians persists through the Greco-Latin view of them. This is the first error of analysis, because these Christians have their roots in the closest proximity to Christ. Aramaic, Syriac and Chaldean roots, so they have had no need to be evangelised by the Greek-Latin Christian culture. They have grown and developed their capacities by interpenetrating the being of countries that are mostly Muslim, but the vast majority of which also consider them as an integral and inalienable part of their culture and civilisation. 

There are, admittedly, only 400,000 Chaldean Christians left in Iraq, but they are more influential than ever. Such a blunt statement by the patriarch of Baghdad might seem an exaggerated claim. Sako justifies it on the grounds that perhaps the word and actions of this minority are being taken into account now more than ever, whether in trying to form a government in Baghdad or in the joint development of the reconstruction of a country devastated by war.  Earlier this year, the patriarch himself received, in full publicity and transparency, a delegation from Muqtada al Sadr, the current "strongman" of Iraqi politics, a meeting that resulted in a political-legal timetable for the return of real estate - houses and land - to the legitimate Christian owners from whom they had been illegally taken, both by individuals and organised groups.

Heritage, education and health, the three pillars of rootedness 

The recovery of this Eastern Christian heritage is precisely one of the main objectives of l'Oevre d'Orient in Syria, as a testimony to the rootedness and legitimacy of Christians in Eastern communities. 

"The vast majority of Muslims in these countries believe that the eradication of Christians would be a tragedy and an irreparable loss of their own culture," Gollnisch emphasises, pointing to the more than 400 educational and health centres that provide education and care for another five million people. Their care not only for Christians but also for Muslims in need is the best form of interrelation, the most visible fruit of which is tolerance, mutual understanding and working together for the development and prosperity of the country. 

In his tour of the geopolitics of the region, Gollnisch agreed with Jumana Trad, president of the Spanish Association for Social Promotion, that Lebanon is undoubtedly the best inter-religious laboratory. Both recognise that the country is practically bankrupt, with 80 per cent of the population living below the poverty line, and young people with no other horizon than to leave in search of a better future. The waves of refugees from the war in Syria, the explosion in the port of Beirut, which devastated more than half of the once flourishing capital of the so-called Switzerland of the Middle East, and the infiltration of terrorism, make it even more difficult to rebuild a country where no less than 19 religious denominations coexist. 

The Lebanese Christian militias have voluntarily disarmed, but not the Shiite militias, which is unacceptable in Gollnisch's view, since it is totally abnormal for a political-religious party to have a larger and more powerful army than that of the state itself. 

Against the Western temptation to impose a certain political and developmental model, Bishop Gollnisch is categorical: "This is a task for the deeply rooted inhabitants of this region of the Middle East, Muslims and Christians. The future of Iraq, Egypt, Syria or Lebanon will be what they all want, working together. 

The lively conversation in the packed Casa Árabe auditorium did not fail to recall the successive deceptions of the Western powers towards the Arabs, starting with the exalted British service agent known as Lawrence of Arabia, who promised freedom and independence if they helped them defeat the Ottoman Empire. In the end, as is well known, the consequence was a Franco-British partition of the territories. 

In this hasty geopolitical vision, it was also clear that the Muslim world is in crisis, that is, in search of answers to the questions posed by today's world. And, once again, the same demand: it is not through external impositions but through tolerance, understanding and cooperation that both Muslims and Christians will find them.