Participants:
Series Code: LI
Program Code: LI000388A
|
00:26 Welcome to the Liberty Insider.
00:28 This is a program bringing you information and updates 00:31 on religious liberty developments in the US 00:33 and around the world. 00:35 My name is Lincoln Steed, Editor of Liberty magazine. 00:39 And my guest on this program is Tina Ramirez, 00:41 Founder and President of Hardwired 00:44 which is doing a fantastic work 00:47 for religious freedom in many countries, 00:49 but particularly in the Middle East and Iraq. 00:52 But let's talk about the country nearby 00:54 because Syria has been in the news 00:56 for quite a while, hasn't it? 00:57 And yet, by and large 00:59 with all of the political scandals, 01:01 locally, in the US, 01:02 there hasn't been much talk of Syria in the US 01:05 at least till, 01:06 or since the president fired 01:07 of how many, 50 cruise missiles. 01:10 Yeah. But what's happening in Syria? 01:12 It seems to me religion is a big part of the story, 01:14 isn't it? 01:15 Yeah, I think religion has been a part of Syria's story 01:17 for a long time, 01:18 but it's kind of been under wraps, 01:21 I mean, you don't hear much about it. 01:23 So just as background, thank you, Lincoln, 01:25 for having me here with you today. 01:26 Always a pleasure. Yeah. 01:28 And Hardwired for your viewers is an organization 01:31 that provides education training 01:32 around the world in religious freedom. 01:34 So we establish leaders in countries 01:36 where there is none, so Syria and Iraq 01:37 would be great examples of that, 01:40 and to try to turn the tide against religious persecution. 01:44 And I actually was in Syria, when was it, 2010, 01:47 I think, so right before the civil war. 01:49 I was able to travel 01:51 with the current patriarch of the Syriac church, 01:54 Morry from all through Syria and then into Turkey 01:57 where there is seminary and Mor Gabriel Monastery is. 02:00 I'm telling you got that at the top. 02:02 Yeah, the Turkish government is actually trying 02:04 to take over their main seminary. 02:06 They claim that it was built on top of a mosque 02:07 which is silly since when the Syriacs 02:09 were predated them 02:10 by about 600 or 700 years but, you know. 02:12 It's usually the other way around. 02:16 So did you see signs of the soon 02:19 to develop civil war when you were there 02:21 that was it obvious something was about to happen? 02:23 No, I don't think it was. 02:24 I mean, he had to really take control 02:26 on the country at the time 02:27 and we had security guards that would be on the plane, 02:30 like sitting behind us poking their heads through our seats 02:33 and, you know, it's kind of funny 02:34 because, I mean, you know that they're listening, 02:37 you might as well just join in the conversation 02:39 but, very tight controls in the whole country. 02:42 So it was very safe, you never felt, 02:46 you never felt like there was any danger. 02:50 And unfortunately, in a lot of dictatorships, 02:52 that's pretty much the way it is, 02:53 it's really safe to go around there. 02:55 You know, if you're somebody like me 02:56 that meets with religious communities 02:58 and tries to understand what's happening. 02:59 But when we were there, 03:01 we did meet the former head of the Syriac Church. 03:04 And for your viewers 03:07 who don't know, the Syriac Church 03:08 is really the oldest church in the world. 03:09 So it was founded by Thomas, 03:13 the Doubting Thomas in the Bible, 03:15 he went to the Syriac... 03:17 He was supposedly ended up in India though, didn't he? 03:19 Yeah, he went all the way down to India. 03:21 So you had the... 03:24 Thomas go to, he's established the Syriac Church in Syria 03:26 and then a similar Eastern Church in Baghdad, 03:30 so those were the two really prominent churches 03:33 for the first 300 or 400 years of Christendom. 03:35 And I think in the United States 03:37 and in Australia for that matter in the west, 03:39 it's a better way of putting it, 03:40 Christians tend to forget that Christianity began 03:44 in the Middle East, that's its home base. 03:46 Yeah, and it really was, 03:48 it was the missionary sending church for, 03:51 I mean, long before the Roman Catholic Church 03:54 really emerged to do that, 03:56 not until, you know, 1400 or much after. 03:59 And so it was really the Syriac Church 04:02 and the Eastern Syrian churches 04:04 that preserved the Greek language 04:07 that interacted 04:08 with the first Muslim communities 04:10 in the Middle East 04:11 that had these ancient dialogues going on, 04:13 that where the first Christians really live as minorities 04:17 under a Muslim government 04:19 where they had to learn to interact. 04:21 And they had missionaries spread all through China, 04:23 I mean in the Mongolian region, so it was a big empire. 04:28 That was the year of the Gospel commission 04:30 where they moved in and out. 04:31 Now, it's contracting a little, I assume. 04:33 Yeah, now it's contracting. 04:34 I mean, since the rise of Islam, 04:36 it really has been contracting, 04:38 so you've seen 04:39 since at least around the year 1000, 04:41 a major downward spiral on the church 04:43 and it became very isolated. 04:45 And so around 1500s, many of those Eastern churches 04:49 actually joined the Catholic Church, 04:51 but the Syriac Church did not, 04:52 so that's still separate in Damascus. 04:55 And when we were there, 04:56 the former head of the church said to us, 04:59 he said, "Tina, if what happened in Iraq 05:02 when Saddam was brought down was to happen here with Assad, 05:08 we will not survive as a church." 05:09 And so that was just before the civil war, 05:12 but he was very right and I think that, 05:14 you know, for everybody that's watched the news, 05:17 you've seen how the Christian Church in Iraq 05:19 was really decimated after the fall of Saddam. 05:22 You had a church of 1.4 million go down 05:25 to about 400, 000 now 05:27 since ISIS it's, like half, 05:32 only half of the church... 05:33 We talk about Syria, yeah, we can... 05:34 That's Iraq. Like divert to Iraq. 05:36 But Syria, it's the same thing. 05:37 But, may be you know the answer to something, 05:39 you know, I give talks 05:40 on religious liberty all the time 05:41 and I give some of those same statistics, 05:43 what I don't know is, yes, 05:45 it was the Christian population in Iraq was down 05:49 to about 400,000 recently. 05:51 Pre-ISIS, yeah. Yes, that's the point. 05:54 Then ISIS took over Mosul, 05:56 which is the second largest city in Iraq, 05:59 there is not that many big cities. 06:01 I don't know 06:02 how many Christians were in Mosul, 06:04 but it had to have been a couple of 100, 000 06:07 or at least a 100, 000. 06:08 Yeah, surrounding Mosul 06:10 you have a lot of Christian villages 06:12 and so what happened when they came into Mosul, 06:14 they also went into dozens of villages 06:17 that were predominantly Turkmen, Christian, Yazidis, 06:23 there are number of different communities. 06:24 And they couldn't get away, they were essentially trapped. 06:26 Well, they were given the option, 06:28 you have 48 hours, you convert or die. 06:29 Right. And so or be killed. 06:30 So those Christian villages, 06:32 at least seven or eight of them in that area 06:34 around Mosul were completely wiped out 06:36 of any Christian, any Christian I believe. 06:38 That's what I haven't heard. 06:39 The number of Christians that were martyred there, 06:42 must have been large. 06:43 Well, there weren't very many martyred 06:45 that Christians actually... 06:47 Most of them paid them off? 06:48 Well, no, what they did is they fled 06:50 so they lost everything. 06:51 I mean, you had about seven 06:52 to eight billion dollars in assets 06:55 that the Christian community 06:56 around Mosul just lost overnight. 06:58 And then, I mean, 07:00 they just escaped with their lives essentially 07:02 and, but they lost everything. 07:05 So to rebuild after they've rebuilt 07:06 so many times including after Saddam fell 07:10 and then, you know, they've been moved under Saddam 07:12 and they've been moved after Saddam, 07:14 I mean, it's decimated the community. 07:16 So many of them 07:17 instead of trying to try again in Iraq 07:19 one more time are deciding to leave, 07:22 so that the numbers, 07:23 they went down from 1.4 million to 400,000 pre-ISIS now, 07:27 I think there's around 200,000 07:29 maybe left in the country in total. 07:31 But it's not that they've been killed, 07:33 most of them have just 07:34 are living in refugee camps in Jordan or have fled 07:37 to the United States and other countries. 07:38 You're right. 07:40 I remember reading of one refugee camp in Jordan, 07:42 I think it was 500,000... 07:43 or 200,000... 07:45 Hundreds of thousands, most of them Christians. 07:47 Yeah, many refugee camps. 07:50 So that situation, 07:54 the patriarch in Syria saw 07:56 that if what happened in Iraq... 07:58 I'm sure he was right. 08:00 And so when Assad was... 08:03 I mean it's still an ongoing civil war there, 08:05 but Assad always protected the Syriac Church, 08:08 and so even when I was there 08:10 he used to send his kids to vacation at the area 08:13 where the Syriac Church was and south of Syriac Church 08:15 was in cahoots with the Assad regime. 08:17 It's just that they had a good relationship, 08:19 they were protected under him in the same way 08:21 that many of the Christian churches 08:22 were protected under Saddam in Iraq. 08:24 And... 08:25 Well, I'm glad you're saying this because... 08:28 Viewers on this program who probably heard me 08:30 and I'll tell the story again. 08:31 A few years ago when the unrest started 08:34 under the Obama administration, 08:37 President Obama in good faith I'm sure but acting 08:39 on his advisors said very publicly 08:42 that Assad needed to go. 08:44 And about that time, 08:45 they asked a number of us with religious liberty 08:48 to come down and to talk to the faith 08:51 based initiative group for one of a better term 08:53 out of the White House, 08:55 you know, the group in charge of religious activities. 08:59 And they wanted to persuade us on something. 09:02 But after that, the small group that came, 09:05 they're about 10 or 12 of us no more, 09:07 they asked us to give some feedback. 09:09 And I remember telling them, 09:11 I said, "Please, tell the president, 09:13 whenever he gets up and says that Assad should go," 09:16 that's like a green light in Syria for Muslims 09:20 mostly to go and attack Christians 09:23 because if you're opposed to Assad, 09:25 don't like his regime, 09:26 the soft underbelly of what he stood 09:29 for was to attack Christians. 09:31 And it wasn't 09:32 that he particularly like Christians, 09:34 just as in Iraq 09:36 the Ba'ath Party Socialist Secular government 09:39 had given equal rights to all faiths. 09:42 And the radical Muslims objected 09:45 that here the Christians are being protected so. 09:47 We saw the same thing, 09:49 attacks on Christian churches 09:50 would follow all of these public denunciations of Assad. 09:54 Well, that mean 09:55 the Assad regime itself represents 09:57 a religious minority, 09:59 they're the whites and so within Islam, 10:00 and so they obviously need their own protection 10:03 and I think that's their problem. 10:04 But I think it comes from the Ba'ath Party, 10:05 not from Assad. 10:07 Yeah, it's part of that. 10:09 They don't want religion involved in politics. 10:11 It's very similar to the Saddam era. 10:13 Remember, Saddam was in an ongoing... 10:15 Non-religious. 10:16 A violent battle against Islamic fundamentalists. 10:19 Yeah, and I think it's definitely 10:21 a very controversial situation, 10:24 do you, you know, it's churches, there you go. 10:27 It was no easy answer, of course. 10:28 Yeah, I mean there is no... 10:31 I mean with any of these dictators, 10:32 it's like, I think 10:34 what Thomas Jefferson said about slavery, 10:35 you can't keep holding the line, 10:38 but you can't let him go and it's like, 10:40 you know, it's not sustainable. 10:44 And you can certainly make a good argument 10:46 that the dictatorial regime 10:48 of both these countries created a situation 10:51 that eventually blossomed the way it has in Syria. 10:54 And that's where diplomacy comes in, 10:56 and is so important and the international arena 10:58 and how they navigate that and unfortunately 11:00 they just didn't navigate it well. 11:02 But for, you know, historically 11:05 many of the Christian communities 11:07 have been protected by Assad, 11:10 by even Russia in that region of the world. 11:13 And so for those communities, 11:15 they just, they live between a rock and a hard place. 11:21 Well, that's worth saying. 11:23 Some of our viewers perhaps try to make 11:25 some sense of the politics in the world. 11:28 One of the reasons that Russia 11:30 I think is showing an interest in Syria 11:32 is because Russia 11:33 has an Eastern Orthodox sensibility 11:37 and they are one 11:38 of the protective religious dynamic there. 11:41 Oh, absolutely, I'm sure that is part of it. 11:44 And we don't know 11:46 that not Assad is going to be any better 11:48 and that's part of the challenge 11:50 is that when the civil war began in Syria, 11:53 you had a lot of diverse democratic movements spring up. 11:58 But across the board, 11:59 they quickly silenced the Christian 12:03 and the more religious freedom oriented members of the party. 12:09 And so people like Bassam Ishak, 12:10 you know, were really, 12:12 the Syriac was really not treated well 12:15 even by those democracy advocates. 12:19 But, and so until those democracy advocates 12:22 and the opposition 12:24 that have been meeting in Europe 12:25 and coming to United States 12:27 are really unequivocal about their stance 12:29 for religious freedom as a red line. 12:31 I don't know that they should be given 12:32 that kind of support politically 12:34 because they could so easily 12:36 just turn into the next Assad and so how do we really know. 12:39 And then the alternative is obviously 12:42 the different factions of ISIS and other terrorist groups 12:45 that have been trying to take power 12:47 within Syria as well which is very dangerous 12:49 and something that no one, you know, would want. 12:51 And far from anything else, 12:52 it is the civil war and civil wars are never... 12:54 Very messy. 12:56 Amenable to outside interference anyhow, 12:58 and they're always messy. 13:00 It's worth remembering 13:01 even in the US there was a civil war, 13:03 a massive event that I think in many ways 13:05 we're still living 13:07 through the aftereffects of that. 13:08 Yeah, and there's a lot to lose. 13:10 So there are parts of Syria that haven't been affected 13:13 I think by what we see in the news. 13:15 It's not like completely decimated, 13:19 you know, country that's been leveled, 13:20 but there are parts that have been 13:22 that are really sad and will take, 13:23 I mean, just years to rebuild 13:26 and it is unfortunate because it did, 13:29 Syria was really I think the gem of the Middle East. 13:32 I've traveled all over the region 13:34 and it is by far 13:36 one of the most beautiful and just nicest countries. 13:40 But now sadly, you know, it's that's hard. 13:43 Well, as you say, I get the distinct impression, 13:46 it's not uniform destruction all over, there are... 13:49 That's not uniform, yeah. Safe pockets of even normalcy. 13:53 In parts of Damascus, I think is still... 13:55 Yeah, parts that the government still controls, absolutely. 13:58 But I've said it on this program 13:59 before you reminded me 14:00 when I was in Israel nearly two years ago, 14:02 they took us up on to the Golan Heights, 14:04 you can see down the Sea of Galilee. 14:06 And it wasn't real clear that they, 14:07 but they say when it's clear, 14:09 you can actually see the outskirts of Damascus. 14:11 So this is all sort of compacted in together, 14:14 and the potential to affect other areas, 14:18 another religious dynamics even in Israel, very strong. 14:22 We need to take a break. 14:23 We'll be back shortly, stay with us. |
Revised 2018-04-16