The Land of Unlikeness

It seems important to me to note that this interview from October 5th has received relatively little notice by either the Anglican Community or the greater Christian community, whereas the fact that he apparently said little, he mostly listened, at the House of Bishops in New Orleans, has been a great source of consternation for many: “why didn’t he chasten the Episcopals?” on one side; “Why didn’t he affirm [you fill in the blanks]?” on the other.

Anyway, with that comment made, here’s portions of a transcript from an Oct. 5th interveiw with Rowan Williams on BBC radio.

Q: Help me understand Archbishop, why these Christians, these exiles from Iraq have been targeted?

A: Since the Iraq war, Christian communities in Iraq which have lived there for literally thousands of years have been seen as, in some sense, agents of the West. People described how the sort of notes that were pushed under their door, the messages and threats they received said ‘you are American agents’ or ‘you are Zionist agents and we’re going to have to get rid of you.’ So there’s a very clear link in people’s minds with the conflict.

…[W]hatever one says now about that, it’s quite clear that our governments have a very heavy responsibility to see what can be done for these people. To secure the status and the welfare of refugees and to work on what seems the almost impossible task of making a society that they can return to in Iraq. And of course when some people talk – as some do – about the possibility of a partition solution in Iraq, very often the Christians are left out of account in this.

I don’t say this out of a kind of Christian chauvinism – wanting to defend my corner, The presence of Christians in communities like Iraq and Syria is actually part of what you might call a pluralist, tolerant, co-existent tradition in Middle-Eastern Arab society which is itself under threat.

So it’s not just about Christians, what’s at stake is much more than just the future of just the Christian community. But everywhere you go in the Middle-East, Christian people will say ‘the main problem we face is the catastrophic drainage of Christians from this region’. So that what were once plural societies not exclusively or narrowly Muslim, are becoming more and more closed.

…

I don’t know what sort of calculations were made. I do think that two things are clear: that the effect on Christian communities in the region was gravely under estimated, and that the scale of the refugee problem was gravely underestimated. Now what we have at the moment is a refugee problem in the Middle East of almost unprecedented scale. We’ve already got the Palestinian refugee problem and I also visited some Palestinian refugees on the outskirts of Beirut; we now have on top of that another million and a half – and growing – number of Iraqi refugees and this is where, when people talk about further destablilising the region, when you read about some American political advisers speaking about action against Syria and Iran, I can only say that I regard that as criminal, ignorant and potentially murderous folly.

…

Q: Do you think there will ever be a time in the future when we look back at the invasion of Iraq and say yes actually that was for the best?

A: No.

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