In Touch Quarter 1 - 2012

Lord Sacks: It was Martin Luther
King who said: “In the end, we
will remember not the words of
our enemies, but the silence of our
friends”.
That is why I felt that I could not
be silent today. As a Jew in Christian
Britain, I know how much I, my
late parents and, indeed, the whole
British Jewish community owe to
this great Christian nation, which
gave us the right and the freedom
to live our faith without fear. Shall
we not, therefore, as Jews stand up
for the right of Christians in other parts of the world to live
their faith without fear?
And fear is what many Christians in the Middle East feel
today. We have already heard today about the plight of Coptic
Christians in Egypt, of Maronite Christians in Hezbollahcontrolled
areas in Lebanon, of the vast exodus of Christians
from Iraq and of the concern of Christians in Syria as to what
might happen there should there be further destabilisation.
In the past year, we have heard of churches set on fire, of a
suicide bombing that cost the lives of 21 Christians as they
were leaving a church in Cairo, of violence and intimidation
and of the mass flight of Christians, especially from Egypt. I
believe that we must all protest this series of assaults—some
physical, others psychological—on Christian communities in
the Middle East, many of which have long, long histories. I,
and I hope all other Jews in Britain, stand in solidarity with
our Christian brothers and sisters, as we do with all those
who suffer because of their faith.
I have followed the fate of Christians in the Middle East
for years, appalled at what is happening and surprised and
distressed by the fact that it is not more widely known. We
know how complex are the history and politics of the Middle
East and how fraught with conflicting passions, but there are
two points that I wish to make that deserve reflection.
First, on the Arab spring, which has heightened the fear
of Christians in many of the countries affected, we make
a great intellectual mistake in the West when we assume
that democracy is, in and of itself, a step towards freedom.
Usually, that is the case, but sometimes it is not. As Alexis
de Tocqueville and John Stuart Mill pointed out in the 19th
century, it may merely mean the “tyranny of the majority”.
That is why the most salient words in the current situation
are those of Lord Acton, in his great essay on the history of
freedom, who said: “The most certain test by which we judge
whether a country is really free is the amount of security
enjoyed by minorities”.
That is why the fate of Christians in the Middle East today is
the litmus test of the Arab spring. Freedom is indivisible, and
those who deny it to others will never gain it for themselves.
Secondly, religions that begin by killing their opponents
end by killing their fellow believers. Today, in the Middle
East and elsewhere, radical Islamists fight those whom they
regard as the greater and lesser Satan, but earlier this week
we mourned the death of 55 Shia worshippers at a mosque in
Kabul and another 28 Shia who were killed in a terror attack
in Iraq. Today, the majority of victims of Islamist violence
are Muslim, and shall we not shed tears for them, too? The
tragedy of religion is that it can lead people to wage war
in the name of the God of peace, to hate in the name of the
God of love, to practise cruelty in the name of the God of
compassion and to kill in the name of the God of life. None of
these things brings honour to faith; they are a desecration of
the name of God.
May God protect Christians of the Middle East and people
of faith who suffer for their faith, whoever and wherever
they are.