Interview with State Secretary Tristan Azbej

THE SITUATION OF CHRISTIANITY IN THE MIDDLE EAST—INTERVIEW WITH STATE SECRETARY TRISTAN AZBEJ

Tamás Kozma–Zsombor Szabolcs Pál, 14 January 2021, Budapest

As a State Secretary, you are tasked with coordinating Hungarian aid programmes aimed at helping persecuted Christians all around the world. Could you sum up your activities and the main principles of the Hungarian government’s humanitarian efforts? What can a small country like Hungary do for the millions of persecuted Christians all around the world?

The Hungary Helps programme is Hungary’s international aid programme that has been running under this name since the beginning of 2017. As Hungary is an emerging donor in terms of international aid, it became important to set a solid framework for the government’s international aid activity within the state structure. A few decades ago, Hungary was on the receiving end of aid, but we have since stepped up our share in international solidarity. Now, what makes a notable difference between the Hungarian international aid activity and many other national or international aid programmes is that we were the first to recognise the extent of Christian persecution in the world. We found that it was not only one of the most pressing human rights crises of our age but also the least addressed one. We also think that this situation, the lack of freedom of religion and belief, which makes it difficult for Christians around the world to follow their religion, is also connected to humanitarian crises in many instances. For example, in the Middle East, it was quite well known that ISIS carried out genocide and mass atrocities based on religious intolerance and religious hatred against the Yazidis, Christians, and other faith groups which created a humanitarian crisis that was very specific to those groups who were attacked or oppressed because of their religious identity.

Christians are the most persecuted belief group across the globe: we have just received statistical data showing that 340 million Christians are persecuted or discriminated around the world for their faith. That is why we have become committed to dealing with this issue on a governmental and, more importantly, on an international level. Therefore, the Hungarian government decided to identify aiding persecuted Christians as one of the key priorities of its international aid policy. There is a common misunderstanding that Hungary Helps means aiding persecuted Christians. Through its programme, Hungary does not help Christians exclusively; that would not be consistent with Christian values. However, our support for persecuted Christians is explicit— non-exclusive, but explicit. Moreover, for this programme, the Hungarian government set up a dedicated department that has the term “aid for

persecuted Christians” in its title—we were the first government to dedicate a governmental unit to this overwhelming global phenomenon. During the last four years up until now, when we are making this interview, we started eighty-five aid projects in more than thirty countries, and the total number of our persecuted Christian beneficiaries has just exceeded one hundred thousand. This means that, through humanitarian aid, rehabilitation aid, and educational programmes, we have contributed to more than one hundred thousand discriminated or persecuted Christians and members of a few other religious groups. Our support gave them the opportunity to be able to remain in their ancestral homelands or, in many cases, return to their homelands from migration or from refugee status.

You started your career in diplomacy in the Middle East and have had various trips there as the responsible for the Hungary Helps programme. How do you see the situation of Christians in this region, and where are their communities most at risk? Where do they have the most supportive circumstances?

As you have mentioned, I spent four years in diplomatic service in Israel, and it gave me personal experience on the complex social structure and history of the Middle East, and the different attempts, success stories, and failures of people from various ethnic or faith backgrounds, living together in such a patchwork of cultures, traditions, languages, and ethnicities. That was my first encounter with the different groups of Middle Eastern Christians.

Today, one of the greatest assets that we have at this state secretariat is that we have a widespread, lively, and direct contact with Christian churches in the Middle East, Africa, and some other parts of the world. This way, we can form a good, clear, and detailed picture of their situation. Based on that, I can say that Christians and other Muslim denominations—the latter being usually in majority—found a stable way to live together over the centuries. What has changed this modus vivendi was the appearance of a modern political ideology: political Islamism. It is not always well known that political Islamism is not an ancient tradition, as it started, some would say, around the 1970s, and its political beliefs are based on the perverted religious theses of some more radical Islamist theologians. And, since the Middle East has always been fraught with tense political and ethnic conflicts, the quasi-state-like organisation ISIS’s appearance in the region ignited something that resulted in armed conflicts and destabilisation almost to the extent of genocide. What we see when we look at the conflict in Syria and Iraq is that today, with the collapse of ISIS as a quasi-state-like entity, the situation of Christians is not as severe as it was before.

However, Christians are a minority everywhere except for Lebanon, where they make up a significant portion of society. It is almost a historical cliché that, whenever there is conflict, minorities usually suffer more than the majority population. Now, we saw what happened in the Middle East in the near past. What is more, statistics show an absolutely tragic tendency among Christian communities in the region. One example is Syria, where the number of Christians was 2.3 million only a decade ago. However, even the most optimistic estimates say that they hardly reach one million today. The more realistic and pessimistic estimates, on the other hand, say that there are only about 800,000 Christians left in Syria. In Iraq, the situation is even more dramatic. According to the statistics, the number of Christians before the 2004 war in Iraq was 1.5 million. Today, this number is dramatically low, around 200,000. It is less than one-fifth of the number they had there one and a half decades ago. Some people would think that Christianity may have had a short-lived presence in the Middle East, but the truth is that Middle Eastern Christian communities are among the most ancient groups in which all Christian civilisation is rooted, and they have been present in this region for two thousand years. They have not just survived two thousand years there but even flourished. There is, however, a dramatic tendency that suggests, if there is no international collaboration or intention to save the Christians of the Middle East, they will disappear—first in Iraq within a very few years or, at best, within our

lifetime. We are talking about a 200,000-strong Christian group that has survived two millennia and is now disappearing within our lifetime. I think that would be a true shame on our generation and the international community if we could not save these Christians. If they are not saved, then they will have the same fate as, for example, the historical Jewish community had in Iraq. They were a strong group back in the past, but today, they are almost gone.

That is the situation in Iraq and Syria, but there is also Lebanon, which could be regarded as the last bastion of Christianity in the Middle East. There are no sectarian groups oppressing or persecuting Christians in Lebanon. However, the many different types of crises in that country can easily cause the Christian population to reduce— its members can choose to migrate elsewhere because of their high level of education and the lack of perspective in the country. On the other hand, there are other cases, for instance, Israel, Palestine, and Jordan, where Christians are treated as an equal part of society: they are respected, and their human rights are protected.

What forms of hardships do Christians need to face in the region? Is there any difference between different Christian denominations? Does violence against them come mainly from the state and authorities or from nonstate actors and the wider society?

Our approach to support Christians is that we try to meet their needs. Some international aid programmes commit the mistake that they try to be smarter than the people they support. They follow their own agenda instead of listening closely to the actual community they try to support. We work the other way round. We go to the site, and we ask the representatives of the community about how we can help. And they generally answer, “Provide us aid and support so we may be able to remain in our homeland.” Christian communities are usually the last ones to migrate from a crisis-hit zone because, most of the time, they are patriotic, and they feel a special responsibility towards their wider community, including people of other faiths and other communities they live together with. That comes from the Christian world view and from how Christians think about a person’s responsibilities. However, to help them remain in their societies and homelands, we need to secure three things, that is, their lives, their homes, and their livelihood.

When I say, “secure their lives,” I mean it literally because they have suffered armed conflicts, violent persecution, and even genocide. Therefore, within the Hungary Helps programme, one type of the aid we provide is humanitarian fast relief after terrorist attacks or other armed crises. Secondly, they need help to secure the places where they live. This means that there has been a tremendous loss in infrastructure in Syria or in some other countries such as Lebanon, where the economic and financial crisis impaired the maintenance of infrastructure and social services. Therefore, we support the rehabilitation of these communities’ infrastructure, educational and healthcare institutions, and even churches because that is what they need. Thirdly, they need help to secure their livelihood. Christians in the Middle East have always contributed to their communities and to the economy to a great degree. They are well educated, so they are present in trade, industry, and other important areas. However, because they had to flee and because of the war, they have lost their livelihood. Consequently, they also need support in economic rehabilitation. Finally, there is a special need that we have also recognised. In some cases, the local Christian youth has limited access to higher education. That is why we offer them scholarship programmes at Hungarian universities with the aim that they come here, study at our institutions, and, after graduation, they return to their communities and help rebuild them.

Now, let me come back to your question if there is any difference between denominations. The Islamists and jihadists all attack the believers and followers of Christ, so there is no big difference between the Orthodox Church, Eastern Catholics, and Protestants. That being said, there is still a slight difference because the Orthodox and the Eastern Catholics have a longer historical presence in the region. As

a consequence, slightly less radical Islamists would treat them as communities that, contrary to the whole Islamic world view, still belong to the People of the Book, the Abrahamic religion. And that resulted in a different level of persecution, which means, in some cases, these Christians were offered the opportunity to flee before being murdered. Protestant churches, on the other hand, are often regarded by these jihadist and Islamist groups as agents of the West and, particularly, the US because they usually have a very close relation with their sister churches in the US. Consequently, they sometimes face harsher discrimination.

All in all, it is mostly non-state actors that persecute Christians in the Middle East. Regarding the states and the authorities, most of them have tolerance towards Christianity in recent history. There are countries and governments that are non-Christian but still value the presence of Christianity very much and are committed to preserving their Christian communities. We know only about very few instances when some authorities turned a blind eye to the cases of non-state actors committing atrocities against Christians. But that is usually not the case, and these are mainly authorities not belonging to the central government.

Do you have help programmes drawn on your own initiative, or do you organise your activity listening to local needs on all occasions as you have already suggested?

We are not doing anything for the communities without the communities. And what the community needs is that we help them stay in their country. In Hungary, one of the most important principles in our migration policies is that we are against mass migration. We think that it is harmful to all parties involved, for the source and the receiving communities and the migrants themselves. We believe that, instead of bringing people facing social challenges or being in trouble to Europe through migration, it is in everybody’s best interest to bring help and aid where the problem is to stabilise the country and to help people stay there and have a prosperous life with human dignity.

Do you have partners, either state or nonstate actors in the Middle East or globally, who you can cooperate with in helping these Christian communities?

What is special about our programme is that, whenever it is possible, we do not use middleman agencies or international organisations. While we are fully transparent to local authorities, we do not involve them in the chain of transferring money or sending donations. In most cases, our beneficiaries are local church institutions or local faith-based organisations, charities, and missions. This is the most efficient and direct way. We do have partners in Hungary: all major historical churches are partners to our programme. Besides, we cooperate with well-referenced Hungarian faith-based charity organisations, for instance, the Hungarian Interchurch Aid or the Hungarian Charity Service of the Order of Malta, and many others.

On an international level, we seek cooperation and form alliances with other governments and state actors, and we look for governments and like-minded organisations who would align with our idea of providing humanitarian aid to persecuted Christians and other religious

CHRISTIANS ARE THE MOST PERSECUTED BELIEF GROUP ACROSS THE GLOBE: 340 MILLION CHRISTIANS ARE PERSECUTED OR DISCRIMINATED AROUND THE WORLD FOR THEIR FAITH.

communities, because we also have a programme for the persecuted Yazidis and the persecuted Muslim communities just like for the Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh.

And who can you cooperate with in a European context? Is there any V4 cooperation in this regard? Do you have partnerships with other European states or worldwide?

Within the European Union, we have formalised cooperation with Poland. Perhaps it is not surprising because we have much common ground not only in our policies but in our views on solidarity as well as humanitarian and migration policy. We have also formalised cooperation and joint projects with, for example, Estonia, Greece, and the Netherlands. Moreover, we are very close to starting joint projects with Germany and Slovenia. So, within the European Union, we have many allies. However, perhaps our most important diplomatic achievement was outside Europe, because the Hungary Helps programme also has a cooperation with USAID. We have not only cooperation but joint large-scale projects in northern Iraq for the persecuted Christian and Yazidi communities.

As you have mentioned, stopping migration and helping people locally is one of the main building blocks of the Hungarian government’s migration strategy. In your view, how much could you achieve through your programme in the Middle East in this regard?

In the Middle East and mostly North Africa, we have passed the mark of 100,000 direct beneficiaries. Of course, this sort of aid always has a cascade effect, so the indirect beneficiaries of our programme could be a multiple of that. Yet, even if we are talking about hundreds of thousands, that is only a minority of the people in need and the people who could be a target for organisations promoting migration. Since we are a small country having a relatively young aid programme, no one could expect from us to solve the problem of persecuted Christians. However, I also see it as a major achievement that we could put the whole issue, and the possible response to it, on the international diplomatic community’s agenda. We have raised issues together with other governments and international organisations and inspired other governments to introduce new policies and programmes. We hold international conferences every two years. The first conference had about a few hundred foreign attendances from less than twenty countries with no high-level official government representation. On the last one, we had more than four hundred international participants from over thirty countries, and high-level government representation from twelve countries. That was the second conference on the persecution of Christians, which means that we managed to thematise the international humanitarian and diplomatic discourse. Therefore, I think we can greatly contribute to the preservation of these communities if we can further mobilise other governments and form this international alliance.

How do you see the future of your programme? How could you develop it? Do you see the directions you should follow in the future?

I think that the Hungarian government dedicates reasonable resources to this programme. Of course, we are responsible for maintaining the well-being and the future of the Hungarian people. However, we have taken on a moral obligation to show solidarity internationally, and we can expand our efforts. The way to go forward is to be persistent in representing the case of persecuted Christians in the world and to increase the scale of our efforts by involving other governments and possible donors while inspiring the European Union’s foreign aid policy to better meet the needs of those people who suffer the humanitarian crisis because of religion-based intolerance.

Do you think that your cooperation with Middle Eastern Christian or other religious communities can create a problem for their governments or other local authorities?

Well, the keyword is respect. Respect from both sides. As I have already said, it is not typical that state actors persecute Christians in the Middle East. Most of the governments and authorities protect and value their Christian communities and Christian compatriots. Therefore, they have no objection to our aid activities. There is a requirement, of course, that we should be transparent, which we are always willing to comply with because we are also against the practice when Hungarian organisations are supported under the mask of charity but with a clear intention to interfere in our country’s internal politics. We want to avoid even a suspicion about that; therefore, our cooperation with local governments is transparent and mutually committed.

Finally, let me ask you: which has been your most successful programme in the region, and which was the most special and unforgettable to you?

Perhaps the most successful project, the project that carries hope for the future, is our support programme for reconstructing the northern Iraqi town Telskuf. This town is inhabited by members of the Chaldean Catholic Church, and it is on the Nineveh Plains. Talking of Chaldeans and the Nineveh Plains, you can see how ancient this Christian community is.

This town was overrun and conquered by ISIS in 2014, so all its Christian population had to flee. And ISIS did a lot of damage, they destroyed the local church and all religious monuments. And, when they were driven out, more than nine hundred buildings were damaged in the fight. So, it became a ghost city because no one lived there and nine hundred of its buildings were severely damaged.

We decided to provide aid to these Chaldean Christians in Iraq through the Hungary Helps programme so that they can reconstruct Telskuf. As a result, almost one thousand have returned out of the 1300 families that had fled from the city, which means that about threequarters of these people have returned to this completely abandoned town. Meanwhile, as I mentioned earlier, the whole Christian population in Iraq has decreased to one-fifth of the size it had one and a half decades ago. We managed to save the community with a not too large but very targeted donation worth about EUR 2 million. When people returned, life found its way again. It was very touching when the priest of the community told us that the town was renamed Telskuf, the Daughter of Hungary. Whenever I have a diplomatic meeting with other governments, I always explain that, of course, we take great pride in having a town called the Daughter of Hungary on the Nineveh Plains, but it would be equally wonderful to have there, for example, another one called the “Son of the European Union” or the “Grandchildren of the United Nations.” This is how we want to mobilise other governments for this cause.

However, for me, personally, the most touching occasion was when I visited another site we supported in Beirut, Lebanon. Lebanese people take care of almost two million refugees. So, today, about half of the population in the country is made up by refugees. They are all in a difficult situation—still, Lebanese people show solidarity and take care of such a large crowd of people. And Lebanese churches are at the forefront of this charity service. Now, together with the Syrian Catholic Church, we supported a school called the Angel of Peace, where the students are all refugees from Syria and Iraq. I once visited this school and talked to the children, and I could learn about their tragic lives. Many of them were traumatised. I told them about Hungarian people’s solidarity along with our programme. What happened then was that the children and their priests stood up and started to pray for Hungary and Hungarians. It was not a prayer of gratitude for providence; as they explained, they were praying so that Hungarians, and I think all the people in the West, have strong faith. I figure they meant that we should have strong faith in our identity. I think it was really touching but it was also a very important message from the Middle East, from those people who preserve their identity, their traditions and belong to their homeland even in times of persecution.