Archbishop Bashar Warda of the Chaldean Archeparchy of Erbil, Iraq. (Credit: Daniel Ibanez/CNA.)
ishtartv.com - cruxnow.com
Crux Staff, February
2, 2017
Archbishop
Bashar Warda of Erbil tells Crux that as long as special preferences under
Trump's new refugee order are for all victims of ISIS and not just Christians
alone, it will help, and that Christians "celebrated when Trump won"
in hopes it would mark an end to U.S. neglect.
[Editor’s
note: Archbishop Bashar Warda is the Chaldean Catholic archbishop of Erbil in
Iraq, and has long been an outspoken voice on behalf of Middle East
Christianity. He recently spoke to Crux from Erbil about the Trump
administration’s controversial executive order on refugees, including the idea
of giving special preference to Christians and other minorities who have been
victims of ISIS genocide.]
CRUX:
When the executive order was rolled out, your own upcoming trip to the United
States was cancelled. What happened?
Warda:
The main purpose for coming was for a Congressional hearing that was postponed.
I hope to come soon and to testify on behalf of Christians in Iraq.
Do
you agree that security concerns warrant the new U.S. refugee policy?
I
don’t know what the president knows about security risks as they relate to the
“countries of concern” and refugees from them.
I do
know two things.
First,
it is terrible to live with terrorism. My country lives with terrorism daily.
And if the United States wants to have a strong vetting process, I can
understand and appreciate that. Some people are quick to forget that Europe has
tried to slow down the refugee flow too. The EU has done its best to keep the
refugees in Turkey, and has paid Turkey to keep them there. Obviously, in the
era of terrorism, people are concerned about who is entering their country and
that is understandable.
Second,
the Catholic Church is fundamentally on the side of immigrants, regardless of
their faith or origin. This is a core part of who we are. So these are
complex times in a brutal world. The real question is what is the obligation of
the world community, not just the U.S., to all the innocent victims of this
brutality. As the Church, especially here in Iraq, we are shepherds to the
innocents, all of them - those who are migrating and those who are not.
I
fear that all the media discussion on this travel issue will place the focus
completely on those who are in the migration process, and forget those who are
still attempting to live and survive in their legitimate homeland.
One
other thing: Christians and other minorities have been largely ignored by the
American government before now, so even if this step had a bumpy start and
required clarification, we in Iraq appreciate that an American administration
understands that we are here and wants to help the minorities here who have
suffered so much.
Do
you think this order will make it harder for Christians from Iraq?
Someone
quoted me out of context on this in another article, so let me clarify it.
Obviously
in certain individual cases in the short term, this could change the plans of
those who were in the process of immigrating or traveling, but I understand
several of our families with new immigrant visas have now been approved for
travel just this week.
As
long as this is understood as something available to all the minority
communities of Iraq, and not just to the Christians, I do not think this will
make it harder for us Christians here in Iraq. Obviously in the long run, it
will make it easier for those from our community who wish to move to the West.
And while I hope most of our people will stay, I must respect the decision they
make for themselves, especially after what they have endured.
What
do you make of the protests against President Trump’s refugee order?
Everyone,
including the administration, seems to agree that this should have been
implemented with more clarity. There was much confusion about what the order
meant and many people were very upset.
From
my perspective in Iraq, I wonder why all of these protesters were not
protesting in the streets when ISIS came to kill Christians and Yazidis and
other minority groups. They were not protesting when the tens of thousands of
displaced Christians my archdiocese has cared for since 2014 received no
financial assistance from the U.S. government or the U.N. There were no
protests when Syrian Christians were only let in at a rate that was 20 times
less than the percentage of their population in Syria.
I do
not understand why some Americans are now upset that the many minority
communities that faced a horrible genocide will finally get a degree of
priority in some manner.
I
would also say this, all those who cry out that this is a “Muslim Ban” -
especially now that it has been clarified that it is not - should understand
clearly that when they do this, they are hurting we Christians specifically and
putting us at greater risk. The executive order has clearly affected
Christians and Yazidis and others as well as Muslims.
Here
in Iraq we Christians cannot afford to throw out words carelessly as the media
in the West can do. I would ask those in the media who use every issue to
stir up division to think about this. For the media these things become an
issue of ratings, but for us the danger is real.
Most
Americans have no concept of what it was like to live as a Yazidi or Christian
or other minority as ISIS invaded. Our people had the option to flee, to
convert, or to be killed, and many were killed in the most brutal ways
imaginable. But there were none of these protests then of ISIS’s religious
test.
Our
people lost everything because of their faith - they were targeted for their
faith, just like the Yazidis and others too. Now these protesters are saying
that religion should not matter at all, even though someone was persecuted for
their faith, even though persecution based on religion is one of the grounds
for refugee status in the UN treaty on refugees.
From
here I have to say, it is really unbelievable.
It
is exactly this reasoning, that religion should not be a factor at all in
American policy, that has resulted in Christians and other minority communities
being overlooked by U.S. and UN aid programs. We are too small to matter, our
communities are disappearing from constant persecution, and for years the
American government didn’t care. Now when someone tries to help us, we have
protesters telling us that there can be no religious basis for refugee status -
even though the UN treaty and American law say that religious persecution is a
major reason for granting the status, and even though ISIS targeted people
primarily on the basis of religion.
I am
not saying that any group should have a blanket preference when it comes to
being admitted as a refugee in the United States. Such a policy would not be
right, and would clearly be against our Catholic faith and teaching. And that
is not the policy as I understand it.
But
it is very hard for me to understand why comfortable people in the West think
those who are struggling to survive against genocide, and whose communities are
at extreme risk of disappearing completely, should not get some special
consideration. We are an ancient people on the verge of extinction
because of our commitment to our faith. Will anybody protest for us?
Do
you think your people will take advantage of this priority status?
Clearly,
I don’t want our Christian people to leave Iraq, because I hope our community
will stay and thrive in its homeland, and contribute to the pluralism of a land
Christians have called home for almost 2000 years. I think that a real
Christian presence is critical to any future peace and reconciliation efforts
here.
But
that does not mean that I do not appreciate the effort and gesture the American
government is making by giving priority to the most vulnerable people here.
Remember, we have many thousands of Iraqi Christians, victims of ISIS,
now trapped in other countries in the Middle East trying to get out to safety
who do not even exist for the UN because they are afraid to enter the official
refugee camps. This is a real problem.
Of
those who are still here, I truly hope most of our people won’t seek asylum
outside of Iraq, but I cannot stop them if they believe this is the only way
they can have a life. The hardship and hopelessness, especially among the
displaced people, is incredible. These people have lost everything on earth
because of their faith in Jesus Christ. It is that simple.
They
have kept their faith, but everything else has been taken from them.
Everything.
What
would you like to see changed in this executive order?
There
needs to be a proper understanding and perception of what this means.
Obviously there has been confusion about this and that isn’t good for anyone,
including the administration. As other Christian leaders have noted, it is not
good if people think there is priority only for the Christians. That could make
us a target, but clearly we now know this is not the actual case with this
policy.
This
priority status was announced for all religious minorities in my country. That
would include Yazidis and Mandaeans as well as Christians. It would have
included Jews also, but Iraq already expelled almost all of its Jewish
community decades ago.
In
Syria, Shiite Muslims are a minority, and they were targeted by ISIS. So this
isn’t only about the Christians. But there have been many injustices to the
Christians and other minorities before now, especially with those from Syria
having been largely excluded from entry to the United States since 2011.
I am
happy an American president finally realizes there are Christians - and other
religious minority groups - here who need help. This is an important step
forward, and it means a good deal to the displaced people here. We have felt
like we were forgotten by the United States until now.
What
do your people need most from the American government?
The
Christians of Iraq desperately need American government humanitarian aid now,
and we need it to be delivered in a manner to ensure it actually reaches us and
does not get absorbed and redirected in the existing aid structures.
My
archdiocese hosts the largest community of displaced Christians in my country,
and since 2014, we have received no money from the United States government and
no money from the UN. We have hosted and cared for all of these displaced
people on our own, with funds we raised privately on our own, nearly all of it
from private Christian charitable groups. We are talking about housing,
food, medicine, and schools. We have done all of this, and are continuing
to do so.
I
should say also that we are not just taking care of Christian IDPs. We
have taken in many Yazidi families in our programs, and our medical clinics
serve large numbers of Muslim IDP patients. As of today, we will run out
of money for many of these programs in three months. For medicines, we
have only two months’ reserve left, and we are serving many thousands of IDPs -
Christians, Muslims and Yazidis. Our small staff is busy night and day
working to find these funds, but we have been doing this for almost three years
and many of our private donors are reaching their limits.
While
the U.S. has donated generously to the overall humanitarian aid effort in Iraq,
almost none of this aid reached the Christians. We are told by some that
they cannot give us money because we are a Church. I have two things to
say about this.
First,
we have been advised by members of U.S. Congress that U.S. law does not
prohibit Church organizations from receiving humanitarian funds, it only prohibits
the use of proselytizing with those funds. As I just stated, we serve
Yazidis and Muslims already and treat them with dignity and respect for who
they are. And as Catholics, we are always respecting of all faiths.
Second,
I think we have also delivered aid to the IDPs in a way that is far more
efficient and effective than these other “official” aid organizations.
Our staff are members of the Church, missionaries and volunteers, doing this
work because we believe we are called to it. But under the previous
administration, the Americans, and the UN, were applying a rigid formula that
blocked the Church from receiving aid to help take care of our IDPs, while also
denying aid to our IDPs directly because, in the view of the UN, we the Church
were already taking care of them.
Imagine
the frustration we have felt about this! And there was no outrage about
this. Iraqi Christians celebrated when Trump won, because they hoped the
American government would finally care about them after years of neglect by your
government.
Why
is it that Americans only use a religious test to prevent minority groups who
are genocide survivors from getting aid, or to prevent them from getting any
kind of priority assistance based on the needs of their communities? Here, we
do not understand this.
Beyond
this, because they are still displaced and will be for many more months,
perhaps years, our people need aid to survive. Because their homes and
villages were often destroyed by ISIS, they desperately need U.S. financial
assistance to rebuild. Because the security situation is so complicated, they
need meaningful security guarantees. And they need the U.S. government to
insist that religious minorities get the same rights as citizens that every
other citizen in Iraq gets, because right now, we do not get those same rights.
What
is your impression of President Trump so far?
I am
not a politician and I do not offer political endorsements, but on the issues
that affect my people directly, I can say that I am pleased that an American
president is focused on the plight of small religious communities - including
the Christians - in Iraq. In many ways, this gives us a renewed hope for the
future that we are not alone and abandoned by the West and by the United
States, which was the common belief here up until now.
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