Christians in the Middle East

Lord Boateng Excerpts

Friday 9th December 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Boateng]

My Lords, the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury has done us a great service in challenging us to look at the implications of faith for policy. That is something which our sometimes militantly secular society and its institutions find very hard to do. Faith and the implications of faith, particularly in areas of government and policy, are not things which our institutions readily embrace.

A few months ago I participated in a panel initiated by the British Council, which I believe remains one of our best organs of public diplomacy. The purpose of the panel was to reflect on the concept “God is back”. As someone who spends a good part of my time on the African continent, I thought that this was a strange concept because in Africa and the Middle East God never went away. In our secular society we sometimes forget that for the overwhelming majority of the peoples of this world it is the life of the spirit, God, ancestors, and the semi-permeable membrane between here and now—the life of the past and the life hereafter; not “isms” and “ologies”—that determines what they do and how they see the world. When we seek to formulate policy seeing the world through secular eyes, we are likely to get it wrong. Indeed, in many aspects of foreign and development policy we have got it wrong with terrible consequences. In looking at the plight of Christians in the Middle East in its wider context, as so many Members of this House have urged us to do, we are able to think about practical ways in which we might rectify the omission of failing to see our world through the context of the faith that is so important to so many. It is also important that we should look at practical ways of doing this because simple assertions of common humanity and of shared values are not likely to get us very far in this debate unless they are implemented by actions on the ground.

As we speak, people are being persecuted for their faith, driven out of their homes and places of worship are being destroyed and desecrated while, frankly, in the main, the rest of the world is silent. We seem able to talk about every sort of abuse of human rights and discrimination except discrimination and abuse on grounds of faith. It would be a good thing if the Prime Minister made a speech on similar lines to the one he made in Perth, but about discrimination on grounds of faith. I welcomed the Perth speech and I would welcome a similar speech about the importance of religious freedom. I wonder whether one will be forthcoming. I hope that as a result of this debate we will see a greater willingness than we have seen in the past to be assertive on this issue, and to be unashamed about being assertive.

I hope, too, that the Foreign Office, which inevitably bears the greater burden of taking forward the product of this debate, will empower and enable those Heads of Mission who feel confident in matters of faith to make the representations and assertions that need to be made on the ground in order to protect and promote religious freedom because if that is not done, it will not be protected. That is a matter for Ministers and the Permanent Secretary to undertake. I was very glad that in 2009, when we had our gathering of Heads of Mission in London, the Permanent Secretary and Ministers supported an initiative whereby Heads of Mission who felt inclined to do so came to St Ethelburga’s in the City, the centre for peace and reconciliation which the most reverend Primate will know well, to meet with faith leaders—Christian faith leaders in this instance—and stakeholders to discuss what the Foreign Office was seeking to do.

It was the first such meeting. I understand that another occurred in 2010. It would be a great help if Ministers would say that this is something that ought to happen regularly to enable faith communities to make a direct input into what the Foreign Office is doing on the ground. In so doing, they would enable the Foreign Office not only to act better in this area but to equip itself to see the world in which we live through spectacles that are not blind to faith. As long as we cling to a view of the world that is avowedly secular, we will be denying reality—what is taking place on the ground around us.

That is the simple point I want to make. I believe that Abraham’s path is a path for Muslims, Christians, Jews, people of all faiths in the Middle East and in Africa—sometimes it is necessary to remind folk that Libya, Tunisia and Egypt are in Africa. Our Lord was taken by his mother and father to Africa to escape persecution:

“Out of Egypt have I called my son”.

People who seek to follow in Abraham's path ought to appreciate and practise the truth that for us, it is not simply about tolerating diversity but embracing diversity. When we embrace diversity with practical policies on the ground, we walk a true path.