| Criticism of war on terror dominates
interfaith meeting
By JOHN L. ALLEN JR.
Palermo, Italy
If there’s a stock criticism of the summit of world religious
leaders hosted each year by Sant’Egidio, a lay Catholic movement famed for
conflict resolution and promotion of human rights, it’s usually that
everyone is too polite. The hundreds of Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, Shintoists
and others who show up, unflappably committed to dialogue, often seem to have
more in common with each other than with hardliners in their own
traditions.
So the strong discontent with post-Sept. 11 American foreign
policy voiced at this year’s summit was especially striking. Good manners,
it appears, stop where the “war on terror” is concerned.
Also striking was the fact that some of the criticism, especially
on a possible war with Iraq, came from Vatican officials who in the immediate
aftermath of Sept. 11 seemed more tolerant of America’s use of force.
A characteristic scene unfolded at a packed Sept. 2 session titled
“After Sept. 11: Is a Conflict of Civilizations Inevitable?” During
the question period, Chaldean Catholic Archbishop Ramzi Garmo of Tehran, Iran,
threw down a gauntlet.
“If Sept. 11 had happened anywhere else, would it have had
the same impact?” Garmo asked. “Take Iraq as an example. Hundreds of
thousands have died because one very powerful nation wants the embargo to
continue. What is the difference between Iraqi children and the victims in New
York? Is American blood worth more than blood in other countries?”
Garmo drew strong applause.
Later, in an interview with NCR, he added: “On Sept.
11, planes became bombs in New York, and we call this terrorism. In Iraq, in
Afghanistan, planes bring bombs upon innocent people. This is not
terrorism?”
The Sant’Egidio meeting, titled overall “Religion and
Cultures: Between Conflict and Dialogue,” took place Sept. 1-3. It brought
together some 400 religious leaders, including 12 cardinals and 30 bishops and
abbots, 18 representatives of Orthodoxy, 18 Protestants, 9 representatives of
Judaism, 28 Muslims, 13 adherents of Asian religions (from India, Japan,
Singapore and Sri Lanka), plus 57 representatives of international
organizations and 19 diplomats.
To be sure, participants emphasized that rights and wrongs exist
on all sides, and that nothing can justify terrorism. Moreover, some degree of
anti-American posturing was to be expected, in part from religious leaders
representing countries where authoritarian regimes back home were watching, in
part from European leftists who gravitate to Sant’Egidio, for whom
anti-Americanism is often an automatic response.
It was nonetheless clear that American policy choices have stirred
passions.
“The events that occurred in New York and Washington,
although horrible, are not a reason for violating the safety of other nations
or communities,” said Ayatollah Mohamed Ali Taskhiri of Iran. “Such
atrocities as those exerted by the U.S. administration in Afghanistan, whose
people were the victims of the Taliban regime, are not reasonable.”
The U.S. ambassador to the Holy See, James Nicholson, had a chance
to deliver a strong defense of American policy in a panel on reconciliation
Sept. 3. Nicholson presented President George Bush’s post-Sept. 11 policy
as a model “of how justice and reconciliation can conquer vengeance and
anger.”
“The president did not call for revenge or incite people to
hatred,” Nicholson said. “He reminded Americans that goodness,
remembrance and love have no end.” Then, Nicholson said, Bush built a
“mighty coalition” of 174 nations to share military campaigns,
law-enforcement efforts and humanitarian initiatives to combat terrorism.
Citing Bosnia and Kosovo, Sudan, the India/Pakistan conflict, and
Korea as examples of recent American successes in efforts to promote peace,
Nicholson said the United States has a “complete toolbox” of
military, political and economic instruments.
To judge from this gathering, however, there seems doubt in some
quarters about the uses to which those tools are being put.
One jarring illustration, at least for American sensibilities,
came from Bernard Koucher, a French physician who was among the founders of
Doctors Without Borders, and who later served as a U.N. special representative
in Kosovo. Koucher said that in some neighborhoods of Paris teeming with
immigrants from northern Africa, Osama bin Laden today is a revolutionary
superstar on a par with Che Guevara. T-shirts and posters are sold with his
likeness.
In a similar vein, Italian journalist Gianni Riotta pointed out
that books purporting to prove that the attack on the Twin Towers was a CIA
plot are selling well in Europe and the Arab world. “The United States
should ask why people are prepared to believe this sort of thing,” he
said.
Mehmet Aydin, a Turkish theologian trained in England, said that
one cannot reject bin Laden’s rhetoric simply because “an evil person
said it.”
Aydin cited three points: 1) the humiliation of Muslims by the
West after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire; 2) the Palestinian question,
which Aydin said is in the “depth psychology” of young Muslims; and
3) the American presence on the Arabian peninsula, which contains the holy
sites of Mecca and Medina.
Interestingly, several Vatican officials joined the criticism of
American policy, especially on a strike against Iraq.
“Every part of the earth suspected of complicity in terrorism
has been placed under threat. Iraq too now finds itself on the waiting list.
The members of Al Qaeda are pursued everywhere. Despite it all, bin Laden
can’t be found, and Al Qaeda has not yet been reduced to silence,”
said Cardinal Ignatius Moussa I Daoud, [a Syrian] who heads the
Congregation for Oriental Churches.
“Can peace really be established using war to stop war,
violence to stop violence, demanding the enemy surrender arms by using
arms?” Daoud asked, contrasting Bush’s “war on terrorism”
with John Paul II’s appeal for a culture of peace, including attention to
the causes of violence.
Archbishop Diarmuid Martin, apostolic nuncio of the Holy See to
the United Nations, was critical of the way U.S. religious leaders responded to
the Sept. 11 attacks.
“Instead of ‘Holy God We Bless Thy Name,’ many were
singing ‘God Bless America,’ ” Martin said. “We can’t
allow other things to slip into our message.”
Several voiced concern about an attack on Iraq.
“More than ever today, there’s nothing that can be
resolved in the Middle East with a war,” said French Cardinal Roger
Etchegaray, a longtime Vatican official who today functions as the pope’s
informal diplomatic troubleshooter. German Cardinal Walter Kasper, the
Vatican’s top ecumenical official, said there are neither “the
motives nor the proof” that would justify war.
All of this seemed in some contrast with the position taken by
Vatican spokesperson Joaquín Navarro-Valls days after the Sept. 11
attacks, when he seemed to support strikes against regimes considered sponsors
of terror.
Other religious leaders, even some obviously repelled by Saddam
Hussein, were also skeptical.
Amos Luzzatto, president of the Union of Italian Jewish
Communities, cited two nagging doubts.
“First, is this really a means of resolving tensions, or is
it about saving face for the failures of the first Bush administration?”
Luzzatto asked in an interview with NCR. “Second, there is no
willingness in the Arab world to mobilize against Iraq. I wonder if an attack
would do more damage than any benefits it might gain.”
It fell to an American, David Smock of the government-funded
United States Institute of Peace in Washington, to try to extract a moral from
the story. Smock, who said he was speaking personally rather than on behalf of
his agency, worried that the United States has missed the lessons of Sept.
11.
“We experienced what it’s like to be a victim but we
have not translated that into understanding of what victimization is like in
other parts of the world,” Smock said. “The philosophy of
isolationism and unilateralism, the atmosphere of expanding conflict are
troubling. There is an unwillingness to understand the sources of
hatred.”
During the session with Nicholson, a Muslim woman said she would
like to love the United States, but many of its policies -- from its lead role
in the arms trade to its refusal to join international agreements on the
environment and a new criminal court -- hold her back.
Addressing her, Nicholson said: “You would like to love the
United States? My advice is, go ahead!”
The ambassador delivered the invitation with verve, but in the
end, it was unclear whether his questioner or others like her gathered in
Palermo were inclined to accept.
John L. Allen Jr. is NCR Rome correspondent. His e-mail
address is jallen@natcath.org
Related Web site
Community of
Sant’Egidio
www.santegidio.org
National Catholic Reporter, September 13, 2002
[corrected 09/20/2002]
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