Turkey’s Christians were especially alarmed by the popular hysteria whipped up by a 2006 blockbuster titled Valley of the Wolves, an action-packed adventure film set in post-Saddam Iraq. Reviewing the movie in Spiegel, Cem Özdemir—a member of the European Parliament of Turkish descent—decried its pandering to “racist sentiments” and its making “Christians and Jews appear as repugnant, conspiratorial holy warriors hoping to use blood-drenched swords to expand or reclaim the empire of their God.” The Christophobia of the popular press and of Turkey’s movie industry, often dubbed “Istanbulywood,” can also be found in state documents. A national intelligence report, exposed by the newspaper Cumhuriyet in June 2005, revealed similar sentiments. Titled “Reactionary Elements and Risks,” the report put Islamist terrorist groups on a par with Christian missionaries, who, it claimed, cover Turkey “like a spider’s web.” According to the report, these Christian evangelizers were seeking to promote divisions in sensitive areas such as the Black Sea region and eastern Anatolia. Also according to the document, the armies of Christian evangelizers in Turkey included Catholics, Orthodox, and Protestants, as well as other groups such as the Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Baha’is, with the non-Christians allegedly concentrating on seducing government officials, liberal businessmen, and performing and other artists.
The extent to which an entrenched anti-Christian mentality still influences Turkish society is evident from the findings of a European Union–financed public opinion survey conducted in 2008 by scholars as a part of the International Social Survey Program. They concluded: “Despite laicism, the Turkish state has not been able to overcome the segregation of non-Muslim minorities and to integrate them into the nation as citizens with equal rights. While the Muslim Turks have been the ‘we,’ the non-Muslim minorities have been categorized as ‘the other’ … they have been rather perceived as ‘domestic foreigners.’ ”
Among the survey’s findings were:
• One-third of Turkish Muslims would object to having a Christian as a neighbor.
• More than half believe that Christians should not be allowed to openly express their religious views in printed publications or in public meetings.
• More than half are opposed to Christians serving in the army, security services, police force, and political parties.
• Just under half believe Christians should not be active in the provision of health services.
As John Eibner, CEO of Christian Solidary International, observed in a 2011 essay, “The road from such views to outright discrimination and a heightened threat of violence is very short indeed.” In such a context, claims that an assault on a Christian clergyman could somehow be “shocking” simply do not pass the commonsense test for credibility.
THE ZIMBABWE EXAMPLE
On the night of February 17, 2011, unidentified assailants entered the home of an eighty-nine-year-old Zimbabwean woman named Jessica Mandeya in Fusire village in the district of Murewa, located roughly forty-five miles northeast of the capital city, Harare. According to accounts from witnesses who observed the scene afterward, the attackers raped the elderly woman, sliced a large gash across her mouth, beat her with an iron rod, and stabbed her in the leg, then killed her and left her body on the floor. Mandeya was a well-known fixture on the local Christian scene, serving for many years as a subdeacon in her Anglican community.
As word of the gruesome murder began to make the rounds, officials responded with shock and outrage while denying that there was any deeper subtext to the killing. A police spokesperson suggested it was a robbery gone wrong, saying that Mandeya had probably surprised a group of thieves in her home who killed her in order to ensure that she did not report the incident to the authorities.
For those who understand the situation in Zimbabwe, those claims were hard to swallow. Many Christians in the country believe the death of Jessica Mandeya was not an isolated incident, but part of a broader climate of religious tension.
In a nation already reeling from a deep economic crisis and instability under longtime president Robert Mugabe, Christians who stand up against the regime have found themselves facing growing violence and intimidation. The harassment is sometimes delivered by the government itself, and on other occasions by forces purporting to act in its name. A Catholic bishop told Aid to the Church in Need in 2012 that he was seeing the beginnings of a “real persecution” of the church, especially “where Christians refuse to be co-opted by the [ruling] Zanu PF [party].”
Observers say that when Mugabe initially came to power in the 1980s, church/state relations were generally good. Mugabe had been part of the liberation struggle against the white-minority rule government of Ian Smith in what was then Rhodesia. It was a movement supported by a broad cross section of Christian churches, which saw it as an opportunity not merely to correct a racial injustice but also to usher in a state that would do a better job of promoting development, combatting corruption, and protecting the poor. Not so long ago, many Christian leaders in Zimbabwe were actually thought by some to be far too reluctant to offend the Mugabe regime in light of this history.
Over time, however, as Mugabe strengthened his hold on power and fought off efforts at democratic reform, relations with the churches soured. During the first decade of the twenty-first century, senior Christian prelates in Zimbabwe became outspoken in condemning corruption, human rights abuses, and efforts to control any democratic opposition. One turning point came in 2008 when an Anglican bishop named Nolbert Kunonga, a rabid supporter of the Mugabe regime, was formally excommunicated.
From that point on, most observers say, Mugabe and his allies determined that the institutional Christian churches in the country were their enemies, and a new climate of persecution took shape. The regime has backed Kunonga’s bid to confiscate Anglican churches, schools, hospitals, and bank accounts, and has committed acts of violence and harassment against those determined to remain part of the wider Anglican Communion. Pro-Mugabe forces often tout Kunonga as the leader of the “real” Anglican Church in Zimbabwe, styling Anglicans who refuse to follow him as enemies of the state.
In October 2011, the archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, visited Zimbabwe and personally handed Mugabe a detailed dossier reviewing this campaign of violence and intimidation, including several Anglican bishops who had received death threats. The dossier told how congregations were forced to flee after being attacked with tear gas and how parishioners were assaulted and needed hospital treatment. In one diocese, sixty-five churches had been confiscated and a similar number of priests had been evicted from their homes. Church-run schools, clinics, orphanages, and hospitals were also taken over by Kunonga’s men. Their senior staff were replaced by people loyal to the excommunicated bishop.
During a homily given in an indoor sports center in Harare, Williams denounced the regime, telling the thousands present: “Their greed and violence have tried to silence your worship and frustrate your witness in churches, schools and hospitals.… The message we want to send out from this Eucharistic celebration is that we do not have to live like that—in terror, in bloodshed.”
Anglicans have not been the only targets of Mugabe’s wrath. In 2011, a Catholic priest named Fr. Marko Mabutho Mkandla was arrested and charged with disturbing public order after holding a church service to recall the victims of an outbreak of violence in the 1980s. Mabutho was indicted for “communicating false statements against the state” and “causing offence to a particular tribe.” He was granted bail and released from detention, and a year after the arrest a judge finally dismissed the charges.
In April 2011, armed riot police attacked some six hundred people attending an ecumenical prayer service in Harare. Several people were injured in the assault, while fourteen churchgoers were arrested and charged with offenses against public order. After two days behind bars, they were released. A spokesperson for the United Reformed Church said at the time: “The brutal attack … represents a new level of oppression and violence in the long litan
y of human rights violations by the Zimbabwe Republic Police.… Even places of worship can no longer be considered as sacred or safe places—and this raises serious concerns about the fundamental human rights of freedom of thought, conscience and belief in Zimbabwe.”
“The greatest irony,” said spokesperson Simon Loveitt, “is that people praying for peace were charged with causing public violence, while the only violence was from those charged with the protection of citizens from the very acts they perpetrated.”
June 2011 brought another attack on the Anglican Church, as six Anglicans, including an elderly woman, were arrested and detained, while several Anglican clergy were kicked out of their homes in the Harare diocese. When a backer of Kunonga tried to evict yet another Anglican priest, his parishioners fought back and dragged the attacker to a nearby police station. The police, acting on orders, sided with the attacker and arrested the churchgoers. In August 2011, Anglicans who refused to side with Kunonga were denied access to their churches by the police and were forced to worship outside.
In January 2012, police disrupted a retreat for some eighty Anglican clergymen, saying that the gathering had not received the required clearance from state officials. The clergy on hand for the event included two Anglican bishops, and initially they refused to leave. Eventually they dispersed after the police threatened to use force. Anglican bishop Chad Gandiya said afterward: “We deplore this action and call upon the higher authorities to intervene. So much for freedom of religion.”
Also in January 2012, an armed band burst into a church-affiliated hospital run by a group of Anglican sisters. According to reports, the intruders told the nuns they would be beaten if they didn’t hand over the hospital immediately and leave the area. The sisters had the impression that the group was a militia loyal to the Mugabe regime, which blamed the church for supporting its critics and the Zimbabwean opposition.
This context helps explain why claims of astonishment about the murder of Jessica Mandeya, or suggestions that it was simply a criminal act gone awry, struck many Christians in Zimbabwe as deeply suspect. Mandeya had been a staunch member of an Anglican community that refused to go along with Kunonga, and most people close to the scene interpreted her killing as a clear signal to other Anglicans that a similar fate might await them too if they continued to defy the regime.
That reading of events seemed especially plausible given that a meeting of Anglican primates in Dublin, Ireland, just two weeks before the murder had issued a statement strongly critical of affairs in Zimbabwe. It said in part: “We believe that the appalling situation experienced by members of the Anglican Church in Zimbabwe seriously infringes their right to justice, freedom of assembly, freedom of religion, and personal security under the law guaranteed by the constitution of Zimbabwe and the United Nations Declaration on Human Rights.” The primates called on Mugabe to “use all the power and authority of your office to put an end to these abuses forthwith,” adding that this “unmerited, unjust, and unlawful persecution” damaged “the good name and reputation of the Republic of Zimbabwe and results in untold and unnecessary additional suffering for many thousands of people.”
In that light, many people in Zimbabwe interpreted the brutal murder of a subdeacon as a response to the Anglican protest—if not a response directly orchestrated by the government, then by one of the numerous militias, gangs, and armed bands given free rein to act in its name. Anglican bishop Chad Gandiya of Harare, speaking at a news conference just two days after the murder of Mandeya, put the situation this way: “My people are going to be killed for the simple reason that they belong to a certain denomination.… Our church members should know that we are now an endangered species.”
Perhaps no one could have anticipated that violence would come exactly on February 17, 2011, in the middle of the night, or that an eighty-nine-year-old female subdeacon would be the target. Nonetheless, it was clear that a storm was brewing, and sooner or later innocent people would be hurt. Turkey and Zimbabwe are illustrative examples, but a similar case could be assembled virtually anywhere.
WHY THIS MYTH IS TOXIC
There are at least four reasons why debunking the “no one saw it coming” myth is critical to a proper response to the global war on Christians.
First and most basically, it’s inaccurate. If we are to arrive at a proper grasp of the situation facing Christians around the world, acts of anti-Christian violence cannot be seen as akin to forces of nature such as earthquakes and hurricanes—in other words, as the result of natural forces that erupt spontaneously. In general, they are the product of deliberately shaped climates of hatred, fueled by propaganda campaigns that often unfold with the connivance of government officials, religious leaders, and other important actors. Spectacular outbreaks of violence are often preceded by less intense incidents, such as believers being harassed on the streets, slurred in the media, shunned in the workplace, and hassled as they gather to worship. The usual cycle is for complaints to be made about these incidents, which are then ignored or dismissed. That failure to act usually serves to embolden the perpetrators, who then may become more likely to move on to even more lethal assaults, in effect testing the limits of official tolerance. Of course, there are also genuinely random acts and outbreaks of madness that afflict Christians, but in the main that’s not the story of the global war. To whip up an atmosphere of hysteria and rage and then profess shock when it turns violent is a particularly lethal form of hypocrisy.
Second, grasping that attacks on Christians are generally predictable in light of clear warning signs is an important step toward prevention. If officials in a given country begin to see anti-Christian slurs appear in the media, it should be taken as an indication that trouble may be brewing. That doesn’t mean muzzling freedom of speech, because one human rights abuse shouldn’t be swapped for another. Moreover, simply prohibiting public expressions of anti-Christian hostility will not make it go away. It can only drive those instincts underground, where they’re likely to metastasize and become even more dangerous. However, if officials see a climate of religious antagonism taking shape, they can and should adopt at least three preventive measures:
• Issuing clear warnings that violence directed at religious believers will not be tolerated, including indications of what the sanctions will be for engaging in such criminal acts
• Supporting programs of tolerance education, for example in schools and in state-run media
• Ensuring that Christian leaders have access to the media and to other public opportunities to respond to negative public portrayals, so that an alternative narrative about the Christian presence can be presented
Third, understanding that anti-Christian violence is often the result of deeper movements is also an aid to investigations by police and prosecutors when breakouts occur. Assuming that officials are interested in pursuing justice, knowing that forces hostile to certain denominations or religious leaders may be in the background can be a help in generating leads and shaping an investigation. It suggests skepticism about claims of isolated madmen or simple crimes gone wrong, and opens up a wider panorama of possible accomplices and chains of causation. In addition, understanding that there’s often a deeper background to anti-Christian violence offers another tool to human rights groups and pro-democracy activists to keep the pressure on police and prosecutors reluctant to act.
Fourth, getting past the “no one saw it coming” myth is also an important step in promoting accountability whenever innocent people are harmed. If anti-Christian violence were like a tornado, then perhaps one couldn’t fault the leaders of the society where it occurs for not preventing it—though even there, one could hold them accountable for failing to act aggressively in its aftermath, as American outrage over the botched federal response to Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans in 2005 illustrates. Given that anti-Christian violence is more often, however, the result of a cancer that metastasizes in a culture well before it turns lethal, then one can hold leadership figures responsi
ble if they don’t take swift and decisive steps to excise it.
The bottom line is that the global war on Christians will never be won as long as the myth persists that nobody’s really responsible for it.
9
THE MYTH THAT IT’S ALL ABOUT ISLAM
In a post-9/11 world in which radical Islam is the greatest perceived threat to global stability, there’s a natural tendency to presume that almost every conflict, and certainly a war against Christians, must be driven primarily by Islam. That tendency is augmented by several factors, including the fact that the places where the United States has deployed troops since the Twin Towers and Pentagon attacks, Afghanistan and Iraq, are both in the Middle East, so a disproportionate share of American media and foreign policy attention is directed at that region. A car bombing in Iraq is far more likely to register in terms of public attention than a similar incident in Laos or in Mindanao, on the assumption that it has greater potential to affect both military strategy and political fortunes. Moreover, several of the most impassioned writers on anti-Christian persecution in the West are social and foreign policy conservatives, who are disenchanted both with European policies of multiculturalism vis-à-vis the continent’s rising Muslim footprint and with the perceived failure of the Western powers to prosecute the “war on terror” more aggressively.
The Global War on Christians: Dispatches from the Front Lines of Anti-Christian Persecution Page 22