Christians in the Middle East

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Friday 9th December 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cormack]

My Lords, it is a privilege to take part in this debate. I agree very strongly with my noble friend Lord Selsdon that we have had some exceptionally moving and powerful speeches. I am so glad that the noble Lord, Lord Sacks, is still here because no one who heard his speech will ever forget it, nor the sentiments which prompted it. We are all very much in his debt, just as we are in the debt of the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury for introducing this debate, and for doing so, if I may say so without sounding a little patronising, in a beautifully balanced and moderated speech which was an exemplar of its kind.

It is difficult in a debate like this, when one comes late in the batting order, not to say things that have already been said. However, as I have listened to every word that has been uttered, it struck me that I would like to share with your Lordships' House one or two memories which encapsulate much of what we have been talking about today. First, I go back to a scene in 1973 in Vienna, which I visited with the noble Lord, Lord Janner of Braunstone, then Greville Janner—a dear friend in the House of Commons; we had both been elected in 1970—and a group from the Campaign for the Release of Soviet Jewry, which the noble Lord and I founded together in 1971 when we were brand new Members of Parliament. There we received some of those who had been granted their exit visas from the then Soviet Union. I shall never forget one incident in particular when we met a young lady from Estonia who spoke the most impeccable and flawless English. I said to her that she must have passed out the top of her class. She laughed and replied, “I did until my parents were granted their exit visas, when the rector of the University of Tartu summoned me to his office and said that there had been a mistake and I had failed every examination”. That is a small vignette but it illustrates so much.

In 1990, the Soviet Union had changed beyond recognition. I served on a small international human rights committee that had contacts at high level in the Kremlin. We were the first group to be allowed to stay in the Hotel Octoberskya, which had previously been reserved for leaders of the Soviet bloc. It was a very solid, stolid place, but the thing I most remember about it is celebrating Epiphany in 1990—the feast of the manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles. In an upper room in that hotel, Father Ted Hesburgh, who had formerly been President Kennedy’s director of human rights, Rosalynn Carter, wife of the former president, Madame Giscard d’Estaing and I took part in a most moving ecumenical celebration of the Holy Communion. I was privileged to read from the Book of Common Prayer and the Gospel, and we shared the sacrament in a place where it had been forbidden. After the service, Andrei Grachev, a principal aide to Mikhail Gorbachev—to whom we all owe a great deal—received from us a symbolic bible, which was to mark the accepted gift of 1 million bibles into the Soviet Union. What a change from that day in 1973.

Of course, it is not all progress. Five years later, campaigning for Bosnia and its oppressed Muslim minority, I worked closely with the late Prince Saddrudin Aga Khan on the council for peace in the Balkans, where we were struggling to ensure that the freedom that had now come to Christians—and, indeed, to Jews—in what had been the Soviet Union would come to Muslims who had had it taken away from them by Serbian aggression in Bosnia. We can go on to consider some of the Serbs who suffered in Kosovo.

This is a many-faceted story. The most reverend Primate was right to highlight for us today the plight of Christians in the Middle East, but I mention those three examples to illustrate that we are really talking about oppressed minorities in all parts of the world. The freedom to worship openly without fear of intimidation or reprisal is, as has been said by others, the most fundamental of all human rights. It is the hallmark of a civilised society. No country has the right to call itself civilised if its people cannot worship in freedom and in peace.

We come to what we, both as a nation and through our Government, can do about this. There are many things we cannot do. We cannot withhold recognition from regimes that we find corrupt, offensive or repressive. We can consider withholding aid and assistance from regimes which persecute minorities. There has been much talk in recent days of credit ratings. Would it be a bad thing if we had some rating of those countries that are oppressing religious minorities—ratings in what I would call aid-worthiness? I am not being naive and suggesting that we can withhold aid everywhere, but it should be a test of a country to which we are giving aid whether it is honouring its civilised obligations to all its citizens, regardless of their belief.

The noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Carey, and others, have talked about an annual assessment. As I have listened to this debate today, and been both amazed and moved by the degree of expertise exemplified in the speeches, it struck me that it would be a good thing for there to be a consultative committee of your Lordships' House embracing the most reverend Primate, the noble Lord, Lord Sacks, my noble friend Lord Ahmad, and others, who could advise the Government on the aid-worthiness of countries to which we give assistance.

Would it not be an excellent idea, following the example of the most reverend Primate, if every year we had upon this feast a debate on the subject, when we could assess the progress made? The Minister could report to us on what had been done by government and what note had been taken of the advice given. This House is truly unique. Noble Lords know that I believe fundamentally in its very being and I want it to continue. It has an assembly of expertise and experience that is replicated nowhere in the world, so we should use it.

I finish, as we approach our Christmas season, on a small personal matter. I carry in my pocket a little cross carved from olive wood. It was made in the Middle East and sent to me some years ago. We all want the day when all Christians in the Middle East can not only carry a cross if they wish to but wear it openly and be proud of it, knowing that they will not be persecuted for it.