“It’s absolutely intolerable,” EU lawmaker Juan Fernando Lopez Aguilar told DW. “It’s unacceptable that there are almost 13,000 people completely homeless, with no sanitation facilities, with no roof, with no access to medicines.”
Elena Kountoura, a Greek MEP, called for other EU countries to take a bigger role in supporting refugees saying, “asylum seekers are not something that should just be of concern to Italy and Greece, this is a responsibility that needs to be taken on by the European Union.”
“The solution is not another Moria, we need a genuine solidarity-based European solution,” she added. That solidarity was not an “adhoc option,” Juan Fernando Lopez Aguilar told DW, when it comes to “transferring 400 unaccompanied minors from the hell in Lesbos in Moria to the mainland.”
Tom Vandendriessche, Belgian Member of the European Parliament for the Flemish right-wing nationalist party Vlaams Belang, called for the EU to rethink its asylum policy.
“I do think Europe can do a lot more and we need to help the Greek government by giving them extra funds to build a new camp, then these immigrants, these refugees, need to be brought to a new camp. But most of all, we must determine another policy. We cannot host everybody in the world who is looking for a better future,” Vandendriessche told DW.
“We need to agree inside Europe on a common policy. I believe that this common policy needs to agree on that the asylum system, as we have it right now, is just not applicable anymore,” added Vandendriessche.
According to a poll published by public broadcaster ZDF, 43% of Germans believe that the country should take in a large share of the refugees, while a further 46% thought that they should only be taken in on condition that other European countries do the same. Around 1 in ten were completely against taking in any of the displaced people.
At the same time, 62% of those surveyed agreed that taking in these refugees would lead to increasing numbers of migrants making their way to Europe.
When al-Qaeda destroyed the Twin Towers almost exactly 19 years ago, the aims of the terrorists were not fully understood by many in the western media. Osama bin Laden intended not just to wage war against the non-Muslim world but to present himself — and his jihadi narrative — as the new voice of Islam. He was fighting a war of ideas, as well as one of terror. One of the best ways to understand and combat the ideological side of the jihadi movement is to read the works of the philosopher Bassam Tibi, who has been fighting fundamentalist ideas for the past four decades.
His work — speeches, essays and more than 40 books — tracks the methods by which Islamists operate. With forensic precision, he details the ways in which they are inimical to most of Islam’s history. ‘To protect themselves against criticism,’ he once wrote, ‘Islamists invented the formula of “Islamophobia” to defame their critics.’ The word ‘serves as a weapon against all who do not embrace Islamist propaganda, including liberal Muslims’.
I’ve been an admirer of his work for years and flew to Frankfurt to meet him and to hear his story first-hand. He grew up in Damascus and became hafiz (someone who has memorised the Quran) at the age of six. There was a clash of civilisations in his head. ‘My family was against colonialism, against imperialism, against the hegemony of the West — but we were still admirers of the West,’ he says. ‘We would go to the Quranic school, then after Friday prayers go to a party with kids and dance rock ’n’ roll. The culture we looked up to was American.’ He had his eye on Harvard but his father — a property magnate whose company had built half of the new buildings in Beirut — was keen on Germany because it had sided with the Arabs in the first world war. So Tibi went to Hamburg in 1962 and never came back.
‘I came to Germany as an anti-Semite,’ he admits. ‘We were educated that way. I used to fight with my brother who was two years younger. My mother — who was not an anti-Semite but this is just the language we used then — said to me in Arabic: “Leave him. You can do this to a Jew but not to your brother.” Then I met two Jews and they changed my life.’
They were the philosophers Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer, the founders of the Frankfurt School of critical thinking. They had fled Nazi Germany for America and only returned after the second world war. They wanted to find out why, after the Enlightenment, with all of its logic and beauty, humanity in the 20th century had started ‘sinking into a new kind of barbarism’.
Tibi had similar questions about Islam and Islamism. Ernst Bloch (a third Jew) anchored Tibi’s thinking in Islamic rationalism. Bloch wrote about Ibn Sina — born in the Samanid Empire in around 980, the golden age of Muslim civilisation — who had plenty to say about human equality and the intertwining of Arabic and western thought.
‘Bloch says the Enlightenment started in medieval Islam,’ Tibi tells me. Tibi makes an important distinction between mufti Islam, the world of the fatwa-givers (a type of Islam that’s on the rise in Britain too), and the world of Enlightenment Islam, highlighted by Bloch. The mufti world of Islam is ‘leading Muslims backwards’, Tibi says. He seeks to explain, revive and promote the Islam of early Enlightenment — the ‘Islam of Light’.
I ask him when he first noticed that something was going wrong in the Muslim world. ‘It started with the Six Day War,’ he says. Israel’s victory was a massive humiliation for the secular Arab regimes in the eyes of their citizens, especially when Israel gained the Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula from Egypt. At the time, Tibi hoped that the response to this would be a new Arab Enlightenment. Instead, religious extremists rose to positions of power. His first physical confrontation with them came in 1979 when he presented an academic paper in Cairo and was denounced as a heretic.
He has long thought it interesting that Arabs constitute only a fifth of the world’s Muslims, yet seem to direct most modern Muslim thought. ‘If you want to know where Islam is going,’ he says, ‘you don’t go to Turkey. You go to Egypt.’ His early work on Cairo’s political institutions drew him to the attention of the political scientist Samuel P. Huntington, who went on to acquire worldwide fame with his 1993 essay ‘The Clash of Civilizations’, in which he argued that faith (especially Islam) would be the world’s next battle line.
It’s an argument that Tibi had tried to talk him out of long before. ‘I was trying to correct his knowledge about Islam. It’s a conflict, I said, not a clash. Dealing with Huntington was like dealing with an Islamist: it’s all about language. If you “clash”, it’s over. But in a conflict, there is a conflict resolution. We can negotiate, we can talk. We say: “There is a western Islamic conflict, and there are ways to deal with it.” But a “clash”? The word is essentialised. It’s saying that we Muslims are backward people.’
Tibi is also an expert in sharia law, which is often deployed by fundamentalist states in the name of being true to Islam. But Tibi argues that it is not fundamental to the religion. ‘If God believed what the Islamists believe, the term “sharia” would occur every second or third page in the Quran. But it is mentioned only once. And not in the meaning of law, but in the meaning of morality or guidance. The Quran was revealed in the 7th century. The sharia schools in Sunni Islam were created in the 8th century, 100 years later.’ The use of sharia in the modern political and confrontational sense, he says, started with the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt in the 20th century.
Tibi argues that the Islamist agenda is far more modern than the fundamentalists want to admit, and springs from the political totalitarianism invented in the last century. Taking Hannah Arendt’s definition of the term, he categorises all aspects of this ‘political religion’ as authoritarian. He draws out the modern, totalitarian nature of Islamism in his research: for example in his analysis of the works of Hassan al-Banna, who founded Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood in 1928. It was this movement, Tibi says, that came up with the idea of modern-day jihadism and enforced the notion of Islam being incompatible with western values.
‘When I sit with civilised Europeans, they look at me. I am a Muslim, I am a democrat: what do they think is wrong with me? What do they dislike about me being a Muslim? They say, “But you are more European than a Muslim.” I say no. That’s why I coined the term Euro Islam, European Islam.’
Using the language of medieval Muslim rationalists from Farabi to Ibn Rushd, famous in the Latin West as Averroes, Tibi defines Islam of the Enlightenment as advocating the primacy of reason. He also takes a definition of Enlightenment from Kant: that reason is the court in front of which every-thing must establish itself. But Ibn Rushd made this point in the 12th century, he says. ‘So why are we Muslims now dismissed as underdeveloped people when our greatest philosopher, Ibn Rushd, foresaw things six centuries ahead of the greatest philosopher of Europe?’ In fact, he says, Ibn Rushd perhaps has more relevance to our age, ‘the age of the return of religion’, because his work focused on the unity of faith and reason.
This certainly is the battleground now. The much-needed reformation of Islam will not be about headscarves and beards. Terrorism will only end when scripture is not taken literally. In pursuit of such an enlightened future, Tibi’s work can remind westerners — and Muslims — of a different, less divergent history.
Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko should no longer be recognised as president from November when his term expires, the European Parliament said on Thursday (17 September), calling for European Union economic sanctions to be imposed on him.
In an overwhelming show of support for pro-democracy protesters in Belarus, the EU assembly voted 574 to 37, with 82 abstentions, to reject the official results of a 9 August presidential election that the West says was rigged.
“The EU needs a new approach towards Belarus, which includes the termination of any cooperation with Lukashenko’s regime,” said Petras Austrevicius, a Lithuanian centrist EU lawmaker heading parliament’s efforts to pressure Belarus’ top officials.
While the European Parliament’s vote is not legally binding, it carries political weight and can influence how the EU invests in Belarus or grants financial support.
“Once the term of office for the incumbent authoritarian leader Alexander Lukashenko expires on 5 November, parliament will no longer recognise him as the president of the country,” the parliament said in a statement.
Mass protests since the August election have posed the biggest threat yet to Lukashenko and his attempts to extend his 26-year rule, although EU governments have yet to respond with sanctions.
Moscow’s backing has become crucial for Lukashenko’s survival as president and the Kremlin has accused the West of seeking a revolution in the country.
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“No country, hospital or clinic can keep its patients safe unless it keeps its health workers safe,” said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General.
Towards that end, to ensure health workers have the safe working conditions, training, pay and respect they deserve, the UN health agency released the Health Worker Safety Charter, on Thursday, coinciding with the World Patient Safety Day.
The Charter calls on governments and those running health services at local levels to take five actions to better protect health workers.
The actions include protecting health workers from violence; improving their mental health; protecting them from physical and biological hazards; advancing national programmes for health worker safety; and connecting health worker safety policies to existing patient safety policies.
In addition to the Charter, WHO has also outlined specific World Patient Safety Day 2020 goals for health care leaders to invest in, measure, and improve health worker safety over the next year.
The goals are intended for health care facilities to address five areas: preventing sharps injuries; reducing work-related stress and burnout; improving the use of personal protective equipment; promoting zero tolerance to violence against health workers; and reporting and analyzing serious safety related incidents.
COVID-19 has not only increased the risk of infection and illness among health workers and their families, it has also exposed them to very high levels of psychological stress.
Although not representative, data from many countries indicate that COVID-19 infections among health workers are far greater than those in the general population, said WHO.
They represent less than 3 per cent of the population in the large majority of countries and less than 2 per cent in almost all low- and middle-income countries, but around 14 per cent of COVID-19 cases reported to WHO are among health workers, with the proportion as high as 35 per cent in some countries.
Thousands of health workers infected with COVID-19 have lost their lives.
WHO Video | Healthcare workers are at risk.
However, with limited quantity and quality of data, it is not possible to establish whether health workers were infected in the work place or in community settings, according to the UN health agency.
Added psychological stress
In addition to physical risks, the pandemic has placed extraordinary levels of psychological stress on health workers exposed to high-demand settings for long hours, living in constant fear of disease exposure while separated from family and facing social stigmatization.
Before COVID-19 hit, medical professionals were already at higher risk of suicide in all parts of the world, said WHO, adding that a recent review of health care professionals found one in four reported depression and anxiety, and one in three suffered insomnia during the global health crisis.
WHO also highlighted an “alarming rise” in reports of verbal harassment, discrimination and physical violence among health workers in the wake of COVID-19.
They have had to bear with assaults and armed attacks, physical and psychological threats, denial of services, eviction from their homes, and stigma, obstructions and cyber attacks.
A little patient, held by two health workers, receives a routine vaccine in Kosovo.
World Patient Safety Day
Observed annually on 17 September, the World Patient Safety Day recognizes patient safety as a global health priority and underlines the need to ensure the safety of patients while receiving care.
The Day was established in 2019 by the World Health Assembly, which called for global solidarity and concerted action by all countries and international partners to improve patient safety. The Day also brings together patients, families, caregivers, communities, health workers, health care leaders and policy-makers to show their commitment to patient safety.
This year, the Day is being commemorated under the theme, “Health Worker Safety: A Priority for Patient Safety.”
WARSAW, Poland (CNS) — The director of Greece’s Catholic charitable organization said the situation on Lesbos island remains tense after a fire at a refugee camp left at least 12,000 homeless.
“The situation remains chaotic, as the government tries to bring the refugees into a new camp, with reassurances they’ll be looked after,” said Maria Alverti, director of Caritas Greece.
“But we don’t know what will happen if they don’t comply. Part of the local population is reacting in a more extreme way to the presence of so many refugees. There are reports of local groups patrolling the streets, taking the law into their own hands, with cases of violence against aid workers.”
A Sept. 9 fire at Camp Moria left thousands from Syria, Afghanistan and 70 other countries sleeping on streets and beaches.
In a Sept. 16 interview with Catholic News Service, Alverti said police and army units had closed roads to prevent refugees converging on the island’s main town, Mytilene.
However, she added that the mood had changed among local Greeks, with clashes erupting as efforts were made to “protect one population from the other.”
“Some (refugees) believe they’ll stand a better chance of relocation if they don’t register at the new camp, so there’s confusion and tension,” Alverti said. “Some locals think NGOs like ours are part of the problem, and we’ve been stopped in our cars and asked what we’re doing and where we’re going.”
The overcrowded, underequipped Camp Moria, with an official capacity for just 2,800, burned early Sept. 9, sending thousands fleeing its tents and makeshift containers.
Michalis Chrysochoidis, Greece’s civil protection minister, said Sept. 15 that police had arrested several suspected arsonists.
The European Union said member states had so far agreed to take 400 unaccompanied minors from Lesbos. Catholic bishops in Germany, Austria and other countries urged a policy change to allow more refugees to be accepted by the European Union.
Alverti said Greek authorities were cooperating well with Caritas, which runs an office on Lesbos, but cautioned that a new refugee camp, set up with army help within four days of the fire, still needed resources if it was not to recreate conditions at Camp Moria.
“For years, we spoke up about how Moria was shaming Europe, and no one would listen. Unfortunately, it took a fire for the EU and Greek government to do something,” Alverti said.
“As a Catholic organization, we sometimes offer a different perspective when speaking out. But while our church is generally supportive, I’m not sure how much its message is really heard.”
Lesbos island is separated from Turkey by the Mytilini Strait and is actually closer to Turkey than to the Greek mainland.
Turkey reopened its border to refugee departures in February, after accusing the EU of reneging on a 2015 agreement to help the estimated 3.6 million refugees on its territory. The caused a sixfold increase in arrivals in Greece.
EU rules require asylum-seekers to stay in the country where they first applied for asylum unless another European country is willing to host them. With the COVID-19 pandemic, the transfer of asylum-seekers to other facilities in Greece and around Europe stopped.
In August, Caritas-Greece said increased police, army and navy patrols had reduced the refugee influx, but cautioned at least 32,000 were stranded on Lesbos, Chios, Samos and other islands, facing food shortages, abuse and violence.
Globally, the number of children living in poverty soared to nearly 1.2 billion – a 15 per cent increase since the pandemic hit earlier this year, according to a technical note on impact of COVID-19 on child poverty, issued on Thursday by the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the NGO Save the Children.
Although the analysis paints a dire picture already, UNICEF warns the situation will likely worsen in the months to come.
“COVID-19 and the lockdown measures imposed to prevent its spread have pushed millions of children deeper into poverty,” said Henrietta Fore, UNICEF Executive Director.
“Families on the cusp of escaping poverty have been pulled back in, while others are experiencing levels of deprivation they have never seen before. Most concerningly, we are closer to the beginning of this crisis than its end.”
UNICEF Video | What is multidimensional child poverty?
The study – based on data on access to education, healthcare, housing, nutrition, sanitation and water from more than 70 countries – also finds that around 45 per cent of children were “severely deprived” of at least one of the critical needs in the countries analyzed before the pandemic.
It notes that child poverty is much more than a monetary value, and while measures of monetary poverty such as household income are important, they provide only a partial view of the plight of children living in poverty.
To understand the full extent of child poverty, all potential, multidimensional, deprivations must be analyzed directly, the study adds, highlighting the need for social protection, inclusive fiscal policies, investments in social services, and employment and labour market interventions to support families and preventing further devastation.
“This pandemic has already caused the biggest global education emergency in history, and the increase in poverty will make it very hard for the most vulnerable children and their families to make up for the loss”, said Inger Ashing, CEO of Save the Children.
“Children who lose out on education are more likely to be forced into child labour or early marriage and be trapped in a cycle of poverty for years to come. We cannot afford to let a whole generation of children become victims of this pandemic. National governments and the international community must step up to soften the blow.”
Worsening inequalities
The study also finds that not only are more children experiencing poverty than before, the poorest children are getting poorer as well. Some children may suffer one or more deprivations and others experience none at all, therefore the average number of deprivations suffered per child can be used to assess how poor children are.
Before the pandemic, the average number of severe deprivations per child was around 0.7. It is now estimated to have increased by 15 per cent to around 0.85, it notes.
Against this backdrop, governments must prioritize the most marginalized children and their families, underscored Ms. Fore, calling for rapid expansion of social protection systems including cash transfers and child benefits, remote learning opportunities, healthcare services and school feeding.
“Making these critical investments now can help countries to prepare for future shocks.”
In his annual Address to the Nation on September 1, 2020, the President of Kazakhstan, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, announced the start of a new stage of reforms to enable Kazakhstan to assert its role in a world that is changing fundamentally.
The concrete steps towards domestic political and socio-economic reforms outlined by the President are of mutual importance for Kazakhstan and our European partners. Some of the ambitions are even mirrored in major EU policies such as the European Green Deal.
Aigul Kuspan is the Ambassador of the Republic of Kazakhstan to the Kingdom of Belgium and Head of Mission of the Republic of Kazakhstan to the European Union.
President Tokayev’s Announcements for Systemic Reforms
With his annual Address to the Nation, President Tokayev launched a new stage of reforms. These ambitions do not only build on the gradual reform efforts of President Tokayev, but also on the major advances made by First President Nursultan Nazarbayev since Kazakhstan’s independence in 1991.
The new stage of reforms will entail a far-reaching review of the activities of the entire state apparatus. Radical changes are foreseen at all stages, including the development of a real multiparty political system, reforms of the legislative process, and substantial improvements in implementation and enforcement of governance standards and the rule of law. A key focus will lie on economic reforms. The path towards a sustainable and resilient economy will be based on clear principles. These include the championing of private enterprise and free-market competition – also to ensure economic diversification -, technological effectiveness, education, accountability and the fight against corruption, and environmental protection and green economic development.
Kazakhstan is an important and trusted partner of the European Union. This is embodied in the Enhanced Partnership and Cooperation Agreement (EPCA) with the EU, which entered into force on 1 March, 2020. The significance is also reflected in the trade and investment relationship. The EU is Kazakhstan’s most significant trading partner, representing 40% of external trade. The EU is the main foreign investor in Kazakhstan, accounting for 48% of the total gross foreign direct investment.
In a world where the concepts of multilateralism and international cooperation are under threat, Kazakhstan prides itself in serving not only as a bridge between Europe and Asia, but also as a reliable partner on the wider international stage, and as an active contributor to regional and international peace, stability and dialogue. Kazakhstan has initiated important international processes of political dialogue, including the Astana Peace talks, the UN General Assembly resolution calling for an International Day Against Nuclear Tests, the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia (CICA), and the Congress of Leaders of World and Traditional Religions.
The latest announcements of far-reaching domestic political and socio-economic reforms in Kazakhstan are also of joint interest to the EU. Compared to the development, democratisation and governance processes in other former Soviet Union countries, the performance of Kazakhstan stands out. The ambition to radically reduce bureaucracy is similarly reflected in the EU’s “Better Regulation” process.
The EU champions free-market competition with important elements to guarantee social justice and welfare. This is mirrored in the ambitions for Kazakhstan’s economic reforms. As President Tokayev pointed out, there is no alternative to “the creation of a truly diversified, technological economy”. At the same time, we must ensure that our economy improves the well-being of the people and distributes fair shares of the benefits from growth of the national income, allowing for effective social “lifts”.
The new reforms will also focus on social development – including the protection of children -, quality education, developing healthcare, digitalisation, and the protection of citizens’ rights. All of these are also EU priorities, and my country is pleased to learn from and cooperate with our European partners on these topics.
The greatest overlap I see between my country’s reform efforts and current major EU policies is the ambition to create a future-proof, green economy – mirrored in the EU’s far-reaching Green Deal. In parallel to the EU’s efforts, Kazakhstan is laying the foundation for deep decarbonisation to allow for green growth. To improve the environmental situation, long-term plans for the conservation and sustainable use of resources, as well as for biological diversity, are being produced. My Government will focus on ecological education, promoting ecological tourism, and a draft law for the protection of animals is being developed.
Resilience in the face of the global pandemic
The importance of a future-proof and resilient economy also becomes apparent in the face of the global recession caused by the current Covid-19 pandemic.
In his Address, President Tokayev expressed gratitude to the Kazakh population for the resilience and responsibility they have demonstrated in the country’s fight against the global pandemic. As is the case across the European Union, in tackling the crisis, it is my Government’s priority to protect the life and health of the Kazakh people while maintaining social and economic stability, employment and income.
As Europeans are doing in the context of the EU’s Recovery Package, my Government has adopted two far-reaching packages of anti-crisis measures. More than 450 billion tenge (approximately EUR 900 million) has been allocated for these purposes – a level of assistance that cannot be taken for granted in many countries. In full awareness that the world has plunged into the deepest economic recession in a century, Kazakhstan – along with its partners at the regional, European, and global level – will continue to contribute to the restoration of the global economy.
Demonstrators march during a protest against the national security law in Hong Kong July 1. (CNS/ Reuters/Tyrone Siu)
Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin confirmed Sept. 14 that it is the intention of the Holy See to renew its two-year agreement with the Chinese government over the appointment of Catholic bishops in the communist country.
Parolin was speaking to journalists at the margins of a commemorative event for the late Cardinal Achille Silvestrini, an architect of the Vatican’s strategy during the later Cold War-era of Ostpolitik, or engaging in dialogue with Eastern European communist authorities.
The Vatican-China agreement of September 2018 is the most important diplomatic success of Pope Francis’ pontificate and of Parolin’s tenure as secretary of state. The bilateral talks for its renewal are underway; their repercussions and the interest they spark are much higher than from other secret diplomatic talks involving the Holy See, given the danger of a new kind of cold war between China and the United States.
And, of course, in certain parts of the U.S. church, the prospect of the renewal of the agreement has caused consternation among proponents of a U.S.-centered worldview and a U.S.-centered Catholicism.
Among the most prominent critics is George Weigel, who wrote an Aug. 31 op-ed for The Washington Post — just the latest in a series of his articles in the last few years against the Holy See’s opening to China. This article is important, in its own way, because it shows the faulty historical and theological assumptions guiding Weigel.
The first faulty assumption is that the historical precedent for the Vatican-China agreement, the Ostpolitik, was a failure. Weigel writes: “The failed Vatican Ostpolitik in Central and Eastern Europe during the 1960s and 1970s succeeded only in disabling and demoralizing local Catholic communities, while the Vatican itself was deeply penetrated by communist intelligence services.”
This is a regularly recurring theme for Weigel, and it has become common in conservative leaning Catholic intellectual circles in the U.S. and recently also in Eastern Europe — part of the rejection of the post-Cold War world now being favored by anti-liberals in that part of the continent. (This was described recently by Anne Applebaum in her book Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism.)
Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican secretary of state, at the Vatican Feb. 3 (CNS/Paul Haring)
What Weigel’s ideological interpretation of recent church history fails to recognize are the successes of the Ostpolitik. For example, communist authorities giving permission for Polish cardinals to participate at the two conclaves of 1978, with the second electing Polish Cardinal Karol Wojtyla as John Paul II.
The Helsinki Accords of 1975 were another major achievement of the Vatican Ostpolitik. They helped to provide a solid basis of legitimacy for the diplomatic service of the Holy See, which had been sometimes perceived as something leftover from the time of the Papal States.
Principle VII of the Helsinki Accords affirms the “respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, including freedom of thought, conscience, religion or belief” and states that “the participating States recognize the universal meaning of human rights and fundamental freedoms, respect for which is an essential factor of the peace, justice and well-being.”
The accords proved useful to protect forms of dissent in Eastern Europe, and they laid the foundations for the consequential diplomatic activity of John Paul II’s pontificate: a major boon of that Vatican Ostpolitik which Weigel considers a failure.
The second faulty assumption is that Francis and Parolin’s policy towards China can be compared with other diplomatic openings by the Vatican towards communist countries in the 20th century. There are a series of distinctions that need to be made here.
The contemporary Chinese regime is more about hegemony in the world than about communism: it’s more about an idea of China reemerging as its former dynastic, imperial self (as it was centuries before the birth of Christ) than about Chairman Mao.
The goal of Ostpolitik was the survival of the Catholic Church in Europe, the historical cradle of Christianity, while the Vatican-China agreement takes place in a new global scenario where Christianity is in most countries a minority in a world of religious, cultural and political differences.
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It’s not about Europe and the Western hemisphere, but the global Catholic Church in the global world. In this sense, Wojtyla’s post-World War II Poland is a totally misleading comparison. A more apt comparison is, for example, the position of the Catholic Church in India or Indonesia today or, even better, in China in the 17th and 18th centuries.
It is interesting to draw a parallel between religion and the economy. As Italian China expert Francesco Sisci wrote recently in Asia Times: “The previous Cold War was easy. The issue was business or no business: the West and its front were pro-business. The USSR and its allies believed business was the mother of all evils. Politics followed. […] The present Cold War is subtler, and it’s not about business or no business. It’s about what kind of business with what politics.”
The same can be said for religion. Xi Jinping’s China is not about the official atheistic ideology of post-WWII Eastern European communist regimes. In Xi’s China today, religion can thrive, but only as long as it doesn’t challenge politics and helps politics.
The third faulty assumption concerns what we mean by the Vatican and the papacy. Weigel wrote that “the only power the Vatican has in 21st-century global politics is the moral authority that comes with the forthright defense of human rights for all.”
This is only partially true. This month Catholics mark the 150th anniversary of that dramatic September 1870: the declaration of papal primacy and infallibility at Vatican Council I, the taking of Rome by the Italians and the collapse of the Papal States, and the eventual interruption of the council.
One of the hard lessons learned by the Holy See since 1870 is that papal diplomacy has to rely on the exercise of papal moral authority more than on the usual tangible instruments of state power.
The Minor Basilica of Our Lady of Sheshan, or Our Lady, Help of Christians in Shanghai, China (CNS/Nancy Wiechec)
On the other hand, the uncharted territory of the current disruption of the international order and the consequences this disruption causes on the landscape of global religions today makes more visible the uniqueness of the Holy See in dealing with international issues.
In other words, the moral authority of the papacy is different from other churches also because some instruments of state power are a key aspect of the activity of the Holy See. (Think of the Holy See’s diplomatic missions in almost every country in the world, the diplomatic missions accredited to the Holy See, its status as a permanent observer at the U.N., and its signature of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.)
As China expert Michel Chambon wrote in February 2018, before the Vatican-China agreement was announced: “when journalists and other activists frame this encounter [between the Vatican and China] as an issue about morality only, they indeed belittle the legal aspect of such dialogue. More or less consciously, they insidiously deny rights to the Holy See, and therefore to the Holy Father himself, to stand as a sovereign entity. In their eyes, the pope should only be a moral leader telling the world what ‘the good’ is about. This approach is highly problematic, and those who are Catholic should carefully question it.”
For a brief period of time in 2014 I taught in Hong Kong, where I still have friends. It is distressing to see what is happening and could happen to that city and the church there, as well as to know what is happening to ethnic and religious minorities in other parts of China.
But as I wrote in the Chinese newspaper Global Times in February 2018, what must be considered is the long-term historical framework of the international activity of the Holy See and the pastoral goal of its diplomatic activity.
Being a Catholic Church in the global world today means difficult choices. What the Holy See and the papacy can do is limited, and acting responsibly means that there are no easy or simple solutions.
