Storm Poly unleashed chaos upon air travel operations at Schiphol Airport, resulting in significant disruptions for hundreds of flights to and from Amsterdam on Wednesday. As the storm continued to intensify throughout the morning, the number of flight delays and cancellations escalated, causing frustration among travellers.
To keep residents informed and safe, the Dutch government promptly issued three NL-Alert bulletins to residents of Noord-Holland province around 9 a.m., providing essential updates in both Dutch and English.
Situated within Noord-Holland province, Schiphol Airport faced the brunt of the extreme weather conditions caused by Storm Poly. The NL-Alert message urgently advised residents to prioritize their safety by staying indoors and emphasized that the emergency number 112 should only be dialled in life-threatening situations.
Meteorologists had predicted powerful wind gusts of up to 120 kilometres per hour across the entire country, with southern regions expected to experience gusts of up to 90 kilometres per hour.
Throughout Wednesday morning, Schiphol Airport’s website encountered intermittent accessibility issues, making it challenging for travellers to obtain real-time information. A prior warning issued by Schiphol Airport on Tuesday had already alerted passengers to the impending delays and cancellations. In fact, even before the storm made landfall, KLM alone had proactively cancelled more than 200 flights in anticipation of the severe weather conditions. The airport management, in a statement, highlighted the expected combination of strong winds, heavy rainfall, and poor visibility, which would severely hamper air traffic between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m., leading to a cascade of further cancellations and delays for both incoming and outgoing flights.
In a recent update, Eurocontrol, the European air traffic control organization, warned of significant delays due to adverse wind conditions. As a result, arriving flights were regulated to ensure safe operations. According to the latest NOTAM bulletin addressed to pilots, it was projected that normal flight operations at Schiphol Airport and the surrounding airspace would not resume until 5 p.m. Given these circumstances, airlines were strongly advised to proactively cancel flights in accordance with the situation.
Despite the turmoil, some regional airports managed to mitigate the impact of Storm Poly. At Eindhoven Airport, the first five arriving flights were fortunate enough to land relatively on schedule, providing a glimmer of relief for passengers. Only two subsequent flights experienced minor delays during the morning.
Similarly, Rotterdam The Hague Airport remained relatively unaffected, with no significant disruptions reported. However, British Airways decided to cancel its roundtrip service between the regional airport and London City, recognizing the need for caution during the prevailing weather conditions.
Number of severe storms (minimum wind force 10), per month since 1910 | Storm Poly is the first ‘very severe’ summer storm (minimum wind force 11) ever in the Netherlands
Maastricht Aachen Airport, with only a one-morning departure scheduled, successfully took off on time, evading the chaos caused by Storm Poly. Additionally, no delays were announced for the two departing flights or the arrivals scheduled for the afternoon and evening, offering a sense of respite for those utilizing the airport’s services.
As Storm Poly continued to rampage across the region, travellers were advised to stay updated with the latest information and adhere to any instructions or alerts issued by authorities. It is crucial to remain patient and understanding during such challenging circumstances, as safety remains the top priority for both airlines and airports. Keep track of the developing situation and consult official sources for the most accurate and up-to-date information.
In conclusion, Storm Poly’s impact on air travel at Schiphol Airport caused widespread flight cancellations and delays, affecting hundreds of passengers. The Dutch government promptly issued NL-Alert messages for Noord-Holland province, urging residents to prioritize their safety.
While Schiphol Airport faced significant disruptions, other regional airports like Eindhoven, Rotterdam The Hague, and Maastricht Aachen managed to navigate the storm with relative success. Stay informed, exercise patience, and prioritize safety during this challenging time.
Higher education institutions are deeply worried about the new idea of the country’s Ministry of Education
Even after the exit of Great Britain from the European Union, many of the people who looked to the Island to complete a prestigious higher education, turned their heads to another country – the Netherlands.
Dutch universities enjoy a very good reputation, and they also offer a large number of courses in the increasingly universal English language for the global world.
Thus, at one point the flow of European (and not only) candidate students was redirected to Amsterdam, Leiden, Utrecht, Tilburg, Eindhoven and Göringen. Now, however, the Dutch government wants to put an end to this and severely limit the teaching of English in the country’s universities.
Dutch Education Minister Robert Dijkgraaf plans to limit the percentage of hours universities teach in foreign languages, arguing that the current situation has overburdened the country’s higher education institutions and could lead to a decline in quality of education.
For 2022 alone, the country has welcomed over 115,000 international students, which represents about 35% of the total number of all students studying in higher education institutions there. The tendency is for their share to grow over the last decade.
The desire of the authorities is to reduce the teaching of foreign languages in the country to about 1/3 of the courses offered in the universities.
This restriction comes after last December the Ministry of Education asked higher education institutions to stop actively recruiting foreign students. The minister motivated the decision with the fact that the internationalization of Dutch education leads to an overload of the teaching staff and a lack of accommodation for students.
At the moment, there is still no clear plan on how the new changes will happen with the teaching of a foreign language, and according to the spokesperson of the line ministry, the idea in this case is not so much directed against foreign students as it aims to minimize the negative consequences on the quality of the education offered.
“The current growth will lead to overcrowded lecture halls, overburdening teachers, a lack of student accommodation and reduced access to curricula,” the department said in a statement to Euronews.
The Netherlands has always been famous for its good higher education institutions, attracting students from all over the world.
Therefore, they are of the opinion that the reduction of courses in English will help to restore the balance in the system, so that the leading international position of the Dutch universities is not threatened.
Minister Dijkgraaf, for his part, is currently betting on a serious reduction of foreign languages at the expense of stimulating Dutch-language programs.
One idea is to cut English-language programs entirely to leave more in the local language. The other is that only some courses remain in English, not entire programs.
In both options, it is possible to make exceptions for some specialties where there is a priority need to attract foreign personnel. However, experts comment that Dijkgraaf’s new plans contradict the entire philosophy of Dutch higher education in recent years.
According to Nuffic, the Dutch organization for internationalization in education, in the Netherlands a total of 28% of bachelor’s and 77% of master’s programs are taught entirely in English.
These figures show that it is no wonder that universities are in a tight spot right now. This is fully true of the Eindhoven University of Technology, which teaches all of its undergraduate and graduate programs in English.
“There is a lot of tension about exactly what these new measures will include in detail. For us, this is a problem because for specific courses such as artificial intelligence or electrical engineering, we do not find enough professors who can teach in Dutch,” explains Robert -Jan Smits from the Graduate School Management.
According to him, the Netherlands has always had the reputation of being an open, tolerant and liberal country, and all its success historically is based on these principles.
The University of Eindhoven is not the only one to raise its voice against the proposal to reduce the English language in universities.
“This policy will be very damaging to the Dutch economy. It will have a negative impact on innovation and growth. The Dutch have always emphasized how important it is to maintain a ‘knowledge economy’, but now I see that this is under threat as talent can to leave us,” explains Associate Professor of Economics David Schindler from Tilburg University.
“There is no doubt that international students are paying more than they are worth. They make up a significant proportion of all students and keep the doors of many universities open. Without them, entire disciplines will shrink dramatically and potentially even collapse when this funding disappears “, he adds.
According to the latest study by the Dutch Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis, foreign students contribute up to €17,000 to the Dutch economy for a student from the European Union and up to €96,300 for non-EU students.
The Ministry of Education also does not want to lose all their foreign students – on the contrary. However, according to them, it is important to motivate these students to learn the Dutch language so that they can then realize themselves better in the labor market.
According to Smits of the Eindhoven University of Technology, this is not really such a factor. According to him, 65% of the graduates of the educational institution stay in the Netherlands, although the programs at the university are only in English.
He is of the opinion that the changes will actually have the opposite effect – students will simply no longer consider the Netherlands as an option for their higher education.
Smits sees political overtones in the decision to cut English courses.
“There is a big debate in parliament about the influx of migrants. There is a nationalist movement all over Europe. Debates are starting to happen even in the academic system. Populist parties are starting to ask why we are going to fund the education of foreigners, better to use the money for our own people,” he says.
For him, this is the bigger problem – this rhetoric of extreme nationalism is becoming a trend that is affecting even the academic system.
Photo by BBFotoj: https://www.pexels.com/photo/grayscale-photo-of-concrete-buildings-near-the-river-12297499/
RUSSIA, A Jehovah’s Witness to serve two years of forced labor
On June 30, 2023, the judge of the Leninskiy District Court of Novosibirsk, Olga Kovalenko, found 45-year-old Dmitriy Dolzhikov guilty of extremism, sentenced him to three years in prison and a year of restriction of freedom, but his imprisonment was replaced with forced labor. Taking into account the period of detention of Dmitriy under arrest, he will in fact have to serve about two years of forced labor.
Dmitriy Dolzhikov and his wife Marina on the day of the verdict. Photo credit: JW
Dmitry Dolzhikov did not plead guilty: “
I carefully read the decision of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation dated April 20, 2017 [on the liquidation of legal entities of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Russia], but I have not seen anywhere that the court imposed a ban on practicing the religion of Jehovah’s Witnesses and believers would be banned worship God, perform religious services, pray and sing religious songs. There has never been such a ban.”
The criminal case against Dmitriy Dolzhikov was initiated in May 2020. According to law enforcement officers, the believer
“intentionally, out of extremist motives, took part in the activities of a religious association … in the form of participation in religious meetings and meetings of an extremist organization, holding conversations with residents of Chelyabinsk, showing and watching educational videos.”
This is how the security forces regarded the peaceful services, at which believers read and discussed the Bible. Two years after the initiation of the case, a search was carried out in Dolzhikov’s house, the FSB officers brought Dmitriy from Chelyabinsk to Novosibirsk, where he was imprisoned in a pre-trial detention center, where he spent 2.5 months. The security forces persuaded the man to cooperate, threatening to “ruin his life.” The believer spent more than 6 months under house arrest.
In November 2022, the case went to trial. The defense has repeatedly drawn attention to the fact that the documents from the case materials are dated mainly from 2007-2016, which does not apply to the imputed Dolzhikov period. The whole accusation was based on the testimony of a secret witness and two Orthodox activists who openly expressed hostility towards the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ confession and, according to Dmitriy, told lies, misleading the court.
Friends of the Dolzhikovs on the day of the verdict
In a statement from his spokesperson on Monday, Mr. Guterres affirmed that all military operations must be conducted with full respect for international humanitarian law.
The incursion follows another operation in the camp on 19 June, which left four Palestinians killed and 91 others injured.
The UN’s humanitarian affairs coordination office (OCHA) said on Tuesday that as a result of the air and ground operations taking place in the West Bank town, 10 Palestinians including three children were killed, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.
At least 100 others have been injured, of whom 20 are reportedly in critical condition, OCHA said. Thousands of residents have reportedly left the camp since the operation began.
In an apparent retaliatory attack in the Israeli city of Tel Aviv on Tuesday, seven people were injured, three seriously, when a Palestinian man drove into pedestrians standing outside a shopping centre, according to news reports.
The attacker was shot and killed by an Israeli citizen at the scene. Palestinian militant group Hamas reportedly described the attack as a direct response to the military operation in Jenin.
Lack of basic essentials
Airstrikes in Jenin “significantly damaged” structures in which people were living in both the camp and surrounding neighbourhoods. The agency warned that due to damage to infrastructure, most of the Jenin camp has lost access to drinking water and electricity.
The UN agency for Palestine refugees (UNRWA), which runs four schools, one health centre and other facilities in the Jenin camp, said that many residents were in urgent need of food, drinking water and milk powder for children.
As of Monday, all UNRWA installations in the camp, operated by 90 staff members, were out of service due to the heavy exchanges of fire, the agency reported.
Ambulances denied access
Meanwhile, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Tuesday that the extent of people’s injuries was placing strain on the “fragile and underfunded” health system and that it was working with partners to deliver more life-saving medical supplies to Jenin Hospital.
UN humanitarians said that the destruction of roads in the refugee camp was restricting access for medical teams and ambulances, and Israeli forces were conducting checks on vehicles, including ambulances, at the entrance of the camp.
According to the UN health agency, ambulances with medical teams have been prevented from entering parts of the refugee camp and reaching persons who have been critically injured.
Attacks on healthcare
At least two hospitals have also been affected by attacks involving use of ammunition and gas canisters.
“Attacks against healthcare, including prevention of access to persons injured, are extremely concerning”, WHO said, calling for “respect and protection of healthcare”, including safe passage to health services in Jenin and across Palestine.
The agency recalled that there had been a “significant increase” in attacks on healthcare in the West Bank this year. The first five months of 2023 saw “at least” 124 WHO-documented attacks, resulting in 39 health worker injuries and affecting 117 ambulances.
One of the most interesting, strangest and most startling bets in the world since the beginning of this year – a case from Uganda that happened four months ago. Then worried parishioners of Pastor David Ochieng were stunned to see the church door padlocked for several days.
This raises doubts about the priest’s fate and his emirs turn to the police. It turns out that Ochieng won 100 million Ugandan shillings. The news became public knowledge after the pastor contacted a local newspaper, aware of the concern he had caused with his absence.
“One day I received an offer on the phone to bet on certain matches. It seemed like a bargain and I decided to give it a shot with a large chunk of my savings. I bet 1 million shillings. There was no answer for a long time and I started writing to the people who tricked me. I wrote to them that they are scammers. A few weeks later they replied that I won 100 million and transferred the money to me. It turned out that the matches were fixed and because of that there was a delay in the payout. The check has shown that there is no violation on my part. I closed the church as it was my way of supporting myself until now. Now I have made more money than I ever dreamed of and there is no point in working,” David Ochieng admitted.
It should be noted that the amount actually won is not large. His bet of 1 million Ugandan shillings is equal to 250 euros, and the winning of 100 million is actually 25,000 euros.
On the occasion of the visit of the Pope’s special envoy to Moscow and Kiev
According to official reports, the content of Italian Cardinal Matteo Zuppi’s talks in Moscow on June 28-28 included “humanitarian issues”. Therefore, after the much-anticipated meeting with Yuri Ushakov, assistant to the Russian president on international affairs, the special envoy of the Pope visited the children’s ombudsman Maria Lvova-Belova. According to the Vatican’s official website, the focus of the conversation was “the issue of over 19,000 Ukrainian children who ended up in Russia” – an issue on which President Zelensky sought help from the Holy See during the audience with Pope Francis in May this year.
Many of these children lost contact with their parents as they were taken to children’s camps, and some ended up in Russian foster families. Lvova-Belova herself adopted the teenager Philip from Mariupol, shortly after which the famous order from the International Criminal Court appeared.
According to Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov Dzyupi has not reached concrete agreements in Moscow, but there is reason to continue the dialogue.
It is worth noting that the papal legate’s visit to Moscow took place on the feast of the founders of the Roman Catholic Church, the apostles Peter and Paul, which Roman Catholics celebrate as “Pope’s Day”. Perhaps there is some symbolism in this…
Not an ultimatum, but a negotiating position
The Vatican has traditionally been tight-lipped on details when it comes to attempts to engage in the reconciliation of warring states or peoples. Vatican diplomacy has a reputation for being one of the most secretive and mysterious, even more so in an age when an experienced Jesuit occupies the papal throne. What is known is that Francis’s “peace plan,” unlike other such initiatives, does not include a ceasefire request as a precondition for negotiations. What is usually interpreted as an “ultimatum” from the Russian or Ukrainian side is seen in the Vatican as “negotiating positions” from which to move towards a compromise.
Perhaps this approach is now perceived more favorably in Moscow than in Kiev. On June 19, the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, Alexander Grushko, stated: “We appreciate the balanced position of the Vatican.”
Although Dzupi’s visit to Kyiv on June 5-6 was at a higher level (he was received by President Zelensky), Ukrainian elites and society are skeptical of the Vatican’s efforts.
Many Ukrainians are offended by Francis’ words, which they see as a remnant of his “left” Latin American experience (before he was elected pope, he served in Argentina).
But, for example, Leonid Sevastianov, the head of the World Union of Old Believers, who is in constant contact with Pope Francis and was appointed by him as an “ambassador of peace”, is sure that in the conditions of the helplessness of the major international institutions, only the Vatican can provide the necessary conditions and format for starting negotiations. According to his information, thanks to Dzupi’s mission, the contours of the negotiating groups have begun to take shape. In this regard, it should be noted that, unlike the heads of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Yuriy Ushakov is not subject to Western sanctions.
Sevastianov himself was forced to go to the police instead of the meeting scheduled for June 28 with the cardinal, where he was taken to testify about “collaboration with the Vatican.” The Old Believer leader insists that he does not cooperate with the Vatican, but communicates personally with the Pope as a person who gives the world hope for reconciliation, bypassing any state institutions.
A chance for the Russian Orthodox Church
Contacts with the Vatican are an important (if not the only) tool to restore the international legitimacy of the Moscow Patriarchate, which was almost destroyed after February 24, 2022. The Vatican is aware of this – and the ecclesiastical part of Zuppi’s visit to Moscow was more colorful than the secular.
The cardinal stopped at the Apostolic Nunciature (Vatican embassy), and in the early morning of June 28, he went to the miraculous Vladimir Icon of the Mother of God, exhibited in the temple at the Tretyakov Gallery (“St. Nicholas” in Tolmach). Previously, the Rublev icon of the Mother of God was also periodically transferred to the same church, which provides museum premises, but now it ended up in the precarious conditions of the Christ the Savior temple. Cardinal Zuppi wisely did not go there.
According to the rector of the church “St. Nicholas” he did not even notice the cardinal’s visit – he came to the temple without any pomp and in civilian clothes.
Metropolitan Antony (Sevryuk), head of the Department of External Church Relations of the Moscow Patriarchate, flew to Rome on June 16 to prepare the meeting between Dzuppi and Patriarch Cyril. He discussed the agenda of the meeting not only with Pope Francis and the Secretary of State of the Holy See, but also with the community “St. Egidius”, whose representatives accompanied Card. Dzupi to the Danilovsky Monastery, where they were received by His All-Holiness Patriarch Cyril on June 29.
Leonid Sevastianov calls on the leadership of the Russian Orthodox Church to appreciate the favor of Francis: “The current pope is loyal, but we don’t know who will be next. If the Moscow Patriarchate is not set on complete isolation, it will have to accept the idea of a papal visit to Russia – even if only in transit. For example, the option of Cyril and Francis meeting at the airport where the papal plane will land for refueling in early September on its way to Mongolia is being discussed. It was at an airport – in Havana – that the heads of the Russian Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church met for the first time in history.
Of course, the Russian Orthodox Church has its turbo-radicals who declare themselves completely isolated from the West, such as the “exarch of Africa” Leonid (Gorbachev), who claims: “Russia does not need any pope… We have a mother – the Motherland!”
However, such a position is in clear contradiction with the patriarchal position. “In the current conditions, which are marked by many risks and many dangers – he said at the meeting with Card. Dzupi, – [our] churches can work together to prevent the negative development of political circumstances and serve the cause of peace.
However, the patriarch’s rhetoric during the meeting in the Danilovsky Monastery reminds of the “language of double standards”.
On the one hand, Kirill exclaimed: “The suffering of the Ukrainian and Russian people deeply hurts my heart!” – and stated that a large part of his congregation lives in Ukraine. On the other hand, in the last sixteen months, he has not once expressed his condolences to the Ukrainians. Patr. Kirill assured Dzupi that “… in all our churches we offer special, unceasing prayers for peace in Ukraine.” Only a day before, however, the Patriarchate of Constantinople reinstated the Moscow priest Ioan Koval, whose “guilt” came down to the fact that the word “victory” was replaced by the word “peace” in the patriarchal prayer.
However, the cardinal invited the patriarch to visit Bologna and Rome – after the beginning of the Special Military Operation, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church has made only one foreign visit to Belarus.
Before Dzupi’s visit to Moscow, Pope Francis also worked on the Ukrainian issue. He received in the Vatican the presidents of Brazil, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, and of Cuba, Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez. Both have invitations to visit Moscow, but are in contact with Western leaders and are offering their own options for ending the Special Military Operation (SMO). Despite his advanced age, Francis shows remarkable diplomatic adaptability and is prone to changing tactics. His initial “equal distance” from the parties to the conflict has been replaced by vacillations perceived as either “pro-Moscow” or “pro-Ukrainian”.
Today, he avoids the mistakes of the first months of the SMO and sets out on the path of building an international humanitarian coalition. Who knows, maybe it is the “humanitarian” notes that will be heard by the leaders who have become hostages of unfulfilled geopolitical fantasies.
Reference
Card. Matteo Maria Zuppi is sixty-six years old, born in Rome and a graduate of the Pontifical Lateran University. He became a priest at the age of twenty-five and served in the archdiocese of Rome. Since the 1980s, it has been working closely with the community “St. Aegidius”, which carries out delicate orders of the Holy See to settle international conflicts. He was one of four mediators in the negotiations between rival factions in Mozambique that achieved peace and ended the country’s civil war in 1992. He also participated in negotiations between Kurdish rebels and the Turkish government and between Basque separatists and the Spanish government. On January 31, 2012, Pope Benedict XVI appointed Zuppi as auxiliary bishop of the Diocese of Rome. On October 27, 2015, Pope Francis appointed him Archbishop of Bologna. In 2019, Zuppi became a cardinal, and in May of this year he headed the Italian Roman Catholic Bishops’ Conference. In May of this year, Francis appointed him as his special representative for the peaceful settlement of the conflict in Ukraine.
On the last day of the Swedish presidency of the Council of the EU, the member states, at the level of the Committee of Permanent Representatives – COREPER I, approved a legislative proposal that preserves the previous approach to classifying essential oils, the Bulgarian Ministry of Health reported.
In relation to the European Commission’s proposed Regulation amending the legislation on the classification, labeling and packaging of substances and mixtures, the Council accepted the arguments of Bulgaria and seven other member states about the difficulties in adopting the proposed approach and included a review clause requiring new analyzes by Commission to be presented after 4 years.
The position in defense of the producers of essential oil crops in Bulgaria was presented by the Minister of Agriculture and Food, Kiril Vatev, at the meeting of the Council on Agriculture and Fisheries, which took place on June 26 and 27 in Luxembourg. He then stated that Bulgaria insists on maintaining the current approach to the classification of essential oils in order to continue the traditional cultivation of the crops in the EU from which they are extracted and to preserve the incomes of farmers and seasonal workers employed in the sector. Minister Vatev insisted that essential oils be excluded from the concept of complex substances, so that they continue to be classified under the current rules as substances and not as mixtures.
The decision of the Council of the EU is a positive development for producers of natural ingredients for perfumery and cosmetics. Negotiations with the European Parliament to agree on the final text of the regulation are still pending.
Minister Vatev commented that the decision reached was an achievement of the entire government and personally of Prime Minister Nikolay Denkov. The Prime Minister categorically defended Bulgarian rose oil and other natural essential oils at the meeting of the European Council. During the debate on the topic “Economy”, he pointed out a significant omission in the draft Regulation on the Classification, Labeling and Packaging of Chemicals (CLP), which places essential oils in the column of dangerous chemical mixtures. “When we discuss whether something is harmful, we have to we look not only at what the substance is, but also what is its concentration. It depends on her whether the substance is dangerous or not. In the text of the regulation, which is being presented, the word “concentration” is missing, Academician Nikolay Denkov, who is a world-renowned scientist in the field of chemistry and physical chemistry, explained to journalists in Brussels.
In front of the other leaders, the Bulgarian Prime Minister defined the European regulation being prepared as an abuse of science. He specifically asked the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, to refine the text because “it is not as scientific as it should be”, and he received her understanding.
Local young people in the city of Kropyvnytskyi, Ukraine, are teaming up with the UPSHIFT programme, run by the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), to care for animals evacuated from dangerous regions.
Over 300 young people have joined the initiative to house the abandoned pets, mainly cats and dogs, and which hopes to encourage people to care about animals.
A night in the car can exceed a night in five-star hotels up to 3000 euros, and before that – to end up in detention.
Greece introduced a new fine at the beginning of the summer. We pay up to 3000 euros if we allow ourselves to stop and sleep in our vehicle in an unregulated place in the Southern country. Sanctions start at 300 euros.
According to the Greek law, staying overnight in a car is prohibited in public places, on beaches, in archaeological sites, and even in parking lots.
It is forbidden to spend the night even if we are with a camper or caravan. It is imperative that we find one of the rest areas created for the purpose of spending the night. Otherwise, we could end up in jail.
The fine will be imposed by the police officers on the spot. If it goes to court, however, it can swell significantly and the night on the seat surpasses the night in the five-star hotels by up to 3,000 euros. A large part of the tourists, especially from the Balkan countries, were dissatisfied with the news.
Photo by Felix Haumann: https://www.pexels.com/photo/white-van-on-brown-field-under-white-clouds-3796556/
I would like to illustrate my point by outlining the contributions to the idea and practice of Muslim-Christian dialogue made by two key individuals in recent Turkish history. Long before the Second Vatican Council, Bediuzzaman Said Nursi (1876-1960), one of the most influential Muslim thinkers of the 20th Century, advocated a dialogue between true Muslims and true Christians. The earliest statement of Said Nursi concerning the need for dialogue between Muslims and Christians dates from 1911, more than 50 years before the Council document, Nostra aetate.
Said Nursi was led to his view about the need for Muslim-Christian dialogue from his analysis of society in his day. He considered that the dominant challenge to faith in the modern age lay in the secular approach to life promoted by the West. He felt that modern secularism had two faces. On the one hand, there was communism that explicitly denied God’s existence and consciously fought against the place of religion in society. On the other, there was the secularism of modern capitalist systems which did not deny God’s existence, but simply ignored the question of God and promoted a consumerist, materialist way of life as if there were no God or as though God had no moral will for humankind. In both types of secular society, some individuals might make a personal, private choice to follow a religious path, but religion should have nothing to say about politics, economics or the organization of society.
Said Nursi held that in the situation of this modern world, religious believers – Christian as well as Muslim – face a similar struggle, that is, the challenge to lead a life of faith in which the purpose of human life is to worship God and to love others in obedience to God’s will, and to lead this life of faith in a world whose political, economic and social spheres are often dominated either by a militant atheism, such as that of communism, or by a practical atheism, where God is simply ignored, forgotten, or considered irrelevant.
Said Nursi insists that the threat posed by modern secularism to a living faith in God is real and that believers must truly struggle to defend the centrality of God’s will in everyday life, but he does not advocate violence to pursue this goal. He says that the most important need today is for the greatest struggle, the jihad al-akbar of which the Qur’an speaks. This is the interior effort to bring every aspect of one’s life into submission to God’s will. As he explained in his famous Damascus Sermon, one element of this greatest struggle is the necessity of acknowledging and overcoming one’s own weaknesses and those of one’s nation. Too often, he says, believers are tempted to blame their problems on others when the real fault lies in themselves – the dishonesty, corruption, hypocrisy and favoritism that characterize many so-called “religious” societies.
He further advocates the struggle of speech, kalam, what might be called a critical dialogue aimed at convincing others of the need to submit one’s life to God’s will. Where Said Nursi is far ahead of his time is that he foresees that in this struggle to carry on a critical dialogue with modern society Muslims should not act alone but must work together with those he calls “true Christians,” in other words, Christians not in name only, but those who have interiorized the message which Christ brought, who practice their faith, and who are open and willing to cooperate with Muslims.
In contrast to the popular way in which many Muslims of his day looked at things, Said Nursi holds Muslims must not say that Christians are the enemy. Rather, Muslims and Christians have three common enemies that they have to face together: ignorance, poverty, dissension. In short, he sees the need for dialogue as arising from the challenges posed by secular society to Muslims and Christians and that dialogue should lead to a common stand favoring education, including ethical and spiritual formation to oppose the evil of ignorance, cooperation in development and welfare projects to oppose the evil of poverty, and efforts to unity and solidarity to oppose the enemy of dissension, factionalism, and polarization.
Said Nursi still hopes that before the end of time true Christianity will eventually be transformed into a form of Islam, but the differences that exist today between Islam and Christianity must not be considered obstacles to Muslim-Christian cooperation in facing the challenges of modern life. In fact, near the end of his life, in 1953, Said Nursi paid a visit in Istanbul to the Ecumenical Patriarch of the Orthodox Church to encourage Muslim-Christian dialogue. A few years earlier, in 1951, he sent a collection of his writings to Pope Pius XII, who acknowledged the gift with a handwritten note.
The particular talent of Said Nursi was his ability to interpret the Qur’anic teaching in a such way that it could be applied by modern Muslims to situations of modern life. His voluminous writings which have been gathered together into the Risale-e-Nur the Message of Light express the need for a revitalization of society by the practice of everyday virtues like labor, mutual assistance, self-awareness, and moderation in possessions and deportment.
Note about the author: Father Thomas Michel, S.J., is a visiting professor at the Pontifical Institute for Arabic and Islamic Studies in Rome. He previously taught theology at Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service in Qatar and was a senior fellow with Georgetown’s Alwaleed Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding and Woodstock Theological Center. Michel has also served on the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, leading the office for engagement with Islam, as well as headed the interreligious dialogue offices of the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences and the Jesuit secretariat in Rome. Ordained in 1967, he joined the Jesuits in 1971 and subsequently earned a doctorate in Arabic and Islamic studies from the University of Chicago.
Photo: The Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs, Georgetown University, Washington, D.C.
