Article

Comment

Freedom of Belief

Islam

Middle East

7 March 2024

7 min read

Beyond the glitz: the Gulf States and belief

Religious tolerance amid the skyscrapers.

Andrew Thompson

Andrew Thompson MBE is an Anglican priest who served in Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates.

A large, modern cubiod building with a series of thin external pillars is seen from low down against a sunny blue sky

St Francis Church, Dubai.

Abrahamic Family House.

The Arabian Gulf conjures up images of sandy deserts, oil and gas and robed Arab sheikhs. Western (orientalist) academic imagination portrays the tribal culture of the Arab as rooted in a timeless Islamic world, one which suggests an atavistic conservatism which imposes severe restrictions on women and people of other faiths.

The reality, however, in a country like the United Arab Emirates is utterly different. This is a country which has more women in the government cabinet than any other country in the world. Emirati women hold more PhDs than their male compatriots. The UAE government has a Minister for Artificial Intelligence, a Minister for Coexistence and Tolerance, and (my favourite) a Minister for the Future. They examine the emergence and use of new technologies which would enhance human existence. A good example is Masdar city, a whole residential area which is built from the ground up to run on sustainable and renewable energy. The paradox of using oil and gas revenues to invest in future forms of renewable energy is one of many. This is a Gulf country which has wholeheartedly embraced living for the future; yet at the same time, they have held onto the ancient Islamic faith as a vehicle which carries their values in the here and now.

A visitor to Dubai can only marvel at the speed at which the city has morphed from a sleepy backwater just one generation ago, to being one of the world’s leading cities and tourist destinations. In the last 12 months, 17 million tourists visited Dubai alone.

Even more impressive is the Gulf’s use of ‘soft’ power in which they use the wealth of the oil industry in projecting Arab influence in spheres ranging from space exploration and sport. We have witnessed Gulf states hosting world cups, mixed martial arts tournaments, and Formula One through to the performing arts including opera, musicals (Hamilton is currently playing there) and K Pop.

In the current crisis between Hamas and the Israeli government we have seen Qatar come to prominence as peace negotiators and the lobbyists of countries locked into the Abrahamic Accord - a groundbreaking peace deal between Israel and Gulf States ending decades long diplomatic détente. That Saudi Arabia are offering to join the Abrahamic Accord if Israel commits to the two-state solution signals a shift in Middle Eastern politics which is unprecedented in the region’s history.

Amid these developments is the presence of a large, international and flourishing church community. There has been little written about the religious space in the Arabian Gulf; much of the attention has been focused on the oil industry and the resulting politics. Yet, there are many Christian communities in the region. The Christian church in the Gulf has recently been visited by Pope Francis. The papal visits are the first ever in the region. The first one in 2019 witnessed a staggering 180,000 worshippers attending a mass in a football stadium provided by the president of the UAE. This was followed by a trip to Iraq and then to Bahrain.

The discourse regarding tolerance has become a feature of soft diplomacy across the Arabian Gulf, with numerous interfaith initiatives receiving government backing. The UAE is leading the way with the construction of the first purpose built Gurudwara, a Hindu Temple and a much-celebrated Abrahamic Family House; a single campus which hosts a mosque, church and a synagogue (also the first to be built in the region).

At a time when Islamophobia and Antisemitism are escalating, Muslims in the West are feeling the need to retreat from the public space to feel safe. Ancient hostile narratives are being resurrected to paint the Islamic community as an alien enemy whose values are antithetical to Western ones. This was seen most recently during the World Football tournament in Qatar where the Western media relentlessly pushed stories which distorted and misled their audience on Arab culture and context. For example, the figures of high death rates reported by the media, of Nepali workers building football stadiums neglected to mention that these statistics included the deaths of all expatriates of all nationalities resident in the country, and that most of the deaths reported were due to natural causes (heart attack and cancer), road traffic accidents and so on. Another story implied that there was no alcohol permitted in the country and everyone had to go ‘dry’. This was patently false as fans who visited the country can attest to. Alcohol was available and accessible to those who wanted it. These negative reports reinforced existing prejudices against the Muslim Arabs. I would like to counteract some of this hostility based on my experience of living in the Arabian Gulf over several years as an Anglican priest.

A fourth century letter from a bishop who was dealing with the issue of whether Christian pearl divers should work on a Sunday.

Christianity in the Arabian Gulf predates Islam. Churches and monasteries functioned on the trading routes from Baghdad, travelling along the South-eastern coastline all the way through to Oman. Many of the prominent tribes in northern and eastern Arabia were Christians.

These ancient Christian communities had a seminary, several bishoprics and prominent theologians who produced commentaries and liturgies still in use today. They were involved in several trades, including the pearling industry. A fourth century letter from a bishop who was dealing with the issue of whether Christian pearl divers should work on a Sunday; left it to the individual conscience of the pearl diving community.

It was trade, not persecution, which was the main factor leading to the decline of the church by the ninth century. By then Islam had coexisted with the Christians peacefully for at least 200 years. The archaeological sites of churches in the Gulf today show no sign of violence and destruction, rather, their building materials were used to build nearby homes long after the monks had left.

It is sobering to discover that some of the worst religious encounters in terms of violence and intolerance in the region, came not from the Islamic communities but rather the militant western Christian powers who were expanding their empires to the East. First came the Portuguese who were vicious in the use of the mutilation of noses and ears as a tool to subjugate Arab tribes. This was followed by the British and the assertive use of gun boat diplomacy. To this day the residents of Ras Al Khaimah in the northern emirates recount their town being shelled by the British Royal Navy in the late 1800s.

The pages of the Gospel often come to life to me when I visit a Muslim home and I recognize similar patterns of culture.

Given this negative history, it is astonishing that the culture of tolerance prevailed towards non-Muslims in the coastal cities of Arabia. Today in the UAE, over forty centres of Christian worship offer a spiritual home to close to nine per cent of the population. Though not quite to the same extent, other Gulf countries have similar provisions of hospitality for the Christian community. Saudi Arabia, long regarded as the most intolerant of the Arab states, is including church buildings in their ambitious project The Line.

The gift that the Arabian Gulf offers is a model in which diverse neighbours can learn to encounter each other in a space in which is neutral and rewarding. My own faith as a Christian has been deeply enhanced by learning about and experiencing Islamic spirituality and hospitality. It astonishes me how few take up that opportunity, despite being many years in the region.

The Arabian Islamic culture echoes and at times has preserved the culture that would have been familiar to Jesus Christ. The pages of the Gospel often come to life to me when I visit a Muslim home and I recognize similar patterns of culture, I am reminded that Jesus was a child of the Middle East.

One project the church in the UAE initiated was to make local employment laws available to workers in their native languages.

Western media often highlights negative stories from the Arabian Gulf regions. Human rights issues and migrant labour abuse are some of the common issues. Without diminishing the real suffering of victims in these stories, the reality is that these are global issues.

The UK witnessed multiple deaths of the Chinese cockle pickers in Blackpool; in addition, migrants in the UK can recite a long list of unjust hostile actions taken against them by the British Home Office.

The Gulf has modified their laws to criminalise abuse of labourers and domestic workers, although critics point out that the laws are not consistently enforced. One project the church in the UAE initiated was to make local employment laws available to workers in their native languages, both in writing and on an audio device.

This then is the alternative narrative. The Arabian Gulf, at its best, can model interfaith and intercultural encounters in a way which promotes a safe and cohesive society. Islam, at its best, can provide a counterpoint in the religious landscape in which non-Muslims can worship without fear.

An antidote to the ‘Arab-bashing’ which seems to prevail in the West is to move away from promoting hostile narratives and instead, in the words of Paul in the New Testament, to seek that which is true, honourable, pure, lovely and excellent.

Article

Comment

War & peace

25 September 2024

6 min read

How Ukraine reckons with its reality

From Kyiv's coffee shops to the front line.

Mark Meynell

Mark Meynell is the author and minister.

A woman squats and touches a war memorial

War memorial in Bucha.

How on earth it came up I have no idea, but I vividly remember chatting with my grandmother about the ‘Phoney War’ of 1939. I can’t have been much older than 10. It’s not that I was especially inquisitive about history, nor that I had the presence of mind to ask for stories from her extraordinary life. How I wish I’d done that with all four of my grandparents. But my hunch is that it was prompted by sitting in the garden on a glorious summer’s day. We were probably shelling peas or peeling potatoes or something—she always got people staying to do jobs.

She was reminiscing about how weird those months in mid-1939 were, in particular remembering how lovely the summer had been, far brighter and drier than normal. Even after the Nazi invasion of Poland on 1st September (thus triggering Britain and France to declare war two days later), the weather remained good. A sense of war’s inevitability had hovered throughout 1939, so even after Chamberlain’s famous ‘final note’ was rejected, nothing much changed. At least, not for ordinary Britons. Life went on. It would take many months before the conflict came all too close to home.

I couldn’t help but think about this during my visit to Kyiv and Lviv earlier this month. The difference, of course, is that there was nothing phoney about Russia’s 2022 invasion or the horrors inflicted on eastern Ukraine since the 2014 annexation of Crimea. But for the majority, routines continued uninterrupted. As they must.

For example, assuming the worst, I had contacted several Ukrainian friends offering to bring any scarce or unavailable items from Britain. No one took me up on it; it was unnecessary, they all said. After wandering through both cities, it was obvious why. Although trade will undoubtedly have been slower than before the war, shops seemed well stocked with all the necessities and not a few luxuries.

Then on my final morning, I was quietly sipping a cappuccino in Lviv’s historic Rynok Square when the air-raid sirens suddenly cranked up into their now familiar whine. Being kept awake by Kyiv’s sirens had been a new experience for me (a mark of our Western privilege that we have avoided all-out war on our soil for decades). But this was my first daytime alert. It was even accompanied by booming Ukrainian announcements, although the advice was inevitably lost on me. As it was on all around me, who seemed assiduously to ignore it. The few mid-morning pedestrians—few tourists come here— maintained their ambling pace unchanged; the taciturn waiter patiently took orders at the next table; a middle-aged businessman on the square continued his negotiations on the phone while gesticulating with his briefcase. So naturally, I kept sipping.

This was not because the sirens cried wolf. Just 10 days before my visit, Lviv had suffered one of the worst air attacks of the war, with 7 killed, over 60 injured, as well as the destruction of schools and historic buildings. Moreover, I met a friend for lunch an hour later who told me that some man-sized drones had attacked his side of Lviv and he saw one or two shot down. So it was all real enough. What was everyone thinking?

Those who keep going amid a siren’s whine are not perhaps ignoring it but taking calculated risks in their perseverance.

Ignoring reality

T. S. Eliot famously observed that "Humankind cannot bear very much reality." So perhaps that was what was going on here. After two and a half years of war, I can quite imagine exhaustion and resignation to what was going on. So it just gets ignored. Ordinary life must go on. After all, only a small proportion of the population is actively engaged in the war; the rest, if they haven’t already left, must try to keep calm and carry on. In fact, men aged between 18-60 are unable to leave at all without the necessary papers and these are hard to come by. Perhaps the only way, then, is to avoid thinking altogether. On a beautiful day, once autumn has begun to temper Ukraine’s oppressive summer heat, sustaining the illusion is simple. Life carries on.

Of course, it can’t last. Every single person I spoke to had family or friends at the front; some had already been killed. The destruction caused by air raids brought a distant conflict onto people’s doorsteps. However, it was driving through the pleasant Kyiv suburbs of Bucha and Irpin, both of which I had previously visited several times, that reinforced the impossibility of ignoring reality. Bucha is now emblematic of the invasions very worst atrocities, from when Russian forces had Kyiv almost entirely surrounded before being pushed east. Locals were rounded up and slaughtered, with the bodies of several hundred civilians later found to have died from bullet wounds rather than shrapnel. But as we drove through, it was impossible to conceive of those horrors. Apart from anything, the weather was so lovely. Atrocities don’t occur on beautiful days… or in lovely places… surely?

Persevering amid reality

What impressed me most in those areas was the speed of the rebuilding work. Entire shopping malls and neighbourhoods had been razed. But after only twelve months or so, a memorial to Bucha’s 500 dead had already been erected. As we drove through, major construction projects were underway, with multiple cranes towering over rapidly rising apartment blocks and retail parks.

These are not signs of reality ignored but faced. These are signs of gritted hope. So it struck me that those who keep going amid a siren’s whine are not perhaps ignoring it but taking calculated risks in their perseverance. Just as it is unwise, if not impossible, to live on a permanent adrenaline rush, so one cannot always exist in flight or fight mode indefinitely. It is simply that in wartime, risk thresholds change. Human beings are resilient and adaptable. They endure the most extraordinary setbacks and conditions.

So, to be with Ukrainian friends in my limited, deficient expression of solidarity, has been inspiring. No one I met had any illusions about the realities of Ukraine’s current plight (especially with a harsh winter looming as Russia systematically destroys power stations). But still they persevere.

Seeking deeper perspectives of reality

However, Eliot did not primarily refer to bearing the reality of the mundane. As the novelist Jeanette Winterson explained, Eliot was identifying how little twentieth century society (that of his Waste Land in particular) could bear of spiritual reality. He meant the phenomenon of resistance to a journey towards God or of facing themselves as they stand before God.

However, the horrors of invasion and the nightly anxieties of air raids have put paid to all that. One friend I was glad to see again is Andriy, previously a fairly well-known Ukrainian journalist and now a church pastor. He regularly goes to the frontline as an unofficial chaplain, visiting troops in their camps and the injured in hospital. He was unequivocal. Before the war they would undoubtedly have been shrugged off. But now, he has not met a single soldier who is uninterested in the things of God and eternity. War has forced them to face their mortality and Andriy has found that most are desperate to talk about little else. These things matter. Even on a beautiful, bright, early autumnal day.