Toespraak van minister Koenders over culturele en religieuze diversiteit

Toespraak | 19-10-2015

Your Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen,

I would like to start by thanking our colleague and friend Minister Nikolaos Kotzias for organising this conference.

During our first meeting, during the first Foreign Affairs Council of the EU, Minister Kotzias asked attention to the crucial issue of religious intolerance of the annihilation and destruction of religious minorities and the need to act on this. I could not but agree more.

It is an honour and pleasure to be here together with the patriarch and primates of Christian churches, with religious leaders and personalities of the Muslim and Jewish world. This should be the day, the conference of solidarity with you, the day of action and real dialogue and the day of the protection of religious and human life.

This year it's 370 years since my compatriot Hugo Grotius died. Nowadays, we remember him as the father of international law, the first jurist to publicly state that there is an international community, governed by rules and not by force. What most of us don't realise is that, in his day, he was perhaps better known for his contribution to a theological debate that threatened the very existence of the Dutch Republic.

The details are complicated, almost arcane to present-day audiences, even in my own country. Suffice it to say that Grotius advocated religious tolerance and moderation. For his audacity, he was brought to trial and sentenced to life in prison. But – as all Dutch school children are still taught – he managed to escape from the fortress where he was held prisoner by hiding in a book chest. He fled to France and from Paris he continued on to Sweden. He died in 1645 as a diplomat in the service of the King of Sweden.

I am reminded of him for 3 reasons:

First, his life story shows how religious debate can fracture and potentially destroy societies that appear to be safe and stable. It also shows that religious strife is more destructive to tolerant and moderate societies and individuals than to the radical elements embroiled in conflict.

Second, Grotius was opposed to the use of theological arguments as an excuse for the use of force. He wrote: 'Religious belief does not do away with either natural or human law from which sovereignty is derived.' Quite a progressive point of view which, unfortunately, his contemporaries didn’t share.

And finally, his personal motto has as much meaning for us today: 'Hora ruit' – or 'time is fleeting'.

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is exactly how I feel when debating the issue of religious and cultural pluralism and peaceful coexistence in the Middle East.

Every day shocking images, not only from the Middle East but also in Europe, reach us all. It is awful to see entire communities being oppressed, humiliated and murdered. We are all vividly aware of the spiral of violence caused by Daesh and other extremist groups. And the horror does not stop there: we are confronted daily with the realities of communities being targeted by their own government and by its allies.

Sunnis, Shiites, Alevis, Catholics, Protestants, Orthodox, Jews, and Copts, Yazidis, Turkmen, Druze, men and women, boys and girls as well as LGBT people: apparently no-one is safe from the violence.

This is a terrifying thought. Terrifying because it means we can all see ourselves in the images of violence raging in the Middle East and North Africa, and in some of the streets in Europe. Terrifying because it means we can all identify with the victims of violence, targeted because of their ethnic background, religious belief or political ideology, or because of their gender, sexual orientation or another reason. Terrifying because this violence seems to be causing ever greater divisions around the world, and sometimes amongst countries.

This requires our cooperation and action. We have to start with the fundamental belief that religion perverted to political, sectarian or violent exploration and power manipulation cannot be called religion.

No religion - especially in the most postmodern time of new invention, social media and purification - is immune to the risks of extremism and religion is itself prone to be prosecuted, killed and destroyed by these forces.

Today we have to deepen on an urgent basis our inter- and intra- religious dialogue. This is also the case for our cities in Europe where religious intolerance is on the rise as is anti-Semitism and islamophobia.

Today we have to work and prepare an action plan together to support the historical and continued presence of religions in the Middle East and to build a mechanism of monitoring. And I appreciate the proposal made by Minister Kotzias. Today we have to start putting back the 'protection of civilians' mandate at the forefront of our European, regional and United Nations mandate, and it is already overdue we do this. The Security Council cannot be hijacked by lack of consensus at the moment so many religious minorities are at risk of complete disappearance.

Tolerance however should not be seen as a value in itself, but as a practical way of living together, perhaps in the utilitarian interpretation of John Stuart Mill, and not as a dogma. This is how tolerance is generally viewed in the Netherlands - we try and we do not always win: in a pragmatic way with the aim of peaceful coexistence.

So all parts of the population should join forces to fight against division and for tolerance.

And not just in the Middle East and North Africa: we should be aware that three-quarters of the world's inhabitants live in countries where freedom of religion and belief is severely restricted by state or non-state actors.

Three-quarters of the world's population. 57 percent. 3 out of every 4 people.

For them, there is no respect for the principle that every individual must have the freedom to express his or her identity, as informed by religious or other beliefs. There is no respect for their right to hold theist, non-theist or atheist convictions and the right to change their faith.

But I believe that the present challenges could also foster greater solidarity, more effective support and more robust political action. And that is why we are here today. We are sending the message that the international community will not allow the present situation to continue. Looking away is not an option.

Today we should focus on what binds us and work to make that bond even stronger. Societies in Europe and the Middle East have been linked by migration for centuries. Minorities aren’t strange or alien elements in society. People are in danger, people are not dangerous.

They are an integral part of the national fabric. Believing in Christ doesn’t make an Arab less Arab, and my Muslim neighbour is no less Dutch than my Jewish colleague.

The problems we are discussing today require a joint approach. It is our shared responsibility to ensure that hatred is replaced by reconciliation. We should celebrate the communities that are making a sterling effort to assist refugees and provide safe havens for those in need. We are very much aware that these efforts are putting an increasing strain on societies close to the borders of the countries where conflict is raging, as well as further away, in our own countries.

The Netherlands' commitment to stopping ethnic and religious violence is unwavering. As a partner to everyone here who supports diversity in the world, I cannot imagine the world without minorities, any more than I can imagine Europe without them.

We all know this, but we seem to have a hard time putting it into practice. It begins with inclusiveness, equal opportunities for all, equality before the law and tolerance. On behalf of the Netherlands, I am committed to working towards these aims. In the Netherlands, in Europe, and further away.

It starts at home, in our national efforts to contain and resolve conflicts, whatever the grounds: ethnic, religious, cultural or economic. And at European level, we have to step up to the plate. Exceptional times call for exceptional measures, and we can all agree that the present migration crisis is exceptional. We have finally agreed to a system of burden sharing, sidestepping the existing Dublin Regulation. And we have agreed to provide additional support to the tune of 400 million euros to help refugees living in countries bordering Syria. These are just a few examples.

But we're not there yet. The key question is: can you expect religious and cultural pluralism and peaceful coexistence to flourish in a situation where there is no peace, no open political debate, and no firmly rooted tradition of democracy? Where violence and aggression against civilians go unpunished? Necessary as it is, the debate we are having here today, with so many stakeholders, will be fruitless unless there is a political process working to settle the various conflicts in the Middle East. A process involving actors within and outside the region. And most importantly, a process that is supported by the constructive cooperation of all permanent members of the UN Security Council.

I call on all of us to work towards a political solution and bring pressure to bear on parties that are unwilling to cooperate. Peace is the only way to protect and preserve diversity and pluralism in the Middle East and in the world.

Ladies and gentlemen,

Hora ruit – time is fleeting – as Grotius would have said in Latin, or 'O chronos telioni' in Greek. We must stop this clock.

Thank you.