2016-  Keynote Speech- “Christians Among the Refugees from Syria and Iraq: Orphans of the Geopolitical Drama.”

 

Dr. Guita Hourani was invited as a keynote speaker in a conference entitled “The Christians of the Middle East in the Current Crisis: Collateral Damage, Symbolic Victims.” The conference was organized by the Institute of Eastern Christian Studies of Radboud University in Nijmegen, the Netherlands.

 

Hourani’s keynote address carried the title “Christians Among the Refugees from Syria and Iraq: Orphans of the Geopolitical Drama,” in which she described the current forced migration of the Christians in the Middle East through the prism of nation-state building in the post-Ottoman Empire era. She also addressed the current flight of the Christians with its specificities and similarities to other minorities’ migration in the Middle East, and she closed by discussing the types of aid needed for these minorities to sustain themselves in their land both morally and physically.