Unintended Consequences: Imperilled Christianity in Iraq

[alexamenos]

link

Final Appeal: Save Christian Iraq

It is the only country where the liturgy is still celebrated in Aramaic, the language of Jesus. But Christianity is in danger of dying out there. Killings, aggression, kidnappings. And now also the "jiza," the tax historically imposed by Muslims on their "infidel" subjects, those who have still not fled the country

by Sandro Magister

ROMA, May 28, 2007 – In Iraq’s bloody war, which is being fought primarily by Muslim groups against other Muslims and “infidels,” the Iraqi Christians are the only ones who are not using weapons or bombs, not even to defend themselves. There aren’t any armed Christian militias in Iraq. In fact, they are the most vulnerable and persecuted group. In 2000, they were more than a million and a half, 3 percent of the population. Today it is estimated that fewer than 500,000 remain.

In an official statement released on May 24, the Iraqi government promised protection for the Christian families threatened and chased out by terrorist Islamic groups. Some Muslim exponents have expressed solidarity. The government’s action – which, however, is devoid of concrete initiatives – follows the dramatic appeal issued on May 6 by Emmanuel III Delly, patriarch of the Chaldeans, the most numerous Iraqi Catholic community, in the homily for the Mass celebrated in the church of Mar Qardagh, in Erbil, Kurdistan.

The Kurdish region, to the north of Baghdad, is the only place in Iraq where Christians today live in relative security. The Chaldean seminary of Baghdad, Babel College, was transferred to Erbil together with its library, and its buildings in the capital are now a stronghold for American troops in spite of the patriarchate’s protests.

Christian refugees from the center and south of the country are streaming into the Kurdish cities of Erbil, Zahu, Dahuk, Sulaymaniya, Ahmadiya, and the Christian villages of the surrounding area.

But just a short distance to the north, in the region of Mosul and the plain of Nineveh, the danger becomes palpable once more. This is the historical cradle of Christianity in Iraq. There are churches and monasteries that go back to the earliest centuries. In some villages an Aramaic dialect called “Sureth” is still spoken, and Aramaic, the language of Jesus, is used in the liturgies. There are communities of various rites and doctrines: Chaldeans, Syro-Catholics, Syro-Orthodox, Assyrians from the East, Catholic and Orthodox Armenians, Greek-Melkites.

But the Christian villages are surrounded by hostile Muslim populations. And life is even more dangerous for Christians in the capital of the region, Mosul. Kidnappings are extremely common. The victims are released after their families have paid a sum of 10,000 to 20,000 dollars, or after they have agreed to hand over their homes and leave the city. But kidnapping can also end in bloodshed. In September of 2006, after Benedict XVI’s address in Regensburg, a group called “Lions of Islam” kidnapped Father Paulos Iskandar, a Syro-Orthodox priest. The kidnappers demanded that thirty fliers apologizing for the offenses brought against Islam be posted on the churches of Mosul. Then they decapitated him. On the same day, in Baghdad, another priest was killed, Father Joseph Petros. A sister told the Vatican news agency Fides: “The imams preach in the mosques that it is not a crime to kill Christians. It is a hunting of men.”

Pascale Warda, an Assyrian Christian and the immigration minister for the Iraqi interim government, believes an autonomous province must be created in the plain of Nineveh, a sort of protected area not only for Christians, but also for other religious minorities like the Yazidi, the devotees of an extremely ancient pre-Zoroastrian religion. But the intensification of aggression on the part of Muslims living in that same region makes this hypothesis impracticable. Last April, 22 Yazidis were forced off a bus and killed on a street near Mosul. In 2005, a terrorist assault massacred the four Assyrians who were escorting the minister Warda.

In Mosul, Islamic groups have begun to demand from Christians the payment of a tax, the jiza, the tribute historically imposed by Muslims on their Christian, Jewish, and Sabian subjects who accepted to live in a regime of submission, as “dhimmi.”

But it is above all in Baghdad that the jiza is being imposed upon Christians in an increasingly generalized way. In the neighborhood of Dora, ten kilometers southwest of the capital, with a high concentration of Christians, groups tied to al-Qaeda have installed a self-proclaimed “Islamic state in Iraq” and are systematically collecting the tax, set at between 150 and 200 dollars a year, the equivalent of a month’s expenses for a family of six. The exacting of the tribute is being extended to other neighborhoods in Baghdad, toward al-Baya’a and al-Thurat.

Some Christian families in Dora have been told that they can remain only if they give a daughter in marriage to a Muslim, in view of a gradual conversion of the entire family to Islam. A fatwa forbids the wearing of the cross around the neck. As for the churches, warnings accompanied by grenade blasts have forced the removal of crosses from bell towers and facades. In mid-May, the Assyrian church of Saint George was burned down. So far, seven priests have been kidnapped in the capital. The most recent victim, in the second half of May, was Father Nawzat Hanna, a Chaldean Catholic.

According to estimates from the Iraqi government, half of the Christians have left Baghdad, and three quarters have left Basra and the south. Those who do not stop in Kurdistan leave the country. It is calculated that in Syria there are up to 700,000 Christians who have left Iraq, an equal number in Jordan, 80,000 in Egypt, and 40,000 in Lebanon. Most of them are stuck where they are, without any assistance or recognized rights, waiting for an unlikely visa for Europe, Australia, the Americas.

In Iraq, Christians are traditionally present in the professions. Many are doctors and engineers. In the schools, they are – or were – 20 percent of the teachers. They are active in the sectors of computing, construction, lodging, specialized agriculture. They manage radio and television outlets. They work as translators and interpreters, a particularly vulnerable profession that already numbers three hundred victims.

The Iraqi constitution establishes for all religions an equality of rights that has no rival in the legislation of other Arab and Muslim countries. But the reality is the opposite. The magazine of geopolitics “Limes” wrote in an article in its latest issue, the third of 2007:

“The annihilation of the small yet great Iraqi Christian people, heirs of the hope of the prophets, would correspond to the end of the possibility that the new Iraq could become a free and democratic nation.”

And this would be a dramatic defeat for the Church as well.

[FishForLunch]

Why is it shocking what else would you expect from the ROP (As Bush like to put it) [Religion of Peace]

[alexamenos]

Originally Posted by FishForLunch

Why is it shocking what else would you expect from the ROP (As Bush like to put it) [Religion of Peace]

It's not shocking at all. It's just a sad consequence of our Iraqi adventure.

'nother story on the matter.

[big_pth]

Sadaam didn't like christians, but he still kept the peace between the religious groups because EVERYBODY was scared of him. I am not sure what people expected. Sadaam was the only thing keeping them from each other's throats. Before him, it was the British...

[dude1394]

It's not shocking. It's happening everywhere that islam is. Just look at malaysia, they actually have just ruled that a person is not allowed to change their religion. This is their supreme court no less.

That culture is screwed.

[Motofoto]

Originally Posted by big_pth

Sadaam didn't like christians, but he still kept the peace between the religious groups because EVERYBODY was scared of him. I am not sure what people expected. Sadaam was the only thing keeping them from each other's throats. Before him, it was the British...

Actually Christians didn't have it too bad under the previous regime in Iraq. The Baath party was actually the creation of an Arab Christian. There were even a few powerful Christians in the Hussain regime (Tariq Aziz is the one I can recall offhand, but i know there were more). Apparently the reason Saddam liked Christians in the govt. was because he knew they would never try to assasinate him and take his place because they knew the Iraqi people would never allow the country to be ruled by an unbeliever (not absolutely sure if that was the reason, but this is what I read somewhere)

[mcsluggo]

Originally Posted by big_pth

Sadaam didn't like christians, but he still kept the peace between the religious groups because EVERYBODY was scared of him. I am not sure what people expected. Sadaam was the only thing keeping them from each other's throats. Before him, it was the British...

hmmm. Interesting that those Christians had somehow managed to be there for nearly 2000 years. THose Brits are even more omnipresent and efficient than I had believed.

[alexamenos]

Originally Posted by mcsluggo

hmmm. Interesting that those Christians had somehow managed to be there for nearly 2000 years. THose Brits are even more omnipresent and efficient than I had believed.

interesting....

lessee....Iraqi Christians survived Roman persecutions, Arianism and other early heresies, multiple conflicts between Islam and Christianity, the Ottoman Empire, the Brits and Saddam....

...but damn those neocons.

[alexamenos]

other interesting stuff in Iraq...........

There's a sect of people commonly called "mandeans" in the southern part of iraq....they're thought to be descendants of very early gnostics (perhaps *heretical* christians) who still practice the act of baptism ala John the Baptist...supposedly they're like an anthropologist's or religious historian's wet dream -- a group straight out of the 2nd century.

they'll be wiped out in no time, if they're not already.

cheers

[Motofoto]

Originally Posted by alexamenos

other interesting stuff in Iraq...........

There's a sect of people commonly called "mandeans" in the southern part of iraq....they're thought to be descendants of very early gnostics (perhaps *heretical* christians) who still practice the act of baptism ala John the Baptist...supposedly they're like an anthropologist's or religious historian's wet dream -- a group straight out of the 2nd century.

they'll be wiped out in no time, if they're not already.

cheers

Interesting. Also there are Yazdis in the north who practice a pre-islamic faith. (although I do believe Islam has influenced it over the years) Apparently they have become the target of extremists.

[dude1394]

Originally Posted by alexamenos

interesting....

lessee....Iraqi Christians survived Roman persecutions, Arianism and other early heresies, multiple conflicts between Islam and Christianity, the Ottoman Empire, the Brits and Saddam....

...but damn those neocons.

Pathetic...So we overthrow a tyrant(who gassed, raped, killed to stay in power) and the indiginous population (sort of like bosnia, darfur, titsus, hitus) take advantage of that to settle old scores and it's the liberators who did all of the killing. Pathetic moral equivalency.

Should have left hitler in power as well, he'd have controlled those zionists.

[Motofoto]

Originally Posted by dude1394

Pathetic...So we overthrow a tyrant(who gassed, raped, killed to stay in power) and the indiginous population (sort of like bosnia, darfur, titsus, hitus) take advantage of that to settle old scores and it's the liberators who did all of the killing. Pathetic moral equivalency.

Should have left hitler in power as well, he'd have controlled those zionists.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_Law

I would agree with you that the blame for the violence should be put on those who are committing the heinous crimes. That being said, It's fair game to say the coalition failed in establishing a secure environment in the country. Whether it was disregarding General Shinseki's warning about troop levels or the disbanding of the Iraqi army (many of these people now make up the insurgency), etc.

[dude1394]

Originally Posted by Motofoto

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_Law

I would agree with you that the blame for the violence should be put on those who are committing the heinous crimes. That being said, It's fair game to say the coalition failed in establishing a secure environment in the country. Whether it was disregarding General Shinseki's warning about troop levels or the disbanding of the Iraqi army (many of these people now make up the insurgency), etc.

I have no issue with quarrelling about tactics. I'm not sure about how many of the military make up the insurgency, I don't really get a good feel for the makeup of them. They blow up just as many sunni it seems as shia. They also blow up shia with the express purpose of having the shia retaliate against sunni.

It's very tragic. There are some truly heroic Iraqi's fighting and dying for their freedom and country and on the flip side, some of the most nihilistic of people willing to commit any atrocity to get what they want, very little honor.

I've been pretty close to the "who gives a crap about arabs anyway" stance as the culture seems doomed to be ruled by dictators forever. There's a reason they seem to desire a caliphate, their thinking is stuck in th 15th century.

The one thing I won't do however is impugn the US's motives here or engage in any sort of moral equivalism.

[alexamenos]

Originally Posted by dude1394

Pathetic...So we overthrow a tyrant(who gassed, raped, killed to stay in power) and the indiginous population (sort of like bosnia, darfur, titsus, hitus) take advantage of that to settle old scores and it's the liberators who did all of the killing. Pathetic moral equivalency.

I was speaking of the neocons more in the "tide of history" sense and not directly as actors "who did all the killing."

It was the neocons vision, afterall, to remake iraq into a nice little democracy. Sadly, (but quite predicatably, I might add) it turns out that a whole lot of iraqis have a proclivity for working things out in ways that aren't exactly ballot-box friendly. This sad state of affairs is what you get when you try to fit a proverbial square sharia peg in a round western democracy hole.

.............

once upon a time, conservatives understood that revolutions were uncertain things. Edmund Burke, a long dead english fellow who might reasonably be called the first *Conservative*, said of France's democratic revolution:

"we don't know much about the people of France, and we don't have any way of knowing what they'll do with their new found power. Shouldn't we at least wait until we see what the french peasants do with their power before we celebrate it too much?"

Turns out the guy was right....a few years later and the frog's democratic revolution had devolved into Robespierre's reign of terror and then Napoleon's rampage across Europe. And today they're a bunch of cheese eating surrender monkeys.

It's much like this in Iraq -- we went in all giddy about how great it'd be to liberate us some iraqis without too much concern for what iraqis might do after they got themselves liberated from Saddam.

[alexamenos]

Originally Posted by Motofoto

....That being said, It's fair game to say the coalition failed in establishing a secure environment in the country. Whether it was disregarding General Shinseki's warning about troop levels or the disbanding of the Iraqi army (many of these people now make up the insurgency), etc.

I think the bigger problem was in the objective, not the tactics.