Another Baghdad Massacre:
Iraqi Christians Are Already at Home
by Ramzy Baroud
On
Sunday, October 31, when a group of militants seized a church in
Baghdad, killing and wounding scores of Iraqi Christians, it signaled
yet another episode of unimaginable horror in the country since the US
invasion of March 2003. Every group of Iraqis has faced terrible
devastation as a result of this war, the magnitude of which is only now
beginning to be discovered.
True,
the situation in Iraq was difficult prior to the war. Having visited
the country in 1999, I can testify to this. But the hardship suffered by
many Iraqis, especially political dissidents, was in some way typical
characteristic of authoritarian and dictatorial regimes. Iraq could, at
that time, be easily contrasted with other countries living under
similar hardships. But what has happened since the war can barely be
compared to any other country or any other wars since World War II.
Even
putting aside the devastating death toll, the sheer scale of internal
displacement and forced emigration is terrifying. This is a nation that
had more or less maintained a consistent level of demographic cohesion
for many generations. It was this cohesion that made Iraq what it was.
Iraqi
Christians communities had co-existed alongside their Muslim neighbors
for hundreds of years.
The churches of the two main Christian groups,
the Assyrians and Chaldeans are dated back to the years A.D. 33 and 34
respectively. A recent editorial in an Arab newspaper was entitled “Arab
Christians should feel at home.” As moving as the article was, the fact
is, the fact remains that Arab Christians should not have to feel at
home – they already are at home. Their roots dates back to the days of
Jesus Christ, and since then they have maintained a unique identity and
proud history under the most difficult of circumstances.
I
recall a group of Iraqi children from a Chaldeans school dressed up in
beautiful dark blue uniforms performing the morning nashids (songs)
before going to class. They were so innocent and full of life. Their
eyes spoke of promise and excitement about the future. I dread to
imagine how many of these children were killed, wounded or forcefully
displaced with their families, like millions of other Iraqis from all
ethnic and religious backgrounds.
Today
merely half of Iraq’s Christians are still living in the country, when
compared to the 1987 census which listed 1.4 million Iraqi Christians.
The number, following the most recent killings which resulted from Iraqi
forces storming the church and exchanging fire with the kidnappers, is
dwindling rapidly. The plight of Iraqi Christians seems very similar to
that of Palestinian Christians, whose numbers have plummeted and
continue to fall following the Israeli occupation of Jerusalem, the West
Bank and Gaza in 1967. The Palestinian Christian Diaspora was a direct
outcome of the Israeli occupation and the original takeover of historic
Palestine in 1948. The Israeli government sees no difference between a
Palestinian Christian and a Muslim.
But
none of this was deemed worthy of discussion in much of the Western
media, perhaps because it risked hurting the sensibility of the Israeli
occupier. The troubling news coming from Iraq can now be manipulated by
presenting the suffering of Christians as an offshoot of a larger
conflict between Islamic militants and Christians communities in Iraq.
The
fact is that Iraqi society has long been known for its tolerance and
acceptance of minorities. There were days when no one used such
references as Shai, Sunni and Christians; there one Iraq and one Iraqi
people. This has completely changed, for part of the strategy following
the invasion of Iraq was to emphasize and manipulate the ethnic and
religious demarcation of the country, creating insurmountable divides.
Without a centralized power to guide and channel the collective
responses of the Iraqi people, all hell broke loose. Masked men with
convenient militant names but no identities disappeared as quickly as
they popped up to wreak havoc in the country. The communal trust that
held together the fabric of the Iraqi society during the hardest of
times dissolved. Utter chaos and mistrust took over, and the rest is
history.
There
is no question regarding the brutality and sheer wickedness of those
who caused the recent murder of 52 Iraqi Christians, including a priest,
in Baghdad’s main Roman Catholic church. But to confuse the issue as
one between Muslims and Christians, or as a UPI report misleadingly put
it - “Iraq's Christians caught between majority Shiite and minority
Sunni Muslims” - is a major injustice. It is also dangerous, for when
such notions become acceptable, it enable foreign powers to justify
their continued presence in Iraq on the premise that they are there to
protect those ‘caught’ in the middle. In fact, for hundreds of years,
every colonial power in the Middle East has used such logic to
rationalize their violence and exploitation.
Indeed,
there are many who are ready to use such tragedies to serve their
political interests or to retrospectively validate their wanton action
in Iraq. This arrogant mentality compelled Republican strategist Jack
Burkman in an Aljazeera English program last May to describe the people
of the Middle East as “a bunch of barbarians in the desert.”
Such
hubris is further strengthened by such killings as the one that
targeted Iraqi Christians. A US solider in Iraq, quoted on a recent
Democracy Now program referred to Iraqi culture as a “culture of
violence”, boasting that his country was trying to do something about
this.
Where
is the soul-searching and reflection that might ask what brought this
‘culture of violence’ to the surface? What will it take to see the
“bunch of barbarians” as simply human beings who, like any other, are
trying to survive, fend for their families and maintain an element of
normality and dignity in their lives?
As
for “Iraq’s Christians”, I must disagree with that depiction which is
used widely in the media. They are not Iraq’s Christians, but Iraqi
Christians. Their roots are as deep as the history of Mesopotamia, their
history as rich as the fertile soil of Tigris and Euphrates. No matter
how far their numbers may dwindle, like the rest of Iraqis of all
backgrounds, they will remain Iraqis. And their return to their country
is only a matter of time.
-
Ramzy Baroud (www.ramzybaroud.net) is an internationally-syndicated
columnist and the editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His latest book is
My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza's Untold Story (Pluto Press,
London), now available on Amazon.com.
