Fin de Race?

William Dalrymple writes:

When George W Bush sent the US into Iraq in 2003, he believed he would be replacing Saddam Hussein with a peaceful, pro-American Arab democracy that would naturally look to the Christian west for support. In reality, seven years on, it appears that he has instead created a highly radicalised pro-Iranian sectarian killing field, where most of the Iraqi Christian minority has been forced to flee abroad.

This week saw new levels of violence directed at Iraq's Christians. Eight days after the attack on Baghdad's main Catholic church that left more than 50 worshippers dead, militants detonated more than 14 bombs in Christian suburbs, killing at least four and wounding about 30. Since then the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI), an al-Qaida front, has warned of a new wave of attacks on Christians "wherever they can be reached … We will open upon them the doors of destruction and rivers of blood."

Before Bush senior took on Saddam for the first time in 1991, there were more than a million Christians in Iraq. They made up just under 10% of the population, and were a prosperous and prominent minority, something exemplified by the high profile of Tariq Aziz, Saddam's Christian foreign minister. Educated and middle class, the Christians were concentrated in Mosul, Basra and especially Baghdad, which then had the largest Christian population of any city in the Middle East.

Of the 800,000 Christians still in Iraq when Dubya unleashed the US army on Saddam for the second time, two thirds have fled the country. In 2006, a priest was kidnapped, then found beheaded and dismembered; 15 churches have been bombed and many other priests killed. Iraqi refugees tell me that Christian women have suffered kidnap and rape, little of which has been reported.

The Christian community in Iraq is one of the oldest in the world: according to tradition it was St Thomas and his cousin Addai who first brought Christianity to Mesopotamia, soon after the crucifixion. At the council of Nicea, where the words of the creed were thrashed out in 325AD, there were more bishops from Mesopotamia than from western Europe. Later, the region became a refuge for groups considered heretical by the Orthodox Byzantines – such as the Mandeans, the last surviving Gnostic sect in the world, who follow what they believe to be the teachings of John the Baptist; and the Church of the East, or Nestorians, who played an important part in bringing Greek philosophy, science, mathematics, astronomy and medicine first to the Islamic world and then the universities of medieval Europe.

But with the collapse of the Ottoman empire, religious minorities fled to places where they could be majorities, while those too few for that have abandoned the region altogether, seeking out places less heavy with history, such as the US or Australia. Today, the Christians are a minority of 10 million in the Middle East, struggling to keep afloat amid 190 million non-Christians. In the last 20 years at least four million have left to make new lives for themselves in the west.

This haemorrhage accelerated after the ill-judged post-9/11 Anglo-American adventures in the Islamic world, and particularly after Bush used the word crusade, which in the eyes of many Muslims implicated the Arab Christians in a wider crusader assault on the Muslim world. So it was that two invasions that were intended to suppress terrorism actually had the reverse effect, radicalising the entire region. According to the historian Professor Kamal Salibi, of the American University of Beirut, the Christians have simply had enough: "There is a feeling of fin de race among Christians all over the Middle East," he told me. "It's a feeling that 14 centuries of having all the time to be smart, to be ahead of the others, is long enough. The Arab Christians tend to be well qualified, highly educated. Now they just want to go somewhere else."

Certainly, for the first time, that now looks like being a possibility in Iraq: last week Michael Youash, of the Iraq Sustainable Democracy Project, warned that in the near future "perhaps we'll find no Christians in Iraq". Given the overt Christian faith of the two architects of the invasion, Bush and Tony Blair, there is a tragic irony in the fact that their most lasting contribution to the region may well be to have created the environment that led to the destruction of Christianity in one of its ancient heartlands – something Arab, Mongol and Ottoman conquests all failed to pull off.

The splendid ICIN has also sent me this:

12th November 2010

Dear Prime Minister,

You were no doubt the first to be briefed about the horrific massacre of Christians at Our Lady of Deliverance in Baghdad on the 31 October 2010. This Barbaric and unprecedented crime, has not only left a trail of devastation but now threatens the very existence of Christians in Iraq. Christians have populated Iraq and living in peace since the first century AD well before the Roman Empire let alone Britain.

Last month’s massacre is only one in a long line of crimes that have befallen this community since the Invasion and occupation of Iraq by coalition forces. Iraqi Christians accounted approximately for 5% of the population in 2003, and about 1% now and their numbers are dwindling every passing day. Their lives have been turned to hell as they flee for their lives in and out of the country. Neighbouring Muslim countries have welcomed these refugees on a temporary basis with open arms
well beyond their capacity.

Given Britain’s role in putting these people in such a precarious position, it is not enough for this government to simply condemn these acts. We in the West have had the benefit of centuries of secular society and do not employ enough empathy in the Middle East which does not have, let alone take for granted the divide between politics and religion. Iraqi Christians who have for the whole striven to remain out of politics and live in peace with their Muslim brothers and sisters are being perceived and persecuted as natural allies of the West. They are now become victims of religious cleansing. Since even before the crusades, Arab Christians have been caught in the crossfire and we in Britain cannot continue ignore their plight, God knows we owe it to them.

We are Naturalised British citizens of Iraqi Christian Origin and others. We feel privileged to be living in this country, who feel proud to call ourselves British and who feel honoured to be able to bring up our children at the heart of this civilised and religiously tolerant society. We are however shocked and dismayed as voters and tax payers to find that this religious tolerance is taken to extremes when some people with radical backgrounds are allowed to enter and benefit from this country whilst spreading their doctrine of hate, whilst some Christians are being turned away. We appreciate the tough decisions on immigration policy you need to make, especially in this Economic climate and have every confidence you will make the right choices. Given Great Britain’s role in Iraq, at various points in History, it is a moral obligation to adopt an exceptional open arms policy to Iraqi Christians.

Some Iraqi religious leaders were even calling for Christians to leave Iraq, this view was not shared by all members of the church some of which had been calling for Christians to stay in Iraq and defend themselves. This is proving impossible as this recent massacre at the Church and the most recent wave of terrors by bombing Christian homes in 6 localities on the morning of 10-11-10 demonstrates. We demand you exercise your influence in Iraq and the region to ensure their protection, safety and security for them as long as they are in Iraq and welcome those who want to come to this country in line with other European countries that are in the process of doing so.

Thank you for your actions on this critical issue.

Yours sincerely,

Please read it and if you want to add your name just email us back on petition@icin.org.uk

Stating:
• your name
• address
• I agree to add my name to the letter dated 12th November 2010 to the PM

We have gathered lists of about 330 signatures in yesterday’s Remembrance Mass.
Your name will be added to these lists.

We are targeting 1000 signatures. Please respond ASAP.

We are planning to submit this letter electronically on Tuesday 16th Nov PM.

Thank you.