Christians in Iraq have been excluded from aid distribution. From KurdishMedia News, with thanks to Andy:
New York (KurdishMedia.com) 18 June 2004: Christian Democrat MEP Albert Jan Maat has asked the European Commission questions about the distribution the 160 million euro in funds approved for the distribution in Iraq by the European Commission. These questions, which regarded the Assyrian Christians of Iraq, were as follows:"The Commission has decided that 160 million EUR can be devoted to the reconstruction of Iraq. What guarantees can the Commission give that religious minorities can benefit from these funds on the basis of proportionality?"
"Is the Commission aware that Assyrian Christians are systematically excluded from the distribution of aid by local leaders?"
MEP Maat cited an element of religious favoritism as a root cause of the lack of aid being received by the Assyrians, stating, "International aid is mainly distributed through regional, and therefore Muslim, leaders and seldom or never reaches the Assyrians."
The British forces left Iraq in 1932. Within five months the Muslims were massacring the Christian Assyrians. Both Kurds and Arabs took part. How many died? Some say hundreds of thousands. William Saroyan wrote a book about it: "70,000 Assyrians." Perhaps it was as "few" as 70,000. There have been cases -- and you can find them on line -- of Christian girls kidnapped, or sent to work for a Muslim family (there was one on-line recently, about a girl who had gone to work for a family of a local Kurdish leader, tried to escape, was murdered, and her body somehow returned to her family. Nothing to be done, of course. Yes, I know American soldiers have found the Kurds, by comparison with the Arabs, eminently trustworthy and altogether splendid, but let's not get carried away. It was not the Turks alone who massacred the Armenians (in 1994-1895, and then from 1915-1920) but in a great many areas, it was Muslim Kurds who did the killing. In Kurdistan, in the 19th century, the treatment of non-Muslims (both Christians and Jews) was atrocious: the full dhimmitude, punctuated by murder.
The Ba'athist regime was "secular" to this extent: it did protect, to some degree, the Christian population from the kind of low-level terrorizing and forced conversion that has been going on recently. The ancient libraries of the Mandeans, a Gnostic sect, have been destroyed. Christians in Basra have been attacked and murdered. All the remaining Christian families in Ramadi, in that hideous isosceles Sunni triangle, have been forcibly converted, the women kidnapped in some cases, never to return (try to guess what happens to them).
YOu can find this information on the various Assyrian or Chaldean websites, bit by terrible bit. You can even read some books, including that by the gifted William Saroyan (not as amusing as his wonderful ex-wife, Carol, who then married Walter Matthau). I suppose it is silly even to raise this issue, because since those bad old days of 1933, or of 1915, or 1800, or 1400, or...-well, since those bad old days, there has been such an obvious moral improvement in Islam, such a change in the way non-Muslims are regarded and treated. Yes, one would hardly recognize the "old" Islam from the brand-new progressive version we see all about us.
So I apologize for needlessly alarming anyone. I'm sure everything will work out just fine for the remaining Christians in Iraq. Look at how wonderfully things worked out in Lebanon for the original Lebanese, the Maronites -- I mean, the massacre of all the Christians at Damur was obviously an aberration committed by a handful of extremists. Islam has officially been declared to be a religion of "peace" and "tolerance." It would be pointless, wouldn't it, to suggest otherwise?
What about christians in Iraq? Why doesn't anybody talk about them? You'd think that George Bush with his hotline to the almighty would want to talk about Iraqi christians.
Gary..... (thanx) ... I did see the note you penned to me telling where the Archives were. I only read the little Jihad newsletter that came to my mailbox. I didn't know about the 'Home Page'
I am over-whelmed with all the research and writing done by you guys. It takes me 'ages' just to read what Hugh and others have written.
And I do hold a trophy from the speed reading class from College of the Redwoods - Eureka, Ca. The instructor said "Hartsfield, you're the first guy in history that tests as reading slower upon graduation, than you did when tested at the beginning of the class.
Thanx, again
Thank goodness this issue has been raised. It is an absolute disgrace that it has been so long ignored.
In fact the status of all eastern christian minorities is continually ignored by the west .
Will we see another Sudan or PLO massacre or christian lebanese or the christian armenians ?
Not only do we do nothing but we rewrite history to assasinate the memories too.
Go out and buy "The Decline of Eastern Christianity Under Islam" by Bat Ye'or. Or order it on-line. It is in paperback. It has an attractive blue cover. It is not expensive. The contents are even better than the cover. And don't forget to read the book once you have bought it, from blue cover to blue cover.
Iraqi christians are now in much more worse conditions under Islamc exrtremist than saddams rule, they are accused of being pro west and pro america, unfortunatly they are completly ignored by Western and American politician,
I just happened to stumble across this website, but I have been reading the articles and comments since 0630. Great website! Keep up the good work.
Mt 5:11 Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for my sake. "Rejoice and be exceedingly gald, for great is your reward in heaven.
Its the only hope I can find for them...
May God bless them!
It´s the unique stain, and in my opinion very important of the Iraq War, without christians, the democracy in Iraq only will be a theatre. It´s a pity but with these wars only are strengthen islam, and in the same time we are fighting with islamic terrorism, it´s a paradox thing.
Hugh
have you considered a blogsite of your own or writing a book?
The thing is that Iraqi christians had more rights under Saddam, than they ever will in an Islamic theocracy in Iraq.
What were people thinking? Why get rid of a secular government that allows Iraqi christians to worship their religion?
Saddam tortured people?
Well wait to see how many people get tortured under an Islamic theocracy in Iraq. How many unbelievers will get beheaded? How many rape victims will get beheaded for "adultery"? But I guess we won't be allowed to talk about that.
DP said, "Hugh
have you considered a blogsite of your own or writing a book?"
I agree Hugh, get busy and get a website going, you have lots to say and you are good at saying it.
"Your grandchildren will be writers of and for the truth.”
Just finished Martin Gilbert's book "WWI".
The troubles the Iraqi Christians confront reminds
me of the sections on Christian Armenians.
The Christian Armenians were besieged by Muslim
Turks and WIPED OUT.
The Armenians plead with the Germans, the allies of
the Turks, for mercy and help in ending the killing.
Some Germans were appalled and tried to apply some
pressure. The Turks ignored them and continued the
intentional wholesale slaughter of Christian Armenians.
Well, we all know what happened. Nothing.
I recently read that the only position given to an Assyrian Christian in the new Iraqi government is the Minister of Emigration. I think that says it all! The Mandaeans, an even smaller sect than the Chaldean and Assyrican Christians in Iraq, are suffering perhaps even more than the Christians because they are not"People of the Book." It really is open season on them and many of their men have been murdered since the fall of Hussein/American arrival, many of their women kidnapped and raped, their businesses burned and their libraries burned, a terrific loss for the world. I support our brave troops 100% but I think that we have lost our way politically. Why should we give up the lives of our young men and women and billions of dollars of our tax money to set up two new Islamic Republics, in Afghanistan and Iraq?
From what I've read, Saddam used to protect the Christian minority in Iraq more for propaganda than anything else, but the fact is that he DID protect them. Once he was gone, the threats started, followed by all the actions as stated above by other posts.
When the soon to be installed democracy's constitution declared Islam to be the offical state religion, there went the whole idea of true democracy - Islam has nothing compatible with the governmental form of either democracy or a republic, and many of their "holiest" men have quite openly declared as such. I don't have much hope for democracy's survival in the future Iraq.
Does anyone understand the reasons for the west's silence over so many centuries on the issue of the persecution of eastern christianity under islamic domination ?
Davo
Maybe the west is just so terrified of Islam, that they are scared of speaking out. It's dhimmitude; don't do anything to offend muslims. That's why in the west, criticism of Islam is seen as Islamophobia which is then called racism.
Maybe we should all start speaking up!
The reason the "west" ignores the plight of Christians around the world is again to appear Politically Correct...
It is imagined that since at least in America, Christianity is the majority faith (2000 census), that we somehow must take unusual measures to avoid being seen as oppressing others, or favoring our own. This, it is imagined, will make us appear superior to others, when in fact it makes us appear ignorant and compromised to the point of being totally in effective.
This insanity has lead to an internal "war" being waged against Christianity by the minority, like the ACLU and others that are well funded by those that would love to see Christianity wiped out and forgotten. This lack of human compassion for Christians, by Christians is being well reported by what is NOT reported and seen worldwide, so what do we think is going to happen?
This insane mindset has also lead to under-reaction on behalf of Christians worldwide and the plights they suffer at the hands of mainly Muslims. Most of these atrocities are not even reported by the mainstream media as atrocities against Christians. I mean GOD Forbid we as a nation seem to favor and therefore promote a religion!
But what has happened as a result of this policy is we HAVE promoted the religion called Islam. Islam has taken our silence and lack of will to help other Christians as "Allah’s" will that they prevail. We have been marked as secular and weak. We are seen as worshipping the power of the almighty dollar and not much else...
No wonder they attack with such fervor and glee! They can count on us to hide the atrocities and mass murders from the American public, 84% of which claim to be Christians, by cloaking them in diplomatic double talk, and rewriting history to exonerate ourselves.
We as a Nation and as a Culture have bent over so far backwards to appear fair and non bias that we have made ourselves an easy target, even a helpful target. When the enemy can count on our “sophisticated” news media to fail to report the truth when it opposes their ideology, they have us exactly where they want us.
FYI: Assyrian Christian info site
http://assyrianchristians.com/commentaries.htm
Great Post susanc !
Our own belief in human rights and our democracy have ultimately made us weak!
Unable to defend ourselves, we are handing our civilisation to them on a plate.
Genocide only occurs when Muslims die (so the LLL/ media tells us). When Christians (or Hindus or Buddhists) die, it is acceptable (from the same LLL/ Western media). Just look at Indonesia, India (Kashmir), or Nigeria for the modern day equavalent of the Assyrian genocide.
My hat is off to Mijnheer (or Monsieur? or Mein Herr? etc.) Maat.
A problem with diplomacy is that it is a matter of leaderships talking with leaderships. It also wants relations to go as smoothly as possible. If one leadership is bogoted Muslim, and the other is bigoted and unelected post-Christian Western, then the people in northern Iraq, Sulawesi, the Moluccas, and elsewhere have to get it in the neck.
As someone who remembers the 1960's, that rotten decade that still casts its destructive shadow, I recall that part of the myth of American exceptionalism I got in that factory of misinformation we called a school was that the great, anointed "we" (it was still the time when "we" were going to abolish poverty by legal fiat and build nations in SE Asia) were the world's one and only melting pot (actually, the Brazilians and Mexicans were better at it, since they were supposedly free from the taint of racism, as their innumerable shades of color proved--never mind that in parts of Mexico, "Indio" was an insult). Even in good schools, people assumed that if you were from south of the Mediterranean, you had to be some kind of undifferentiated black (it's Africa down there, isn't it?).
People coming to this blog know about Assyrians and Copts and probably also know that slightly more than half of Israeli Jews are Mizrahi rather than European--but that's because we've made it a point to know.
But I'd also advocate long, loud, and persistent noises being made on behalf of the Middle East's minorities.