Exodus of Iraqi Christians in full flood as targeted killings grow

[DoYouEverWonder]

12 October 2004

It was midnight in Baghdad, not a time to be out in this place of violence. But the workers from the Baghdad Hunting Club had almost made it back home through the deserted streets when the tyres of their Kia minibus were shredded by a burst of gunfire.

The shots had come from a black Opel saloon which had tracked them from the club - a prestigious haunt of Iraq's new rich - after finishing the late shift. Four men, their faces covered by keffiyehs, slid open the door of the minibus and sprayed the occupants with Kalashnikov fire.

Their targets, seven Christians, were killed almost instantly. Two others were injured but survived. The dead were all breadwinners for their families in the close-knit Christian community in the suburb of al-Doura. These families now want to leave Iraq, joining the exodus of thousands of their co-religionists since the war.

The murders were the latest deadly attack against Iraq's Christians, a systematic and brutal campaign by Islamic extremists which began soon after the "liberation" by the United States and Britain. So far, 110 have been killed. In August, four churches in Baghdad and one in Mosul were blown up in a co-ordinated series of car bombings, killing 12 people and injuring 61 others.


http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=571219

Funny, we don't hear much about this is the US press? It seems the Christians were better off under Saddam, then they are under George Bush.

[beyurslf]

1. There was a woman in Poli Sci class today who insisted that Iraq

had "tens of millions" of Christians. Even the other conservatives were looking at her strangely. I think they are going over the deep end.

[kokomo]

2. Saddam protected Christians under his secular government.

Saddam's #2 man, Tariq Aziz, was a Christian.

The Chaldean Roman Catholic Church has existed in the Euphrates/Tigris valleys since the time of Christ...is one of the oldest Christian communities in the world.

Schools under Saddam were secular, NO teaching of Islam. But the schools the USA is building in Iraq are quickly becoming Islamist madrassas, teaching fundie Islam all day long, neglecting the 3 "R's" and science. In fifteen years, we will have educated a nation of religious wackos in Iraq bought and paid for by the U.S. taxpayer. Heard one Iraqi lament that in the next generation, Iraq will no longer have scientists, artist, lawyers, doctors, etc.

Meanwhile our schools crumble back in the USA.

[barb162]

5. Yep, never heard of Christians having problems under Saddam

what a sick-joke-disaster this war is.

[JPace]

3. Yep its all that wonderful freedom the AWOL regime is

so intent on giving to the Iraqi's.

[Hekate]

4. Weirdly enough, I thought Bush would be using this info...

...to further his own Crusader Rabbit agenda. He encouraged US missionaries to funnel humanitarian aid through their organizations, from what I read last year.

Hekate

[sandnsea]

6. Attacking Christians or the rich?

From this one story, I'm not so sure. Somehow it always seems like the Christians end up with the money in these Christian/Islam battles in various countries. Like Sudan.

[gottaB]

7. Assyrian and Chaldean Christians were persecuted by Hussein's govt.

Specifically they suffered under the policy of "Arabization." Is Tariq Aziz a good counter example?

As Baathist power increased, Assyrian influence and rights within Iraq decreased. Fear and intimidation became the rule as the regime attempted to divide families and communities; religious schisms among the Assyrians were manipulated in order to weaken their power. For example, in 1970, the regime succeeded in luring back to Iraq the venerable Mar Shimun, once the Assyrian nationalist firebrand who had sought millet status for the Assyrians some thirty-seven years before. Back in Iraq, he gave fulsome praise to the "leadership of the revolution."<9> Under the divide-and-rule policies of the Baath, some individual Assyrians enjoyed privileges. But Assyrian national and cultural life in Iraq virtually ended. Those Assyrians who held official positions under the Baath did so at the price of discarding their unique identity and native language. In short they had to cease being Assyrians.

By the time of the 1977 census, the regime referred to Assyrians as being either Arabs or Kurds. Assyrians were thus forced to deny their identity as Assyrians and became, in the parlance of the regime, "Arab Christians." Speaking Assyrian in public became a crime, and Assyrian nationalism was harshly punished. One extreme example of this "Arabization" program was Iraqi deputy prime minister, Tariq Aziz, an Assyrian-Chaldean Christian who changed his surname from Youkhana upon joining the Baath. Yet, despite Aziz's prominence in Iraqi politics and Saddam Hussein's use of Christian chefs to cook his meals, it was a shibboleth that Saddam was especially tolerant toward Christians. Although regime propaganda claimed that Iraqis enjoyed religious freedom, this applied only to ritual. The Baath prohibited all religious activities that linked Iraqi Christians to co-religionists abroad. For example, in 1978, the regime imprisoned more than 500 Assyrian members of the Bible Study Committee.

In the Iran-Iraq war, many Assyrians were drafted and sent to fight on the front lines. This resulted in a disproportionately high casualty rate. Soon thereafter, numerous Assyrians left for Kuwait, Lebanon, and other countries. Some families remained relatively secure for a while longer and hoped for the best. By 1990, however, Assyrian national identity in Iraq had all but been erased, to the point where foreign journalists unfamiliar with Iraqi history completely missed this hidden community and reported instead on the presence of Arab Christians (rather than Assyrians or Assyro-Chaldeans) in Baghdad. In the 1990s, the regime manipulated the United Nations Oil-for-Food program in order to further persecute the Assyrians, by stipulating that only "Arab Christians," and not Assyrians, could use ration cards.

Around this time and shortly after the 1991 Kuwait war, many Iraqi Assyrians left for Australia, Canada, and the United States. Indeed, since 1991, some 50 percent of Iraq's Christians have left the country. Some 400,000 Assyrians are now living in North America, particularly Detroit, Phoenix, San Jose, Toronto, and Windsor. Community life in North America is vibrant. In addition to churches, Assyrian-Americans have a multitude of websites, chat rooms, and message boards that allow for Assyrians throughout the world to communicate and share ideas. There are likewise several radio shows devoted to Assyrian concerns.<10> Sargon Dadesho, a staunch Assyrian nationalist who survived an assassination attempt by Iraqi agents in California, founded an Assyrian satellite television station that broadcasts into Assyrian homes in the diaspora.

http://www.meforum.org/article/558

If you look at what Iraqi Christians are talking about today, there is much concern about the tide of anti-Christian violence, but precious little nostalgia for Saddam Hussein.

http://www.aina.org

http://www.nineveh.com

http://www.assyrianchristians.com/news.htm