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MOSUL'S CHRISTIANS FLEE THEIR HOMES
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
June 23, 2014 Monday
THE DESTRUCTION OF IRAQ'S ANCIENT CHRISTIAN CULTURE IS A DISASTER
FOR THE WORLD
by Christian Caryl, EDITORIAL; Pg. B-7
I've been reading the headlines from northern Iraq over the past two
weeks with an intensifying sense of dread. It's a feeling very much
like the one I have whenever I read about the disappearance of some
huge ice sheet in the Antarctic or the extinction of yet another rare
species of animal. It's the feeling that one more valuable ingredient
of life on Earth is about to vanish, in all likelihood, forever.
The takeover of Mosul, Iraq's second-largest city, by the jihadist
troops of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria is a catastrophe for the
people of Iraq, who now face a revival of full-blown sectarian warfare,
and a strategic and psychological nightmare for the United States,
which sacrificed vast amounts of blood and treasure to topple Saddam
Hussein and build a viable government - the latter, it would seem,
in vain.
But over the past week or so I've found myself mourning a more
specific disaster: the flight and dispersal of the last remnants of
Iraq's once-proud community of Christians.
Emil Shimoun Nona, the archbishop of the Chaldean Catholics of Mosul,
has told news agencies that the few Christians remaining in the city
prior to the ISIS invasion have abandoned the city. Since the Americans
invaded Iraq in 2003, he estimates, Mosul's Christian population
dwindled from 35,000 to some 3,000. "Now there is no one left,"
he said. Most of the Christians have joined the estimated 500,000
refugees who have fled the ISIS advance; many of them, including the
archbishop, have opted for the relative security of Iraqi Kurdistan.
The exodus has been triggered, above all, by the jihadists' reputation
for bloodlust - a reputation that ISIS has consciously furthered
through its own propaganda. Last week the jihadists used social media
to distribute photos supporting their claim that they had killed 1,700
Shiite prisoners. No sooner had ISIS entered Mosul than some of their
fighters set fire to an Armenian church. This all seems consistent
with the group's grim record during the civil war in Syria, where,
among other things, it has revived medieval Islamic restrictions on
Christian populations.
In 2003, it was estimated that some 1.5 million Iraqis were Christians,
about 5 percent of the population. Since then, the overwhelming
majority has reacted to widening sectarian conflict and a series
of terrorist attacks by leaving the country. (Archbishop Nona's
predecessor, Paulos Faraj Rahho, was kidnapped and killed outside
his Mosul church back in 2008.)
Almost all of the Iraqi Christian communities - the Chaldeans (who
are part of the Roman Catholic Church), the Armenians, the Syriac
Orthodox, the Greek Orthodox - have benefited from large emigre
contingents around the world who have welcomed refugees from Iraq.
I'm glad that these believers have saved themselves and their faith,
but their emigration comes at a cost - as they themselves are only
too aware.
For the past 2,000 years, Iraq has been home to a distinct and vibrant
culture of Eastern Christianity. Now that storied history appears to
be coming to an end. Even if the ISIS forces are ultimately driven
back, it's hard to imagine that the Mosul Christians who have fled
will see a future for themselves in an Iraq dominated by the current
Shiite dictatorship of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, which enjoys
strong support from Iran.
It's worth adding that Christians aren't the only ones in this
predicament. Iraq is also home to a number of other religious
minorities endangered by the country's polarization into two warring
camps of Islam.
The Yazidis follow a belief system that has a lot in common with the
ancient Persian religion of Zoroastrianism; about a half-million of
them live in northern Iraq. The Mandaeans, numbering only 30,000 or so,
are perhaps the world's last remaining adherents of Gnosticism, one
of the offshoots of early Christianity. By tradition many Mandaeans
are goldsmiths - a trade that has made them prominent targets for
abduction in the post-invasion anarchy of Iraq. Losing these unique
cultures makes the world a poorer place.
In the fall of 2003, I traveled to Mosul. It was a fateful moment for
the U.S.-led occupation, then just a few months old. I interviewed
Gen. David Petraeus, the commander of the American forces in the
region. The insurgency that had already flared into life in other
parts of the country was just reaching Mosul; while I was there,
several American soldiers were attacked by an angry mob and killed -
a harbinger of long years of violence to come.
But I soon discovered that there was a lot more to Mosul than the
headlines. The citizens of Mosul I met welcomed me with a spontaneous
hospitality that I hadn't experienced in the Iraqi capital. This may
have had something to do with the fact that Baghdad, the heart of
Saddam Hussein's brutal Baathist state, retained little palpable sense
of its rich historical past. Baghdad had an almost Soviet soullessness
- the vast tracts of ugly prefab housing wouldn't have looked out of
place in Warsaw or Beijing.
Mosul, by contrast, still retained its character as an Ottoman trade
route city, a place both scruffy and intimate. And it was enlivened
by a proud sense of its own diversity: You never knew whether the
next person you were going to meet was a Sunni or a Shiite, a Kurd
or a Christian.
The Christians were especially fascinating - above all, because it
was hard to escape the sense that you were witnessing the practice of
traditions you weren't going to find anywhere else. Some of Mosul's
Christians answer to Rome, some follow various Orthodox patriarchs
and some, like the members of the Ancient Church of the East, are
beholden to no authority but their own.
There are Christians in and around Mosul who still speak Aramaic,
the language of Christ.
I found myself admiring the interior of the Syrian Orthodox Church of
Mar Toma (St. Thomas), brilliantly lit by long strings of light bulbs.
The parishioners were especially proud of their big display Bible in
the ancient tongue of Syriac, whose elaborate calligraphy adorned
surfaces in many parts of the building. No one actually knows how
old the church is, but it dates back at least to the 8th century.
I also paid a visit to St. Paul's Cathedral, the seat of the Chaldean
Christians' archbishop, a stolid stone building that looked as though
it could withstand any attack. A year later it was bombed by jihadi
insurgents, badly damaging the structure.
For what it's worth, Mosul's long history of peaceful coexistence
doesn't seem to be completely dead. Archbishop Nona has told of
Muslims in Mosul banding together to guard the city's churches from
looting. Other reports from Mosul suggest that the Islamists are
trying to assuage the fears of religious minorities in the city.
But the Christians of northern Iraq can hardly be blamed if they're
unwilling to bank on these faint glimmers of hope - the jihadists'
record speaks too eloquently against them. Back in 2003, there was
little inkling of the disaster that was about to befall Iraq's
Christians. Today, there seems to be little that can be done to
reverse it.
NOTES: Christian Caryl, a former reporter at Newsweek, is the author of
"Strange Rebels: 1979 and the Birth of the 21st Century" and a senior
fellow at MIT's Center for International Studies. He wrote this for
Foreign Policy.
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
June 23, 2014 Monday
THE DESTRUCTION OF IRAQ'S ANCIENT CHRISTIAN CULTURE IS A DISASTER
FOR THE WORLD
by Christian Caryl, EDITORIAL; Pg. B-7
I've been reading the headlines from northern Iraq over the past two
weeks with an intensifying sense of dread. It's a feeling very much
like the one I have whenever I read about the disappearance of some
huge ice sheet in the Antarctic or the extinction of yet another rare
species of animal. It's the feeling that one more valuable ingredient
of life on Earth is about to vanish, in all likelihood, forever.
The takeover of Mosul, Iraq's second-largest city, by the jihadist
troops of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria is a catastrophe for the
people of Iraq, who now face a revival of full-blown sectarian warfare,
and a strategic and psychological nightmare for the United States,
which sacrificed vast amounts of blood and treasure to topple Saddam
Hussein and build a viable government - the latter, it would seem,
in vain.
But over the past week or so I've found myself mourning a more
specific disaster: the flight and dispersal of the last remnants of
Iraq's once-proud community of Christians.
Emil Shimoun Nona, the archbishop of the Chaldean Catholics of Mosul,
has told news agencies that the few Christians remaining in the city
prior to the ISIS invasion have abandoned the city. Since the Americans
invaded Iraq in 2003, he estimates, Mosul's Christian population
dwindled from 35,000 to some 3,000. "Now there is no one left,"
he said. Most of the Christians have joined the estimated 500,000
refugees who have fled the ISIS advance; many of them, including the
archbishop, have opted for the relative security of Iraqi Kurdistan.
The exodus has been triggered, above all, by the jihadists' reputation
for bloodlust - a reputation that ISIS has consciously furthered
through its own propaganda. Last week the jihadists used social media
to distribute photos supporting their claim that they had killed 1,700
Shiite prisoners. No sooner had ISIS entered Mosul than some of their
fighters set fire to an Armenian church. This all seems consistent
with the group's grim record during the civil war in Syria, where,
among other things, it has revived medieval Islamic restrictions on
Christian populations.
In 2003, it was estimated that some 1.5 million Iraqis were Christians,
about 5 percent of the population. Since then, the overwhelming
majority has reacted to widening sectarian conflict and a series
of terrorist attacks by leaving the country. (Archbishop Nona's
predecessor, Paulos Faraj Rahho, was kidnapped and killed outside
his Mosul church back in 2008.)
Almost all of the Iraqi Christian communities - the Chaldeans (who
are part of the Roman Catholic Church), the Armenians, the Syriac
Orthodox, the Greek Orthodox - have benefited from large emigre
contingents around the world who have welcomed refugees from Iraq.
I'm glad that these believers have saved themselves and their faith,
but their emigration comes at a cost - as they themselves are only
too aware.
For the past 2,000 years, Iraq has been home to a distinct and vibrant
culture of Eastern Christianity. Now that storied history appears to
be coming to an end. Even if the ISIS forces are ultimately driven
back, it's hard to imagine that the Mosul Christians who have fled
will see a future for themselves in an Iraq dominated by the current
Shiite dictatorship of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, which enjoys
strong support from Iran.
It's worth adding that Christians aren't the only ones in this
predicament. Iraq is also home to a number of other religious
minorities endangered by the country's polarization into two warring
camps of Islam.
The Yazidis follow a belief system that has a lot in common with the
ancient Persian religion of Zoroastrianism; about a half-million of
them live in northern Iraq. The Mandaeans, numbering only 30,000 or so,
are perhaps the world's last remaining adherents of Gnosticism, one
of the offshoots of early Christianity. By tradition many Mandaeans
are goldsmiths - a trade that has made them prominent targets for
abduction in the post-invasion anarchy of Iraq. Losing these unique
cultures makes the world a poorer place.
In the fall of 2003, I traveled to Mosul. It was a fateful moment for
the U.S.-led occupation, then just a few months old. I interviewed
Gen. David Petraeus, the commander of the American forces in the
region. The insurgency that had already flared into life in other
parts of the country was just reaching Mosul; while I was there,
several American soldiers were attacked by an angry mob and killed -
a harbinger of long years of violence to come.
But I soon discovered that there was a lot more to Mosul than the
headlines. The citizens of Mosul I met welcomed me with a spontaneous
hospitality that I hadn't experienced in the Iraqi capital. This may
have had something to do with the fact that Baghdad, the heart of
Saddam Hussein's brutal Baathist state, retained little palpable sense
of its rich historical past. Baghdad had an almost Soviet soullessness
- the vast tracts of ugly prefab housing wouldn't have looked out of
place in Warsaw or Beijing.
Mosul, by contrast, still retained its character as an Ottoman trade
route city, a place both scruffy and intimate. And it was enlivened
by a proud sense of its own diversity: You never knew whether the
next person you were going to meet was a Sunni or a Shiite, a Kurd
or a Christian.
The Christians were especially fascinating - above all, because it
was hard to escape the sense that you were witnessing the practice of
traditions you weren't going to find anywhere else. Some of Mosul's
Christians answer to Rome, some follow various Orthodox patriarchs
and some, like the members of the Ancient Church of the East, are
beholden to no authority but their own.
There are Christians in and around Mosul who still speak Aramaic,
the language of Christ.
I found myself admiring the interior of the Syrian Orthodox Church of
Mar Toma (St. Thomas), brilliantly lit by long strings of light bulbs.
The parishioners were especially proud of their big display Bible in
the ancient tongue of Syriac, whose elaborate calligraphy adorned
surfaces in many parts of the building. No one actually knows how
old the church is, but it dates back at least to the 8th century.
I also paid a visit to St. Paul's Cathedral, the seat of the Chaldean
Christians' archbishop, a stolid stone building that looked as though
it could withstand any attack. A year later it was bombed by jihadi
insurgents, badly damaging the structure.
For what it's worth, Mosul's long history of peaceful coexistence
doesn't seem to be completely dead. Archbishop Nona has told of
Muslims in Mosul banding together to guard the city's churches from
looting. Other reports from Mosul suggest that the Islamists are
trying to assuage the fears of religious minorities in the city.
But the Christians of northern Iraq can hardly be blamed if they're
unwilling to bank on these faint glimmers of hope - the jihadists'
record speaks too eloquently against them. Back in 2003, there was
little inkling of the disaster that was about to befall Iraq's
Christians. Today, there seems to be little that can be done to
reverse it.
NOTES: Christian Caryl, a former reporter at Newsweek, is the author of
"Strange Rebels: 1979 and the Birth of the 21st Century" and a senior
fellow at MIT's Center for International Studies. He wrote this for
Foreign Policy.