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  • Targeting Christianity

    Ottawa Sun, Canada
    Oct 26 2014

    Targeting Christianity

    By Michael Coren


    In this excerpt from his new book Hatred: Islam's War on Christianity,
    Michael Coren examines the persecution suffered by Christians in Syria
    and Iraq, and where terrorist attacks has resulted in countless deaths
    and forced thousands to flee for their lives...

    In March 2014, I interviewed Sister Hatune Dogan, a Turkish-born nun
    who is a member of the Universal Syrian Orthodox Church under the Holy
    See of Antioch. She and her family were forced to leave Turkey when
    she was a young girl because of Islamic persecution, and they found
    safety and refuge in Germany.

    She studied theology and psychotherapy in her adopted country and is
    now an accomplished, multilingual woman who has toured the world
    extensively and seen humanity at its finest as well as worst. She has
    travelled throughout the Islamic world, partly to expose the
    persecution of Christians and to try to ease their plights. She has
    spent particular time in recent years in Iraq and, most recently, in
    Syria. As much as she has seen many examples of atrocity and suffering
    over the years and is hardened and experienced, the fate of Syrian
    Christians has shocked her.

    "I met with a man who had gone out one morning to tend his fields. He
    did so in all innocence, as part of his daily routine. He suddenly
    looked up and saw a body, then another, then another. All of them with
    their heads cut off. He looked to the next field and then to the next
    and realized there were hun - dreds of murdered and decapitated people,
    all of them Christians. He still shakes even now when he describes the
    experience because of the trauma," she told me.

    ***

    What has occurred in Syria to Christians in particular in the past two
    years has been appalling and is all the more hor - rifying because Syria
    has been for many years one of the few places in the Arab world where
    Christians enjoyed something approaching equality. Ruled by an Arab
    nationalist rather than an Islamic ideology, and by the Ba'ath party
    under Hafez al-Assad and then his British-educated son Bashar Hafez
    al-Assad, Syria with its more than 2.5 million Christians, was a
    relatively modern, secular if heavily controlled and policed state.
    The Assads ruled despotically, were often oppressive and not at all
    democratic or liberal in any genuine sense, but sharia law did not
    dominate the body politic, and Assad, himself part of a Muslim
    minority sect, gave individual Christians positions of authority and
    responsibility, protected Christian communities, and tried to - at
    least within an Arab, Islamic context - achieve a relative separation
    of mosque and state. This is not in any way to paint Assad's Syria as
    some pluralistic paradise, but for Christians it was, relatively
    speaking, a place of freedom in which to live, to work, and to
    worship. The largest Christian communities are in Aleppo, Damascus,
    and Homs but Christians live - or lived - throughout the country.
    Syria claims not to have a state religion but the president has to be
    a Muslim and the various Christian churches - Eastern Orthodox,
    Eastern Rite Catholic, and various minority groups - are well aware of
    the limits to their rights and freedoms.

    ***

    In July 2013, the bodies of seven beheaded Christians were found in
    Homs. In November, a Christian section of Damascus was shelled and two
    people were killed. Also in November, nine Christian children were
    killed by debris when Islamists targeted a Christian school for mortar
    attack. In Sadad, six Christians, all members of a single family, were
    killed by Islamists. In December 2013, twelve people were killed in a
    church when Islamist militia attacked it because it was being used as
    a food distribution centre. In August 2014, in Marmarita a Christian
    was beheaded when he was discov - ered wearing a crucifix around his
    neck; in September 2014, a Christian was executed for refusing to
    convert to Islam, and the following month two Christians were
    kidnapped and beheaded in Deir Hassan.

    The terror is working. Christians have left and are leav - ing. The
    situation may improve for them but will never be the same for those
    whom they have left behind. The road to Damascus is now stained and
    soaked in blood and pain, and some of the oldest churches in the world
    have been destroyed or left as relics and lifeless museums of
    historical interest. Diasporas of Syrian Christians have now been
    created in North America and Europe but their homeland increasingly
    becomes Christian-free. It is precisely what many in the Muslim world
    have wanted for some time.

    While in Iraq there are numerous differences compared to the Syrian
    situation, some of the history is eerily similar. Christians had lived
    in Iraq since the earliest period of the Christian story, and the
    community in that country is one of the oldest and most established
    Christian cultures and societies in history. The Chaldeans became
    Christian in the first cen - tury, and Iraqi Christians are still mainly
    ethnic Chaldeans who speak a form of Eastern Aramaic, but there are
    also many Assyrians, Armenians, and Kurds. Denominations are
    num - erous, some of them ancient and some modern; they include Chaldean
    Catholic, Assyrian Church of the East, Syrian Orthodox, Syriac
    Catholic, Armenian Apostolic, Armenian Catholic, Roman Catholic, and
    various Protestant churches - so, an established, integral, and
    respected part of Iraq and the Middle East. Numbers can be difficult
    to establish because of fear on the part of Christians to
    self-identify and also due to state reluctance to give detailed
    information, or because some in authority want to deny the genuine
    size and significance of minorities. It seems, though, that by the
    early 1980s there were almost 1.5 million Christians in Iraq, perhaps
    9 per cent of the population. Recent figures speak of less than half a
    million, living mainly in Baghdad, Basra, Mosul, and Arbil, and some
    believe that the figure is closer to a mere two hundred thousand.

    Like Syria, Iraq had long been ruled by a secular form of Arab
    nationalism and a local version of Ba'athism. Saddam Hussein was also
    a despot but an even more controlling and sadistic leader than
    President Assad or his father. Partly as a policy of divide and
    conquer but also out of a genuine commit - ment to an Arab state that
    rejected Islamic fundamentalism and oppression of Arab Christians,
    Saddam tolerated and even protected his Christian minority when it was
    advantageous to him and his regime. But Iraqi Christians always lived
    a tenuous existence and knew they had to be watchful. Yet Saddam's
    deputy and effectively foreign minister for some time was Tariq Aziz,
    a Christian at least in name, tribe, and tradition.

    With the wars in Iraq, however, and the eventual fall of the brutal
    dictatorship of Saddam Hussein, the various Islamic sects in the
    country and their foreign Islamic allies began a vir - tual civil war,
    and Christians, refusing to participate in the sectarianism and often
    falsely perceived as being pro-Western or even pro-Saddam, were
    specifically targeted by Islamic mil - itias. It is tragic and perhaps
    indicative that a United States led by an evangelical Christian should
    lead a war in Iraq that led to the persecution and slaughter of
    Christians and the hemor - rhage of these ancient communities of
    followers of Jesus Christ from the heartland and homeland of
    Christianity. A war fought ostensibly to keep Christians safe in Ohio
    and Alabama has made the lives of Christians living in Baghdad and
    Mosul com - pletely unbearable.

    ***

    In April 2014, the Chaldean patriarch of Babylon, Mar Louis Raphael i
    Sako, head of the Assyrian Chaldean Catholic Church, delivered a long
    address concerning the history of Christians and Christianity in the
    Middle East and in particu - lar in Iraq. While he criticized Western
    intervention and imperialism and called for a just peace in Israel and
    Palestine, he also spoke of the reality of Christian life in modern
    Iraq:

    "About half of all Iraqi Christians, once numbering a mil - lion and a
    half, have left the country for fear of violence and religious
    persecution, especially after the massacre that took place in Baghdad
    in 2010, in the Church of Our Lady of Salvation, and the attack in
    Qaraqosh against Christian students on their way to the university.
    Taking property away from Christians, who are deemed without rights
    because they are not Muslim, threatening letters sent to Christians,
    as well as members of other non-Muslim minorities, are making
    Christians feel like second-class citizens. Therefore, the question
    is, are the men and women who have a great and illustrious past behind
    them destined to disappear from Mesopotamia and the land of their
    ancestors?"

    The answer is that unless and until something changes at the most
    fundamental level of Islam and in the Muslim approach to religious
    minorities in general and Christians in particular, yes, they will
    disappear. Not only in Mesopotamia, but throughout the Middle East.
    The battle for Christian continuity in Iraq is, if we are honest,
    largely lost, and in Syria matters look bleak indeed. Even at its
    best, Christian life in Syria is now dependent on the triumph and
    survival of a dicta - tor who is no genuine friend of Christianity and
    who has always been regarded by local Christians as a leader to be
    toler - ated rather than embraced. Christians from both countries have
    fled to various countries, often to Jordan, but there is no guarantee
    that the Jordanian royal family with its relatively lib - eral religious
    policies will remain in power. There is, simply, nowhere else left to
    go in the Middle East. This is a struggle for survival and it is being
    lost.

    Excerpted from Hatred by Michael Coren. Copyright (c) 2014 Michael
    Coren. Reprinted by permission of McClelland & Stewart, a Penguin
    Random House Company. All rights reserved.

    http://www.ottawasun.com/2014/10/23/targeting-christianity

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