Nobody is helping Iraq’s Christians, an article about our campaign A Demand For Action and the situation in Iraq. Please read Ivar Arpis article, translated by us from Swedish to English to serve our members who do not speak Swedish. This article was posted as an editorial in Svenska Dagbladet on 21 July and has been shared almost 10 000 times on Facebook! #demandforaction By Ivar Arpi Fast forward a few years into the future. There are no more Christians left in Syria and Iraq. Churches have either been torn down, emptied, or turned into mosques. There are only ruins left to remind us of the millions of Christians who lived there for over 1700 years. Will we then ask ourselves why we did nothing to save them? An image has gone viral in social media – a wrinkly old woman leaning forward on a church bench. She is resting her face against her arms. Her eyes look tired. When the Jihadists of ISIS, now only called the Islamic state (IS), approached Mosul in Iraq, most of the citys thousands of Christians escaped. This past Friday, IS told the remaining people that they had a few hours to leave the city or they would face the sword. A lot people had their possessions and money seized at IS-controlled roadblocks on their way out of the city. The woman in that viral image is one of a handful of Christians who still remain in Mosul: those who are too tired, too old or too determined to escape. They know what awaits them. Around half of the 400,000 Christian Assyrians/Syrians remaining in Iraq are in the north, where the IS is strongest. Some remain in their areas of origin in the Nineveh Plains, and others are in Iraqi Kurdistan, which is controlled by Peshmerga forces. Perhaps Christians will be better protected there. In nearly every Muslim country, Christians are either oppressed, persecuted or displaced. The Kurds of northern Iraq may prove an exception. But its a temporary solution. They need a more permanent sanctuary, perhaps in the Nineveh Plains. Journalist Nuri Kino has started A Demand For Action, an initiative demanding that the international community act to protect the Assyrians/Syriacs and other non-Muslims in Iraq and Syria. No one will be able to claim ignorance of this unfolding tragedy, Kino writes. The first victim of war is truth. But the second victim is language, which soon is invaded by periphrases and euphemisms. For example, the Church of Sweden avoids stating specifically that Christians are being persecuted – instead using the term faithful in an attempt to encompass several religious groups in the description. On the whole, the Church of Sweden’s agenda is a peculiar one. They would rather boycott oranges from Israel than commit to helping persecuted Christians. MP Fredrik Malm (FP) pointed this out earlier this year (Kyrkans tidning 20/2). The Church of Sweden is choosing silence as a strategy to deal with the ongoing cleansing of Christians in Iraq and Syria, according to both Archbishop Anders Wejryd (DN Debatt 26/2) and Bishop Eva Brunne (SvD Brännpunkt 12/7). Their silence is indicative of twisted priorities. According to Pew Research Center, Christians are the most persecuted religious group in the world, especially in Iraq and Syria (Jan 2014). To put it mildly, silence is simply not enough. The Christians of the Middle East never seem to fit the narrative requirements necessary to get the attention of the media. There is much more coverage of the Israel-Palestine conflict than of the volatile situation that Christians in countries such as Syria, Iraq and Egypt are now finding themselves in. Still, in the West we largely associate ourselves with Christianity, despite the fact that three-quarters of Christians live in other parts of the world. Christians of the Middle East almost never make the news. It seems we are haunted by some sort of misguided Colonial conscience. Had the roles been reversed – with Muslims being expelled from an entire region - we wouldn’t be devoting ourselves to such periphrases. But when the perpetrators are Muslims, we are cautious because they are a minority in Europe. However, it is possible to keep two thoughts in your head simultaneously. So let us be very clear about this: what is happening to the Christians of Iraq and Syria at this moment is nothing less than a crime against humanity. The indigenous Christians of the Middle East are being displaced from their ancestral homes, but few people seem to care. Nobody does anything. It’s the wrong indigenous group, the wrong perpetrators, at the wrong time. But we know whats going on. We cannot plead ignorance, not now and not in a few years. It is the privilege of the safe, the lazy and the cowardly to ask in retrospect: Why didn’t anyone do something?
Posted on: Thu, 24 Jul 2014 22:11:23 +0000
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