Reality Macedonia, Macedonia
Aug 5 2004
Is Iraq Another Yugoslavia?
By Sasha Uzunov
Churches belonging to the Christian Assyrians, one of Iraq’s
indigenous peoples, have become the latest target of terrorism in the
strife-torn country. This conjures up disturbing parallels with the
decade long religious and ethnic conflict in the Balkans.
Iraq reminds me of the former Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union, both
communist federations consisting of various competing ethnic groups.
Both of these nations lasted about 70 years before fragmenting
violently into a multitude of new nation states in the early 1990s.
Iraq is a hodge podge consisting of an ethnic Arab majority, many of
whom are Shiite or Sunni Muslim. A very small number are Arab
Christians. Add to this mixture, millions of Sunni Muslim Kurds and
Turkmans in the north of the country. Kurds are non-Arabs, whilst the
Turkmans are closely related to the Turks. Not forgetting the
Assyrian Christians, who were the original inhabitants of Iraq before
being swamped by an Islamic Arab invasion in 637 AD, more than 1300
years ago. There are also tiny numbers of ethnic Christian Armenians,
and two little known sects, the Sabia, who worship water, and the
Yazidi, mistakenly referred to as “devil worshipers.”
The irony is that Iraq is one of the cradles of Western and
Judeo-Christian civilisation. Anyone who has studied ancient history
at high school can recall the Sumerians, the Assyrians and the
Babylonians, and the mighty Tigris and Euphrates rivers.
Iraq has Yugoslavia written all over it. Can such a country survive
intact? Can the west, in particular the United States-lead coalition
of the willing, hold it all together?
The Kurds in the north have been fighting for their own homeland for
decades. Former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein brutally suppressed
them by gassing and bombing them. He also brutally suppressed the
Shiite Arab majority, located in the south, which have religious ties
to neighbouring non-Arab state, Iran, the descendant of Ancient
Persia.
Saddam, as a way of dividing the rival groups, appointed an Arab
Christian, the bespectacled Tariq Aziz, as his Foreign Minister.
Aziz, being a Christian had no hope of building an anti-Saddam
conspiracy.
Northern neighbour Turkey is not comfortable with an independent
Kurdistan arising from northern Iraq, as there are millions of Kurds
within Turkish borders. Turkey has fought a 20-year Kurdish
insurgency and is concerned about the plight of its Turkman kin.
Christian Assyrians also live in Syria and Iran. The father of famous
American tennis player, Andre Agassi, is an Assyrian from Iran. These
people are a small and persecuted minority in their own homelands. So
it comes as no great surprise that a large ethnic Assyrian diaspora
exists. In the next couple of months or years, don’t be surprised if
more of them try to flee to the west.
Another of those persecuted indigenous peoples we hardly hear about
is the Christian Egyptian Copts, who have suffered at the hands of
Islamic fundamentalist terrorism. The former Egyptian Foreign
Minister and UN Secretary General, Boutros Boutros Ghali, is a Copt.
Like the Assyrians, many Copts have made the west home.
Then there are the Berbers of Algeria. These people are the original
nomads of North Africa, who were converted to Islam by invading Arab
armies eons ago. A deadly rivalry still exists been Arabs and
Berbers.
In Sudan, black African Christians in the Darfur region are being
attacked by the Islamic Arabic controlled government and militias.
Can there ever be a peaceful solution to the Middle-East and North
Africa?
Sasha Uzunov is a freelance journalist who has covered the Balkans
region for almost a decade.