IS THERE ANY PLACE FOR CHRISTIANS IN THE NEW IRAQ?
by Simon Caldwell
The Times (London)
September 10, 2005, Saturday
Simon Caldwell on the exodus that could follow if Sharia is enshrined
in the constitution.
EXACTLY a week after the London bombings of July 7, two Iraqi bishops
met Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor over dinner at a Roman Catholic
church in Chelsea.
Archbishop Louis Sako, of Kirkuk, and Auxiliary Bishop Andreas Abouna,
of Baghdad, were in the capital on business: they specifically wanted
the cardinal to approach the British Government on behalf of Iraq’s
Christians, who, they said, were fleeing their country at the rate
of 30,000 people a month.
The two Chaldean Catholic leaders wanted Britain to intervene to try
to stop Sharia being incorporated into the draft Iraqi constitution,
fearing that they would become second-class citizens if Islamic
religious law were imposed. Instead they wanted the constitution to
be secular, guaranteeing equality under the law for all Iraqis.
Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor “listened to their concerns”. Under Sharia,
non Muslims are accorded “dhimmi” status under which they may have
to pay special taxes. Since Saddam Hussein was removed in 2003, the
experiences of Baghdad Christian alcohol vendors, for example, have
included visits from the Hawza (Shia religious authorities), who have
extorted cash penalties on the grounds that Sharia was being violated.
Sharia is being enforced with greater vigour in the Shia-dominated
south of the country, where barbers have been attacked for shaving
men of their beards. All women, including Christians -who under Saddam
could wear the latest fashions and make-up, and go to work -are under
pressure to wear the hijab.
Many have escaped for Baghdad and the cities of the north, but even in
Mosul they are made to wear headscarves. Others have sought sanctuary
abroad, principally in Syria and the United States.
The Church in Mesopotamia is one of the oldest in the world; the
majority Christian group, the Chaldeans, still speak Aramaic, the
language of Jesus Christ, and the Assyrian Church of the East was
founded in the region in AD33.
For centuries, such communities have not only coexisted harmoniously
with their Muslim neighbours but have been respected for their
contribution to the life of society. Saddam, a Sunni Muslim,
nationalised their schools in 1971 but he tolerated them, appointing
Tariq Aziz, a Chaldean Christian, as his deputy Prime Minister.
It was only after the first Gulf war that the Christians began to
feel unwelcome in the land they have inhabited for 2,000 years. In
1990 they numbered more than a million. By the outbreak of the second
war the number had shrunk to 800,000 but even then, relations with
Muslims remained cordial.
With the growing insurgency and the radicalisation of the Islamic
factions, Christians found themselves in an awkward position. They
were identified with the Western occupiers by Islamist militants,
and last year churches were targeted in a spate of bombings, yet
at the same time they found themselves excluded from the political
reconstruction of their country by their “Christian” occupiers.
Today, the biggest challenge to the Christian community is the
postwar settlement.
“There is a danger that we could have religious government,” Bishop
Abouna said.
“If we mix them both together -politics and religion -it will be
chaos. It will destroy everything.”
Bishop Abouna was chaplain to the Chaldean community in London
until his episcopal ordination by Pope John Paul II in 2003. He
once defended the American presence in his country on the grounds
that Iraq needed help in security and development. Soon afterwards
he protested, along with other Christian leaders, when Paul Bremer,
the American civil administrator of Iraq -and a Catholic – refused
to allow a Christian representative on the interim governing council.
Nor were any Christians invited to take a seat in the interim Iraqi
government after elections this year, although great efforts were
made to include every other “ethnic” faction. When the constitution
was drafted, there was no one at the table to press the case for the
Christian minority.
The Christian leaders decided to make their voices heard. At the
end of June, a group of ten Chaldean, Orthodox, Syriac, Armenian
and Evangelical leaders sent a joint letter to the Iraqi interim
President Jalal Talabani, the Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari and the UN
Secretary-General Kofi Annan to say that they feared discrimination if
Sharia was enshrined in the constitution. “If there is a move towards
the confirmation of the role of the Islamic religion in Iraqi society,
then it is only natural to confirm the role of other religions that
have been historically established in Iraq,” they said.
They were ignored, even after Pope Benedict XVI received assurances
from the Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebar, during a meeting
in Castelgandolfo, Italy, last month, that their rights would be
guaranteed. The constitution had missed its August 15 deadline,
partly because of wrangling over the role of Islam, but the final
document asserted, in Article 29(a), that “no law can be passed that
contradicts the undisputed rules of Islam”.
According to Neville Kyrke-Smith, the UK director of Aid to the Church
in Need, a Catholic charity working to help persecuted Christians,
Iraqi Church leaders are concerned that under such a settlement the
remaining 650,000 Christians “will be wiped out”.
A fortnight ago, in a call from Baghdad, Bishop Abounaagain asked
Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor to intercede. This time the cardinal
responded by writing a letter to Jack Straw in which he warned
the Foreign Secretary that the constitution posed a “real threat”
to religious freedom, that it meant “devastating consequences for
minority rights” and that there would be an “exodus of Christians”
fleeing the rule of the mullahs.
“A stable and democratic Iraq, which I know the British Government
seeks, can only be constructed on respect for the human rights of
all citizens,” the cardinal told Mr Straw last week. “I would urge
you, therefore, to use your office to influence the parties to the
constitution to enshrine specific guarantees which establish the
equality of non-Muslims.”
The Foreign Office, however, insists that “Iraq is a sovereign country
and it is up to them how they vote and draft their constitution. It
is not our prerogative to steer the course of decision-making.”
The cardinal, in any case, was overtaken by events. On Wednesday it
was announced that the constitution had been finalised and sent to
the printers: there will be no more changes before a referendum on
October 15.
Iraq’s Christians have had a bad war of liberation. They constitute
only 3 per cent of the population, perhaps their only hope for equal
rights now lies with the Sunnis of Fallujah, Ramadi, Tikrit and Samarra
who are likely to reject the constitution for reasons of their own.