BANGALORE - The recent series of attacks on
Christian churches in Iraq that left 12 people dead and
scores injured have drawn Iraq's Christian minority into
the insurgency, and an exodus of Christians from Iraq to
countries such as Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Australia
can be expected.
Meanwhile,
Shi'ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr - whose supporters are said to
be behind the attacks on Christians - on Thursday
declared a "revolution" against US-led forces in Iraq.
This followed a truce of two months and led immediately
to fighting in the holy city of Najaf and other
Shi'ite areas that claimed the lives of at least 50 Iraqis and
an American soldier, and brought down a US helicopter.
The fighting continued on Friday, with US
military forces conducting a second day of air strikes
in Najaf. Aircraft bombed positions held by Muqtada's
Mehdi Army as American soldiers and Iraqi security
forces advanced on the insurgents.
In the attacks on Christians, a wave of
well-coordinated bombs ripped through four churches in Baghdad and two
in Mosul last Sunday. Aimed at having maximum impact, the
attacks coincided with the evening Mass when worshippers
would be present in the church in large numbers.
The attacks are the most significant on the
community since the fall of the Saddam Hussein regime 15
months ago. Individual Christians have been attacked
over the past year, but those were more in the nature of
vigilante violence or moral policing by Islamist groups.
Several Christian storeowners have been victimized -
some have had their shops burned and others have been
sent letters threatening them with death. And some have
been killed. But these acts of violence and threats have
to do with the fact that most shops selling alcohol or
Western music cassettes in Iraq are owned by Christians.
These latest bombings are said to be the work of
supporters of Muqtada as part of the larger strategy of
Islamic militants seeking to create an Islamic society
in Iraq. Their violence is aimed at enforcing an Islamic
code of behavior, including the wearing of the veil by
women and a ban on alcohol.
Several Iraqi
Christians have been kidnapped over the past year. This
again has to do with a general perception in Iraq that
the Christian community is wealthy. But not all
Christians are, and some of those who have been abducted
have not been able to raise the enormous ransom demanded
by their kidnappers.
Because of their religion,
and the fact that many Iraqi Christians speak English or
have relatives abroad, there is also a perception that
Christians are pro-American and that they are supporters
of the US occupation of Iraq. This perception has
proved costly to the Iraqi Christian community.
Some of the Christians who have been murdered
over the past few months are believed to have been
working with the occupation force, providing
intelligence or simply providing services as launderers,
interpreters, supplying groceries and so on.
The
Iraqi Christian community, concentrated around Baghdad
and in the northern cities of Kirkuk, Mosul and Irbil,
is one of the oldest in the world. The 800,000-strong
Christian community constitutes 3% of Iraq's population.
Most Iraqi Christians belong to the Chaldean
denomination. Other denominations include the Assyrians,
who constitute a sizable section, Catholic and Orthodox
Syriacs, as well as Catholic and Orthodox Armenians.
The Christian community in Iraq has not suffered
general persecution as such. But it has been at the
receiving end of violence from time to time, usually in
periods of transition. In 1932, for instance, when Iraq
gained independence from the British Empire, hundreds of
Assyrian Christians were slaughtered by the Iraqi
military. Their villages were destroyed, their houses,
shops and churches burned. The Assyrian Christian
collaboration with the British colonial power is said to
have triggered the violence.
Iraqi Christians
consider themselves generally well treated under
Saddam's largely secular rule. Some Christians even rose
to top positions in government - former deputy prime
minister Tariq Aziz is one example. The Saddam
Hussein government is also said to have kept anti-Christian
violence under check. But as part of the "relocation
programs", which sought to create Arab majorities near
strategic oilfields, Christians, too, suffered.
Christians living in the oil-rich areas were among the
communities that were forced to move out. But Christians
did not suffer the kind of persecution that the Shi'ites
or the Kurds did. The Ba'ath Party did not consider the
Christians as threatening and so allowed them
considerable religious freedom in return for their
political submission.
The exodus of Christians
from Iraq grew in the 1990s, especially after the Gulf
War and the imposition of sanctions thereafter.
According to a 1987 census, there were about 1.4
million Iraqi Christians compared with about 800,000
today. The fall of the Saddam Hussein government last year, the
weakening of the generally secular atmosphere, the
growing Islamization and the spread of lawlessness has
prompted hundreds to flee.
All Iraqis are
suffering on account of the deteriorating security
situation in the country. Iraqis irrespective of their
religion have been targets of violence by insurgents and
the occupation forces. What has led to the heightened
feeling of vulnerability among the Iraqi Christians now
is that a sizable section of the Iraqi militants view
the US-led coalition as a Christian crusade and
Iraq's Christian community as its supporters and
collaborators.
Analysts have blamed the recent
church bombings on groups with links to al-Qaeda. They
point to similar church bombing by outfits linked to
al-Qaeda in the Philippines, Indonesia and Pakistan as
evidence of this trend.
Jordanian militant
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's al-Tawhid and Jihad, which
has al-Qaeda links, has emerged as the foremost suspect
for the Iraqi church bombings. The aim was not only
to heighten terror among Christians and deepen divisions
in Iraqi society (as part of an effort to
destabilize society) but also to undermine the US-appointed
interim government. The attacks might also have been aimed
at inflaming anger among President George W
Bush's supporters in the US Christian Right.
While the coalition forces might be more
favorably disposed toward Iraqi Christians, members of
the community have suffered, as have Iraqi Muslims, on
account of random searches, bombings, food and power
shortages, and the daily humiliation that the coalition
forces mete out to Iraqis. At the same time, the
Christians are viewed as collaborators with the
"crusader forces", making them vulnerable to violence
from Iraqis. As the movement for the Islamization of
Iraq gathers momentum, their religious rights - and more
worryingly, their personal survival - is likely to come
under further threat. Clearly, this community is caught
in the crossfire.
Sudha Ramachandran
is an independent researcher/writer based in Bangalore,
India. She has a doctoral degree from the School of
International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, in
New Delhi. Her areas of interest include terrorism,
conflict zones and gender and conflict. Formerly an
assistant editor at Deccan Herald (Bangalore), she now
teaches at the Asian College of Journalism, Chennai.
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