even iraq is a majority moslem, but basically saddam is a socialist..,
Baath party which well-known as Saddam party..the most powerful party in
iraq during saddam regime is not an islamic party but a socialist
party..and tariq azis is from the same party..anyway, most iraqi christians
had enjoyed more freedom in saddam regime..it's sadly ironic..,
but to be minority in islam country, many of them is second-citizen, dont
have a priviledge liked their others..limitations of freedom perhaps in
some important aspects, an extreme restrictions to build a worship place
such church...and the last but not least..the persecution of
christians..liked church-bombed, kidnapped and killing..
to live as equal, with great tolerance, love and respect , and to be free
from fear, hopefully is not a false hope..
hopefully peace can conquer the hatred..
"Ambon"
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01/25/2005 10:36 Subject: [ppiindia] Christians
'safer under Saddam'
AM
Please respond to
ppiindia
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,12042166%255E29677,00.html
Christians 'safer under Saddam'
Nicolas Rothwell, Middle East correspondent
January 25, 2005
CHURCHES firebombed, bishops kidnapped, new threats delivered daily - it's
no wonder many in Iraq's Christian community are feeling nervous as this
Sunday's election draws near.
Just over a million Iraqis are Christians, and more than 80 per cent of
them
belong to one of the Middle East's oldest denominations, the Chaldean
church, part of the greater Roman Catholic communion.
Christians suffered no special persecutions under Saddam Hussein - perhaps
because his long-serving foreign minister Tariq Aziz, himself a Chaldean
Christian, was able to protect their interests.
But in the months since the US-led occupation, and the toppling of the old
Ba'ath party regime in April 2003, circumstances have changed.
Last July, three Christian churches in Baghdad were attacked, and the
threat
of violence by militants against Christian targets has remained constant
since.
Last week, the Bishop of Mosul was held briefly by a terror group, and a
bus
owned by the Christian patriarchate was hijacked on one of the main
highways
near the city of Erbil.
In his darkened study, beneath vast devotional pictures of Jesus and the
Virgin, Father Ibrahim Yusuf Elias, Superior General of the Chaldean Church
in northeastern Iraq, ponders the outlook and heaves a sigh.
"There are many terrorists that are active now, ahead of the elections," he
says.
"They are trying to thwart the democracy the US wants to implant here - and
of course the Christians can't do a thing, because of our position. What
could we do? We don't have any weapons, nor do we want them. We must
endure."
The Vatican stays in close touch with the Chaldean Church. Father Elias, a
somewhat unworldly-seeming figure, much of whose life has passed in a
monastery near Mosul, keeps many photos recording his regular meetings with
Pope John Paul II.
But Rome's distant embrace is no substitute for political goodwill of the
kind Christians enjoy most obviously in the Kurdish regions of the Iraqi
north. Here in the Kurdish town of Suleimaniyah, the church of Mar Yusuf
(Saint Joseph) was built with the help of the Kurdish regional Government.
And the city's tiny Christian population, no more than 150 families, is
thriving.
"We have all the same rights as others here," Father Elias says. "We live
in
harmony with our brother Muslims, the authorities make no difference
between
us and them, and we have good security."
Elsewhere in Iraq, though, things are less promising and Christian
emigration has become increasingly common.
"If things continue as they have been, then the outlook is bleak," Father
Elias says.
In fact, for Christians in much of Iraq, things were better before the
Americans came: there was no violence in Baghdad or Mosul against their
churches.
"We simply wish to live in democratic peace in the new Iraq, and to have
harmony between all the heavenly religions, and see concord among Christian
and Arab and Jew," Father Elias says.
This sounds like a reasonable aspiration and it is included in the prayers
he offers up from his frigid study every day.
But sometimes, in rare emergencies, even the most spiritual existence needs
a touch of solace. On the Superior General's shelves, amid the religious
texts and works of learning, a special place is left for an unlikely prize
possession: a bottle of Grand Macnish whisky, for those days when even the
purest faith may require a dram of worldly supplement.
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