The Inside Assyria Discussion Forum
=> Christians block planned mosque with mil
| Christians block planned mosque with mil |
|
Posted by
Andreas
(Guest)
- Thursday, December 4 2003, 7:34:18 (EST) from 217.255.180.148 - pD9FFB494.dip.t-dialin.net  Network -  Windows 2000 -   Internet ExplorerWebsite: Website title: |
http://thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?GXHC_gx_session_id_=8197774bc42e6b19&pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1035778520194&call_pageid=1045739058633&col=1045739057805 Oct. 30, 2003. 11:20 AM 80 families — united as Kurds, torn by faith Christians block planned mosque with militia's help Disunity harmful when Saddam is foe common to all SANDRO CONTENTA HERMUTA, Iraq—Behind the Roman Catholic church in this Kurdish village of stone houses is a shallow hole that brought a generation of peaceful co-existence between Muslims and Christians to a end. For the two religious communities here, the days of working and mourning together are over, and Ramadan and Christmas celebrations are no longer shared. The break occurred last May, when the 30 Muslim families here decided to build the village's first mosque. The diggers barely started work on the foundation when leaders of the 50 Christian families got wind of the plan. They appealed to regional Kurdish authorities, and work on the mosque was ordered stopped. Since then, relations between the two groups are as cold as the wind that lashes down from the snow-covered mountains above. "This is a village that belongs to Christians," says Danha Jabbar, 65, Hermuta's primary school principal. "This mosque would deform the appearance of the village" Muslim resident Mahmoud Rasoul says, "We didn't want to build a mosque to compete with the Christians. We just wanted a place to pray." The religious dispute in Hermuta, about 60 kilometres east of Arbil, is a local example of the ethnic and religious fault lines that have made Iraq a fragile nation since it was pieced together by the European powers after World War I. It remains an artificial collection of competing tribes, faiths, regions, languages and ethnic groups. Held together for the past 20 years by the brute force and terror of Saddam Hussein's regime, it risks falling apart if the United States and Britain proceed with war plans to topple the Iraqi president. In a post-Saddam Iraq, British and American forces occupying the country could be embroiled in a long-term effort to prevent Iraq from breaking into a Shiite Muslim enclave in the south, a Sunni one in the centre, and a Kurdish one in the north. Hermuta's dispute shows just how powerful religious or ethnic divisions can be, even in a village of 80 families where everyone is a Kurd. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- `This (Hermuta) is a village that belongs to Christians This mosque would deform the appearance of the village.' Danha Jabbar, 65, primary school principal -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Politics has long divided the Kurds. Rival militias of the Kurdistan Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan launched turf wars in the mid-1990s that saw more than 100,000 people expelled for their political loyalties from towns controlled by either side. Now in Hermuta, the common Kurdish bonds of language, culture, and decades of repression at the hands of the Iraqi regime do not seem strong enough to overcome the religious divide. According to its residents, Christian Kurds have inhabited the spot that is now Hermuta for centuries. Its Christian residents today are Roman Catholic Chaldeans, who say they are descendents of the ancient Mesopotamians. Christians make up 3 per cent of Iraq's population of 22 million. Those in Hermuta lead a typical village existence, living off the land and clinging hard to their traditions and faith. Women who have trouble getting pregnant make a pilgrimage to a nearby holy shrine, and a constant source of irritation is the lack of a resident priest since the last one died seven years ago. Since then, Hermuta's Catholics have been able to attend mass only once a week, when the priest comes from Arbil, capital of the Kurdish autonomous area in northern Iraq. To their endless offence, he comes on Fridays, not Sundays. "The priest must be a Muslim to come and celebrate mass on Fridays," complains Zachia, Jabbar's wife, noting that Friday is the traditional day of worship for Muslims. About 30 years ago, Muslims began arriving in Hermuta to work the fields of Christian landowners. They eventually built homes and settled. Co-existence was complete, except for certain rules, which Catholics considered part of the natural order of things. "Marrying a Muslim is forbidden," Jabbar said. "If a Christian girl wants to marry a young Muslim, for us, it's a crime and she will be cast out of her religion." In Zakho, a Kurdish town near the Turkish border, a Christian father killed his daughter recently for such a transgression, Jabbar said. Asked if Catholic parents in Hermuta would do the same, Jabbar thought for a while, then said: "We would not kill her" Still, Jabbar invited Muslims to his Christmas dinners and, in turn, was invited to break fast with his Muslim neighbours during the holy month of Ramadan. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- `This (Hermuta) is a village that belongs to Christians. This mosque would deform the appearance of the village.' Danha Jabbar, primary school principal -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- But then, Muslims started digging a hole for their mosque, and everything changed. Jabbar said incidents he considers threats suddenly occurred after the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), which controls northeastern Iraqi Kurdistan, blocked building of the mosque. Someone put the magazine of an AK-47 automatic rifle against the door of the church, and later, part of its courtyard wall was demolished in the middle of the night. The Christian landowners then fired the Muslim residents who worked in their fields. Jabbar let go 15 Muslim workers who tended his wheat and lentils, and brought in Christian ones from nearby towns. Rasoul, 47, lost the work he got from Christians as a driver. "It has all been very sad," said Rasoul, sitting on floor mats close to a space heater in the tidy living room of his home. The Catholics went further. They successfully lobbied PUK authorities to refuse building permits to any new Muslim family wanting to settle in the village. "Halas," said Jabbar, using the Arabic word for enough. It's a sorry end for a village whose residents, regardless of religion, have felt the iron first of Saddam's army. Kurds have been gassed and mass executed by Saddam's forces during the 1980s and early 1990s in at least 77 Kurdish villages. It happened during the Iran-Iraq war and, again, when the northern Kurds staged an unsuccesful revolt after the last Persian Gulf War. "When it comes to killing, Saddam doesn't discriminate," Jabbar said. Added Rasoul: "We are united in suffering" But divided, it seems, by religion. --------------------- |
|
The full topic: No replies. |
|
Accept: image/gif, image/x-xbitmap, image/jpeg, image/pjpeg, application/vnd.ms-excel, application/msword, application/x-shockwa... Accept-encoding: gzip, deflate Accept-language: de Cache-control: no-cache Connection: Keep-Alive Content-length: 8087 Content-type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded Cookie: *hidded* Host: www.insideassyria.com Referer: http://www.insideassyria.com/rkvsf/rkvsf_core.php?.gz13. User-agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.0) |
Powered by RedKernel V.S. Forum 1.2.b9