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=> Two Christians in Iraq
| Two Christians in Iraq |
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Posted by
parhad
(Guest)
- Sunday, October 24 2004, 21:04:08 (CEST) from 64.168.25.91 - adsl-64-168-25-91.dsl.snfc21.pacbell.net  Network -  Windows XP -   MozillaWebsite: Website title: |
There are two sides to this business of Christianity's place in Iraq. We saw after the first wave of church bombings that there are Muslims living around the churches...that they help Christians and live together in harmony. Had this incident not taken place, anyone believing only what these boys tell us would have thought Muslims and Christians were at each other's throats...and it was interesting to note that they BOTH blame outsiders for the violence and attempts to turn them against each other. These were churches in Baghdad...an urban center, not a village. In major cities there is more tolerance because people long ago had to figure out how to live together. In Christian villages where few Muslims might reside, there is a greater amount of narrow parochialism...a sense of "us verses them"....understandable when the entire country is Muslim. In a bookstore I once saw a compliation of issues of a newspaper printed in New York by Rev Warda...though he spells it "Werda". These date from 1919 through 1920. The newspaper is in Assyrian...is called the "Courier" and was apparently previously known as the Persian Courier. Why the change I don't know. In the newspaper are some articles in English that deal with trips various Christians made from Iraq to England and America...for fund raising and to meet with officials concerning their plight. Two things stood out for me..one was that ALL of the writers were either Reverends or attached to a church in some way...the other was how eerily similar sounded their pleas and descriptions of their situation to what we hear today. Another most interesting thing was how blatantly and joyously they praised the Allies, British, in particluar, and refered to them as their best friends and saviors...addmitting right there that they had thrown their lot in with the British and expected to be rescued and rewarded any day soon when the much prayed for VICTORY of the Allies was complete. You don't have to be too bright to figure out how these sentiments, so unabashedly expressed in print, would have been received by Muslims back home...struggling with the occupation of Iraq by the British as well as dealing with the aftermath of a devastating war. If such acounts were received by Muslim villagers...equally as prone to ignorance as Christian villagers...how might they NOT have taken them as proof positive that they had traitors in their midst? It seems there are two strains of Christianity..one is urban and contents itself with going to church and living side by side with the reality of a Muslim state. The other is from the villages...villages that may be entirely made of Christians where arrogance and wounded pride and ideas of "MY country" can get all the play and air time they want...where the nearest Msulims are out of range of hearing...in the villages where the church is the tallest building, the people could mix up any witches brew of nationalist entitlement...wrapped up in holy nonsense about how Jesus made them ASSYRIANS and goddamn it...we want OUR land back. I wonder how many of the church people who were acting as the representatives of all the Christians were actually from such villages? It seems hard to believe any Christian of a more urbane background..educated in something besides noiseless farts...could have WELCOMED the British and placed so much faith in such faithless people UNLESS it was because they SHARED this faith. No doubt the Brits found their greatest Quislings among the most Christian of the Christian..and thosae would be the ones in the villages. Of course when you have a doctorate in theology you have good language skills...and most of them were edcuated at mission schools to begin with so they had a working knowledge of European customs and habits...I seriously doubt that the missionaries were a hit in Baghdad...not anywahere near to how popular they were in Urmia or in any countryside location. What I see is what all Iraqis see...that if the question is being allowed to practise your religion in peace..to attend church...celebrate holidays and pass on your religion to children...there was never a problem...and among the Christians living in urban centers with Muslims all around...even as neighbors and friends...a working accomodation must not have been difficult to reach..even with all the destruction and horror of the war brought to their region by the Christians in their First World War..another unprovoked attack against a Muslim nation simply for oil. But...the Christians in villages...influenced by foreign missionaries...with bright sons educated by them and inculcated in European ways and a fondness and belief in the goodness and superiority of the West..such as Paul expressed...and besides that, being fairly isolated and free from having to coexist with Muslim next door neighbors...surrounding their churches no less...that in those villages the setting for the poionous dependency on the West BECAUSE it was Christian...and for no other eeason..had fertile ground to rot minds. I'll bet in the big cities Christians scoffed at the idea that the British were coming to save themn...but that in the villages there was a real confidence in their promises to do just that. In the newspaper articles you see expressed the same sort of fawning joy at being accepted by EUROPEANS as our boys still demonstarte..one Christian mentions twice that rather than wait for him to approach..the Archbishop of Canterbury AND King Emanuel of Portugal...walked over and met him "half way". Then there are all the gushy promises of aid...of comisseration...the assertion that these people are indeed the descendants of Ashurbanipal etc and what awful things have been done to them...from the BRITISH and PORTUGEUSE..two of the bloodiest Slavers the world ever saw who regulalry robbed and killed OTHER Christians and everybody else! But THAT wasn't taught by the missionaries in Urmi! It would seem that all of the emissaries...who sent themselves...were of a certain religious village mentality...though dressed up and spiffed up somewhat by contact with European missionaries so they knew just enough to be won over and paraded aboput like fools...just as our boys today have no clue to whom they are appealing for "their RIGHTS"! It's safe to say that our people...while allowed to practise their religion..were SOLD OUT by those who allowed their common religion to be used by the West in order to have an insider...one who eagerly awaits and believes the West will come SAVE THEM. These village idiots were eager to see a whole lot of Christian villages linked together in an autonomous region..and that's exactly what they were promised...the villagers, it was, who hated the idea of having Muslim neighbors...something the Christians in the cities had gotten over and used to a long long time before....the drive for this national bullshit comes and came from...VILLAGERS...which is like resting America's future on the intellectual acumen of the Hillbillies of Appalachia and what they know of world history, politics and government. No WONDER we get trounced every time..and just got it AGAIN! --------------------- |
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