The Christians of Iraq Will Survive!

The Christians of Iraq Will Survive!

Baghdad, Iraq

In the face of nearly insurmountable odds, a near complete failure of the international community to assist them in any reasonable way, the historic Assyrian Christians the indigenous people of the country are surviving.

Sheer grit. The "been there -done that" attitude, and probably more than anything else a strong determination that they will not be driven off their historic land has led this hardy band of people to remain.

In the midst of war, bombings and so much going on, the story of the Assyrian Christians, the first nation to accept Christianity, the people through whose tribes most of the world was reached with early Christianity and the only people who continue to speak the ancient lingua franca of the middle east - Aramaic - the language Jesus spoke they remain.

"We had so much hope" says one of the Assyrian leaders, asking not to be identified

"When liberation came we were so happy Saddam was gone and expected so much to happen. At our first meeting with the United Nations office in Baghdad, they told us "This is a moslem country - you should tell your people to leave.

The last help we have had were some computers donated to use in 2004".
Even the US, while professing fairness according to one official the policy is "we concentrate on outreach to the majority" - apparently meaning that the Assyrians along with the Sabeans, Manicheans, Yezidis, Shabaks and others are not on their radar.

While the Assyrians are a minority - in 2002 according to the Iraqi Ministry of Foreign Affairs the population was approximately 2.5 million or roughly ten percent - they are well respected in the country resulting in the Iraqi Prime Minister proclaiming "The Assyrians are our best citizens. Whenever I travel I make it a point to meet with them.

They are the original people of our country. Whatever they need to prosper and contribute to the New Iraq we are behind them ."

His sentiments are reflected broadly in Iraqi society where the Assyrians as the indigenous people of the country are seen as the core middle class and the as it were, "canary in the mine" of how Iraq will progress in the future.

After all even the Arab Iraqis know that Iraq itself was originally Assyria and their ancestors, Bedouin tribes migrated from Saudi Arabia and others desert areas of the Middle East.

According to the Assyrians, while Iraqi society respects and values them, the international community goes to great lengths afraid that in any way they might offend "islam" to the point that they have been systematically ignored and shut out of much of the postwar progress.

"It is a very strange irony" point out George Nimrod "even the moslem Iraqis muse at the international community that they are more "moslem" than we are, so concerned are they that they not in any way favor Christians. Even the Christians throughout the world have not helped us. The result is that almost nothing has been done for us. It is the Iraqis that have gone out of their way to help us."

Beginning with a disastrous constitution where the words "Islam is the official religion of the State" were inserted at the insistence of the discredited Paul Bremer against the opposition of the Iraqi Constitutional Committee where it was agreed by all parties that "no ideology or religion" would be in the Constitution, to the inability of the international community to understand the strong secularism of the Iraqi Society as a result of the Baath Party and Saddam Hussein's rule the international effort has been according to the Assyrians extremely prejudicial.

"We have finally realized we will have to take care of ourselves" says Leila George "The international community has not helped us, but the Iraqis love us and slowly but surely we are working things out and we will be ok."

She has a small store that sells antiques and various trinkets and ekes out a small living for her family and is putting together a small business plan to refurbish and expand her shop, hopefully with some funds from after giving up trying to get help from a US Government related program.

Robert George in a small Assyrian village in the North of Iraq speaks of the quiet progress "Just in our village 20 families have returned. They have built new homes, we are starting small shops and we are growing once again. We tried to make contact with the local office of international assistance, but no help. We will do it alone."

Other Assyrians are starting small businesses, working for the Government and slowly but surely taking back their place in Iraqi Society.

Two of the Iraqi Ministries are headed by Assyrians and in spite of all odds, the displaced community; mostly in Syria and Jordan living in abysmal conditions is coming back.

Prime Minister Maliki has made it a point to reach out to the community and two decrees have been passed providing transpiration, financial grants, repair of homes and assistance to re-start family businesses for all those in neighboring countries to come home.

His office has made helping the estimated 500,000 Assyrians displaced within Iraq and in neighboring Jordan and Syria, to return home a priority of the government. A project to simply identify the displaced so they can be plugged into the Iraqi Government system has not been funded to date in spite of many, many requests by the Assyrian community worldwide.

Will the Assyrian Christians of Iraq survive? "Don't worry about us" says one "We survived the Assyrian Holocaust, wars, regimes and more. God is with us and He will take care of us. This is our land."

One point of concern though is the political situation. With only two seats in parliament the Assyrians are in a very bad situation where they should have at least 25 seats.

With massive funding for islamist parties and the same refusal to help them, one need the Assyrians do have is for international support for the upcoming elections where it is critical that they increase their seats in parliament to reflect their historic numbers from the present two seats to twenty.

Sadly disappointed by an international community they thought would help them, but sure in their faith and in their determination to stay on the land of their ancestors the Assyrian Christians are slowly coming home.

Instead of bombings, it is the sound of work in the small auto repair shop that Robert George is concentrating on as he works to provide for his family.

"We will be all right" he says "We just forgot for a bit that we have to trust in God and in ourselves. He gave us this land. It is ours and we will remain and we will prosper. We did it before and we will do it again.

If anyone in the international community cares about us, they could help us find our displaced and get a couple of political parties going so we could have normal representations in the Parliament . . . but we won't be crossing our fingers . . . " concludes George.

Nabil Ahmed