An Iraqi stands guard over a church in northern Iraq (AFP)
ishtartv.com - middleeasteye.net
By Abigail
Frymann Rouch, Thursday 17 August 2017
LONDON
- The leader of Basra's few remaining Christian families has said
minorities fear a new Islamic State could rise in Iraq, bolstered by those the
group had "brainwashed", and said Baghdad failed to promote religious
tolerance in a country scarred by years of sectarian war.
Archbishop
Habib Jajou, the southern city's Chaldean archbishop, told Middle East Eye that
Baghdad policies, such as underplaying Iraq's Christian heritage in school
lessons, were compounding ignorance among a population which although
segregated still enjoyed cultural diversity.
He
added that Islamic State may have been defeated in Mosul, but a new generation
of Iraqis brought up on a decade of intolerance could themselves become
radicalised unless more was done to promote acceptance.
"There
were many, many people under the control of Daesh and who have been
brainwashed," he said during a visit to London, and cited a Sunni girl
forced from Mosul who refused food parcels from the "blasphemers" of
a Christian charity. She was one of "many examples", he added.
"We
hope Daesh will be uprooted from Iraq, but we are afraid of a new Daesh,"
he said. "There are millions of illiterate, youth and children, on the
streets, begging; it's chaotic. There are two parts of the population – one of
those is living according to the sixth, seventh, or fourteenth century; the
mentality is very old."
Jajou,
whose congregation has shrunk to a few hundred families since the 2003 US
invasion, said the education ministry must do more to educate the people, and
allow pre-Islamic history onto the curriculum to acknowledge the legitimacy of
all of Iraq's communities.
"They
focus on Islamic history; they greatly underplay Christianity. We have
complained many, many times," he said.
The
archbishop, who previously spent time in London as leader of Ealing's Chaldean
community, added that Iraq's education ministry was being slow to re-open
schools that had shut during years of violence.
"The
ministry for education is not doing well at educating people," he said,
stating there were millions now classed as illiterate. Official figures put the
total at about eight million, a dramatic decline since the era of Saddam
Hussein when almost 100 percent of Iraqis were literate.
Another
source of radicalisation was hate speech, he said. "There are still
fanatical religious leaders in Iraq, who defame Jews and Christians," he
said.
Iraq's
population as a whole was divided in two ways, the cleric said, firstly between
progressives in favour of multi-culturalism and women's rights, and religious
leaders who would take people back to the past.
Another
divide, he said, lay between Iraq's Sunni and Shia. "The Shia in the
south still hate all members of [Saddam Hussein's] Baath party.
"Fourteen
years on, the Baath are still blamed if anything goes wrong. There should be
forgiveness... If the [Shia-majority] parliament in Baghdad comes together and
reconciles with the Sunni, there will be a future for this country. Otherwise
the violence will continue unlimited."
However
in the south, there had been a "substantial change" in attitudes
towards Christians.
Younger
Shia wanted to explore their Babylonian and Chaldean heritage, he said, and he
praised the Basra museum, which opened last autumn with assistance from the
British army and the British museum, for including these ancient chapters in
their exhibits.
He
added that Catholics and Evangelicals in Basra run three nurseries, three
nursing homes, a library and computing classes for Muslims and Christians.
Local
Shia were also showing a huge interest in understanding Christians' beliefs.
"In
the last eight months heads of many local universities and technical colleges
came to the diocese," he recounted.
"They
realised that since 2003, a gap has opened up in people's knowledge about
Christianity. They took 1,300 copies of the Bible to understand.
"Local
Shia are encouraged by their religious leaders to come to church, to know
something about Christ."
Jesus
is mentioned in the Quran as the prophet Issa, and a whole chapter, or Sura, is
devoted to Mary (Mariam).
The
ministry for education is not doing well at educating people
-
Habib Jajou, Basra's archbishop
The
Church in Basra is having to transform itself to survive, depleted by violence
and emigration.
There
were about 5,000 Christian families in the city in the 1960s. The southern
diocese is now home to just 350, including 23 refugee families from areas
seized by IS three years ago.
Some
of those families have been housed in the six churches that are no longer
required for worship. A year ago the cleric predicted: "In three
years' time I will be the last Christian in Basra and the surrounding
area."
Last
of the Chaldeans
Asked
if he still believed this, he replied: "I said then, 'if the situation is
the same'. But this month three more Christian families left Basra."
Although
the extremist violence has been quelled, young Iraqi Christians still talked
about wanting to emigrate because of the insecurity and poor economic
prospects.
Christians
in Basra faced discrimination when applying for jobs, he said, and some had
told him they had been asked to produce proof of membership of an Islamic
political party in order to be offered a position.
"There's
no monitoring of incitement or discrimination," he added.
In
addition, the leader of the Mandaean community in Basra, who revere John the
Baptist, had told him he was afraid to remain in Iraq and wanted to emigrate
with the city's last 350 Mandaean families.
- Habib Jajou, archbishop of Basra. 'There were many, many people under the control of Daesh and who have been brainwashed'
Iraqi Muslims light votive candles to the Virgin Mary at the Chaldean church in Basra as part of a joint-fauth celebration of New Year (AFP)
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