Credit: Elise Harris/CNA.
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By
Yousif Kalian, Nov 3, 2017
This
Halloween marks the seventh anniversary of when my parents' church in Baghdad
was held hostage by the Islamic State in Iraq, a little known group at the
time.
After
a few tense hours, the Iraqi army moved in to try and save the hostages held up
in the Syriac Catholic Our Lady of Deliverance Cathedral located in the heart
of Baghdad. The standoff led to the death of 58 worshipers, including three
priests, children, and a baby who was beheaded on the altar. 78 worshipers were
severely wounded or maimed, losing legs, arms and requiring months of
operations to remove shrapnel or heal other injuries. For many Iraqi
Christians, this massacre answered the question that many had asked themselves
throughout the almost 10 years of bloody sectarian civil war that engulfed
Iraq: “Are we still welcome in this country anymore?” Sadly, many could no
longer look at their children and promise them a good future while they
remained in Iraq. In the ensuing few months, a mass exodus of Christians from
Baghdad started which brought down the population of Christians from 20 percent
to only several thousand.
My
parents, having witnessed on TV the horror that befell Iraq with the onset of
the civil war, lost hope for any future for Christians in Iraq, because while
the Shia had Iran and the Sunnis had the Gulf and Turkey, nobody was willing to
stick up for the Christians. They watched as their ancestral city of Mosul saw
a growth in Salafi activity and mourned as Christians, Yezidis, Shabaks and
Mandeans were ethnically cleansed from the city. With the onset of the war in
Syria, more reports of Christians being killed, tortured and taken as slaves on
account of their faith came to the forefront and painted a dark picture for the
future of Christianity in the region.
Exploding
out of the Syrian crisis, ISIS burst onto the stage in Iraq and put one-third
of the country under its control. During their blitzkrieg in the northern part
of the country, ISIS attempted to wipe out all followers of the ancient Yezidi
faith historically concentrated in the Sinjar region of the Nineveh Province.
However, they did not stop there, and moved to destroy the ancient Christian
heartland of Iraq found in the Nineveh Plains region northeast of the city of
Mosul. Over 100,000 Christians fled overnight as ISIS swarmed in and killed
dozens of people and took many others as sex slaves. The dead included my
mother’s elderly nanny, Naeema, who had raised her and her brothers since they
were children. Naeema taught my mom how to pray, tucked her in to bed every
night and greeted her with coffee and freshly ironed cloths every day. Her
death made them feel powerless and numb with pain as she was thrown into an
unmarked grave and forgotten.
My
parents’ Muslim neighbors mourned the destruction brought upon their Christian
brothers and sisters, but despite their goodwill, they were powerless to do
anything. The ISIS invasion of Mosul brought more pain to my family, as my
grandfather’s grave was likely destroyed along with hundreds of others as ISIS
tried to destroy as much of Mosul’s Christian history as they could. The
monastery of Saint Behnam and his sister Sarah that my grandfather was named
after was blown up and recorded in a spectacular video. My family mourned the
destruction of so much of what was near and dear to them and became distressed
as depressing updates continued to come out of Iraq. Hundreds of Christian
properties in Mosul were ruined or given to ISIS fighters. These homes had
belonged to these families for generations, and losing them was tantamount to
losing their entire history and several lifetimes of work.
In
my current capacity as a Special Assistant for the non-profit In Defense of
Christians, I was lucky to be given the opportunity to help an organization
prepare for their annual summit. IDC’s summit focuses on a cause I care about
deeply: the plight of Christian minorities in the Middle East. This year, IDC
decided to focus on a five-point policy agenda which works to stabilize Lebanon
and Syria, deliver desperately needed aid to victims of genocide in Iraq and Syria,
correct a historic injustice by recognizing the Armenian genocide, hold
American allies who persecute Christians and other minorities accountable and
identify individuals or groups who supported ISIS' campaign of terror and
genocide against Christians. As the fate of the Christian communities in the
Middle East hangs in the balance, this sort of work is imperative to preserve
the existence of an ancient community from going extinct.
One
of the most exciting aspects of the summit was having the Vice President of the
United States Mike Pence come and deliver the keynote address at our annual
Solidarity Dinner. In the lead up to the dinner, the air was crackling with
excitement as we were all waiting for the Vice President to take to stage and
deliver remarks. When he arrived, the dinner attendees clapped then quickly
turned quiet as they waited to hear what he would say. It was almost
inconceivable that somebody of this stature would be addressing a crowd of
people passionate about the plight of persecuted Christians in the Middle East.
During
his keynote address, the Vice President noted that “In Iraq, the followers of
Christ have fallen by 80 percent in the past decade and a half…but tonight, I
came to tell you: Help is on the way.” I had to wipe away the tears that last
phrase brought to my eyes. It seemed too good to be true that after all of
these years of hardship Iraqi Christians have suffered that the Vice President
of the United States would stand there and announce that help was coming for a
people the international community had done nothing for in the past 14 years.
The Vice President held no punches in his speech and cut through over careful
dancing around of words to state that “Christianity is under unprecedented
assault in those ancient lands where it first grew.”
In a
moving moment for many in the room, Vice President Pence noted that “In the
mountains of Syria, the valleys of Lebanon, on the plains of Nineveh, the
plateaus of Armenia, on the banks of the Tigris and Euphrates, the delta of the
Nile, the fathers and mothers of our faith planted seeds of belief. They've
blossomed and borne fruit ever since.” Acknowledging the ancient roots of
Christianity in the region and invoking the names of the areas where they still
exist today moved not just me, as almost all Middle Eastern attendees I spoke
with afterwards mentioned the use of this imagery.
As
somebody who has been tracking and writing about the reconstruction efforts of
Christian villages on the Nineveh Plains, my anxiety over the massive reconstruction
challenges were eased over almost instantaneously by the Vice President’s
announcement that the US would work with faith-based groups and private
organizations through USAID to help genocide victims. This one action has the
ability to remove the most pressing issue facing Christians who want to return
to their homes and not immigrate to Europe: rebuilding their homes targeted for
destruction by ISIS.
Returning
home much later that night, I called my mother and woke her up to tell her the
news. She could not believe me when I told her that Mike Pence had spoken about
our community’s issues and worked to ensure they would be able to rebuild their
homes. When I told her that he remarked that “In Iraq, we see monasteries
demolished, priests and monks beheaded, the two-millennia-old Christian
tradition in Mosul clinging for survival,” neither could she nor my father
restrain their tears of joy. The fact that he mentioned the plight of
oft-forgotten Mosulawi Christians and alluded to the destruction of the Mar
Behnam monastery brought out a happiness in them that they had long contained.
That happiness came from regaining a sense of hope again. For the first time,
it seemed like somebody had finally responded to our pleas of help at the 11th
hour and acknowledged our pain.
For
the first time in seven years, my family and I slept peacefully on Halloween.
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