Fighting for a future

ISIS is not the only worry for Christians in Iraq, writes Paul Keenan

An uncomfortable truth – for some – is rising from the desert in Iraq.

Far to the south of the capital Baghdad, along the line of the Euphrates river to the edges of the city of Najaf, an archaeological dig is uncovering some startling ancient history for this region.

Operating since 2007, a team of researchers has been brushing away the dust of history to reveal Christianity’s ancient roots in this corner of the troubled nation. Thus far the ground beneath Najaf has yielded some 30 important sites of Christian heritage, stretching back through time to reach a time period circa 270 AD.

The impact of these finds is hard to overstate when one looks up from the sand-blown ruins to the wider region.

Najaf is today the very epicentre of Shiite Islam in Iraq (but of significance to Sunni Muslims also). The city is home to the much revered Imam Ali shrine, burial site of the Prophet Muhammad’s cousin, a man accepted by Shiite Muslims as the first true caliph, the legitimate successor to the Prophet.

In terms of pilgrims beating a path to attend the caliph’s tomb, Najaf is believed to be surpassed only by those holiest of Muslim sites at Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia.

Consequence

As a consequence of this, religious authorities in Najaf jealously uphold the city’s Islamic credentials, allowing for no outward signs of other faiths to intrude.

It is these conservative adherents who are most reluctant to acknowledge the solid evidence of Christian settlements which not only exist in the region, but which pre-date the rise of Islam.

What an ironic twist on history this is, given the reports in January of this year of the wanton and total destruction of the Deir Mar Elia site, better known in the west as St Elijah’s monastery in the northern city of Mosul (most lately the site of Christian book-burnings). Thought to be the oldest Christian monastery in the country, having been established in the late 6th Century, and enduring through a later Persian massacre of its inhabitants, St Elijah’s was being levelled even as the far older Najaf site was rising from the sands of Najaf.

Looking back on more recent history, it is only fair to point out that, as the extremists of the so-called Islamic State (ISIS) first cut their bloody trail across northern Iraq and into Syria, other Muslim leaders in Najaf were at the forefront in calling for minorities, including Christians, to be respected and afforded sanctuary as they fled the militant onslaught.

Such leaders were mindful of the long Christian history in both Najaf and neighbouring Karbala, leading to one commentator at the time, writing for the Al-Monitor news site to state that “the flow of Christians into the two cities, if it continues, and their potential settling there, will revive Iraqi plurality, which has been decaying in the last years”.

Alas, that was then, and today, Christian sites of a lesser historical import have become the target of a fresh drive against the Christian presence in Iraq.

Earlier this year, as the cataloguing of ISIS’ crimes against Christian lives, culture and history continued (and the world waited and waited for a united cry of ‘genocide!’) reports emanated from the north of the auctioning of seized Christian properties by ISIS as it continued to populate its new caliphate.

At the same time, however, specifically in February, reports elsewhere vied to bring attention to other seizures of property from Christians, an activity being carried out by Shia militiamen, whose presence in the country to fight ISIS has apparently become diverted by an agenda of forcing out a vulnerable minority while profiting on the move.

The voice of moderate Islam appears to be steadily fading behind those of the more hardline authorities in Najaf, eager to firm up the Shia presence.

This is very troubling as, slowly and surely, the Christian minority, so beleaguered by ISIS, has long since begun to communicate a harder line of its own on its place in Iraq.

Last week, the Chaldean Patriarch of Iraq, Louis Raphael Sako, felt compelled to publicly disavow those Christian militias which have begun to appear in Iraq – first evident in 2014 in direct response to ISIS.

Seeking to create distance from the groups, and specifically the Babylon Brigades, Patriarch Sako insisted that his Church has no connection “with any armed militia that presents itself as Christian”.

In making his comments, the Patriarch shone a fresh light on Christian militias who have sprung up all across the country, to fight either individually or with other anti-ISIS groupings. But here is the key point: those groups have formed fully mindful of the fact that, ISIS aside, numerous other groups, with their own specific agendas, such as Kurdish aspirations of a homeland to the north, or a tightening of the Shia grip to the south, are also at play.

And those various agendas inevitably encroach on the deep-rooted territories of the ancient Christian community.

Take, for example, the Facebook declaration by the Babylon Brigade: “Iraqi Christians, the Chaldean and Syriac people with their local Iraqi citizen support are training in Baghdad to defend all Christians towns in Mesopotamia from the foreign criminal terrorists of [ISIS] and from terrorist loving countries such as Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Tunis, Turkey, Kuwait, Libya and Morocco. The Iraqi forces will defeat the criminals that are using their religion to massacre innocent native Iraqis.”

Not only is this far from a Christian message of peace, but it also draws not one, but many lines in the sand against vested interests in the country.

Guarantees

Sadly, all of this is occurring in an environment in which Patriarch Sako has been forced to concede that his own efforts to secure cast-iron guarantees that Christians be protected from discrimination as a minority within Iraq have been met with approving smiles but ineffective legislation. The prelate’s voice is thus becoming another lost in the din of hardline threats and ultimatums.

Thus, even as the ancient sites of Christian settlement across Iraq should be points of discussion for a shared history between peoples, the less level-headed on all sides seem determined for them to become fresh battlegrounds long after the common enemy that is ISIS has been defeated once and for all.