The Christians of
Iraq are going through hell on earth
Imagine that you
wake up in your home, in your block,
in your town thinking you are as
safe as you used to be. When you
suddenly get a visit from armed gang
telling you that you should change
everything that you believe in and
become something else. Forget that
you believe in Jesus and get your
energy from the Bible and now you
should salute Mohamed and start to
read the Qur´an. This is something
unbelievable for many strong
conservative Christians in modern
Iraq. When the family refuse to
convert into Islam the armed
hooligans start to take money by
force from the family, they would
call it Djizia, the extra tax that
non Muslims should pay under Sharia
rule. A week after the same
terrorists comes back but this time
they are more secure. They bring
with them new fake IDs showing that
this particular Christian family has
now become Muslim. Something the
family get very upset about but no
matter how much they call for help
from the authorities the situation
stays as it is.
A week later the
same gang comes back and claim that
they want the elder daughter in the
house to become their wife. Those
gang members have mostly many
temporary wife’s.
When the father
refuse he get beat up and
threatened, many times they take the
daughter by force and many times
they give them some day to say yes
and bring her to her new man or else
some killings will occur. During
that day the family pack their
clothes and sometimes without
clothes they leave their homes,
blocks and towns as fast as they
can. What happened to them later is
many times not better than back home
and sometimes little better but
still far from acceptable from a
human rights view.
Imagine that your
father gets kidnapped and the
kidnappers demands more money than
the whole family can bring. You sell
the car, you take your salary in
advance, you take loans, you sell as
much as you can and you pay those
terrorists the amount they request.
They get the
money and promise you to let your
father go within 24 hours.
You wait 24 hours
with your heart pumping faster than
ever and you get into the second day
without hearing anything from
neither your father nor the
terrorists. 3 days pass and you
loose all your nerves. You are now
without your father who was the main
family protector and income
provider. You probably lost your job
or about to do, you lost your
properties and possessions. On the
forth day some villager find a body
and the whole village gather around
it. You arrive and take a look at it
thinking egoistic because you are
hoping in your heart that it isn’t
your father. When you take a good
look at it you can confirm in your
mind that this strange dead body
actually isn’t just a body, it is
your father. Just when you are in
your deepest sorrow they start to
come back for your family members,
your brothers, your sisters, your
mother and even you. Once again the
regular Christian citizen find
himself forced to leave whatever he
has left and walk toward new unknown
goals and destinations.
Some of the
Christian Iraqis end up in northern
Iraq where discrimination awaits
them in every aspect of their new
life’s.
Some cross the
border and gets to Syria where
lawlessness waits and hard weekdays
become harder and tougher than they
ever could imagine.
Some of the
Christian refugees end up in
Lebanon. A hard reality waits for
them too because it is hard for most
of them to get legal papers and
suddenly becomes prisoners in
churches and in friends homes afraid
of being caught by local police.
We have to ring
the alarm bell and turn on the red
lights.
The situation for
the Iraqi Christians is worse than
ever. All other religious and
ethnical groups are well armed and
supported by some foreign powers.
All but the Christians in their
different directions.
Yet the
Christians have not taken to
violence and are believers that
violence could be confronted by
prays and peaceful actions. Let the
world wake up by those pictures and
support the group that embody the
peace and forgiveness ideology.
Don’t let all martyrs be just new
numbers in the dead list and in the
media statistics.
Support the
Christians of Iraq and you will be
supporting an entire people to stay
in its motherland.
Just like people
support the rain forests to stay in
their roots we can support the
Christians to stay in their Iraqi
roots.
Just like we
support endangered animals to become
strong again and be able to survive
as an unique species we should
support the Iraqi Christians to
flourish once again and survive this
disaster reality they face every day
and night.
Christianity in
Iraq is unique and should belong to
the world people heritage.
In case they
empty Iraq soon, do never forget
that heritage.
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