Ten years after a genocide that threatened several religious and ethnic communities in Syria and Iraq, the Christians of the region are cautiously returning to their homes and rebuilding their lives. But although the so-called Islamic State of Iraq and Syria – ISIS – is no longer a significant military force, the ideology that drove it to establish a caliphate in the region still must be defeated, said two Catholic bishops from Iraq.
Christians are also keeping an eye on other conflicts in the region, particularly in Gaza and Lebanon, hoping that they do not escalate, as past experience has shown them that Christians are often targeted or suffer as collateral damage in the midst of such conflicts, the two bishops said. Many return to Iraq from refugee status in other countries only if they have first secured a way out, such as dual citizenship or permanent residency status in Europe or North America.
They remember the violent displacement the Christians of Iraq suffered in the summer of 2014, when ISIS forces overwhelmed Mosul and villages on Iraq’s northern Nineveh Plain. Particularly on August 6, 2014, the feast of the Transfiguration, thousands of Christians fled their ancestral villages, many on foot, to relative safety to Iraqi Kurdistan, taking refuge in the city of Erbil.
ISIS had instilled fear by beheading many of those who found themselves in their path and refused to submit to their radical brand of Islam, even as far west as Libya, where 21 Coptic Christians lost their lives on the shore of the Mediterranean. The Islamic State group often published videos of such beheadings. Some western journalists and aid workers suffered a similar fate.
The jihadist group also launched a genocide against the Yazidi people and destroyed several historic and cultural sites, including in the ancient city of Palmyra.
With the help of US forces, Iraqi and Kurdish militaries defeated ISIS militarily and retook captured territories, including Iraq’s second largest city, Mosul, by 2019.
Christian displacement in Iraq was significant, with upwards of half a million people becoming internally displaced. Many Christians also left Iraq altogether – a blow to a community that had already suffered losses during previous conflicts and persecutions.
Education
In an online press conference last week, two Eastern Catholic bishops in Iraq discussed the challenges of rebuilding their communities over the past decade and the efforts to maintain a Christian presence in Iraq. The press conference was organized by Aid to the Church in Need, which has supported the Churches in Iraq throughout the ordeal.
“You were and still are the voice for the persecuted Christians around the world,” Archbishop Bashar Matti Warda, the Chaldean Catholic Archbishop of Erbil, told Regina Lynch, Executive President of ACN International, at the beginning of the conference. “You stood by us as brothers and sisters and shared the hardship by your physical presence here in Erbil, right from the first day of, I would say, the genocide that happened to the Christians, not just being a voice and praying and being with us, but also you provided health care, education, everything for our families to live a dignified life. Because of you and others, our people were really respected and dignified.”
Two steps
Archbishop Nathanael Nizar Wadih Semaan, the Syriac Catholic Archbishop of Hadiab-Erbil, said that ISIS was not just an army, it's an ideology.
“And that's the biggest problem in Iraq, because this mentality is still there,” Archbishop Semaan said. “We didn't get rid of that mentality.”
He said that two steps are needed to get rid of that mentality.
“First, education. We have to concentrate on the education system, not just with the Christian schools, but everywhere,” Semaan said. “And we have to put pressure on the Iraqi government, really, to have a moderate education system which allows our people to grow in a peaceful atmosphere and respect for other people, no matter if they are different from your religion or ethnic group or whatever.
“The second way is to have a constitution built on human beings, not on religion” he continued.
Warda agreed that the ISIS mentality should be addressed, in particular by examining the curriculum used in public schools as well as “some of the Quranic commentaries on the life of Muhammad.”
Semaan added that a problem that has existed in Iraq for the past 20 years is that “we are trying to create islands for each community – isolated islands absolutely with no communication or no way of having life together. And that's very dangerous.”
“You can live wherever you go, you can be proud of your identity. If you are Muslim, if you are Kurdish, if you are Arabic, if you are a Christian, you can be proud of it. We are not against that,” Semaan said. “But don't close your island to other people. Don't say this is my island, and no one has the right to come here, to stay with me. We didn't have this mentality 20 or 30 years ago.”
Importance of education
Indeed, the bishops said, peaceful religious and ethnic coexistence marked Iraqi society in the past, and Christians want to live with people of different faiths and backgrounds.
“What do we want as Christians? Just to be in peace, to live together, to share what we have with other people,” Semaan said. “We don't want a closed Church or a closed Christian community or closed villages. That's not our idea, because to live here means you have to communicate with the people, with your neighbor. … We want to be with them, to testify our faith with them, that we are a Christian.”
As much as Warda knew of the importance of shelter and food in the midst of the great displacement of 2014, he was determined to strengthen and expand the Christian educational system right from the beginning.
“For me, to be Christian is not to be powerful, but to be influential,” Warda said. “And to be influential means that you will be really builders, builders of the community.”
He said that Iraqi Muslims trust the Christian educational system. “They know that we are really not just tolerant, but in a way, open and respectful, and that's why they would like to have their children in our schools, because they see and they know that it's a safe environment,” he said.
