It’s no more dangerous than Philadelphia.
RAMADI, Iraq — In rugged western Iraq, once the bastion of the insurgency against the American occupation and now a freewheeling arena of electoral politics steeped in payola, the conversation in the tribal guesthouse in Anbar province was the equivalent of a stump speech.
“If anything happens to any of our candidates, even a scratch on one of their bodies, we will kill all of their candidates!” bellowed Hamid al-Hais, a tribal leader and party boss whose voice was like his build — husky, coarse and forceful.
“That’s right,” shouted another sheik, who had suggested — in jest, inshallah — that a friend resolve a dispute by strapping on explosives and blowing himself up.
“Of course!” yelled another, who had accused the governor of urinating on Anbar.
“We’ll break all the ballot boxes on their heads!” Hais declared, wagging a finger.
It’s just like a Democratic primary race in the city of Brotherly Love.
Sounds like Al Capone’s Chicago.
More on the upcoming Iraqi elections. I really hope they go well.
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A fight amongst Muslims as they are united in persecution of Christians and … women. To provide democracy you need to start with education of all the people, not like what’s happening in Afghanistan, Pakistan’s tribal areas or Israels’s southern border.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."“Muslims as they are united in persecution of Christians and … women.”
Oui, that is a vicious, hideous falsehood. Muslims are not now nor have they EVER been united in persecution of anyone. Persecution of Christians, and women, is the exception rather than the rule, and is antithetical to the Qur’an. Christians and women were an integral part of Iraqi society until George Bush turned Iraq on its head in 2003. Christians and women are critical parts of every area of society in countries such as Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia, Libya, Iran and on and on and on.
I am truly disappointed to see you perpetuating the worst kind of ugly, stereotypical falsehood by making statements such as this.
while I agree with your criticism of that characterization, I also think it is total b.s. to blame Bush for the persecution of Chaldeans in Iraq. Iraqis are doing that of their own free will.
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Under the stalinistic rule of dictator Saddam Hussein, the Sunni minority suppressed the Shia majority and the Kurds in the north seeking an independent state. The upheaval of society since the Bush invasion of Iraq resulted in Shia muslim extremism imposing Sharia law in their neighborhoods. Women and Christians are antagonized, terrorized to abide by Shia rule in the largest cities Baghdad, Basra and Karbala. Pogroms in Mosul have resulted in Christians moving out of their neighborhoods and leaving Iraq for good. Saddam imposed a secular rule, the Shia in Iraq will impose a theocracy similar to Khomeiny’s Iran. Not blaming Bush … that’s bs.
Reaction to Hurria, freedom of religion and Islam don’t mix:
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."“Under the stalinistic rule of dictator Saddam Hussein, the Sunni minority suppressed the Shia majority and the Kurds in the north seeking an independent state.“
Nice job of plagiarizing the standard talking points without offering anything to connect them to actual reality. You didn’t even do a good job of rewording, but seem to be simply copying and pasting.
1. It is interesting that the article you linked to in this statement does nothing to confirm your claim (copied and pasted straight from the list of talking points) that the “Sunni minority suppressed the Shi`a majority and the Kurds”. It even more clearly does nothing whatsoever to support your original claim that Muslims are “united in persecution of Christians and…women”.
For the record, the Sunni minority in Iraq never suppressed the Shi`a majority. What suppressing took place was on the part of the current regime against whomever they considered to be a threat. That was rarely based on sect, though some regimes and some parties were more or less sectarian than others. The Iraqi Communist party, which had the highest percentage of Jews, and the the Ba`th party, were the least sectarian parties in Iraq’s history, and the Ba`th party offered greater opportunities to Shi`as than any other party, so much so that a very high percentage of the individuals featured in that idiotic deck of playing cards distributed by the U.S. military were Shi`as, and some were Kurds.
Saddam repressed Al Sadr’s Da`wa party and Al Hakim’s group because they were a threat to the regime. The Da`wa party’s goal was together with Sunni religious leaders to impose an Islamic regime on Iraq. Al Hakim also had in mind the overthrow of the curret regime to replace it with an Islamic regime. Saddam didn’t like people who wanted to replace his regime, so he did not take that idea sitting down.
“The upheaval of society since the Bush invasion of Iraq resulted in Shia muslim extremism imposing Sharia law in their neighborhoods. Women and Christians are antagonized, terrorized to abide by Shia rule in the largest cities Baghdad, Basra and Karbala.“
Once again, nothing here supports your original claim that Muslims are “united in persecution of Christians and…women”. On the contrary, taken in combination with your claim that Sunnis suppressed Shi`as it contradicts both parts of your original claim.
So now you are an expert on Shari`a law? Great! Teach me all about it. You can start by helping me to differentiate the five different schools of Islamic law. I confess I sometimes have trouble keeping them all straight. Which school of Shari`a law dictates antagonizing and terrorizing women and Christians? And by the way, what, exactly IS the population of Christians in Karbala?
“Saddam imposed a secular rule…“
Saddam did not impose a secular rule. From day one of statehood Iraq has always been a secular state, and before statehood Iraq’s society was secular in the sense that religion was largely considered a matter for personal life, and not society’s business. That is nearly always the case in populations that are characterized by centuries of great ethnic and religious diversity.
“the Shia in Iraq will impose a theocracy similar to Khomeiny’s Iran.“
How does this support your contention that Muslims are “united in persecution of Christians and…women”?
“Not blaming Bush … that’s bs.“
At least we can agree on this. Bush changed Iraqi society, perhaps forever, and definitely not for the better.
As for your bullshit that religious freedom and Islam do not mix, it is very, very interesting that the best you could come up with are three of the most extreme fringe examples imaginable. Two tiny off-the-wall “jihadi” groups in Indonesia, and Saudi Arabia, which is an embarrassment to decent Muslims everywhere. Interesting that you do not mention Iran, for example, where Christian and Jewish communities not only have freedom of worship and religious expression, but specifically receive government funding. Funny how you do not mention Lebanon and Syria, two countries that pride themselves on their Christian heritage, and where Christians and Muslims share some of the same holy sites. Funny you do not mention Palestine, where Christians have always been an important part of the resistance. And so on ad infinitum.
Your anti-Muslim bigotry is unfortunate, but your lack of any real knowledge is easy to expose. My advice to you is to never play smarter than you are when you are talking to someone who actually is.
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This is not about science or a discussion amongst scholars of the Islam, I never pretend to be more than a blogger with political interests. You have knowledge about the Muslim world, especially the historical context of the Middle East. I appreciate your take on issues, I’ll have my own experience to write about and never copy media talking points. On the contrary, I have a strong personal opinion.
Where the Islam religion meets Christianity you are assured of conflict and war. It’s never religion by itself but also a cultural and historical development as part of society. Other regions with serious conflicts: Nigeria, Sudan, Thailand, Philipines and the most populated country with Muslim majority: Indonesia. The jihadist movement in Indonesia is not a fringe group and has support from citizens in provinces like Aceh, the military and government. Where other religions are in a minority you have persecution and no religious freedom. Death toll on the Moluccan Islands runs in the thousands.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."Forgive me if I wrongly accused you of copying and pasting, but when you write things that repeat virtually verbatim the standard talking points, it is difficult to believe that your views have not at least been strongly influenced by them.
“I have a strong personal opinion.“
Clearly you do, and equally clearly it is based not on a complete understanding or a clear analysis of historical and present day fact and reality, but on what appears to be a well-entrenched anti-Muslim bias that causes you to cherry pick your information very selectively, and interpret it without regard to fact or context. I don’t pretend to understand the origin of your bias, but I have noticed it before, and it is downright blatant in your claims and statements on this page, some of which are simply contra factual, and none of which you have supported even a little bit.
“Where the Islam religion meets Christianity you are assured of conflict and war.“
That is demonstrably factually incorrect. And even if were a correct statement, it would do nothing to support your contention that Muslims are “united in persecution of Christians and … women”, or that “freedom of religion and Islam don’t mix”. In fact, the historical and present-day evidence clearly contradict your claim.
Among numerous other problems with your argument, you are focusing on the extreme minority and very, very carefully avoiding addressing the majority of cases in which freedom of religion and Islam have mixed quite well for centuries, and continue to mix up to and including the present day. And of course in blaming Islam for this supposed inability to mix with freedom of religion you are overlooking most of Christianity’s history in which the concept of freedom of religion did not even exist.
At least freedom of religion and tolerance, especially of Christianity, Judaism and several other religions are mandated in the Qur’an, as well as in the Hadith. And Islam has certainly mixed far, far better with freedom of religion than Christianity did through most of its history. Or have we forgotten such inconvenient realities as the Crusades, the Inquisition, the witch trials, centuries of vicious antisemitism (you know, Inquisition, forced conversions, blood libels, Protocols of the Elders of Zion, torture, pogroms, ghettos – all that unfortunate reality), and the Islamophobia that has pervades western thinking for centuries and centuries. And then there was the way Christianity was spread by coercion, often bloody, to the New World, and other parts of the world.
And, of course, let us not forget the oceans of blood shed by people whose only crime was being the wrong brand of Christian.
“It’s never religion by itself but also a cultural and historical development as part of society.“
So, it’s “never religion itself”, it’s part of culture and society, but somehow Islam is always at the root of it, and Islam is always the cause. Uhuh, right. And of course you do not even attempt to offer so much as one scintilla of support for this rather interesting statement.
And then you mention a handful of other regions where you say there are serious conflicts for which Islam is to blame, including, interestingly enough, places in which Muslims have always been a persecuted minority (or is it also Islam’s fault when Muslims are persecuted?).
And through it all you carefully and studiously turn your eyes away from the far, far more numerous examples of places in which Muslims and Christians have lived together very happily for centuries, and live together very happily today. Places like Syria and Lebanon in which the religious and historical aspects of Christianity and Islam are so closely intertwined that you cannot separate them, where Muslim and Christian pilgrims visit the same holy places together at the same time. Places like the Umayyid Mosque in Damascus, a Sunni mosque which houses a shrine to John the Baptist in the middle of its prayer area, as well as a shrine to Hussein, which is always crowded with Shi`a pilgrims from all over the Muslim world, and especially Iran.
(And anticipating that you will bring up the civil conflicts in Lebanon, I will merely point out for now the divisions have not fallen along Christian versus Muslim lines, despite the propaganda that they have.)
“Where other religions are in a minority you have persecution and no religious freedom.“
How do you reconcile this statement with the fact that “other religions” are not persecuted and do have religious freedom by law and in practice in the majority of predominantly Muslim countries such as Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, Turkey, Tunisia, Libya, Bangladesh, and, yes, even that horrible Islamic State, Iran, to name just a few. And how do you explain that minority religions, including some very tiny minorities such as Mandaeans, and Yezidis, managed to survive and in some cases do very, very well in Iraq for 1500 or so years, but have not been able to survive six years of western-style “liberation”?
And how do you explain the manner in which Armenian refugees were sheltered, cared for, protected, and embraced as fellow citizens in Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Lebanon when they fled there from the Turkish genocide?
I am really sorry for you that your bigotry against Islam and Muslims prevents you from accepting reality in all its range and complexity. Your need to demonize is so overwhelming that you close your eyes to anything that you cannot twist into service to your anti-Islam views. And truly, the only good reason for having this conversation with you is that others might read it, and expand their own store of information. Heaven knows you never will.
BooMan, “Iraqis” are not persecuting Chaldeans. The extremists who were empowered as a result of George Bush’s destruction of Iraqi society are persecuting Chaldeans. The fact that some or possibly most of those extremists are Iraqis means only that Iraqi society, like every other society on earth has its share of vicious racists and bigots. Those vicious racists and bigots are usually kept under restraint by the rest of society. When the normal societal order is destroyed, as Iraq’s has been criminals, extemists, racists, bigots of all kinds are empowered. That is what has happened in Iraq.
I would also point out to you something that very few people are aware of. Since “liberation” Christians – Chaldeans, Assyrians, etc. have been very seriously persecuted by the two Kurdish parties. This has nothing at all to do with religion, and everything to do with ethno-politics. Of course, this information does not get into the U.S. media because the Kurds are the only “allies” the U.S. has in Iraq. Therefore, they need to be portrayed as the pure-as-snow, innocent-as-a-virgin, victims-turned-democrats when nothing could be further from the truth.
PS Thanks for supporting my criticism of Oui’s horribly bigoted – and ill-informed – comment.
As for blaming Bush for the persecution of Iraqi Christians – not just Chaldeans, but all Christians – you are correct in two respects. First, it is not all George W. Bush’s fault. Although the persecution of Christians did not begin until after Bush’s 2003 invasion and occupation, which included deliberate and systematic deconstruction of Iraqi political, economic, civil, and social structure, the destruction of Iraqi society began about 13 years prior with George H.W. Bush in 1991-92. After that Bill Clinton contributed eight years of steady, horrible, deadly destruction. And the evidence is clear that they both were targeting Iraqi civilians with both their bombs and their denial of basic necessities of modern human life. They acted as the picadores for George W. Bush who merely came in and delivered the coup de grace.
As for the people who are persecuting Christians, of course they are 100% responsible for their own criminal behaviour, but something had to happen to create the conditions that for the first time in history allow these kinds of people to commit these acts and get away with it. Chaldeans and Assyrians predate Arabs in Iraq by thousands of years, and Christians have lived peacefully and well in Iraq for two thousand years, and were an integral part of society during the many centuries since the Arab conquest.
The overwhelming majority of Iraqi Armenians are descendants of the hundreds of thousands of refugees who flooded into Iraq fleeing genocide. Thousands of Iraqi families, many of them Muslims, took in these Christian refugees, risked their lives sheltering them, feeding them, protecting them from the Turks, and helping them to settle into new lives in Iraq. Some Iraqi families, both Christian and Muslim, took in orphaned Armenian children, raised them, sent them to school, found them marriage partners, and even made sure their children were cared for and educated. I have personal knowledge of many such cases. It was not long before the Armenians established themselves as an important part of the fabric of Iraqi society.
The persecution of Christians did not begin until the catastrophic upheaval that began in 2003, and for the first time empowered the most extreme and criminally bigoted fringe elements of religious society, including those who make up the current “government”. Therefore, George Bush (and Bill Clinton and Poppy Bush before him) are absolutely responsible for creating the conditions that allowed those people to persecute Christians, Madaeans, secular Iraqis, women, Muslims who do not follow their extreme ideas, and other vulnerable segments of society. This is the law of unintended consequences at its most ironic and cruel.