Of anti-Christian violence in Iraq?
The mainstream media can't get enough of the sectarian violence between the Shiites, the Sunnis, and the Kurds in Iraq. But one kind of sectarian violence that has consistently been under-reported since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 is the persecution of Iraq's native Christian population. A Catholic News Agency story from June 6th reported:
According to the AINA news agency, two churches were attacked in the Baghdad district of Dora. At St. John the Baptist's in Hay Al-Athoriyeen, several security guards who protect the church were killed, and St. Jacob's in Hay al Asya was vandalized and forcibly turned into a mosque. St. Jacob's had previously been attacked in October of 2004.
The raids on the two churches coincided with a funeral Mass for a priest and three deacons that were assassinated in Mosul on June 3rd. A Google News search revealed that there were only 4 articles about the raids, none of them from mainstream media sources . Besides the assassinations and the raids, a Chaldean Catholic priest in Baghdad was abducted on June 6th and Shiite terrorists occupied a Chaldean Catholic convent in Baghdad on May 31st.
Complete apathy, or complete cowardice. Both are beyond contempt.
Posted by: Chris S. | June 07, 2007 at 01:49 PM
Ive been wondering the same thing. I keep sending the articles to my son to post on his blog. But nobody else is paying any attention. Maybe the media (and our govt) is afraid that Muslims will REALLY begin to think it's Christians v Muslims if we call attention to it. That's the only thing I can think of.
After all, those Christians have been there since before the Arab invaders brought Islam. Aha! Now I get it. Nobody wants to call attention to that. It's better to dismiss the millions of Christians in Iraq as being only those hundreds of American Evangelicals who are there proselytizing. That way MSM can dismiss it as what the Christians have brought on themselves.
Posted by: Julia | June 07, 2007 at 02:54 PM
I wonder if lack of publicity is a good thing at least in regards to kidnapping. After all, you do a kidnapping for the attention to your "cause" or for the ransom. Either way, less news attention, might be good.
But, as for murders, raids etc. where is the news media?
Posted by: Joe C. | June 07, 2007 at 03:12 PM
For many secularists, Christians are always the evil oppressor. For many American evangelicals, Iraqi Christians aren't "real" Christians.
For American foreign policy wonks, the Christians are statistically insignificant. Christians did not benefit from the sectarian system of representation built into the constitution. Anybody notice there is no idle talk of setting up a partitioned Christian state for the Chaldeans, even among the idlest of pro-partition pundits?
Posted by: Kevin Jones | June 07, 2007 at 05:01 PM
"Maybe the media (and our govt) is afraid that Muslims will REALLY begin to think it's Christians v Muslims if we call attention to it."
Yeah, that could be it.
Of course, what would really get people (especially Muslims, and especially the Muslim agents of violence in Iraq) thinking that our war in Iraq is a Christian crusade is if our troops were to start defending the Iraqi Christians. But we seem to be staying on the sidelines and not intervening to stop Muslim persecution of Christians -- perhaps in part because we don't want the Muslims to think we're there on a crusade.
Posted by: Jordan Potter | June 07, 2007 at 05:15 PM
Huh?
For one thing, I have seen a number of articles on anti-Christian violence in Iraq. And for another, given the fact that Christians are a very small minority of the Iraqi population, I really don't think violence against them has been underreported at all. Most of the acts of violence taking place in Iraq today are Muslim on Muslim violence. I'm not sure I get what the issue is here.
Posted by: Tope | June 07, 2007 at 05:53 PM
I've been asking the same Q. That's worth a GRRRR also!
Posted by: Peggy | June 07, 2007 at 07:22 PM
Perhaps atrocities against Christians aren't covered for the same reason the Christian population in Palestine is rarely acknowledged in the mainstream press: we tend to feel more sympathetic towards people we think are more like us. It's harder to dismiss Christians - and, upon reflection, the majority of the population -as crazies who don't want to live.
There has to be a reason some things are played up and others get scant notice.
Posted by: MAB | June 07, 2007 at 10:50 PM
The following antiphon from today's office seems apropros: "The table of the Lord is prepared for us in the face of all our oppressors." I am convinced that Fr. Raheed displayed heroic virtues in staying behind to minister to his flock, and to bring them the Bread of Life. He is a martyr for the Faith.
Posted by: Jim | June 08, 2007 at 08:47 AM
The coverage is in the vault as all the 9/11 attack footage: can't "inflame" people, don't you know?
That, and there are two other factors:
(1) the Western media's location--if it's not happening in Baghdad, it's not happening, and
(2) reliance on local stringers who couldn't be paid to give two ____ about what happens to Christians.
Posted by: Dale Price | June 08, 2007 at 09:47 AM
"It's harder to dismiss Christians - and, upon reflection, the majority of the population -as crazies who don't want to live."
I'm not aware of any Christian Palestinian suicide bombers and terrorists . . . .
Posted by: Jordan Potter | June 08, 2007 at 02:16 PM
doubleplusungood refs doubleplusunevents.
doubleplusungood refs doubleplusunpersons.
memhole.
bush is goldstein!
And besides, (gasp, with trembling lips) what's the latest on PARIS HILTON (TM)?
Posted by: Ken | June 08, 2007 at 02:50 PM
It's just Christian--and what's more *Catholic* Christians. So it's not a problem. Kevin Jones neatly outlines why all the different pathologies in American culture line up to turn a blind eye to the extinction of the Church in Iraq. It should also be noted that the most unfortunate extinction of that Church--which happens to have been a perfectly predictable consequence of the utopian dreams of the current Administration--is not something the Administration much cares us to take a hard look at either. Bad for morale, doncha know. Salvation comes through Leviathan by any means necessary, not by the (regrettably-persecuted-but-we-shall-turn-a-corner-any-day-now) Chaldean Church. Just more of the birth pangs of the Doctrine of Creative Destruction.
Posted by: Mark Shea | June 08, 2007 at 05:28 PM
Ah yes, life would be peachy keen for Christians in Iraq if we weren't there. Perhaps it would be as good as life for the Christians in Pakistan. A google search of christian persecution Pakistan will reveal the treatment accorded to Christians in a land with nary a US unit present. What is happening to Christians in Iraq is a result of the jihadist movement that is sweeping through the Islamic world. This of course is merely an intensification of the usual Islamic treatment of Christians as being third class subjects who are present in an Islamic state purely on sufferance, and subject to regular fits of spasmodic violence by Islamic zealots. The best present that any Christian in the West can give to any Christian in the Islamic world is a one way ticket to the West. This situation will likely get much worse. The jihadists, unless we, the US, stop them, will not rest until all non-muslims in the Islamic world are dead. Then they will start on the rest of the world.
Posted by: Donald R. McClarey | June 10, 2007 at 11:39 AM
I don't think there is as much of any concern in the States for Eastern Christians, united with Rome, or Eastern Orthodox. Eastern Christians in Iraq are not any worse off than those in Israel, Palestine or Turkey where they suffer serious persecution.
It doesn't fit with the Evangelical mindset and definition of Christians now riding rough over Washington.
Posted by: Colin | June 12, 2007 at 09:46 PM