Smashing Mirrors in the Caliphate, Part Two

Part One of this blog post reports on the message at the Catholic Information Center (CIC) in Washington, DC of Father Douglas Bazi, an Iraqi priest who shelters Christians that have fled from the Islamic State. Bazi told the story of how the Islamic State is attempting to Islamize Iraq by eradicating the Christian faith. But just as when a mirror is smashed, the image it reflected is multiplied over and over in the shards of glass, the broken and crushed Iraqi Christians continue to reflect Christ’s image. 

The priest shared his own personal experiences of the bombing of his church, being shot, and being abducted and tortured for nine days before being released that took place long before the advent of the Islamic State. He explained that the suffering and martyrdom of the Assyrian Christians did not begin then. The people who speak the language of Jesus have been persecuted for centuries.

Today’s genocide, though, is a brutal and effective plan to eradicate Christianity in the Middle East. Without the help of the world community and especially the Church to stop this genocide, it could be successful. It is up to the Body of Christ around the world to be advocates and intercessors for the Assyrian Christians and other religious minorities in the Middle East. 

SMASHING MIRRORS IN THE CALIPHATE, PART TWO

One day, they are going to finish us.

Are you going to tell our story when they finish us?

Conditions for Christians Under the Islamic State

The conquest of Iraq by the Islamic State brought unimaginable horror. In 2014 the Islamic State under the leadership of Abu Bakr al Baghdadi took over Mosul. On June 29 of that year, the Islamic State declared a worldwide caliphate and named al Baghdadi the Caliph.

Shortly after, Al Baghdadi put out a decree to the Christians in Mosul that was repeated throughout Iraq. The Islamic State leader gave the Christians (and only the Christians because they are “People of the Book”) 24 hours to choose one of three alternatives to being beheaded:

• Convert to Islam
• Leave the city
• Pay the jizya, the dhimmi tax, and live as inferiors to Islam

In 2015 and early in 2016, debate was raging at the U.S. State Department about whether or not there should be a determination of genocide against the Islamic State (which, of course, they do not call the Islamic State, but insist on calling “ISIL”). Some, suddenly experts on all things Islamic and all things genocidal, argued that Christians could not be included along with the Yazidis. Since Christians were given the option to pay the jizya and live, their treatment by the Islamic State could not be considered “genocide,” they said. (Thankfully, Secretary of State John F. Kerry actually did make a genocide determination against the Islamic State on March 17, 2016, and did include Christians as victims of genocide.)

Father Bazi revealed that the truth is that the jizya was an impossible option for Christians. One Christian family in Mosul that included disabled people knew it would be extremely difficult for them to leave the city. They requested to pay the jizya and not have to leave. They were told that the cost would be $8,000 per person, per month. The offer of jizya was definitely not suggested by the Islamic State as a serious option for Christians. It was only offered to fulfill the Quranic requirement.

So, said Bazi, 125,000 men, women, and children were forced to leave Mosul with nothing. “They were like you.” Bazi continued. “They had houses, cars, jobs, businesses. . . and in one day, it was all gone.” The Islamic State took everything they owned. They had to leave the city with only the clothes on their backs — and sometimes the jihadists took them, as well.

Irbil, in Iraqi Kurdistan, received 75,000 people in one day, most of whom are still there. Families live in tents, “containers,” caravans, and empty, unfinished floors of several story buildings like hotels and shopping centers. They have no jobs, nothing to sustain them but what is given to them from Christian aid organizations and such because they are not allowed to work there.

No one blamed God

In an interview with CNS News following the talk at the Catholic Information Center, Father Bazi elaborated:

After 2,000 years of Christianity lived under persecution, so we are just transferring the stories from [one] generation to [an]other how God saved us, you know, from the persecution of the last period…So what happened two years ago, what happened to the Mosul people, they were not blaming God. They were saying, thanks God, because you saved us from the Islamic State. We were able to escape before they got us. So my people, no one actually blames God for what’s happened. No one. No one is angry at God. They are always say[ing], Thanks God, for always saving us.

They do blame people, though, said Bazi.

They feel abandoned by their fellow Christians around the world, and they blame the U.S. in particular for leaving them defenseless after the pullout of U.S. troops in 2011. Bazi told CNS News, “the U.S. troop withdrawal was a catastrophe for the indigenous Christian population of Iraq.” The withdrawal left an enormous vacuum that was filled by the Islamic State.

The Islamic State and the Future of the World

We are already getting a taste both here and in Europe of the repercussions from the catastrophic failure to go after the Islamic State. Concluding his talk at the Catholic Information Center, Father Bazi warned what the future would be like, not just in the Middle East, but in the whole world.

Although the goal of every generation of Islamic jihadist groups has been the ultimate establishment of Caliphate, their means to that end have changed. Bazi explained this by showing how differently Al Qaeda, Islamists under Zarqawi, and the Islamic State would view the opportunity to kill an American soldier, if they discovered one giving candy to a group of Muslim children in Iraq:

Al Qaeda generation: Don’t shoot the U.S. soldier in that situation because you may hit the children.
Zarqawi generation: Shoot at the U.S. soldier, but don’t worry if you hit a child, he will be a martyr and go straight to Paradise.
Islamic State generation: Kill the kids in order to reach and kill the U.S. soldier.

And the fourth generation, said Bazi, sweeping his arms in an arc around the CIC chapel, “will be right here, in the U.S.” Even in the few short weeks since Bazi’s talk in Washington, DC we have seen more evidence that he is correct.

The jihadist attack on The Pulse nightclub in Orlando ended in the slaughter of 49 people and wounding of another 53. The Islamic State is here, and though the President, his Administration officials, and his news media are searching high and low for Omar Mateen’s laminated membership card in “ISIL” before they will acknowledge a real connection, he paid his membership dues by slaughtering infidels, and particularly by slaughtering people from the homosexual community. And while the blood was still staining the Orlando club, word came on the murder of a French police commander and his wife by another jihadist.

What to Do?

What can help the Christians of the Church of the East who are now living in caravans and shipping containers in Irbil?

First, says Bazi, implement the Genocide Determination. Just saying that what is happening to the Christians, Yazidis, and other religious minorities is genocide is not enough. The appropriate actions need to be taken to stop the genocide and to restore the people groups to a state of human flourishing again. The U.S. government needs to be encouraged on this implementation, and on remembering the existence of the religious minorities in Iraq! If the religious minorities had been considered years ago, the situation today may have been quite different.

Urge your members of Congress to push policy that defends the human rights and religious freedom of the Assyrian Christians and other religious minorities and that adequately punishes the perpetrators.

But implementing the determination is long-term help. The Christians need short-term help, as well. Bazi told CNS News, that most of aid for the Christians has come from private, faith-based groups such as the Knights of Columbus (KofC) and Aid to the Church in Need, not the United Nations or the U.S. government.

The UN and the US appear to focus all their attention on the Muslim refugees who are also in Irbil, but in UN refugee camps — places where Christians cannot go because they are targeted by both other refugees and by the Islamic State inside the camps. Bazi said to CNS News that he had seen one shipment of aid from the UN in 18 months.

But KofC has raised over $10.5 million for food, clothing, shelter and medical aid for displaced Iraqi Christians, CNS News reported. World Magazine provides a list of some of the other groups working with the Iraqi Christian and other minority refugees, and there are more, as well, that should be financially supported in their work with the truly persecuted and true refugees.

The issue of refugee resettlement is a contentious one, but frankly, resettlement is not having much impact within the Christian community in the Middle East because Christians, and Yazidis, for that matter, have been neglected and largely excluded from resettlement in the West.

Perhaps some churches will refuse to hold in contempt those who say that it might be a good idea to help fellow Christian refugees who actually have been “vetted” — by their bishops and other church leaders and come complete with baptismal records and other forms of identification. Perhaps some churches will speak out for the Christians and other religious minorities that are being left behind in Irbil and elsewhere as unvetted ‘Syrians’ receive asylum.

Many Christians still do not want to leave their ancestral homeland, so we should be committed to doing what we can to enable them to stay in the region if that is their choice. That should also be the commitment of the U.S. government and all the world leaders who have agreed that the vile actions of the Islamic State are genocide.

As Nina Shea said in National Review after Secretary Kerry’s genocide determination, there must be land and property restitution for the victims of genocide. Shea continued, “These minorities lost their homes, businesses, and farms to ISIS, and others have now taken possession of them. Governments must be pressed to give priority recognition to titles of the genocide victims.”

Those are just some of the ways that the world, and particularly the Church, can help brothers and sisters in Iraq. We must show the Iraqi Christians, the reflection of Jesus that has been smashed and shattered by the Islamic State, that they are not forgotten, that we honor the image of Jesus that shines out of every shard of glass.

The Prayers of the People in The Book of Common Prayer speak several times about “those whose faith is known to [God] alone.” In some cases, those faithful were the persecuted, who died with no one to tell their story. But that must not be the case with the Christians of the Church of the East. The Iraqi Christians challenged Father Bazi, “One day, they are going to finish us. Are you going to tell our story when they finish us?” Father Bazi is telling their story, and he has passed that challenge on to us to do with it what we will.

*Creative Commons licensing agreement for photo.