Last Christians Ponder Leaving a Hometown in Iraq

[sabra]

Source: NY Times

HABBANIYA CECE, Iraq — The last Christian man in town goes to church each morning to clean the building and to remember the past. Romel Hawal, 48, was born in this town in Anbar Province back when most of the population was Christian. Now, he said, his 11-year-old son knows no other Christians and has no memory of attending a church service.

“When my son swears, it is on the Koran, not the Bible,” Mr. Hawal lamented.

His wife wants to leave town or leave the country, joining what is becoming an exodus of Christians from Iraq and throughout the Middle East. But Mr. Hawal said he felt an obligation to stay. And he found support from an unlikely source.

“What gives me courage,” he said, “is that my Muslim brothers say, ‘Don’t leave.’ ”

...

But even on this street the buildings tell a more complicated story. The Assyrian church, St. George the Martyr, lies empty and hollowed out after an explosion in 2005. The Shiite mosque, Husseiniya Habbaniya, is a brand-new building but has no imam, or cleric, because of attacks against Shiites in the region, including a 2006 bombing that damaged the previous building.

These and other attacks shattered the mutual interdependence that had flourished for much of the past century, residents say. As Anbar Province became a stronghold for Al Qaeda in Iraq and other Sunni extremist groups, Christians and Shiites, feeling singled out, fled the area, until this town of 10,150 had only one Christian family, down from about 70 families before the American-led invasion of 2003. There were not enough Shiites to fill the big new mosque.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/20/world/middleeast/20christian.html?src=twrhp

[blackspade]

1. Ah, our victory in Iraq bears fruit.

Tragic that our invasion and occupation has destroyed a functional society.

[cleanhippie]

2. I wonder if Muslims in Oklahoma feel the same way...

[LanternWaste]

3. I imagine there's more...

I imagine there's more than one Muslim in OK, thus allowing for congregation and fellowship with those of the same faith, unlike the town in the OP.

ed: sp

[cleanhippie]

4. Yes, but with the way things are going there, that just may change.

My point being that the intolerance is the same everywhere.

[AngryAmish]

5. And your point is wrong.

[cleanhippie]

7. Well, thank you for your authoritarian declaration.

You could try and explain, or is that too much work?

[tanyev]

6. "Don't they get it? We're gonna change mosques into cathedrals."

Hersh then brought up the widespread looting that took place in Baghdad after the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003. "In the Cheney shop, the attitude was, ‘What's this? What are they all worried about, the politicians and the press, they're all worried about some looting? ... Don't they get it? We're gonna change mosques into cathedrals. And when we get all the oil, nobody's gonna give a damn.'"

"That's the attitude," he continued. "We're gonna change mosques into cathedrals. That's an attitude that pervades, I'm here to say, a large percentage of the Joint Special Operations Command."

http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/01/18/seymour_hersh_unleashed