Last And Final Threat
Iran must be quietly satisfied that Nouri al-Maliki has been restored to the post of prime minister under Iraq's new power-sharing agreement that is presumed to see Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds heading 'equal' posts in the new government. There is still uncertainty; the minority Sunnis who were once in control under the Baathist government of Saddam Hussein feel themselves to have been slighted.There is still always danger of renewed sectarian violence on a scale seen in 2006-2007 when slaughter was so rampant, the atrocities so frequent that it seemed the country was on the verge of total chaotic collapse into a charnel house of blind hatred and wide-scale murder. But the majority-Shiite population is now clearly in control.
The country is still plagued, however, by daily suicide bombings, murders, assaults by insurgents representing foreign Islamist elements for whom the opportunity to disrupt an orderly passage into a democracy represents a slur on tradition. The fractious population where the Sunnis and the Shias consider one another apostates to Islam, remains nervous.
But there are other groups far more at existential risk than the Sunnis, the Shias and the Kurds, in Iraq. Saddam Hussein was a monstrous dictator but he did offer social stability, maintaining order through fear and intimidation. Keeping the factions from one another's throats, until and unless one group rebelled under his rule, bringing his vicious wrath upon them.
Where once Jews represented a sizeable proportion of Iraqi citizenry with a heritage in that country stretching back over millennia, their place was forfeit there with the creation of the State of Israel. The ancient thoroughfares in Baghdad that were once the home ground of Baghdadi Jews representing fully 40% of the population have been cleansed of them since 1948.
Another religion that vastly pre-dated Islam is still represented in Iraq; Syriac Christians. And their days now are clearly numbered; once protected by Saddam Hussein, they are now prey and victim to the hostile violence and hatred expressed by Iraq's Muslims. The newly installed government has made no effort to protect Iraq's Christian population.
Iraq's Christians face extinction as extremist Muslims attack their churches and slaughter those within. Iraqi Christians receive missives informing them that they are slated to be murdered if they do not vacate their homes and leave the country. The 1.4-million that existed in Iraq in 1987, according to the census, has been reduced to one-third that number.
Islamist gunmen patrol neighbourhoods demanding the production of identity cards, dispatching those whose names betray their Christian faith. Churches pay protection money to gangster militias. But the situation is crystal clear; there is no place in militantly Muslim Iraq - as a reflection of most other Middle Eastern Muslim countries - for Christians.
"To the Christian, we would like to inform you of the decision of the legal court of the Secret Islamic Army to notify you that this is your last and final threat. If you do not leave your home, your blood will be spilled. You and your family will be killed."
Labels: Human Relations, Middle East, Political Realities, Terrorism, Traditions
posted by Pieface @ Monday, November 15, 2010
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