We hope that an area will carry Pope Francis’ message of peace
God knows, Iraq could do it with a little good news. Coronavirus infection rates run at over 4,000 per day. Protesters are being killed and wounded again in Nasiriyah and elsewhere in the south. The government has promised to confront previous protesters: they live in general. The Biden administration has just launched airstrikes against the positions of Kata’ib Hezbollah and Kata’ib Sayyid Al-Shuhada on the Syrian border: They and other Shiite militias continue to attack and attack threatening U.S. targets (and not just the U.S., as Irbil airport was recently rocked) with impunity and, like a bunch of free Mafiosi, violence and killing the real Iraqis they to say say. Turkey feels free to bully the Kurds (what’s new?). At the same time, Iran is doing what it usually does – weakening other states, enriching uranium, openly attacking ships in international waters, and telling the above Iraqi government how to manage their own affairs.
I am convinced that most Iraqis want to live in peace with their neighbors in a country they call themselves. They are proud of the amazing, universal, social and ethnic mosaic that the great Iraqi scholar, the late Ali Al-Wardi, saw as the most distinctive character in Iraq.
So the upcoming visit by Pope Francis – the first time with any pontiff – will be like a ray of light, if it goes ahead (something I strongly pray for). It will certainly bring hope and comfort to Iraqi Christians, but also perhaps to millions more of all faiths across the region. He will tell them that they will not be forgotten. Above all, after so much suffering, the journey will bring a message of peace and reconciliation. I wish I could still be there to see: As a Catholic myself, I see it as a blessing for the future, but also as a call to remembrance.
On the sad day of November 11 years ago, I stood with a bowed head in the Syrian Catholic Church Our Lady of Salvation in Baghdad while a packed congregation mourned those – fellow worshipers, priests, police and people standing – murdered in cold blood by Daesh Sunday. Mass on Oct. 31, 2010. The total number of deaths was probably 60, with another 80 or so injured, many of them seriously. Seven coffins were all represented. The congregation included two or three other ambassadors and – most notably and heroically – Sayyid Ammar Al-Hakim, then leader of the Iraqi Supreme Islamic Council, one of the country’s two leading Shiite political movements, and bearer of his proud and resonant name. Throughout the church, there was a heavy security presence: snips on roofs, armored vehicles blocking streets, police and loitering mukhabarat. I thought of Christ’s warning to Simon Peter: “Those who live by the sword will die by the sword.” It’s not a ban that the Christian churches or Christian leaders have always seen: It’s hard to turn the other cheek and the deadly sin is seductive pride. But it is at the heart of the Christian gospel.
Christianity was born in the Middle East and for centuries remained the most widespread religion, even after political power slipped away. By 1918, Christians still made up about a quarter of the area’s population. Now they are down to around 20th. The Ottomans, in their day, were generally courageous and tolerant but would still hang a patriarch or two when they thought the Greeks were causing trouble. As they declined in the late 19th century, with increasing pressure from Russia and the rest of the Balkans, they became increasingly discouraged. The targeted killing of Ottoman Christians did not begin in 1915. As the famous Turkish historian Taner Akcam has recorded much, the roots go much deeper. Mount Lebanon saw a civil war in the early 1860s, with Druze’s forces mostly making pogroms of Christians. The Bulgarian massacre of 1876 became a cause for celebration in Europe.
The trip will surely bring hope and comfort to Iraqi Christians, but also perhaps to millions more of all faiths.
Sir john jenkins
Other communities have also suffered, of course. The Yazidis, Shabak, Druze, Alawites, Amazigh, Tuareg and others have suffered in horrific ways. In 1918, Baghdad’s Jewish community made up perhaps 40 percent of the total population. Basra had large numbers of suspects, Parsees and Armenians. Cairo, Alexandria, Mosul and Aleppo were four of the cosmopolitan cities of the world. Sadly, no more.
But is there a state now. The Shiites have prospered even under the brutal rule of Khomeinist rule in Iran and are now a welfare class in Iraq, Lebanon and Syria. Christians have never been so lucky. In Egypt, where Copts still make up perhaps a tenth of the total population, emigration has been constant, but it became a flood when the Muslim Brotherhood took power in 2012. When the Brotherhood was overthrown, his supporters attacked Christian targets. in revenge: Christians, who do not have tribal support networks, are defenseless. In the Palestinian territories, where Christ once walked, former Christians represented perhaps a third of the total population. They are now less than 20th. The same is true of Iraq, the land of the patriarchs. It is a sad and sad history.
And this is important in complex ways. The late Yasser Arafat used to tell me that the continued presence of Palestinian Christians in the Holy Land was important to him. These were the leaven – “khamira” – in Palestinian society. Without them, it became dangerous, monocultural and real. You could apply the same principle to the small communities of Iraq. It is a miracle that Muslims in Mosul are willing to encourage – and the UAE to fund – the reconstruction of not only their mosques but also the churches destroyed by Daesh, while Assyrians return to the fields of Nineveh and Yazidis slowly return to Sinjar. But it was Kurdish irregulars who harassed the poor Armenians on the trail of tears in 1915. It was Bakr Sidqi who carried out the first assassination of Assyrians in present-day Iraq in 1933. Neighbors Shabak trying to take their land when Daesh appears. And Shiite militias are now settling their own allies where Yazidi and Christian towns once stood. Many Iraqi Christians – like the Copts – have emigrated. There is a long way to go.
The very name Francis, adopted by the pope when he was elected, is reminiscent of the simplicity of St. Francis of Assisi, who was allowed to preach before Ayyubid Sultan Al-Kamil, nephew of the great Salahuddin , and returned unharmed to coreligionists during the bloody Fifth Crusade 800 years ago. A similar willingness to reach out beyond confession and sectarian boundaries is part of this pope. And it is needed now more than ever in a world where the politics of a violent identity are in danger of destroying a sense of our common humanity.
Pope Francis will visit not only Baghdad but also Najaf, where he will call on Grand Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani (in itself a message for us all), Irbil, Mosul and Qaraqosh. He will meet with the president, the prime minister and other senior officials working for the future of Iraq. He will see the terrible destruction wrought by Daesh and hear the testimony of those who persecuted him. He celebrates Mass for Catholic believers. He sees Nasiriyah, the city of Abraham, for himself – and holds an intersex meeting at Ur area. Not everyone will welcome it. It has to defend against those who want to donate an instrument for their own purposes. It must be a testament to the sufferings of every community in Iraq and the region as a whole. He needs to be honest with Iraqi politicians about the need for justice. He will, of course, be a candidate and a statesman in a way that St. Francis was not. But his message will be similar: We are human beings, children of God, and we need to know and love one another better. I hope that message will be heard not only in Baghdad but throughout the world.
• Sir John Jenkins is senior at policy exchange. Until December 2017, he was Associate Director (Middle East) at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), based in Manama, Bahrain, and was a Senior Associate at the Institute of Affairs Global Yale University. He was the British ambassador to Saudi Arabia until January 2015.
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