By Baghdadhope
While in Ankawa many of the Easter celebrations will be cancelled or held in lesser tone for the recent and serious grief that struck the Iraqi Christian community with the death of Mgr. Faraj Rahho, there is someone who denounces that the only possibility of survival for Christians in the area of Mosul - "a cradle of fundamentalism out of the control of the government" are the words of the Archbishop of Kirkuk, Mgr. Luis Sako - is to hide, to go back to the catacombs as already was in the early centuries of our era. To say so is Dr. Suha Rassam who runs the charity Iraqi Christians in Need based in London. Words not exaggerated because confirmed by who in that area lives and works as a Christian, as the Dominican Father Mikhail Najeeb who in an interview to Compass Direct News said: "We could close our churches in Mosul to protect ourselves and say to everyone that we don't accept the situation.. or we can hold all the celebrations, and maybe we will receive some bombs or attacks."
The danger in Mosul is not ceased. Father Mikhail reported the cases of a young man killed in the city, of a woman kidnapped in Bartella, and of another attempt of kidnapping ended with the hospitalization of another boy whom the kidnappers shot while he was trying to flee. Things are not better, as the death of Mgr. Rahho has amply demonstrated, for the priests. Father Mikhail, infact, denounces that they are constantly moved from a place to another to avoid becoming targets. In such a situation the Iraqi Christians no longer know how to live, how to behave. Beginning with religious hierarchies who, attributing the events that affect the community to the widespread criminality in a practically ungoverned nation, and always recalling that not only Christian places of worship were hit but also Muslims ones, resize the phenomenon, considered by many as persecutory, to the simple result of the war that has destroyed Iraq. In the case of Mgr.Rahho a ramson was requested and consequently a simple criminal action will never be ruled out. But how can we consider the death of Father Ragheed Ghanni? No ransom was requested for him and for the three subdeacons who accompanied him. It was just a brutal cold-blooded murder. Common criminals?
In these days floods of words of condemnation of the kidnapping of Mgr.Rahho were spent. But for how long the public opinion will be interested in the fate of Iraqi Christians? And then, do the words of the leaders really serve? Or the reality is that painted by Nuri Kino, an Assyrian writer who has been living in Sweden since many years ago: "Of what importance is it that the Pope condemns kidnapping? The murderers don't give a damn what the Christian leader in the west says or believes."
Then the hope is that the words of solidarity and closeness can become facts. That the announcement made on Wednesday by the French foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner, of the decision to give refuge to 500 Iraqi Christians because, as he said, if France will not refuse it to Muslims is also true that no country is taking care of Iraqi Christians, can be true.
Then the hope is that the words of solidarity and closeness can become facts. That the announcement made on Wednesday by the French foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner, of the decision to give refuge to 500 Iraqi Christians because, as he said, if France will not refuse it to Muslims is also true that no country is taking care of Iraqi Christians, can be true.
Such a move of course will be particularly unwelcome by those who, despite everything, are trying to prevent the flight of the Christians from Iraq in the name of their thousand-year tradition of life and survival in that country, but equally certainly if the announcement will come true many will desire to rebuild their lives in France, many of those who now say: "I feel a foreigner in my country!"
Because if they have to feel foregneirs they, as everyone in the world, want to live in freedom, but above all they want to live.
And so, for them: "Vive la France!"
But ... what’s Italy doing?