Interview by Baghdadhope
"Why in Europe, in Italy, anyone is doing something about the question of article 50?"
The tone of Msgr. Warduni from Baghdad is of profound disappointment. He is referring to the electoral law for the next election of the provincial councils that in its first draft - rejected by the presidential council - contained an article, the number 50, which reserved 15 seats to minorities in six provinces: 13 to Christians, one to the Shabaks and one to the Yazides. An article that at the time of the resubmission of the law for approval by the parliament to the presidential council had been cancelled.
The presidential council approved the electoral law but called also on parliamentarians to reintroduce the article 50, are you not satisfied?
"Absolutely not. We expected the withdrawal of its cancellation and not its review. We cannot be satisfied. We are, indeed, very worried."
There have been many demonstrations in Iraq against the cancellation of art. 50. What do you intend to do now that the situation appears to be suspended pending the decision of the parliament?
"To continue to make our voices heard, hoping that our appeal will be collected, not only in Iraq but around the world. What are involved are our rights of citizens, belonging to a minority, it is true, but Iraqi citizens in any case. Nobody cares?"
And you, what will you do?
"Everything I can. Today, for example, I will speak in a meeting that we will have also with some Muslims in the church of Saint Joseph, and then in a Chaldean charitable institution. With me there will be perhaps Msgr. Gewargis Sliwa, bishop of the Assyrian Eastern Church. It is necessary to talk, to explain, to increase awareness of everyone on this issue, this denial of our rights. We only hope to meet many people in these meetings. In Baghdad there is still a lot of fear, people are afraid to go out for fear of suicide attacks. This is our life: the law that forgets us, the electricity that lacks, the danger of dying at any moment."
"The world is leaving us alone" is Msgr. Warduni’s disconsolate conclusion and these few words re-echo the complaints of the Iraqi Christian community, in the headlines only in a few occasions, mostly negative. So the world was - rightly – interested in the fate of Archbishop Faraj Paulus Rahho, the Chaldean bishop of Mosul abducted last February and found dead a month later, while the "issue 50" is not getting the same attention. Certainly this is not a kidnapping, a death, or one of the usual reports of violence from Iraq, yet when carefully viewed it is a real infanticide, that of the so much praised "Iraqi democracy" that the world pretends to see on the path towards its full development.
What kind of democracy will it be if already from its first steps it shows not to consider its own minorities? Nobody, that is part of the Iraqi government or has a public position, has never spared words of respect for the "Christian brothers," but the cancellation of article 50 shows that they were just words and that in practice Iraqi Christians must fear not only the violent actions but the legal ones too.
And what kind of democracy is our that ignores the fight of Iraqi Christians to remain in their own country? Where are the associations and the parties always ready and attentive to defend the rights of minorities in this occasion? What are the interests that lead to silence?
How can we ask or hope that Iraqi Christians remain in their homeland to preserve the roots of an ancient Christianity - theirs but ours too - in such a condition?
In Italy there is not an Iraqi Christian community numerically so important to organize a protest or make itself heard by the media. Can this absence be sufficient to justify the indifference?
Do we really have to admit that Msgr.Warduni is right when he says that we are leaving the Iraqis Christians alone?