Worshipers on Friday morning at the Holy Family Chaldean Catholic
Church in the small Canadian city of Windsor can be heard praying in
Arabic and, at times, in Chaldean, a neo-Aramaic language, still
surviving in both Iraq and Syria.
In the
church’s vicinity at Wyandotte Street, signs in Arabic on some grocery
stores promise Canadian Iraqi customers – both Christians and Muslims –
goodies, bread and other foodstuff that connect them to their
motherland.
Far away, their country of
origin, Iraq, might be on the verge of splitting off as the northern
autonomous region of Kurdistan has scheduled a referendum on Sep. 25 to decide if it wants to secede.
Not
all divorces are easy, particularly when it comes to the northern
Nineveh Plain, a disputed region between Iraq’s Baghdad and Kurdistan’s
Erbil among others, including the oil rich and mixed city of Kirkuk.
Baghdad
considers the Nineveh Plains – heartland of Christianity in Iraq –
where other minorities such as Yazidis and Shabaks live, as part of the
northern Mosul governorate, while Erbil claims it after touting its
Peshmerga troops as the main force behind the liberation of the area in
late 2016 from ISIS militants, who seized the area in August 2014.
‘Every inch of my land’
“I am Father
Sarmad, I am part of the Chaldean Catholic church, and we are the
largest church in Iraq. I am part of Baghdad, I am part of [Iraqi
southern city of] Basra, north of Iraq, and part of every inch of my
land,” Father Sarmad Biloues from the church told Al Arabiya English
when he was asked about the vote.
Father
Biloues says the Chaldean church has three million followers outside
Iraq and almost one million in the country. There is no recent official
census but the number of Christians living in Iraq, who represented
about seven percent of the population, fell from 1.4 million in 2003 to
as low as 450,000 by 2013, due to ensuing violence following the US
invasion.
Christians of the Iraqi original
follow four churches – Chaldeans, who are Catholics, Assyrians, who
follow Church of the East, Syriac Orthodox Church and Eastern Orthodox.
By the look of things, they are in for a period of separation as well.
“All
of Iraqi land lives in us. We are Iraqi citizens,” Father Biloues says.
However, the Chaldean church leadership has not yet chosen an official
position, he explained, highlighting Iraqi Christians’ caution over the
messy business of impending separation.
“We
are one heart with all of Iraq in Baghdad or Kurdistan,” he said. “We
are waiting for our church leadership to choose the [final] stance. We
always had Christians in Kurdistan and love Kurdistan, and we always had
Christians in Baghdad and adore Baghdad.” He also urged everyone to be
calm and asked “all Christians to pray for Iraq.”
“Peace
must return, ISIS must be completely wiped, and reconciliation between
all of Iraqis to be one heart and one land, and then we can sit on one
table and decide,” he said, alluding that the separatist vote is way too
early.
Oozing wounds
Juliana Taimoorazy,
head of the Illinois-based Iraqi Christian Relief Council (ICRC), says
they are having to lick their wounds, which are still oozing. “This is
not the time for a referendum, she says”
“At
ICRC we are doing our best to mobilize the Christian West and
philanthropist to see the value to stand in unity and build their
lives,” she says adding that they are a big fan of Iraq staying
together. “Most of our people in Iraq and in the diaspora want Iraq to
stay intact.”
One of the main reasons
Christians feel part of Iraq is the country’s constitution article 125
of which mentions Assyrians and Chaldeans by their distinct ethnic
names. The article also promises them their own province in the north
even though these plans were stalled after ISIS ransacking, Taimoorazy
says.
War nervousness
With Turkey
and Iran already having large number of Kurdish separatists, Iran’s
Chief of Staff, Major General Mohammed Bagheri, himself met with Turkish
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in August, urging Kurdistan to abandon
the vote.
“We are nervous. Iran is not
interested in this referendum, Turkey is trying to stop it, US is not
supporting it, [President of the Iraqi Kurdistan Region Masoud] Barazani
is trying to force it,” she said. “We are worried, if this goes
through, we will be subjected again to another war that will be by
Turkey or Iran attacking the Kurds.”
On
top of the regional lack of support, onlookers find the Kurds as not
only divided but facing financial difficulties amid dwindling oil prices
that affected the whole of Iraq, leaving government employees in
quagmire. However, sources told Reuters that Iraq’s Kurdistan has borrowed funds from its oil buyers to help settle a $1 billion London court case ahead of the vote.
“It
is a scandal and a project by Barzani to expand the [Kurdistan Regional
Government] KRG, not make it independent,” Max J. Joseph, a
London-based Assyrian artist and writer, told Al Arabiya. “The Barzani
family knows independence will mean another Kurdish civil war as well as
a wider regional conflict.”
Christian protesters warned
With
Assyrians in Iraq, and in the diaspora, “overwhelmingly preferring to
have a direct relationship with Baghdad,” they made their voice heard
when they protested in late August at the mainly Christian village of
Alqosh in the Ninveh Plain, Joseph said.
However,
they received a warning by the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP)
dominated provincial council over their “illegal protests,’ Joseph
shared on his Twitter account through his local sources whom he hid
their names for security reasons.
“Assyrians
in Alqosh have protested three times now waving Iraqi flags, but
Baghdad is neglecting them so far and not helping. We’re desperate for
Baghdad to play a more active role in our affairs but so far there has
been very little,” he wrote.
In July, the
Nineveh Council dismissed the mayor of Alqosh and replaced him with a
local political leader close to the Barazani-led KDP. “The only ones who
voice support for Kurdistan are the ones on the KDP payroll – and they
are very few, but are strategically placed by the KRG in the media to
voice that support which doesn’t exist on the ground.”
Nineveh Plain
There
is also no concrete agreement among Christians on what is the best path
to take particularly on the final status of their ancestral Nineveh
Plain.
While the Chaldean Church does not
have a firm position on upcoming referendum for its followers to adhere,
it has agreed that Christians should not be “trapped” in the Nineveh
Plain since “violent past has taught Christians not to be in one place to
be an easy prey,” said Father Biloues.
“We
see it as conspiracy to put Christians in Nineveh Plain, in a country
that has scared people. We are scared to be put in this prison,” he
said. He recalled the Simele massacre in 1933. He also described a
deceitful tactic by the British of encouraging Christian rebellion and
later informing the Iraqi government to quell it. This led to the death
of 3,000 Christians.
Father Biloues also
rejects any calls for international protection or observation. “The
Iraqi political situation is still not stable, and I expect the whole
Iraqi nation to be in turmoil. If I say only Christians are facing
persecution, yes I can say that but that’s not right because everyone is
persecuted in Iraq,” he said.
Unlike him,
Taimoorazy said: “We want an international observation to keep an eye
both on Baghdad and Erbil to protect rights of minorities such as
Christians, Yazidis and Turkmens.”
“Our
issue is not so much as Christians but as nationality, as Assyrians,
Chaldeans and Syriac, we are all one nation, we are having an issue with
KRG,” she said, further complicating the situation.
“Especially
the Assyrians have been asking for our rights to be observed as
indigenous people of the land, and for us to have equal say in our fate,
we do not want the Nineveh plain to be slated to go with Kurdistan.”
