Religious Minorities Find Sanctuary in Kurdistan

Voice of America ^ | November 14, 2012 | Henry Ridgwell

[SunkenCiv]

Long unfairly stigmatized as "devil worshippers" by their Muslim and Christian neighbors, Iraq's half-million strong Yezidi minority suffered some of the worst sectarian attacks after the fall of President Saddam Hussein in 2003.

Now under the autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government, the pilgrims are returning. The Yezidis have their own minister in government.

Before we were not free to pray and could not visit here easily," said Lokman Suleiman, a local Yezidi teacher. "Now we can. The Kurdistan government is not only good for us, it is good for all people. The sun now rises over a Kurdistan of many colors, free and proud.

Christian revival

Like the Yezidis, Iraqi Christians were targeted by Sunni and Shi'ite militants after Saddam Hussein's ouster.

Down in the heat of Erbil city, Father Aesha Dawoud leads an Assyrian church in a suburb of the Kurdistan capital.

Now our churches and our holy places are honored and respected by the people who live around us, said Father Aesha. In celebration and in peace, people come here. The people of this city guard our places of worship.

There were tens of thousands of Christians living in cities like Baghdad and Basra in southern Iraq. The majority have fled -- some overseas, many to Kurdistan.

Father Aesha said his congregation would support an independent Kurdish state.

If the situation is like now, if they don't change things for us, then yes we would support the Kurds, he said.

[SunkenCiv]

[SunkenCiv]

Okay, got it to work.

[GeronL]

What is a Yezidi?

Do I have to Google it?

[Amberdawn]

I hope they finally know peace, instead of constant attack.

[Sherman Logan]

They are an odd sect of (mostly) Kurds whose religion is most likely a blend of Zoroastrian and Sufi traditions.

Their being often considered devil-worshipers is at least partly their own fault, since one of the names they give their chief (demi)-god is Shaitan.

By all means google it if you want more info. Main thing is just about all Muslim groups consider them pagans and therefore not even worthy of being accepted ad dimmi like Christians and Jews.

[SunkenCiv]

I’ll have to, but later. :’)

[GeronL]

thanks

[lurk]

Interesting. These are the inheritors of the territory of ancient Assyria.

God has good future news for the Assyrians in Isa. 19.

[ZULU]

A long time ago I said that Iraq should be divided and an independent Kurdistan created.

But that moron we had for a president and his Satanic successor felt that a united Iraq was much better. It was much better for the oil interests and to the minds of the pan-Islamists in their cabinets and councils.

Of course those oil interests turned out not to be OUR oil interests and Iraq AFTER Bush and Obama’s little experiment in “democracy” turned out much worse for all religious minorities than before our invasion.

ONCE AGAIN Americans fought, died, spent a fortune, won a war and lost the peace through the idiocy of their leaders.

[Cronos]

the Yezidis are an ancient Aryanic (Irani) religion. Most of its beliefs and rituals are secret, but what is known is that (strangely similar to the Lord of the Rings mythology) that God gave control of the earth to 12 angels, the leader of which is the Angel of Light, or the Peacock angel

This is associated by Christians and Moslems with Shaitan/Satan.

Their true numbers are unknown

[Cronos]

Remember that the Middle-East is not as monolithic as we may think:

there are significant numbers of Christians -- in Lebanon 40%, in Syria 10 to 20%, in Iraq it was 10%, now less and in Egypt it is 2%. These run the entire gamut:

• there are Assyrian Christians (the ancient Church of the east which is wrongly referred to as Nestorian while it's precepts are actually from Babai the great and at one time it spread from Iraq to China, converting the Naiman mongols and being the state religion of Uighuristan (Xinjiang province in China now) before being decimated by Timur-e-Lang and then the later Moslem rules
• Syriac Christians
• Armenian Christians
• Coptic Christians
• Catholic Syrian Melkites
• Catholic Chaldean Christians
• Syrian Orthodox
• Greek Orthodox
• Catholic Maronite Christians
• Evangelical Christians (mostly from the Calvinist/Anglican traditions
• Some "modern-day definition" Evangelical Christians

In addition you have Jews, even in Iran

And then you have strange "left-over" sects like

• Druze which combine Platonist beliefs with Islam
• Alawis/Alevis which combine Christianity, Islam, Gnosticism
• left-over Gnostics
• Mandaen Christians who believe that the real messiah was John the Baptist and that Jesus, Moses and Mohammed were all false prophets

  And then you have various kinds of Zoroastrians

  And among Moslems there are many:

  Among Sunnis there are the Wahabbis, then various schools of Sunnah: hanafis etc. and the sufis, and then you have Ibadis in Oman, and various types of Shias: from twelvers to fivers, Ismailis etc. etc. and then you have Ahmadiyas (both groups) and Bahais etc. etc.

[Cronos]

What is surprising from a century-old historical stand point is that this is the Kurds who are are supporting minorities - because during the Armenian genocide, the Kurds were the ones doing most of the killing (directed by the young Turks, yes) of Armenian and Assyrian Christians...

[Cronos]

turned out much worse for all religious minorities than before our invasion.

eggsactly

[JimRed]

Iraqi Kurdistan actually said “thank you” to the U.S. and Coalition members for their opportunity to have freedom.

[SunkenCiv]

I said Iraq should be partitioned into at least three nations; however, that was not doable politically in Iraq; and Iraq’s neighbors (including NATO ‘partner’ Turkey) wouldn’t have gone for an independent Kurdistan. There will be one, but it will happen in steps, and some of those steps may be bloody, or rather bloodier. And no, Bush wasn’t a “moron”.

[ZULU]

Bush's legacy was Obama in the White House, a collapsing economy, a lot of dead Americans in Iraq and Afghanistan in two fruitless wars of nation-building, lots of lost military funds in both places, an invasion of our southern borders by hoards of illegals, acceleration of a grossly unbalanced budget, loss of civil liberties through the Homeland Security Department and TSA, a BAD SCOTUS appointment (Roberts), AN EVEN worse SCOTUS appointment tried - Harriet Miers), a HOST of poor advisers (Colin Powell, Chrissie Whitman, Alberto Gonzales, Dana Perino, etc.) I could go on and on about this guy and his father.

THEY betrayed the Reagan Revolution and are exemplars of why the GOP needs to be replaced.

I'm not closed minded about this, but that is my perception as an interested political layman.

I understand politics is the art of the possible, but I am TOTALLY disillusioned with the GOP at this point. People like Boehner and McConnell and Cantor are disgraces, and people like Allan West, Marco Rubio, Niki Haley, etc. not to mention US, deserve much better than the poor treatment they have received.

I am angry, disappointed, at that this time, frankly vengeful - not at the Dems - but at the GOP and its leadership.