Iraqi Christians face extinction; the west sits passively

The best summary of the plight of the Iraqi Christians appears today on National Review Online. It begins:

In Iraq the surge is working, but at the same time the Iraqi Christian community is dying. Hardly anyone seems to know, and those who know don’t seem to care. In former times, the violent persecution of Christians in a country effectively under the rule of a Western, Christian power would have been unthinkable. But not, it seems, in the enlightened 21st century.

….The Chaldo-Assyrians constitute what remains of the original, non-Arab, population of the area. Iraq’s principal Christian communities today belong to the Chaldean (Catholic) Church, Syrian Orthodox Church, and the Assyrian Church of the East. All use Aramaic, the language spoken by Christ. Despite successive persecutions and constant pressures, Christianity has continued in Iraq since, according to tradition, it was brought there by St. Thomas the Apostle.

That’s a 2,000-year-old community. Note the “original, non-Arab population of the area.” They were there first.

But Christianity now faces extinction. The 1987 census recorded 1.4 million Christians in Iraq. Numbers began to drop as conditions deteriorated after the first Gulf War. There were, though, around 800,000 at the time of the U.S-led invasion of 2003. Of these, about half have now left the country altogether, while more than 100,000 are internally displaced persons.

All of this has been said elsewhere. What is particularly useful is a more detailed account of why the Christians are in such trouble.  They are targeted by Islamic extremists. They are not armed and have no militia, unlike everybody else, so they are easy prey to have their property taken and be driven out. They have no protectors in the region. Various other factors are noted.

In addition, this summary of what is needed is the only one I’ve seen that addresses the long term as well as the short term:

The situation can thus correctly and without exaggeration be described as desperate. The best long-term hope for the Christians is the success of America’s and the Iraqi government’s war against al-Qaeda. Stability is what all Iraqis need — and the Christians, as the weakest, need it more than most. But under current conditions, the Christian community will simply not survive to see the benefits. Immediate, focused action is required to offer effective protection and aid. Giving Christians their own police force and local autonomy as well as guaranteeing humanitarian relief — both for the internally displaced population and the refugees — must be the priorities.

This answers the question I’ve had all along, even though only implicitly. I have wondered if the population of Iraq itself has become more anti-Christian, or if the Islamist militants have been the ones targeting the Christians. I glean from this report that Iraqis have taken advantage of the weakness of the Christians, but the direct targeting comes from the people we are fighting against. If stability is restored, Christians will once again be relatively safe. In the meantime, they need their own police force to protect them, their own area to live in, and humanitarian aid.

The response of the nations that should be helping has been shameful.

Unfortunately, until now there has been a conspiracy of near-silence. Some in the U.S. administration have been unwilling to have public attention drawn to the problem, for fear it would undermine support for the surge strategy. Other countries — with the notable exception of Germany — do not wish to do so either, for fear that they will be expected to take in more refugees. (Britain has a particularly shameful record in this respect). Meanwhile, diplomatic circles have a politically correct repugnance against any initiative directed towards helping a particular religious group — especially, of course, a Christian one. At an international level, only the pope has called for urgent action to avert the tragedy.

We have noted Germany’s intention to take tens of thousands of Christian refugees: See this post, and the links within it.  The rest of the west is in the grip of multicultural insanity and anti-Christian sentiment that will not allow it to single out the most imperiled group in the Middle East for special help. Can the Christian groups not do something? There are many fewer Jews than Christians in the world, yet Jews in trouble are invariably rescued by Israel or aided by charity from Jews around the world. Why can’t Christians step up and help these people?