Yesterday I posted on an AP article about a Chaldean church in Baghdad. Christmas in Iraq proves to be a popular story line with the media.  I found two other stories about churches in Baghdad celebrating Christmas: one from McClatchy about a Greek Orthodox church and one from Time magazine about a “Catholic” church. The latter shows special ignorance. What kind of Catholic? Assyrian? Chaldean? Roman? Reporters learned to differentiate between Sunni and Shia Muslims, but since Catholics aren’t attacking each other I guess some of them can’t be bothered to figure out the different Iraqi churches.

At any rate, it’s nice to see attention paid to Christians in Iraq, and the human interest stories are good. But it would also be good if the reporters dug a little deeper. We get information about the government’s efforts (from  McClatchy):

The government of Iraq has tried to telegraph a message that the country is safe enough for Christian refugees to return this year.

Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki touted security improvements in a July meeting with Pope Benedict XVI. Iraq Interior Minister Jawad Bolani this week hosted a Christmas celebration in the city’s Karrada neighborhood where a man dressed up like Santa Claus mingled with children wearing traditional Iraqi clothing.

A banner at the outdoor party read, “Christians are part of the Iraqi people.”

And the obligatory “but” —

High profile attacks against Christians, particularly in the northern city of Mosul, test that message.

The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees estimated that as many 2,000 Christian families fled that city in October after a series of killings. Some began to return a month later with the help of $800 cash grants from the Iraqi government to help them resettle.

Haven’t we learned by now that Iraq isn’t a monolithic place, and that violence has been dealt with area by area? The situation in Mosul is not the same as that in Baghdad or other places. It doesn’t detract from the achievements in Baghdad that the entire county isn’t pacified yet. 

The Time article doesn’t bother with Mosul. It’s all warmhearted human interest with this tacked on at the end:

As the congregants headed home, a car bomb exploded in Shula, a predominantly Shi’ite neighborhood northwest of Mansur, the AP reported. The bomb appeared to have been targeted at the Iraqi police.

That’s just so we don’t think things are actually much better, I guess; I don’t know what other relevance it could have. But the parts that really need more background are those on the Christian refugees who have left Iraq.  From the McClatchy article:

Yacob said the exodus won’t reverse until Christians feel they can hold steady jobs in the Muslim country.

“They won’t listen if I say turn back and I don’t provide them with jobs and security,” he said.

A church member said it feels safe enough now, but he isn’t sure it will last.  The Time article points out what we’ve been saying:

“I’m asking all the Christian brothers to come back and rebuild the new Iraq,” [the priest] told his audience, adding that he had stayed through the worst years of the violence, during which he took on the leadership of two additional churches whose priests had fled. After the service, others in the congregation echoed his pride.

“My sister and her family are in America now as humanitarian refugees in Chicago. But they feel like strangers there, and they miss this atmosphere,” says Ghassan Khudher, a pediatrician who has attended Mar Yousif on Christmas for the past 10 years. “Here there is still fear for our families and our children,” he says to me. “But I don’t like being outside [Iraq], because your country is not like Iraq.”

Reporters are welcome to consult RRW for information on Iraqi refugees in the U.S. Just search “Iraqi” and “jobs”  or “Iraqi” and “unemploy” and you’ll find a lot of stories about how difficult it is for Iraqi refugees here, culturally and economically. A common thread has been that people who were professionals in Iraq can’t work in their fields here, though the refugee agencies promised them streets paved with gold. And of course many of the refugees miss their own culture and country.

Here’s some rare good news for Iraqi Christians. The Associated Press reports:

BAGHDAD  —  Iraq’s Christians, a small minority in the overwhelmingly Muslim country, quietly celebrated Christmas on Thursday with a present from the government, which declared it an official holiday for the first time.

This is of course followed by news of continuing violence in Iraq. Not against Christians, but in general. It has nothing to do with the topic of the story, but the AP can’t let us think anything good is happening in Iraq, even now, without “balancing” it with bad news. However, since the story is about Christmas, eventually it continues:

In his homily on Thursday, Chaldean Cardinal Emmanuel III Delly praised the establishment of Christmas as an official holiday as a step toward easing tensions.

“I thank it too for making this day an official holiday where we pray to God to make us trust each other as brothers,” he said at the Christmas Mass before several dozen worshippers in the small chapel of a Baghdad monastery.

A senior Shiite cleric, Ammar al-Hakim attended the event, flanked by bodyguards, in a gesture of cooperation with Christians.

“I thank the visitors here and ask them to share happiness and love with their brothers on Christmas. By this they will build a glorious Iraq,” the cardinal said.

“We came here to bring a message of love, respect and gratitude to our Christian brothers and to share happiness with them as we have shared sadness with them during the cruel targeting they came under,” al-Hakim said in an interview with al-Furat TV. “We will do our best for equality between people and a good life for all, whatever their religious, sectarian and ethnic background.”

Who knows what this means for the long term or for the overall picture? Nevertheless, an official recognition of Christmas, which means so much to the Christians of Iraq, is a good sign.

See Gateway Pundit for pictures and more news.

While Iraq as a whole is far more peaceful and safe than it was a couple of years ago, Mosul, in northern Iraq, is still plagued by violence, especially the Christians. Violence from whom? The Telegraph (UK) names the attackers as “opposing factions,” “vigilante groupss,” and “al-Qaeda fighters.”  Oh yes, and “gunmen” in the headline: “Iraqi Christians flee gunmen for sanctuary of monastery.”

…the tranquil life of Mar Matti’s black-robed monks has been shattered by the arrival of hundreds of Christians fleeing a campaign of persecution in Mosul, just 20 miles away.

Their homes raided, their priests attacked and their relatives murdered, Assyrian and Chaldean Christians have become the latest victims of violence in the city, once the most cosmopolitan in Iraq.

“First they came against the Kurds, then against the Yazidis and now they have come for the Christians,” said Jalal Mansour, 43, a former marble worker who fled to Mar Matti with his family after they were threatened by gunmen. “My uncle, an old man, was killed just because of his faith.”

….Christians believe they attracted the ire of the vigilante groups that roam Mosul’s dangerous streets when they considered a plan to take up arms themselves.

But these displaced Christians don’t need to leave Iraq.

Now they are considering a move to Irbil, the capital of the autonomous Kurdish region 50 miles away where there have been no major terrorist attacks for nearly two years.

The city’s affluent Christian neighbourhood of Ainkawa was a world away from the tense atmosphere around Mosul. Happy groups of giggling teenagers sat together in the courtyard of the Chaldean church of St Joseph – the girls wearing the sort of short skirts and tight leggings that would be unthinkable in a Muslim district.

Oh, those uptight Muslims. Kind of like Puritans. But wait, maybe not:

In the Bureau for Christian Affairs, a small committee of church members were allocating menial jobs, lodging and pensions to refugees from Mosul and Baghdad.

Many of them had been forced to leave all their belongings behind. A young man with an intense, haunted stare, said he had been kidnapped in Baghdad by the Mahdi Army and tortured for seven days.

“They told me I should become a Muslim like the other Shias in that area,” he said. “They held my hands in the fire and beat me with sticks and rifle butts calling me an infidel. Finally my family negotiated my release for £7,000 and they freed me. When the police came I was too scared to tell them who took me, so I left and came to Irbil.”

You mean those vigilantes, opposing factions and al-Qaeda fighters who drove the Christians away were Muslims? Imagine that. Lucky I kept reading down to the very last paragraph. Let’s hope U.S. forces can protect the Christians in Irbil, if that’s allowed under the Sharia-compliant agreement we’ve made with the Iraqi government.