The war in Iraq

Distressed, but not Desperate

The testimonies of the Secretary of the Iraqi Bishops and the Apostolic Nuncio, brought back by three councilors of the Region of Lombardy, Italy, sent by Regional President Roberto Formigoni to Baghdad on the verge of war

BY MARCELLO RAIMONDI

American President Bush used the word ‘crusade’ in a regrettable way after September 11th, and this caused us some problems; then, fortunately, he corrected himself.” Archbishop Jean Sleiman, the Latin Archbishop of Baghdad, looks at you intensely when he talks and always wears a gentle, serene expression. He does not recriminate or complain, but thinks only of his people. During the trip I took to Iraq at the end of February, together with my colleagues Massimo Guarischi and Umberto Gay, the meeting with the local Church was the most intense moment. We went, with the backing of Berlusconi and Formigoni, to give a sign of Italy’s closeness to a nation with which our country has always had a mutual relationship of friendship, and to insist on the absolute necessity for the regime to cooperate with the UN. We had official and non-official meetings. Tarek Aziz, as a sign of good will toward Italy, told our delegation that disarmament had begun, and that this would postpone the attack for a while, but the judgment of the Church that lives in the land of Abraham since the time of the Apostles is certainly what remains most vivid in our consciousness.

Under the blanket of words
The two Archbishops we met, Apostolic Nuncio Fernando Filoni and Archbishops Sleiman, Secretary of the Iraqi Catholic Episcopal Conference, took us right to the heart of reality, digging freely underneath the blanket of words spread by the regime and behind the appearances of those who have been able to learn about events in Iraq only through the Western press and the polemical debate in our own country.
America feels threatened by a country that it perceives to be hostile and potentially terrorist; the Iraqi regime flaunts self-assurance and accuses the aggressor of arbitrariness. In all the official dialogues we had, I was struck by the fact that our interlocutors always took a “geopolitical” approach, giving long reconstructions of the historical and economic reasons that push the United States and England into wanting dominion in the Persian Gulf, and reaffirming the millenary pride of Iraq, which today sets itself up as the only bastion against American imperialism. In the end, you are left with a sense of abstraction, as though the regime did not want to realize that there were more than 200,000 soldiers camped along its borders.
The Church’s starting point is profoundly different. She looks at reality by identifying with the common man. Thus, the description of the situation emerges in all its rawness–for example, starting from the economic condition of the people. So as not to give an impression of weakness, the government has officially maintained the old exchange rate for the Iraqi dinar (one dinar=$3.00), but today, with devaluation, the currency is worth 6,000 times less. With 2,000 dinars you can buy a kilo (2.2 lbs) of oranges. The fact is that in the name of the official exchange rate, a teacher, for example, earns less than 4,000 dinars a month–in other words, less than $2.00. Obviously, no one can survive on that salary, so when a child goes to school, if he wants lessons he has to pay out of his own pocket.

The most damage
We won’t even mention all the rest, especially health care. And it must be kept in mind that Baghdad is the best-preserved city. In the south, in Basra, where the war with Iran and Desert Storm in 1991 did the most damage, the situation is indescribable. Water is scarce; the Tigris River cannot be utilized because it is polluted and chloride cannot be imported because it is among the products covered by the embargo (since it can be used for military purposes). The local Bishop has water imported from abroad to distribute to the people.
In the cities, today, the biggest preparations for war are not bunkers or trenches, but digging wells. Everyone is digging them outside their houses for drawing water, and Care is actively involved in teaching people what to do. “Twelve years of embargo have prostrated the population economically, psychologically, and morally,” Archbishop Filoni explained. “How can you wage war on a country like this? It is like shooting a patient who is critically ill.”
Unemployment is sky-high, and people are leaving the country, more because of poverty than because of the war. Christians are leaving too. With the 1991 war and the embargo, one-third of the Christians have gone; in the whole country 700,000-800,000 are left (out of a population of 22 million), 80% of them Chaldean Catholics. In Kurdistan, there were completely Christian villages that are empty today, especially in the Diocese of Al Amadiyah.

Embargo and democracy
Then there are the psychological and cultural aspects. “There is frustration among the Muslims,” Archbishop Sleiman told us. “Fanaticism is increasing, and the possibility of living together is starting to crumble. The embargo humiliates a people and makes it a pariah among nations. It was conceived to push people to revolt, but it has failed.”
“ Americans have to understand that democracy is a culture, a process, that cannot be created either by law or by war,” we were told. It is necessary to understand the local culture, the sense of belonging to the clan, the tribe; respect for the head, the commander, the rais is very strong. The idea of individual responsibility is not developed in the Arab world. It is no coincidence that pluralistic democracies like the Western ones practically do not exist. “It is a system that will not change quickly,” the Bishops confirmed to us. “Whoever comes afterwards will have a very hard time.” In short, attenuation of the embargo coupled with strong diplomatic activity on the part of Europe might have been able to avoid the stiffening of the Iraqi position and perhaps ward off the escalation of recent months. But the life of the Church has not stopped; quite the contrary. The communities are very active, and there is a great deal of participation. “We have a theological school,” says Archbishop Sleiman, “we do catechism, and we make our space available for the young people to meet together.” The churches are no longer merely places of worship, but are also among the few public spaces where people can speak with some freedom. Lectures are held, not on political topics but, for instance, on ethics, and this enables an essential educational activity to be carried out. So it happens that many come, even non-Christians, even if only to look at the girls. The educational work of the Church is not limited to meetings. There are no private schools, but it is possible to teach religion wherever at least 25% of the total students are Christian.

We shall stay here
Certainly, the war would truly be a massacre, especially for Christians. “We are worried,” Archbishop Sleiman told us, “because in every period of change here in Iraq there have been pogroms and genocides. The Christians would be the main victims.” A few days before our arrival in Baghdad, a demonstration was held in front of a UN office, in the presence of priests and mullah. There were slogans against the Christians; the Vice-Minister for Religious Affairs intervened to censure this behavior. “People are aware of the Pope’s role in this crisis,” we were told. “Even though the newspapers and TV give very little coverage, many people were up-to-date on Cardinal Etchegaray’s visit. Reasonable people said: ‘So, it’s not really true that the Christian West wants to wage war on us.’”
And in any case, people are preparing for the worst. Eight aid centers will be set up in the city, 44 in the whole country; health care will be made available, food will be distributed, and aid given to evacuees. There will be a hospitality center in every church. “We shall stay here,” Archbishop Sleiman told us with a smile. “Here, the Church does not have trade that must be protected. We pray and work for peace, the end of the embargo, and the reconstruction of our people.”