I visited Mosul in Northern Iraq on January 3rd and 4th as a member of the Iraq Peace Team (www.iraqpeaceteam.org). We spent our time in Mosul visiting churches and mosques, chatting with shopkeepers, and savoring the ancient feel of a city that has been inhabited since its name was Ninevah and God told Jonah to go preach to the people there.
Northern Iraq is a beautiful place and I feel privileged to have visited there and met so many wonderful people. I also found it a very sad place to visit.
After 12 years of UN/US sanctions many people in Mosul spend their time worrying about where their next meal will come from. A greater worry, especially now, is that US bombs will begin falling on this vibrant city as they often do on the surrounding hillside villages. Saying goodbye to the people I met in Mosul was the hardest thing for me. I don’t know if they will still be alive when I make a return visit.
Just like in Baghdad, Muslims and Christians in the north of Iraq have lived in harmony for hundreds and hundreds of years. However, newly-made friends in Mosul told our group that rhetoric and threats of full-scale war from Washington are beginning to disrupt that harmony.
“When Mr. Bush called the invasion of Afghanistan a ‘crusade,’ it made a lot of people here very nervous,” says Father Akhmed, a Dominican priest at Clock Church in Mosul.
Although Bush’s aides quickly had him apologize for the remark, Father Akhmed says the damage was already done. Many Muslims here already perceived US aggression as anti-Islamic, and Bush’s remark just confirmed that suspicion.
Christians here worry that a forced regime change in Iraq could mean that radical Islamic factions take over power and squeeze the rights and freedoms of Christians afforded by the current secular government in Baghdad.
Minority Muslim groups and the small population of Iraqi Jews have similar concerns about a US-influenced regime change. Although many top Iraqi officials are Sunni, a Shiite Muslim and a Christian sit on the seven-member Revolutionary Council. The current government provides security guards for minority Shiite pilgrimage sites and pilgrim groups. Baghdad’s 2,500 Jewish residents also enjoy special protection.
Minority Sufi mosques are increasingly attended throughout the country.
“I hope in your visit to Iraq you have discovered that Islam–like all religions–is a religion of love and peace. No religion teaches people to kill other people,” says Dr. Ali Abuteebu, a representative for the Sufi Muslim leader Al Sheikh Mohammad Abdul Khareem.
Sipping on a glass of sweet Iraqi tea, he continues, “It is more difficult to build than destroy. By killing our people and destroying our buildings America does not show that it is strong. Why don’t the Americans build the people of Iraq by sending medicines and food and by participating in our economy?”
The sound of air raid sirens in Mosul is a normal, almost everyday experience, according to Sister Shereen, a Dominican nun. The bombing that often follows the sirens is what people struggle to deal with.
“It is our job in the church to help take this pain from our people, but how can we?” she tell me, speaking of what she describes as”deep psychological pain” that comes from the loss of life as well as the fear of American bombings around Mosul.
During the Gulf War, a US plane dropped a bomb on the church next door to Sister Shereen’s convent. Several members of the five families who were taking refuge there were killed. The church has recently been rebuilt.
Currently, it seems that the US military is getting increasingly aggressive in its bombing campaigns in the no-fly-zones, especially in the South, but also in the North near Mosul.
Some analysts say that US fighter pilots have been ordered to take more risks, by being given lower flight plans and stepping up attacks on more controversial targets. Some conjecture that military planners hope to provoke an incident, such as a US plane getting shot down, as an excuse to begin a full-scale invasion.
This is an immoral and dangerous strategy for many reasons. For one, it puts US pilots at great risk of being shot down by Iraqi anti-aircraft fire. Furthermore, the bombing of Iraqi military targets puts nearby civilians and civilian infrastructure at risk. On Jan. 1 the AFP news service reported on three bombings in which civilian targets were blown-up.
After a long talk and many strong coffees, Sister Shereen and Father Akhmed sent our group off with a song. They chanted the Lord