Plight of the Mandaeans

[iBrian]

Pretty disturbing and saddening report about the plight of Mandaeans in Iraq:
BBC NEWS | World | Middle East | Iraq's Mandaeans 'face extinction'

In the country as it is without law and in the grip of religious extremism, he fears they will be destroyed.

"We are small in numbers, we ask all the governments of the world to extend a hand of help," Kanzfra Sattar says.

He says he wants the West to accept his people as refugees.

I ask him what will happen if they do not - he replies simply: "Our ethnic minority and our ancient religion will die off."

 

[Pathless]

Holy Mother...

He believes they are a litmus test for modern Iraq - in a secular state these doctors, engineers and jewellers would thrive.

I wonder what their lives were like before the invasion and occupation. One can infer that they were nothing, nothing like they are now.

I meet Luay. He is too scared to be identified and does not want to use his full name.
He was dragged off the street by armed men and forcibly circumcised - a practice not allowed in the Mandaean religion.
He is 19 and is now unlikely ever to find a bride from his own faith.
Worse, he was forcibly converted. That means in the eyes of those same extremists if he now declares himself Mandaean he is apostate.
That makes him a traitor to Islam, who may be murdered. He says he will not be safe in any Muslim country.

Atrocity, atrocity, atrocity.

 

[flowperson]

Thanks for your post and link Brian. It begins to get us to the inner layers of the onion that represents the "why" of why this war is being fought.

It's about religion. It's about priority of being, as were the other wars that have been fought over the recent decades which involved "ethnic cleansing and rivalries".

In a sense, Saddam was right... this is the mother of all wars, so far.

flow....