A depressing press conference

I usually don't mention much about my work on this blog - I try to keep things lighthearted but I attended a press conference Wednesday that was one of the most depressing I've ever been to. It was about the ongoing slaughter of Christians and other religious minorities in Iraq and how the U.S. military is doing nothing to stop it. Some 2.2 million Iraqis, half of whom are not Muslim, have fled the country and are languishing in Jordan and Syria, thanks to our horrific immigration policy, which has let only a trickle of these people into the country.
I have included of a photo of Canon Andrew White, the Anglican priest whose testimony led the hearing in the Senate Russell building.
One of the worst testimonies, which I didn't have room to include in my article, came from Donny George, chairman of Iraq's state board of antiquities and director of the country's museums. He said:
"At my parents' place in Dora (a Christian neighborhood in Baghdad), we started hearing the Muslim extremists will do to the Christians exactly what they did to the Jews in 1948. This meant complete cleansing of people from the country. We receive a letter in an envelope together with a bullet of a Kalashnikov. The letter threatened my younger son, Martin, accusing him of cursing Islam and teasing Muslim girls. They mentioned that they suspect his father, myself, works with the Americans, so he was ordered to write a letter of apology to them (the Brigades of the martyr Zarqawi) with a fine of $1,000 to be put in an envelope and dropped in a certain place in Dora, otherwise the next day he will be kidnapped and beheaded immediately.
"When I heard that, I asked my elder son to get my mother, my two sisters and Martin and bring them to our flat in another part of Baghdad and in the afternoon I arranged for the letter and the money to be dropped for them, so they will not come after my son. In the coming few days, I heard the same thing had happened to 12 Christian families in the same area of Dora...they all paid and left the ara, leaving eerything behind, houses and properties. Now Dora is completely empty of any Christian Assyrians and almost all the churches there had been bombed or burnt."
Listening to this, I felt lightheaded. What if someone gave me one afternoon to pack up and leave my home in Virginia? What would I do? Fortunately this man managed to get his family into the States, thanks to the State University of New York, where he was given a visiting professorship. But most people in his position - who managed to make it out of Iraq alive, are not allowed to hold jobs nor educate their children while they rot away in refugee camps.
"I think the future is very bleak," said Pascale Warda, Iraq's former minister for migration and deplacement. "My people said to me the other Saturday, 'We've never had it so bad since the Mongols.' "
For those of you unfamiliar with Central Asian history, she's referring back to 1258, the year the Mongols sacked Baghdad. Tamerlane came in 1401 and razed the city again, creating even more massacres. These folks have long memories.
All the people who testified Wednesday kept on saying the word "genocide." And that's what it is.
Here is my article:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070726/NATION/107260064/1002

Iraq's perils dire for minority faiths

By Julia Duin
July 26, 2007

Iraq's outnumbered Christians and other religious minority groups are targets of a terror campaign and are facing a dire situation where killings and rapes have become the norm, a panel of witnesses testified yesterday on Capitol Hill.


In a hearing convened by the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, Canon Andrew White, vicar of St. George's Anglican Church in Baghdad, and four other panelists unfolded tales of horrors overtaking Christians, Yezidis (angel worshippers) and Mandaeans, members of a pacifist faith that follows the teachings of John the Baptist.

"The situation is more than desperate," said Mr. White, who described how Christians in Baghdad have been told to convert to Islam or be killed. Hundreds of those who could not afford to flee the country are living in churches without adequate food or water, he said.

"In the past month, 36 members of my own congregation have been kidnapped," he said. "To date, only one has been returned."

Iraq's eight remaining Jews, now hiding in Baghdad, are "the oldest Jewish community in the world," he said, referring to the 597 B.C. Babylonian conquest of ancient Judah that brought the Jews to the region as captives.

"The international community has done nothing to help these people," Mr. White said, explaining that the group is trying to emigrate to an Iraqi Jewish enclave in the Netherlands, which won't admit them.

Michael Youash, director of the Iraq Sustainable Democracy Project, called the situation "soft ethnic cleansing." The "de-Christianization of Iraq" is not far off, he predicted, saying that Washington has refused to help Iraqi Christians, whose common faith with many Americans has made them loathed by Muslim radicals.

"The State Department just dismisses this as part of an overall conflict," he said. "But Christians are being disproportionately targeted. The attacks are purely vindictive and vicious. They are meant to give a message."

Religious minorities have no militias to protect them, Mr. Youash said. "If someone attacks a Shi'ite, there are consequences. If someone attacks a Yezidi or a Mandaean, there are none."

Pascale Warda, president of the Iraqi Women's Center in Baghdad, said more than 30 churches have been destroyed; priests have been fatally shot, kidnapped and beheaded; a 14-year-old boy was crucified in Basra; and Baghdad's once-famous Christian neighborhoods have been emptied of thousands of residents.

"That's because of fatwas issued by Islamic fundamentalists who give them three choices," she said. "Convert to Islam, pay the jizya [a tax imposed on non-Muslims] or leave with no personal possessions."

Suhaib Nashi, general secretary of the Mandaean Associations Union, said that in the past week alone, several Mandaean families in Baghdad were given one hour to leave their homes or be killed.

On Feb. 26, Rena Al-Zuhairy, a 20-year-old Mandaean student, went to school merely to pick up her college degree. "The last voice her mother heard was her crying over the cell phone to save her," Mr. Nashi said. "The police force is corrupt, often helps attackers and has little to no role in protecting minorities."

Several panelists criticized Kurdish militias in northern Iraq for joining the persecution.

"Christians flee one dictatorship only to arrive to another dictatorship," Mr. Youash said. During the January 2005 elections, Kurdish soldiers stole many ballot boxes from areas populated by Christians and Yezidis, he added, but the U.S. government did not respond.

"Minorities learned that standing up for their right to vote only exposed them to greater persecution," he said.

Typical mornings

Yes, it's been awhile since yours truly blogged, but we were retooling out web site and we're still working out the kinks. Pictured here is Miss Veeka at the beach - that is, North Beach, which is a charming spot on Chesapeake Bay I'm guessing about 20 miles south of Annapolis. It was a lovely spot and I met with a number of women from my local Single Moms by Choice group there on Sunday afternoon. Our Little Charmer of course adored the water, the sand, you-name-it.
This Wednesday we will be going in for Our First Haircut, a seminal event. Today started slowly; sometimes I think motherhood is like one of those nightmare dreams when you are trying so hard to get somewhere and you constantly get delayed. Trying to have breakfast and then get dressed and get out of the house is like that. I no sooner change Veeka's diaper and put her in her nice daytime clothes when she has a diaper explosion. So it's back on the changing table.
Or she spills breakfast all over herself. Then the cat throws up. One morning, I was getting towels to wipe all that up when I got upstairs only to discover Veeka had walked THROUGH the mess and had tracked the gook all over the carpet.
Also, this morning, I was rushing to leave when I could not find Veeka's sandals. She had been parading them about, wanting me to put them on and I had refused, as I don't like to put her shoes on til just before we go. So she hid them. More than 12 hours later, I still have no idea where they are. When I say, WHERE ARE YOUR SANDALS? she just giggles.
Then tonight I had worked so hard to make this wonderful beef-and-cheese-and-taco stack dinner with yummy tomato sauce. Veeka would have none of it. It was about to be tossed on the floor when I grabbed her plate. Ditto for the nutritious chicken-and-asparagus dinner I fixed the other day. Nope. She wants those French fries. Then there was the other Friday night when I didn't want to cook, so I took Veeka to a nice Korean restaurant, as the daycare is in Korea town, as they call it. I had no sooner dug into the main dish when Our Princess decided she was bored and wanted to wander about the place. No more kimchee for her, although she did like the anchovies. Well, I could not let her terrorize the other customers. Then she began to shriek. I was about ready to walk away from the meal when a very nice waitress presented Veeka with a lollipop. That bought me about 10 minutes.
A friend of mine told me last night that she gained weight when her kids were toddlers cuz the only restaurants she could take them to were fast food places. I can see why. Veeka does like MacDonalds, btw. She's cottoning onto Starbucks because of that yummy chocolate milk I buy her there. And I'm teaching her to appreciate sushi.
In case any of you wondered, she has grown taller, heavier and her feet have moved onto the next shoe size. And my back is aching, yes.

Likes and dislikes

Well, it's now July and as I write, Veeka is rocking herself to sleep. Well, that's what they do in orphanages and she's kept up the habit here. Included are some photos shot of her one recent Sunday at a church playground. Last weekend, she and I drove to southern Maryland and just tootled around some of the historic sites there plus the big state park - Pt. Lookout - at the end of St. Mary's County peninsula. Southern Maryland is where a lot of the post-Jamestown 17th century colonists ended up. It took nearly a century for folks to get as far east as the Shenandoah Valley that bisects Virginia. For several decades, they pretty much hugged the coastline.
Veeka is a pretty easy-to-please girl. Her likes: French fries, vegetables that are colorful and have interesting shapes (plum tomatoes, green beans), Trader Joe low-fat kitty cookies, ANY book or photo that shows a kitty in it, cheese, sausage, applesauce, tapioca (big yum-yum there), granola, rice, kiddie books, music with a beat to it, chips and salsa, baths (I have to fight her to get her to drain the water); in fact pools and lakes too, crayons, simple wooden puzzles and any playground. She likes going into Whole Foods and eating all the cheese samples.
Dislikes: Eggs, honeydew and water melon doesn't go over well. She's not much into dolls and she ignores TV (a good thing) but which means I have to entertain her more. She also doesn't like it when people try to speak Russian to her. Hmmmm. She also doesn't like missing her 1 p.m. nap time.
Her mom is busy producing articles in this slow Fourth of July week. Today I interviewed Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, a Hindu spiritual leader who told me all truth is relative depending on your point of view. I pointed out there are some absolutes; ie the white robe he wore was white, not any other color. And you've all heard the bromide about folks not believing in absolutes until they're asked to jump off a clif. Anyway, July is busy work-wise which is why I do my best to collapse on the weekends. Can't say I've found the time to read a book since I got back to the States, tho.

Veeka finds the beach

Well, I felt I had to get away last weekend, so at the last minute, I found an inexpensive (and clean and pleasant) B&B in Rehoboth just one-half block from the beach. It was a perfect location and even though Veeka was a tad restless at night (had to crawl into bed with her to help her go to sleep at one point), it was a perfect weekend.
Miss Veeka adored the beach, toddling around to everyone else's blankets and making off with whatever shovels and buckets she could find. Fortunately all the other parents were super pleasant about letting her play with their kids, their toys and even feeding her snacks (she's a real moocher). Which is how she arrived back at my blanket snacking on pretzels or her faced covered with chocolate.
Now the water was not quite her style; at 68 degrees it was a bit cold plus those big waves knocking her down took some getting used to. Where she really shined was at a an open air pops concert at the band shell. She began swaying back and forth and dancing by herself or with a bemused 8-year-old boy standing nearby. Then she'd charge the stage until I'd come running after her. This girl is going to be a mosh pit regular in a few years. But the way she kept time and danced about was amazing; a number of people in the crowd were having the greatest time watching her.
I've been trying to interest her in Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninov and Prokofiev (all former countrymen of hers) but instead she tends to gravitate toward music with a beat. Hopefully our little beach princess can get back to the sea and sand at least once more this summer.

Mother and child

Here's a photo of me taken a few weekends ago by my friend Julie Kay when we were spending the afternoon exploring the Cactoctin mountains near Camp David. That's a pretty place I'd never seen in my 11 years here. Veeka and I are seated in a restaurant in Frederick, a nearby town.
Only news is health stuff; my dad just got a new knee today and the operation went well but now the pain is kicking in. My mom has his room phone number if you want to call. As for me, after numerous tests, it's looking like I had some form of hepatitis last month. Never mind that I had 4 Hep A and B shots in 2006; it's what doctors think was wrong with me. We're still puzzling over many of the symptoms. Fortunately I'm feeling quite well right now although I'm guzzling antibiotics just to make sure whatever-it-was won't come back.

Veeka and the TV station

I keep on forgetting to take a camera on our outings so I am posting a photo I took several weeks ago when I was a guest on a local TV station. They called me during the one day I was home with a sick Veeka; fortunately she was feeling better when the call came in. I said I'd be glad to appear but...I had a 2-year-old with me and no way to get a babysitter at such short notice. (They called at about 2 p.m. for the 5 pm newscast.) At first they said they had other things to do other than babysit, but 10 minutes later, they called back to say they had a staff member who'd look after Veeka for a few minutes. So I dressed her (and me) up and we went down to News Channel 8. She was very good while I was on the air and she (of course) charmed everyone. Notice the cookie they gave her as a bribe.
There's not a ton of news to report here. Veeka is her usually mischievous self. We attended this lovely picnic today way west of Washington in the countryside where Veeka got to see lots of sheep and dogs and even a horse. At first, she shrieked when she saw the horse but after awhile, she wanted to ride him. Anyone, after a long and productive day, we were riding home when somehow and somewhere, she removed her diaper. Not noticing this, we stopped at Giant right near my home, I of course not noticing she was diaper-less. We had just passed the customer service counter when I noticed this puddle forming under our shopping cart....
And we have some good news for Oma. Today at the picnic, Veeka wandered into a farmhouse where all the food was being set out and discovered a piano. She could not keep herself away from it. She constantly hammered away at the keys. Oma is our family piano player (well, I took a year's worth of lessons many years ago) and folks at the picnic were noticing the Little One's musical acumen. I asked them: What do you expect? The kid sleeps with a harp in her bedroom.

Rainy June day

It's Sunday; my heavens, what does one do with a toddler on a rainy day?? We perused the puzzles, tried out the new crayons bought yesterday at la Target, played hillybilly kiddie music, even played the soundtrack from "Carousel" and did some tumbling. Mommy ironed and made some tapioca - yum yum - of which Veeka downed 2 servings. Now she is FINALLY napping and Mommy is tired.
Yesterday, fortunately, it was sunny, which is why we're showing Veeka here dressed up in a very colorful rainbow play outfit sent her by Robbie in Los Angeles. And another friend, Amy, snapped the photo while she and Veeka were on an outing in the park. Lots of crumbs on the Little One's face.
Nothing new here to report; I am feeling better after my mysterious ailments of the past few weeks. I am now back to work on my book, after being very sick during the hottest, sunniest May since I moved here. This week might get kind of interesting; rumors abound of big budget cuts and layoffs at my workplace. So far, my newspaper has dodged that bullet, but apparently there's a reckoning in the offing.