Good News From Iraq - Muslims Raise a Cross

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‘The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing’ - Edmund Burke (1729-1797)

If you haven’t seen this video - good men refusing to “do nothing” - please watch it. It makes me proud. If you STILL don’t get it, well …

16th November, 2007

IRAQI MUSLIMS RAISE A CROSS IN BAGHDAD

These good men understand Burke’s words.

I have referred to this truly positive website before. It is written by Michael Yon, and frequently shows amazing pictures and reports from the land written off by many in the west as our greatest culpable disaster.

Going by the comments it looks as though the post with the above picture (in preparation for the service on 15th November), is from 7th November, 2007. The picture tells a story we in the west rarely see, read or hear. I can’t recall the BBC or our written press using it at all in the last week or so. Perhaps they did, in which case, my apologies; I have been out of the country.

Michael Yon’s picture and text:

[Thanks and Praise: I photographed men and women, both Christians and Muslims, placing a cross atop the St. John’s Church in Baghdad. They had taken the cross from storage and a man washed it before carrying it up to the dome.]

A Muslim man had invited the American soldiers from “Chosen” Company 2-12 Infantry to the church, where I videotaped as Muslims and Christians worked and rejoiced at the reopening of St John’s, an occasion all viewed as a sign of hope.

The Iraqis asked me to convey a message of thanks to the American people. ” Thank you, thank you,” the people were saying. One man said, “Thank you for peace.” Another man, a Muslim, said “All the people, all the people in Iraq, Muslim and Christian, is brother.” The men and women were holding bells, and for the first time in memory freedom rang over the ravaged land between two rivers. (Videotape to follow.)

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And a commenter at Michael Yon’s blog says this:

What makes this picture even more moving is the fact that St. John’s Chaldean Catholic Church was one of three Christian churches that were hit by car bombers within minutes of each other on November 8, 2004 killing three and injuring thirty people.

There is a contemporaneous news report from the Catholic News Service here:

http://www.christiansofiraq.com/bombs.html

God bless you, Michael! Thanks and praise indeed.

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This page too has many pictures and the story from the service that was held in the church. Is is dated 16th November, 2007.Excerpts:’A Bishop came to St John’s Church in Baghdad today, 15 November, where a crowd of locals welcomed him home. They were joined at the service by soldiers from the 2-12 infantry battalion, many of whom had fought hard to secure these neighborhood streets. Members of the hard-fighting Iraqi Army 3rd Division were also here for this special day.Today, Muslims mostly filled the front pews of St John’s. Muslims who want their Christian friends and neighbors to come home. The Christians who might see these photos likely will recognize their friends here. The Muslims in this neighborhood worry that other people will take the homes of their Christian neighbors, and that the Christians will never come back. And so they came to St John’s today in force, and they showed their faces, and they said, “Come back to Iraq. Come home.” They wanted the cameras to catch it. They wanted to spread the word: Come home. Muslims keep telling me to get it on the news. “Tell the Christians to come home to their country Iraq.”It was the first mass said in St John’s since the church was shuttered after the nearby St George’s was destroyed and clergy in the north were kidnapped, tortured and executed.

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MOVED BY THIS?

If not, why not?

Little by little we need to make inroads into basic human understanding between peoples, religious or not. Every picture like this tells a story we cannot afford to have hidden from us.

My own references on this website have NEVER done anything other than highlight the fact that we face a serious threat. I still believe we do. That does not mean that Muslims are, per se, our enemies.

They are not.

THANK YOU ALL

This is the kind of GOOD news we hear little of in the west. When we read about, watch or listen to Iraqi locals being interviewed it is invariably to hear them say that things were better when Saddam was in power, or that the troops are causing the deaths.

“Thank you”, we hear seldom.

Unbiased reporting seems to be a relic of the past.

Recently I have heard of some everyday moderate Muslims trying valiantly to re-balance the picture the west is getting of them. They are standing up to the perverted version of their religion which militants have provided for us all. Standing up to the propaganda.

This is what is required, and we should all be grateful to them.

But we should never doubt that theirs is a lonely and dangerous task. I even have some trepidation about posting these pictures, for that very reason.

Recognise your friends, for through that, you will know your enemies.

Another site referencing this story.

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Tags: baghdad, cross, Iraq, michael yon, muslims, st john's church, tony blair video