Saturday, May 12, 2007

A simpler Middle East   posted by Razib @ 5/12/2007 06:39:00 PM
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Just stumbled onto this article about the exodus of Mandaean community from Iraq, to Sweden. We know that the Christians of Iraq are leaving in droves, but, it is not always appreciated that this is the second great emigration of Iraqi Christians. Early last century the more numerous members of the Church of the East, which was the dominant Christian confession in Mesopotamia since the time of the Sassanid Empire, left their homeland after cooperating with the British and experiencing persecution. The Christian remnant in Iraq was represented by the Chaldean Church (Tariq Aziz is a member), and these are the refugees of today. Of course, the even more antique community of Iraqi Jews were also expelled during the 20th century. In Syria and Lebanon the proportion of Christians has decreased in part because of massive emigration to the West. The ancient Palestinian Christian community is vanishing to triviality.

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