by Sinan Antoon
Or maybe our lives just aren’t that valuable to them.
How long are we going to continue putting up with such a wretched situation? This is not the first attack against us Christians and I’m sorry to say it won’t be the last. Even in my own family, it’s the third attack. We were displaced from al-Dawra three years ago because of sectarian threats, and then had to leave our house a second time after an explosion, and we’re now scattered between Ainkawa and Baghdad. We’re being targeted. They are trying to make us leave this country. They accuse us of being
‘Crusaders’ and collaborators with the occupation. This is all baseless and a distortion of history. We didn’t come here on tanks from the outside like all those people now playing at one-upmanship nationalism. Nobody has our back — not Iran, not Saudi
Arabia, not America. The Americans haven’t helped us; on the contrary, our situation has worsened.
At the end of the day, all we have is God and our faith. And no, we didn’t come from outside. We’ve been here for centuries —
everyone needs to hear this. History and archeology attest to it.
Our monasteries and all the other archeological remains are there for all to see, not just in the north, but throughout Iraq. There are monasteries in Karbala and Nasiriya, and even in Najaf, where there are also the ruins of churches.
We’ve never had political ambitions. And we are not the ones looting, murdering, and firebombing places of worship. All we want is to live in peace. Our religion is one of peace.
That’s all I have to say.
5
Youssef’s body remained sprawled on the floor of the church for over four hours and it was only removed after all the hostages had been released and the wounded had been evacuated. All around him were human remains, pieces of broken glass and plaster, dust, and a small pool of blood that had been seeping from his body.
One of the paratroopers from the counter-terrorism unit that had stormed the church stepped on his left hand by mistake crushing the bones on three of his fingers. The man was holding a small camera and filming the operation, and he kept telling the hostages to look at the camera as they thanked God for their safety. A few days later, he uploaded the footage to YouTube, including some information about the officer who led the operation and patriotic songs in praise of the Golden Unit that had rescued the hostages.
Youssef’s corpse didn’t appear in the footage. He felt no pain when his fingers were crushed. One of the four bullets that had entered his body hours earlier had found its way to his heart and silenced it. Seconds before, his lips had whispered “ya Maryam”
but he never finished the prayer. His eyes remained open even as they sank into the shadows of death.
SELECTED H OOPOE T ITLES
No Knives in the Kitchens of This City by Khaled Khalifa, translated by Leri Price No Road to Paradise
by Hassan Daoud, translated by Marilyn Booth Embrace on Brooklyn Bridge
by Ezzedine C. Fishere, translated by John Peate
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