German churches lead the way in settling Iraqi Christians
Posted by judyw on June 2, 2008
An article in Spiegel adds some depth to the story we’ve been following about Germany (here, here and here).
According to Bishop Wolfgang Huber, the head of the Evangelical Church in Germany, Christians in Iraq face violence that is the equivalent of “ethnic cleanings and genocide in other places.”
Huber has quietly joined forces with representatives of the Catholic Church to campaign for the establishment of a German humanitarian assistance program, and his efforts have apparently met with success. This week Erika Steinbach, human rights spokeswoman for the CDU and the Christian Social Union (CSU) joint parliamentary group, plans to argue for a contingent solution that would involve the rapid acceptance of a large number of refugees in Germany.
Previous articles referred only to “churches” and I wondered which churches were involved. The Evangelical Church and the Catholic Church were involved at their highest levels. But the Lutheran Church is not mentioned. Angela Merkel’s government is cooperating:
The Interior Ministry has already taken an important humanitarian step. In a decree dated May 15, 2007, Interior Minister Wolfgang Schäuble (CDU) ordered that asylum already granted to Iraqis should not be revoked “for the time being.”
There are about 2,500 Iraqi refugees now in Germany. So they will be able to stay.
In a few days, however, there will be far more at stake within the Human Rights Commission in the German parliament, the Bundestag. The churches want lawmakers to guarantee the long-term right of asylum and settlement for a much larger number of refugees — between 20,000 and 30,000 Christians who are part of the educated upper and middle classes in Iraq.
This is the first I’ve read of the Christians being upper and middle class. I know that many of the translators who have been threatened and killed are Christian. In this time of political correctness it takes some guts for the Germans to specify that they want Christian refugees. They are very wise to do so, but they have plenty of experience with problems created by the Muslims who live there, such as honor killings, and so they are learning from experience and asking for refugees who have a good chance of assimilating.
Hat tip: Insubria
Mike said
Iraqis, whether Christian or whatever else, do not have a European mentality. They still sit on the floor, eat with their right hand and wash their butts with their left hand. Iraqi refugees, no matter what religion, will still be spoiled and expect too much. They’ll yell a lot, smoke a lot, and want to hang out with each other only. They’ll take up German real estate to build a church of their own so they can have sermons in Arabic or Assyrian, so they can marry each other and not assimilate with Germans. Don’t kid yourselves.
Answering Mike: Volag employee sends a comment worth talking about « Refugee Resettlement Watch said
[...] us. I gotta be honest this (from Mike!) sounds a tad bit prejudiced (in response to Judy’s post about Germany taking Christian [...]
Iraqi Christians face extinction; the west sits passively « Refugee Resettlement Watch said
[...] have noted Germany’s intention to take tens of thousands of Christian refugees: See this post, and the links within it. The rest of the west is in the grip of multicultural insanity and [...]