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| Iraq |
| Checking in with Iraqâs Mandaean community |
| 2004-01-26 |
| EFL but not very long to begin with. Baderâs neighbours donât know exactly why he was kidnapped, but they suspect itâs because he belonged to the Mandaeans, a religious sect that traces its lineage to pre-Christian times. There are now perhaps 200,000 Mandaeans worldwide, living mostly in Iraq, Iran, Australia and Sweden. Some 100,000 of them reside in Baghdad. A non-violent people, who believe that God alone has the right to take a human life, the Mandaeans are targets partly because they normally donât carry weapons. That makes them highly vulnerable in the near lawless chaos of post-war Baghdad. The Mandaeans also are seen as wealthy since they traditionally own jewellery stores and work as goldsmiths. âEven if we are poor, the criminals know that we have rich relatives who work in gold,â said Amal. Mauid al-Sawady, a journalist with the groupâs Afaq Mandaia magazine, offers yet another possibility. "They target us because we donât have clans or tribes to protect us, so they consider us weak people," he said. I know IWPR isnât exactly your standard Rantburg news source, but their "local touches" (like this one) are often quite interesting (and usually too apolitical to be very biased one way or the other). These folks in particular have always fascinated me. Yet another Judaic-descent monotheistic faith whose ultimate prophet was (drumroll) Yahya bin Zekaria, better known to a couple billion other folks as John the Baptist. Hereâs their semi-official website (with a wee bit of English content). |
| Posted by:Dan (not Darling) |