Uncategorized – Jayson Casper

Authorities on Sunday opened what they billed as the first Christian cultural centre in Iraq in a decade, despite a dramatic decline in the country’s once significant Christian population.

The building was inaugurated in the northern city of Kirkuk, home to a diverse population of Arabs, Kurds and Turkmen, and is to host conferences and meetings to promote inter-faith communications between the city’s Muslim and Christian communities.

“This centre is the first of its kind in Iraq since 2003, it sends a message of peace, and promotes the language of dialogue,” said Louis Sakho, Chaldean archbishop of Kirkuk. “The communities of Kirkuk are one family,” he added.

Construction of the cultural centre, which lies next to Kirkuk’s Chaldean church, began in early 2012 and was completed at a cost of around $305,000, officials said.

Iraq’s Christian community is one of the oldest of its kind in the world, but they suffered persecution, forced flight and killings in the aftermath of the 2003 US-led invasion.

Before 2003 there were more than a million Christians living in Iraq. Now they number around 450,000.

Half a community lost in a decade, a nation ruined during the same period (and before). All from a demagogue’s pride, a superpower’s dismantling, and a divided people’s sectarianism.

Perhaps this small step will represent an effort to rebuild from anew, inclusively.

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Christian Faith in Iraq

Witnesses, Survivors Recount Egypt’s Deadly Badrashin Train Crash

On the horrible accident near Beni Suef in Upper Egypt, from Ahram Online:

Hours after the tragic train crash that killed at least 19 passengers and injured scores of others in the Giza suburb of Badrashin, victims’ relatives and police officials remained gathered at the scene and a military helicopter hovered overhead.

The 12-carriage train, which was carrying 1,328 Central Security Forces (CSF) conscripts, mostly around 20 years old, had been travelling en route to Cairo from Upper Egypt. The conscripts had been preparing for their first military training, when two railway cars – each carrying over 200 soldiers – derailed, hitting a cargo train sitting outside a storage depot.

According to one, the overcrowding may have saved his life, though it surely killed others:

“On the truck I was in, one injured passenger had a broken leg; his leg hung by the skin only. Another had his nose broken, while a third had suffered broken ribs. I’m one of the lucky ones who had been sitting with five others in seats fit for two. Others were crammed into the upper shelves usually reserved for baggage. Those are the ones who died.”

We have traveled by train several times to Upper Egypt, but always in first or second class. Even there, some passengers are allowed to enter and stand in the aisles and open spaces near the door. In other cars we see how people are crowded together, though never this severely.

But on the whole, we have always found train travel in Egypt to be smooth and economical, even when someone in the aisle has his elbow in your ear leaning on the back of the chair. Usually they are kind enough to adjust. I wonder what sort of ticket they bought, if any, and why the attendant allows them to stay.

On the other hand, there is weird and uncomfortable sense of entitlement when we see them crammed in, yet my six year old daughter has a seat. We did pay for it, right?

I remember my days in university, when I would sit in the corner of the train on a huge bag of laundry, traveling from Washington, DC back home to New Jersey. I wonder how many passengers I annoyed.

May God rest the souls of those who died and comfort the many injured. May he guide the government in fixing Egypt’s many problems. Mercy.

Related Posts:

Touring Egypt with Egyptians – February 25, 2012

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