Iraqi Christians are criticizing their country’s Ministry of Education because the schools are also teaching Islamist ideas in the context of lessons in Arabic. “In tests in Arabic, the Christian, Yazidi, and Mandaean school pupils were recently confronted with sentences which can easily be misunderstood and which justify violence against members of other religions – as documented on various social media channels. Last week, for example, pupils had to grammatically interpret, in addition to various Koran verses, a poetic verse that reflects the ideology of violence of the so-called Islamic State,” stated Kamal Sido, Middle East Consultant of the Society for Threatened Peoples, in Göttingen on Monday. Literally, the verse says “Let us kill them – except for the little children and the elderly!” Similar Islamist propaganda is also taught in history lessons or in the context of social sciences.

“Iraq and other countries in the Middle East are using their school policies to distribute Islamist ideas among the people. Historical contexts are not critically reflected, and the people are not informed about other cultures or religions – which is why many show so little tolerance towards non-Muslims,” Sido criticized. Further, he demanded that topics such as the genocide against the Christian Armenians, the Assyrians/Chaldeans, and the Aramaeans in the Ottoman Empire in 1915 or the Holocaust should not be taboo in the countries of the Middle East. “In Islamic countries, the fact that so many European Jews were murdered in the Third Reich is either denied or even approved of. This also leaves its mark on immigrants from Turkish, Arab, Persian, and even Kurdish communities – and these people are often confronted with these topics for the first time when they come to Germany or other European countries,” Sido warned.

According to Sido, many Christians, Yazidis, and members of other minorities in the Middle East are already preparing to flee or emigrate in the face of these tendencies of Islamization. At least 15,000 Christian families from Iraq and Syria have emigrated to Europe, Australia, the United States, or Canada since the emergence of IS in 2014 until the end of 2017. Many Christians don’t see a future for themselves in the Middle East, unless there were initiatives to limit the influence of radical Islam. “Currently, radical Sunni Islam – as practiced by IS followers – is the greatest threat to the members of religious minorities, but radical Shiite Islam would be no less dangerous to ethnic and religious diversity if it were to gain power, the human rights activist emphaiszed. This could be the case in Iraq.

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