Save the Gnostics

There is a both interesting and tragic story in today's New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/06/opinion/06deutsch.html?adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1191691158-BoV2h+gYnxyjHPuWSLRlYg) about what is happening to the Mandeans, one of the oldest, smallest and least understood of the many minorities in Iraq. Since their religious views differ from thsoe of Chimperator Bush and the Christianists who continue to back him, I suspect the Mandeans are not even on the radar screen in terms of being protected. After all, the institutional Christianist Church did all it could to wipe out the Gnostics many centuries ago. Here are some highlights:

THE United States didn’t set out to eradicate the Mandeans, one of the oldest, smallest and least understood of the many minorities in Iraq. This extinction in the making has simply been another unfortunate and entirely unintended consequence of our invasion of Iraq — though that will be of little comfort to the Mandeans, whose 2,000-year-old culture is in grave danger of disappearing from the face of the earth.

The Mandeans are the only surviving Gnostics from antiquity, cousins of the people who produced the Nag Hammadi writings like the Gospel of Thomas, a work that sheds invaluable light on the many ways in which Jesus was perceived in the early Christian period. The Mandeans have their own language (Mandaic, a form of Aramaic close to the dialect of the Babylonian Talmud), an impressive body of literature, and a treasury of cultural and religious traditions amassed over two millennia of living in the southern marshes of present-day Iraq and Iran.

When American forces invaded in 2003, there were probably 60,000 Mandeans in Iraq; today, fewer than 5,000 remain. Like millions of other Iraqis, those who managed to escape have become refugees, primarily in Syria and Jordan, with smaller numbers in Australia, Indonesia, Sweden and Yemen.

Mandean activists have told me that the best hope for their ancient culture to survive is if a critical mass of Mandeans is allowed to settle in the United States, where they could rebuild their community and practice their traditions without fear of persecution. If this does not happen, individual Mandeans may survive for another generation, isolated in countries around the world, but the community and its culture may disappear forever.

Of the mere 500 Iraqi refugees who were allowed into the United States from April 2003 to April 2007, only a few were Mandeans. And despite the Bush administration’s commitment to let in 7,000 refugees in the fiscal year that ended last month, fewer than 2,000, including just three Iraqi Mandean families, entered the country.

If all If all Iraqi Mandeans are granted privileged status and allowed to enter the United States in significant numbers, it may just be enough to save them and their ancient culture from destruction. If not, after 2,000 years of history, of persecution and tenacious survival, the last Gnostics will finally disappear, victims of an extinction inadvertently set into motion by our nation’s negligence in Iraq.

Somehow, I do not see Daddy Dobson and company being too thrilled at allowing Iraqi Mandeans into the USA. As it is, they hate brown skinned Hispanics, who are Christians. I do not see them liking brown skinned Gnostics.

More information on the Mandeans can be found here: http://lexicorient.com/e.o/mandeans.htm