Christmas in Iraq

Juan Cole 12/25/2007

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There was no midnight mass among Christians in Iraq again this year. Too dangerous.

And of the estimated 800,000 Christians in the country in 2002, as few as half, 400,000, may be left. Many have fled to Syria, joining the 1.5 million Iraqi refugees there.

Even some Christians still in the country have been internally displaced.

None of the feel good human interest programs I saw on cable news this weekend focused on the displacement of indigenoous Christians.

If it is not on TV it doesn’t exist.

Juan Cole is the founder and chief editor of Informed Comment. He is Richard P. Mitchell Professor of History at the University of Michigan He is author of, among many other books, Muhammad: Prophet of Peace amid the Clash of Empires and The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. Follow him on Twitter at @jricole or the Informed Comment Facebook Page