Save the Gnostics!
Steve Hayes
October 6, 2007
Op-Ed Contributor
Save the Gnostics
By NATHANIEL DEUTSCH
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.
Practitioners of a religion at least as old as Christianity, the
Mandeans have witnessed the rise of Islam; the Mongol invasion; the
arrival of Europeans, who mistakenly identified them as “Christians of
St. John,” because of their veneration of John the Baptist; and, most
recently, the oppressive regime of Saddam Hussein, who drained the
marshes after the first gulf war, an ecological catastrophe equivalent
to destroying the Everglades. They have withstood everything — until now.
Like their ancestors, contemporary Mandeans were able to survive as a
community because of the delicate balance achieved among Iraq’s many
peoples over centuries of cohabitation. But our reckless prosecution of
the war destroyed this balance, and the Mandeans, whose pacifist
religion prohibits them from carrying weapons even for self-defense,
found themselves victims of kidnappings, extortion, rapes, beatings,
murders and forced conversions carried out by radical Islamic groups and
common criminals.
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.
Unlike Christian and Muslim refugees, the Mandeans do not belong to a
larger religious community that can provide them with protection and
aid. Fundamentally alone in the world, the Mandeans are even more
vulnerable and fewer than the Yazidis, another Iraqi minority that has
suffered tremendously, since the latter have their own villages in the
generally safer north, while the Mandeans are scattered in pockets
around the south. They are the only minority group in Iraq without a
safe enclave.
When Mandeans do seek refuge in the Kurdish-dominated north, they report
that they are typically viewed as southern, Arabic-speaking interlopers,
or, if their Mandean identity is discovered, persecuted as religious
infidels. In Syria and Jordan, Mandeans feel unable to practice their
religion openly and, after years of severe deprivation, some have begun
to convert simply in order to receive aid from Muslim and Christian
relief agencies.
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.
In September, the Senate took a step in the right direction when it
unanimously passed an amendment to a defense bill that grants privileged
refugee status to members of a religious or minority community who are
identified by the State Department as a persecuted group and have close
relatives in the United States. But because so few Mandeans live here,
this will do little for those seeking asylum. The legislation, however,
also authorizes the State and Homeland Security Departments to grant
privileged status to “other persecuted groups,” as they see fit.
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.
Nathaniel Deutsch is a professor of religion at Swarthmore College.
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Steve Hayes
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