History
The history of Armenians in Iraq is documented since late Babylonian times. However, the general roots of the contemporary Armenian community in Iraq can be largely traced to Shah Abbas's forced relocation of the Armenians to Iran in 1604, some of whom subsequently moved on to settle in Iraq. A further 25,000 Armenians arrived in Iraq during the early twentieth century as they fled the persecution of the Armenian Genocide.
During the 1980s, the Armenians benefited from President Saddam Hussein's modernization efforts, as the community rebuilt its cultural institutions and even consecrated an imposing cathedral in Baghdad. Saddam Hussein trusted Iraqi-Armenians very much .His nanny was Iraqi-Armenian along with one of his body guards and his housestaff. One of Saddam Hussein's mistresses was Juliet N Gurjian . Saddam Hussein trusted the Iraqi-Armenians because they benefited under the secularist rule of the Baath party which strongly suppressed the Islamist forces especially the Shite Iraqi elements who would later rise against him. The Iraqi Armenians also did not support anyone in the opposition so the Hussein Regime benefited from Iraqi Armenian loyalty and granted the Iraqi Armenians many rights. During Christmas, Saddam Hussein would order large amount of flowers to be taken to the Baghdad Armenian church.
Read more about this topic: Armenians In Iraq
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“When the landscape buckles and jerks around, when a dust column of debris rises from the collapse of a block of buildings on bodies that could have been your own, when the staves of history fall awry and the barrel of time bursts apart, some turn to prayer, some to poetry: words in the memory, a stained book carried close to the body, the notebook scribbled by hand—a center of gravity.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)
“Hence poetry is something more philosophic and of graver import than history, since its statements are rather of the nature of universals, whereas those of history are singulars.”
—Aristotle (384–322 B.C.)
“There are two great unknown forces to-day, electricity and woman, but men can reckon much better on electricity than they can on woman.”
—Josephine K. Henry, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4, ch. 15, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)