Canon Andrew White reports from Baghdad:
We have just returned from Najaf the most important Shia City in the world. The day was simply amazing. We met with all the Majoria (The Grand Ayatollah’s there are just 5). We had deep and meaningful discussions and made several serious plans for taking forward the High Council for Religious Leaders in Iraq. We are hoping to meet again in Najaf next week with the Sunni Leaders. Just to take them ...to Najaf is almost a miracle. This is the precise group that enabled us to stop the violence against the Christians. One of the things that Andy Dipper from release made clear after the meetings was that you can do all the advocacy in the world but in one meeting like ours you can achieve more. If one is seriously concerned about the persecuted church you have to be able to work with those who can influence those doing the persecuting.By G-d's we can work with these people. What’s more we truly love them. Thus we realize we are indeed doing the work of Jesus and it is all about love and love changes everything!!!!
So many people think that by contacting the Western Governments and signing petitions you can achieve change. The fact is you cannot. You need to be on the ground engaging with the people that can relate to those committing the violence. One of the interesting things now is how negative the most senior religious leaders feel even to the politicians. They say that they can put pressure on them and make them do what they have to. They cannot. Western governments only enabled anything to be achieved here by enabling our work like the Danes did.
Here in Iraq and most of the Middle East there is no division between religion and politics this is particularly the case here. It is not possible to deal with radical terrorists like Al Quaida. It is therefore that we have serious engagement with people who do have influence over them. Those who have influence are the big Sunni leaders who can particularly influence those who are Iraqis carrying out terrorist activity. We are also trying to prevent the children from the birds of paradise being involved in the suicide bombings.