Michigan's Chaldean Community Discusses Freedom of Religion in the Middle East

posted on: Oct 5, 2016

BY: Weam Namou/Ambassador Blogger

Tina Ramirez is the president and founder of Hardwired, an organization that provides legal guidance for victims of religious oppression.

Ramirez visited Michigan’s Chaldean Community Foundation on Thursday to discuss with leaders her upcoming trip to Iraq in mid-October. Among other things, she is trying to help pass a resolution that requires modifications to the National Card Law’s Article 26, which states “Children shall follow the religion of a parent converted to Islam.” This applies to children if their mother marries a Muslim man or if either parent converts to Islam.

“The recent controversy over Article 26 in Iraq has exposed an important problem in the Middle East,” said Ramirez.

Hardwired goes to some of the darkest places in the world, such as Nepal, Sudan, and Iraq, to provide persecuted individuals on the frontlines of religious oppression with an understanding of their rights so that they can defend themselves and others.

“In the Middle East, individuals are not identified by their humanity but by their religion,” she said. “And consequently, they are also divided by their religion.”

Ramirez is an award-winning humanitarian whose passion for religious freedom began in college while studying at the International Institute for Human Rights in Strasbourg, France. In 2013, she decided to start an organization to end religious oppression. Around the world today, 5.3 billion people are living under religious oppression and that number is growing.

“For many refugees from the region who have resettled in the U.S., it will take a while to fully understand that most Americans do not know what religion they are by reading their name or looking at them,” she said. “And they likely will not care.”

She explained that Americans have been heavily influenced by a Protestant worldview that interprets religion as something that can be changed, challenged, and reformed. Religion may influence their lives, but it is not an immutable characteristic, such as race or ethnicity, so it should never be placed on a government driver’s license or identity card like it is in many Middle Eastern countries.

“Its absence does not mean it is not valued,” she said. “But it is valued as an individual choice and not as a means to classify and stratify people.”

Hardwired focuses on specific leaders in each community, which ranges from advocates and lawyers to media personnel and religious leaders, to make a ripple effect and influence others to embrace the idea of freedom of religion.

“One of the challenges for individuals we work with around the world who identify others by their religion is that they often fail to see the common humanity they share,” she said. “The commonalities are what ensure that each person has the basic rights and freedoms to live according to a particular religion or belief in peace with others, even those with whom they may disagree.”

Earlier this year, Hardwired brought together ten teachers from around the world, including Iraq and Israel, representing seven different religious communities in the Middle East so they can teach their students in that region about freedom of religion and belief.

“A couple of teachers who joined us were Yezidis from northern Iraq, who themselves had experienced persecution for their beliefs,” said Ramirez.

The two Yezidi teachers developed an activity where they took a group of displaced students to choose flowers. They told them to pick whichever flowers they wanted but to keep a few yellow flowers. After the students did that, the teachers expressed how the same situation happened to their country when ISIL came and destroyed everyone except the people who believed and looked like them.

This activity enabled the teachers and students to discuss issues about their countries and what vision they had for them. The students had the opportunity to then plant their own garden and learn as much as possible about one another. Throughout the process, one of the young Yezidi boys, who didn’t like Muslims, shared something with the teacher as they went back to the garden that was replanted with colorful flowers.

He told his teacher, “I didn’t know that other Muslims had suffered the same way we have.”

He had done a project with a Muslim boy who learned that they had both been attacked by ISIL. This is one of many examples of how Hardwired helps bring people together, in order that they see each other as human beings and transform their perspectives.

“It’s going to take a lot of hard work to plant the seeds of freedom in that society,” Ramirez said, “but it’s worth it and it would make them feel safer in the future.”

There are several ways one can become involved in this program by signing a petition, joining the Hardwired team and becoming an ambassador for freedom, hosting a screening, or investing to the program. To learn more, visit http://www.hardwiredglobal.org/