We are all Nazarenes!

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Early last month, when ISIS/ISIL — now known simply as the “Islamic State” or the “Caliphate” — overran the city of Mosul in Iraq, its troops began daubing the Arabic letter nûn, or “n”, on the houses of Christians, in preparation for killing them or driving them out of the city, after which their property would be claimed for the Islamic State.

Almost immediately, Christians and supporters of Christians in the Middle East began to display the nûn on their clothes, their houses, and in social media in solidarity with those who were being persecuted by ISIS. The following French-language news report explains how the whole process got started.

Many thanks to Oz-Rita for translating this article from Europe Israël News:

Lebanon: The courage of a star TV presenter who shows herself with the ﻥ

We are all Nazarenes! Used as a message of hatred and contempt by the Islamic fanatics of “ISIL”, the letter “nûn” (ﻥ) of the Arabic alphabet is slowly becoming a sign of recognition worldwide, a symbol of pride to be Christian and of solidarity with the Christians from Iraq.

This time the symbol of the letter nûn ﻥ invited itself, and was given prominence once more by a courageous woman journalist.

Dima Sadeq, star presenter of the news channel LBCI, appeared on the screen wearing a T-shirt with the letter nûn (ﻥ). She explained: “From Mosul to Beirut, we are all nûn ﻥ”, she declared just before presenting the evening news.

“We are all targets, pointed at with a finger or a sword because we are different, in terms of sex, religion or skin colour. We are all targets of the killers in these times of madness,” she declared in front of her viewers.

With this she is following the example of the famous journalist, Dalia al-Aqidi, an Iraqi and a muslim, on whom Aleteia reported recently.

This July 19 report from AINA describes the events that inspired Ms. Al-Aqidi, Ms. Sadeq, and others to adopt the nûn as a symbol. Since then almost all of the remaining Christians in Mosul have been driven out of the city:

ISIS in Mosul Marks Christian Homes, Patriarch Issues Urgent Appeal

ISIS has begun marking Christian homes with the Arabic letter “n” which stands for the word “Nasrani” which means Christian in Arabic. The word comes from the name “Nestorian,” historically attributed to the Holy Apostolic Catholic Assyrian Church of the East, though it is incorrect. In addition, properties marked by ISIS have also been marked as “property of the Islamic State.”

ISIS has also marked Shiite homes with the letter “r”, signifying “rwafidh” (rejecters).

13 thoughts on “We are all Nazarenes!”

  1. What is going on in ISIS controlled areas is genocide, and Europe and The US government are silent! Again!!!

  4. Since we’ve started on the subject of ISIS, I have to ask this question : WHERE HAVE THEY SUDDENLY APPEARED FROM ? An army, according to various press reports 15,000 strong, YES, FIFTEEN THOUSAND STRONG, the equivalent of a modern US infantry division, including all of its logistical and artillery support. Have you any idea of the cost of keeping a formation of this size in the field ?Food, fuel, ammunition (especially the way they blast it off) MILLIONS, millions and millions of dollars. And their equipment? How convenient that the Iraqi army melted away and left all of their equipment behind ! Transport, smallarms, artillery, ammunition, incidentally, modern long range artillery CANNOT, ever since WW1 be effectively operated without highly trained personnel . What’s going on ?
    From Afghanistan we hear that ‘hundreds of thousands of weapons’ have,, been ‘mislaid’, ‘probably’ ending up in the hands of the ‘Taliban’.
    NOW, the bbc reports (not very loudly) that the US is to supply the Iraqi army with thousands of Hellfire missiles, which are used as anti tank and against strongpoints. Surface-to-surface, or air to surface missiles.
    Since ISIS supposedly don’t have any armour, and by their nature, as a terrorist, aggressive, attacking organisation, they don’t generally build strongpoints, what use are these weapons against ‘insurgents?
    WHY, if the US want to assist the Iraqi army against these ‘insurgents’ aren’t they assisting them with direct air power ? They have certainly got the capability, and have used it in recent times, and an army 15,000 strong is a big enough target.
    SO, let me hazard a guess, off the top of my head. I’ll bet that within a month those unreliable, incompetent Iraqis will have lost control of these weapons and ISIS will be using them against Assad’s tanks.
    BETCHA, watch this space

    • They are Muslims. We have to stop thinking of all of these terrorist groups (ISIS, PLO, HAMAS, PFLP, FATAH, Taliban, Islamic Jihad, Muslim Brotherhood, Al-Qaeda, etc.) as being atypical. They are not. They are typical, plentiful, and have supporters through the rest of the Muslim population. The problem is not terrorism, the problem is Islam.

      • As a corollary to that, once Islam reaches a certain percentage in any realm, these “tiny minorities” mutate suddenly into killing machines. Islam kills. A lot of Islam means annihilation, including of one another.

  5. Any more news about those hi-tec munitions left in theatre by US forces, now in the hands of IS?

  7. I have been moaning a bit lately about the pro-Israel stuff, which not all GoV readers agree with, but this is a great cause and a great “scoop” I have not seen in any mainstream media in English. Good work again.

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