Interesting News

Ex-'hired killer' to ... 'man in a dog-collar'
Fri Feb 20 05:14PM

In the Vietnam war movie Full Metal Jacket, the bespectacled "Private Joker", played by Matthew Modine, is asked why he joined the US Marines. "I wanted to travel to foreign countries, meet interesting people and... kill them," he said.When I came to Baghdad last month and people asked me why I had come, I steered clear of the "interesting people" line.After five weeks in Iraq, however, I'd concede that such people are what makes the job most worthwhile.A few days ago, while interviewing people for a story on a women's charity, I met a man called Jusuf Bardilian, Father Jusuf Bardilian, in fact.A born-again Christian, he wanted to tell me his story, and what a story it was.As a young man in the 1970s he had lived what he said was 'a bad life', punctuated by alcohol, women and misdemeanours.Today, the smartly-dressed, rather rotund 56-year-old wears a dog-collar, and ministers to a congregation in the Dura district of Baghdad.I was interested to discover what had brought about the change."I was a hired killer," he told me, a response that stunned several people in the room and caused my interpreter to jump almost off his seat.He explained that one day in 1974 he had, for no apparent reason, entered a church, "felt the presence of God" and "experienced his power as if it was magic."The man had found faith and decided to follow God's will from then on, joining the church and eventually becoming a priest.Fast forward nearly 30 years. The toppling of Saddam Hussein, while welcomed by some, brought instability and lawlessness and saw fierce fighting between the country's rival Sunni and Shiite militias.Christians were targeted, and Jusuf, one of fewer than a million Christians in Iraq, was kidnapped, his church destroyed and his house ransacked.Eventually, a $12,000 ransom saw him freed. He declined to explain exactly who had paid. But, looking me in the eye with an intensity befitting a man who has suffered such an experience, he said it had only made his faith stronger."There is great pressure on Christians to leave the land of Iraq and go to Syria, Lebanon or Sweden and other European countries," he said."We say about Saddam that he was a dictator. But Christians did not suffer during Saddam's time as we are suffering now," he added, explaining that they had been allowed to live their lives as long as they obeyed the regime.To hear such talk may sound strange to some, but his words seemed sincere to me. Perhaps this is the reality of life in Baghdad -- a country at war, but not at war, and a people who live together, but don't.To a newcomer in Iraq though it was a reminder that wars affect individuals in different ways, uniquely to each, not all the same way. 

"I am without a church but I am a servant. Each of us have our faith and I must serve God in my community," he said.