DECEMBER 2015

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noteworthy Community Mourns Richard Sulaka Richard Sulaka graced the Chaldean News March 2007 cover. Flags on city property in Warren were flown at half-staff in honor of Richard Sulaka, who died suddenly on November 19 at age 60. Sulaka, a well-known member of the Chaldean community, served Warren for 16 years as its elected clerk and a member of the City Council. He was known as a hands-on leader and all-around nice guy. Sulaka, a 1973 graduate of Fitzgerald High School, served on the Warren City Council from 1991 to 1999. Immediately after that, he was elected Warren’s city clerk, a position he held until he unsuccessfully ran against Mayor Jim Fouts in 2007. “Richard was a terrific individual. Outstanding,” said Warren City Clerk Paul Wojno, who succeeded Sulaka in 2007. “He was dedicated to his job when he was on council and as clerk. He’s always been involved in the community, either politically or socially through the Chaldean community. One thing about Richard, he was completely dedicated to his family. His wife and his children were always a top priority. He always spoke about them, and he was a great dad.” “He was intelligent, a consensus builder. I respected him and we had a cordial, cooperative relationship, for the most part,” Fouts said. Following the 2007 mayoral election, Wojno said Sulaka was very cordial and gracious, something Fouts said he’d also remember about him. “Richard was just a stand-up guy, a gentleman’s gentleman in caring a lot for people and the community. He’s going to be missed by a lot, a lot of people,” Wojno said. Sulaka grew up in Warren, where he graduated from Fitzgerald High School and became a real estate broker. He married Giovana in 1984 and the couple raised three children — Richard II, Angelina and Michael. After a mass at Mother of God Chaldean Catholic Church, he was buried at Holy Sepulchre Cemetery on November 23. “He was a pioneer for Chaldeans in America,” said Martin Manna, president of the Chaldean American Chamber of Commerce. “He was a voice for those who didn’t understand the political process. More importantly, he was a servant to the general community and a servant to our community, always giving back, always teaching.” – C&G Newspapers and the Macomb Daily Refugee Families Drown in Aegean Sea A memorial Mass and luncheon were held on November 22 in honor of two Chaldean families who drowned in the Aegean Sea near Turkey and Greece. The Marooki and Hanna families were trying to reach Europe in the middle of the night where they could start over in a new country as refugees, probably Germany, said Bashar Bakoz. The families had been driven out of their homes in Qaraqosh, Iraq, by ISIS. While a report said their These children are among the seven drowned Chaldeans. rubber dingy was deliberately sunk by the person transporting them, that story could not be confirmed. The victims were two sisters, their husbands and their children: Steve Marzeena Marooki, 31, Slfanah Sami Marooki, 26, Mark Steven Marooki, 7, Samah Sami Marooki, 32, Haneen Salim Hanna, 13, and Marvin Salim Hanna, 7. All bodies were recovered except for 3-year-old Enji Steven Marooki. Iraq Amends Muslim Law The Iraqi government has amended legislation that would have forced children of converts to Islam to be regarded as Muslims, Asia News service reports. On November 18, the Iraqi parliament chose to amend Act 26 of the Constitution, with 140 votes of 206. For the Iraqi Christian community this is an act of justice and equality, and a key step in the direction “of freedom and democracy in Iraq,” Chaldean Catholic Patriarch Louis Raphael I Sako told Asia News. “This decision shows support and is an important message for the minorities [Christians] in Iraq. It is also a clear demonstration of democracy.” Under Iraqi law, children have automatically been considered Muslim if one of their parents converts to Islam. Christians in parliament previously proposed an amendment that would allow children to remain Christian and to choose their own faith at 18, but it was defeated. The Chaldean prelate had rallied strong public opposition to the measure and had threatened to bring the matter before the international courts. The Patriarch released a statement thanking “all parliamentarians and those who have supported the amendment of this unjust article.” Jennifer Oram being sworn in by Judge Diane D’Agostini. Chaldeans Win Local Elections Two Chaldean women won victories in Edna Abriham the November elections. Jennifer Oram, who works at her family’s outdoor advertising company, has earned a seat on the Orchard Lake City Council. “Having a passion for the city and its residents makes me excited to get to work on issues that will improve the quality of life for the entire community,” she said. In Troy, Edna Abriham was successful in her run for City Council. She is an engineer at General Motors. Yono Makes the List Candace Yono was named a top corporate law attorney by DBusiness. She works at Cohen, Lerner & Rabinovitz, P.C. Candace Yono 12 CHALDEAN NEWS <strong>DECEMBER</strong> <strong>2015</strong>
Flowers and candle tributes are placed at the Restaurant Le Carillon in Paris. Double standard? As world mourns Paris, Middle Easterners feel ignored BY SUSANNAH GEORGE/ASSOCIATED PRESS Within hours of last month’s Paris attacks, as outrage and sympathy flooded his social media feeds and filled the airwaves, Baghdad resident Ali al- Makhzomy updated his Facebook cover photo to read “solidarity’ — and his friends were shocked. “Everyone was like why are you posting about Paris and not about the attacks in Baghdad every day,’’ the recent law school graduate said. “A lot of my friends said, ‘OK, so you care more about them than you care about us?’” He had unintentionally tapped into frustration in Iraq, Lebanon and Syria with what many see as a double-standard: The world unites in outrage and sympathy when the Islamic State group kills Westerners, but pays little attention to the neardaily atrocities it carries out in the Middle East. The day before the Paris attacks, twin suicide bombers struck a southern Beirut suburb, killing at least 43 people, and the week before, a suicide bomber struck a funeral in Iraq, killing at least 21. Both attacks were claimed by ISIS and reported by major media outlets, but generated little Snyder on refugee fears: ‘Good, old-fashioned common sense’ More than two dozen governors have followed Michigan’s Rick Snyder call to urge a pause in admitting Syrian refugees into the United States. Snyder, who triggered a national debate about refugee resettlement, told NPR on November 19 that he only wants answers. The Republican has described himself as “the most pro-immigration governor in the country,” but said the caution he wants the U.S. to show doesn’t conflict with compassion for the refugees. In the NPR interview, Snyder suggested he didn’t mean to create a partisan issue. He insisted he’s still willing to accept more Syrians in Michigan and said he merely wants a little reassurance that the federal screening process for refugees is sound. He said a call from the president assuring him of the process would be “helpful.” “In a general sense I’ve been very much in favor of being proactive with Middle Eastern refugees, along with refugees across the world,” he told NPR. “If we get to the point where we can say that [an extensive] review has taken place and people are confident that we have a system to let in people who have had their lives shattered, and at the same time can keep out the bad guys, hopefully we can start the process again of accepting refugees. … I really want [the federal government] to come back and say, we have now made a review … and believe their current system is acceptable or not, or that they’re making some modifications. I don’t think that’s unreasonable. I view that as good old-fashioned common sense, being careful, and at the same time trying to be proactive.” interest outside the region, where the turmoil of recent years has made such events seem like a sadly regular occurrence. Baghdad has seen near-daily attacks in recent years. Bombings killed an average of more than 90 civilians a month last year, according to Iraq Body Count. The civil war in neighboring Syria has killed 250,000 people since 2011. There, government warplanes regularly carry out raids using socalled barrel bombs that demolish entire apartment blocks and insurgent groups shell government-held neighborhoods. Lebanon, however, had been relatively calm for the past year, leading many to feel that November’s tragedy was unfairly neglected. Many were angered by Facebook’s deployment of a new feature in the wake of the Paris attacks that allowed users to check in and say they were safe. The feature was not available for the Beirut attacks. “We don’t get a safe button on Facebook,’’ Lebanese blogger Joey Ayoub wrote. “We don’t get latenight statements from the most powerful men and women alive and millions of online users.” Facebook released a statement saying it had previously only used the Safety Check feature after natural disasters and said it would be used for “other serious and tragic incidents in the future.” But it added that “during an ongoing crisis, like war or epidemic, Safety Check in its current form is not that useful for people: because there isn’t a clear start or end point and, unfortunately, it’s impossible to know when someone is truly ‘safe.’” Al-Makhzomy said the feature wouldn’t be quite as useful in Iraq. “In Baghdad it’s not just like one attack,’’ he said. “You would need to have a date on the Safety Check, like I’m safe from this one or that one ... There are too many for just ‘I’m Safe.’” In the U.S., social media shaming also played out on Facebook, Twitter and other channels in the aftermath of Paris over the use of a tool that shades profile photos to resemble the French flag. Other social media users object to a sea of vacation selfies at the Eiffel Tower being posted as a show of solidarity and an expression of “slacktivism,” rather than true social justice commitment. “What happened in Paris is awful and my thoughts are with the families affected as well as our global leaders as they figure out what to do,” said 33-year-old Jim Brown, a former U.S. Marine who lives in Indiana. “That said, changing my avatar to the colors of the French flag is just an easy way for me feel like I did something while sitting on my butt in my suburban American home.”
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DECEMBER 2015

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