Posted by Melody (129.128.207.126) on January 20, 2002 at 23:46:27:
I was checking my email this evening and what do I find but Jeff Atto asking for my input. I noticed he had emailed me at addresses that I did not use when I would post so I thought he must have gone to a little bit of trouble to find me, so here I am posting on this forum.
So thank you Jeff for thinking of me as worthy of this forum as there has been some excellent posts lately. Alli is impressive and the usual people are as good as they ever were. I wonder what Ir@qi is up to.
And now for my two-cents. I think it is a really good idea that Parhad is suing the individuals who have made it difficult for him to install the monuments. This way, the true story will be recorded and people won't have to rely on heresay. I am curious as to what is going on with the trial but I guess I'll have to wait as one doesn't want to give away strategy during the trial. Is the trial going on right now or planned for the near future?
As for aina, the majority of the people who post there frustrate me. I wonder why are there so many conservative people amongst us? Then again, these people might be only the vocal minority. The same phenomenon happens with radio call-in shows where only those with a strong opinion bother calling and that is why such shows/forums should never be used to claim that this is what the typical Assyrian is thinking. On the other hand, I wonder if I am being too hard on the people at aina. Afterall, what separates me from them is that I have had opportunities they have not had and this has opened my eyes to other viewpoints. I like Parhad have lived in many different places; I've lived on three different continents. I, like Parhad, have met Moslems who were good human beings, upper crust types and so I can not feel as those people on aina whose experiences with moslems must have left them resentful. Mind you, I too have lost family during at least one of the massacres. The details are not too well known as my grandfather passed away when I too young to understand 'what had been done to us'. As my mother recalls, her father comes home from school one day to find his parents' throat slit, probably by their servant, who was either a kurd or a turk, a moslem in any case. He then takes off to Russia to find an Uncle of his. I would really liked to have talked to him and found out how he survived not speaking Russian and being no more than 17 years old. And that's what's called a Survivor; not that cheesy TV show where you can win money. What I am trying to say is that I do not feel the same emotions as the people over at aina. I do not want to bother with getting those responsible to admitting genocide. Rather, I think, what can we do to avoid repeating history? Parhad has eloquently provided the solutions. For one thing, he has pointed out how our people repeatedly sided with foreigners (Russians, British) who were merely co-religionists only to be betrayed by them in the end. And now, history is repeating itself. I think those hardliner type Assyrians won't change so as long as they don't admit that human beings are more or less the same everywhere you go and that the foreigners were just as much to blame by making promises they couldn't or wouldn't be able to keep to our people.
If I want to be really open with you, I'll have to admit that I did not like moslems when I was growing up in Iran. Afterall, non-moslems faced discrimination in the workforce and why did I have to cover my hair anyway? Things were not good for Assyrians before the '79 revolution either but you won't get too many Assyrians admitting that. Frankly, I don't think being allowed to wear a mini-skirt but being afraid to speak against the Shah who was a dictator is something to feel nostalgic about. What changed my mind was seeing Edward Said(pronounced Sa-eed) on a PBS program. He fascinated me, this Christian Palestinian who defended all Palestinians and their cause regardless of religion. And then it dawned on me that my experience with moslems was not representative of moslem/christian relations throughout the middle east.
Just thought I would share my thoughts.