Posted by pancho from adsl-64-165-200-188.dsl.snfc21.pacbell.net (64.165.200.188) on Monday, February 18, 2002 at 4:06AM :
From aina courtesy of an S. Somo.
I have no Idea whether the issue of Assyrian Muslims is included in any of our political organisations, and parties or not. As far as I know, some of them define the Assyrian people as the members of a number of churches who originally are fromthe land of Assyria. this issue isn't considered a priority at this stage of our national struggle by the vast majority of Assyrian activists who admit its existence.
Iam an Assyrian and have Muslim relatives who converted to Islam after 1915 when Christians in Turkey were forced to convert to Islam in order to survive. They are the family of my grandfather's cosine. In early sixties this person visited us in Syria. he was a typical Moslem believer as I was told and spoke Assyrian. A number of other families from our village have Moslem relatives, may be no more connection we have with them but they exist and can be reached.
Sooner or later, this issue will become a major Assyrian issue. why? because from national point of view there is no difference between Assyrian Yazeeds, Assyrian maronites, Assyrian Muslims and all other Assyrians who were lost in a certain time due to certain circumstances. why its so thrilling to hear prince Mouawia of Yazeeds admitting his Assyrian origin and seeing a Maronite Doctor trying to re-establishing a connection to Assyrians of other churches while discussing the Assyrian Moslems is unacceptable? It is a fact that many Assyrians converted to Islam whenever they had no choice other than death. So why denying it. I know it's a sensetive issue and hard to be accepted by, probably, the majority of our people due to the historically accumulated hatred between Christianity and Islam. But what is the solution? S.Somo
+++A solution to many of our problems is to identify those of us hiding their hatred and racist views and personal disappointments and inferiorities and wounded sense of self worth and lousy poetry...behind an Assyrian "activist" or "patrot" front.
+++You can clearly see how Peter and Firas and who knows who else mans that place...are really moved not, by any Assyrian cause or issue, but rather the hatred they feel for Muslims and probably Blacks and Jews and any number of other people. These types can't come out and say "I hate niggers"...but they do...as John Nimrod told me he didn't want the Shumirum where the city wanted to put it because there are "too many Blacks there."
+++Can you imagine ANY German or French or American "activist" telling his people that they should not support the installation of a monument dedicated to one of their national heroes? yet this is exactly what Peter did when he downplayed the significance of installing the second Assyrian public monument in 2500 years...and in his city of Chicago.
+++Tell me what good that did our children in Chicago and anywhere else? While the history inscribed on the base of the Ashurbanipal has been informing visitors from around the world who visit San Francisco annually for over fourteen years now, and will go on doing so as long as this nation endures... with more people reading more about us than ever at any time in any school...the statue of Shumirum, eagerly sought by the city Arts Council, sits in a warehouse in California and has for the last six years.
++++What German or Italian patriot or national or "poet" or ordinary person would dare accuse one of their own sculptors of "just wanting money"? Does Peter work for honey...or candy bars? Does Peter not try to wheedle and whine as much of a raise out of his bosses as anyone else? Does Peter spend years making something Assyrian that anyone wants...or that could be placed in any prominant location anywhere in this country and display our Heritage to countless people who we need desperately to reach...not to mention brighten the lives of our own children by giving them reason to feel proud and show off in front of their non-Assyrian friends?
++++I was already paid for the Shumirum long ago...and I challenge anyone to find a sculptor who could have done the same piece under the conditions I had to endure...hustling donations for 13 years in order to be stopped by Nimrod and the "rabid" Assyriandoodleism of patrots such as Peter. I sold my own sculpture and used the proceeds to build the monument with...would Peter use his own profits to make anything for Assyrians?
Peter feels deep envy and resentment...and he calls that "Assyria"...he hates Muslims...and he calls that "Assyria"...he practices the kinds of blatant censorship he would complain of if done to him by Muslims...and he calls that "Assyria". I'll take a Muslim any day.
-- pancho
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