Posted by pancho from pool0245.cvx20-bradley.dialup.earthlink.net (209.179.250.245) on Thursday, January 09, 2003 at 10:53AM :
Reviewing something I wrote a year ago, I see I no longer believe the Assyrian presence in Iraq is in any danger...not from Iraq that is. Assyrians and their legacy are definitely under attack by the United States and that other great friend of ours...Britain.
Christians are certainly a dying breed in Iraq...but they aren't the same thing. Christianity is a religion, or rather a fast pass to eternity posing as a moral system.
It came as a pleasant shock to realize we've been hoodwinked by weeping Christians all these years...that they can't possibly be the only true Assyrians...that they make this claim because they don't want to be hoist on their own screws...being simply Christian Arabs...as they call every Muslim over there an Arab...they would have to accept the same designation...and that would hurt far too much because to them Arabs are dirty and venal and evil...so they fabricated the idea that only Christian Assyrians remained true to something or other...because we still TALK about being Assyrian whereas the Muslim Assyrians don't. Iraqi/Muslim/Assyrians have a lot on their minds...a far richer heritage than the Christian ones among us will allow for they get it all...Assyrian AND Islamic. They also have a lot of actual work on the heritage to do...while we play bingo, pray in church and yak about being proud Assyrians when you's
d be hard pressed to find any real evidence. We WOULD be satisfied with "talking a lot" about being Assyrian...where'e the harm, what's it cost us? How easy to be "great".
Assyrians are Iraqis now. It's just a name change, like the change in religions we underwent. It doesn't change the essential fact that all of us from that region are descended from the ancients. The Christians among us merely tried to separate themselves from the Muslims by claiming to be exclusively and purely and legitimately Assyrian...based on nothing more than our say so and the fact we speak Aramaic...which would make us Arameans not Assyrians...or Egyptians because they used Aramaic too, or maybe Jews cause so did they.
Very muddled. Made so by religious jealousy etc. Anyway, it's good to not get hysterical over the ouster of Assyrians from Iraq. Also good to remember that we Christian Assyrians don't mind our Muslim brethren getting killed...glad rather because it shows that if you don't get Jesus one way ...he'll get you another.
So...that the Christians of Iraq/Assyria are getting the snot kicked out of them isn't as awful as it first sounds. Certainly one wishes no harm to anyone, Muslim or not. But Christianity is safe...as safe as any bloodthirsty collection of Cannibals has ever been. Christianity is the odor-eater of choice for the world's most savage and barbarous nations on earth.
If it is forced out of Iraq, where's the loss? Christians can move to Phoenix and open churches any day they wish. Muslim Assyrians who remain in BetNahrain are the true descendants of the ancient Assyrians. They aren't going anywhere if they can help it.
-- pancho
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