Posted by pancho from pool0109.cvx24-bradley.dialup.earthlink.net (209.179.210.109) on Saturday, January 11, 2003 at 0:00AM :
One thing seems constant about our patriots; they all believe someone is out to stop them in their national aspirations. I think they mistake legitimate concerns that their national aspirations cause dissention and division in Muslim states that have had to contend with Western greed for oil at any price...and who have not been above using religion as a wedge issue...I think they confuse this with hostility or suspicion for them AS Assyrians...simple law-abiding Assyrians. They neglect to factor in their Christian religion and how this can sour relations between them and the Muslim majority...sort of what law abiding Americans have to fear from being loudly, devotedly and unabashedly Muslim...not too wise right now. Well that's been the case for Christians in the MidEast for some time now...has nothing to do being just Assyrian. It's the Christian thing that screws us...yet again.
These patriots of ours are passionate Christians...which is the thing that makes them suspect...no one has any reason to dislike or distrust them for being Assyrian...but for being Christian, Hell YES! And for good reason.
As Assyrians we have no claim of any kind on any part of the MidEast...what court would we go to...and who's going to set such a precedent; that people who lost their country 2000 plus years ago have a "right" to it because it was taken from them...what piece of land HASN'T been taken away from someone else? This is silliness and dumbness parading as a National Question. The consolation is that none of these patriots dare make this claim in public...where anyone can hear them. They aren't THAT dumb!
No Muslim state is going to give any Christians a corner of anything...period! No one is trying to frustrate any "Assyrian" rights to anything...our boys are hiding their Christian resentments and ambitions behind an Assyrian identity...making claims and assertions as Assyrians when their real agenda is a Christian vengeance thing.
No one has anything to fear from Assyrians today...except other Assyrians. Our own boys can post anywhere but only go where it's safe for them...and these guys are going to challenge anyone? These guys are going to argue their case before the world when three hostile words or an opposite point of view...or any challenge at all to their National Question, sends them scurrying for the shelter of mama's kipti arms.
No one denies any Assyrian anything, except a "right" to an Assyria again...and NO ONE is going to give a Christian a damn thing in the MidEast...why the hell should they? How does a religion have any territorial claims? Christianity has been driven out of the Mideast...just as Islam was driven from Spain and kept from France. Would Spain ever consider giving Seville or Toledo "back" to the Muslims?
We will never get back anything in Iraq, and without Nazi help the Jews would never have gotten a country either. As Assyrians we are welcome to live in the MidEast...as Christian Assyrians we will always be suspect because of our devotion to a religion over our ethnic roots or loyalty to a Muslim State...a religion we share with the people robbing and killing those people for 200 years now. As Assyrians in Iraq we are free to obey the laws and live and work as best we can. What more can citizens expect of a country?
-- pancho
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