Posted by pancho from ? (63.164.145.161) on Thursday, November 14, 2002 at 7:53PM :
In Reply to: Re: Why Muslim Assyrians can't exist...... posted by Ben from host-66-81-172-70.rev.o1.com (66.81.172.70) on Thursday, November 14, 2002 at 12:57PM :
The fly in your Bear ointment is that all Muslims are not Arabs...as all Arabs are not Muslim. That's a bit of tripe from our churches...just as they say Saddam is Arabizing Assyrians. Until you don't make this separation...you might read all the history you want to, you wont understand it.
Islam was a religion brought from Arabia to Iraq. It won many converts along the way.
Christianity was a religion brought to Iraq from Israel...it won many converts alng the way.
Once in Iraq, both Islam and Christianity made many converts...though in the end there are far more Muslims in that region than Christians. I think this drives the resentment of the Christians there. That and being lumped under Pan-Arabism, Nasser's failed attempt to unite the Arabic SPEAKING MidEast.
If you insist that all Muslims had to come from Arabia and that the ones in Iraq today are the direct lineal descendants of the original invading army of 1300 years ago...I don't know what reading history will do for you. It's just plain absurd...which mathces perfectly the other arguments you made.
Would you likewise claim that all Christians in Iraq came from Israel?
I am Assyrian...I am not Christian or Muslim...but I have no difficulty accepting Muslim or Christian or Jewish or Buddhist Assyrians...something the "pure" Christian Assyrians can't do...that's because they are Racists as well as Bigots. We don't have to give up anything...and no one in Iraq is making us do it either. The government wants to prevent the religious divisions that the West has been clever at manipulating, that and the bogus claims about "nationality", as in we are a "Nation" when we are no such thing... it's the Christian vs Muslim thing.
The government, any government, would like all of its citizens to identify themselves with the nation and the homeland. Nothing odd in that...look at how we're being forced to all be one kind of American right now in this country...the threat of external danger does that...makes the citizens and the officials want to be "sure" of who lives within their borders. Iraq has had to worry about it longer because the long knives have been gathering around for longer...since before the Great War.
Christian Assyrians in Iraq like to tweak the government...like to insist they are original Assyrians who want their land back. But we see they only care for their religion...even when they come to the West where they are safe to practise both their religion AND their "forbidden"...harrassed and "threatened with Arabization" heritage. They don't do a damn thing about the Heritage...just go on building churches, and haven't for 100 years. That's because being Assyrian means nothing to them but a pretext to cover their religious quarrels with Islam...that's all their "Assyrianism" amounts to.
-- pancho
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