Posted by pancho from pool0058.cvx24-bradley.dialup.earthlink.net (209.179.210.58) on Tuesday, November 26, 2002 at 9:53AM :
In Reply to: I just don't understand posted by Lilly from ? (160.129.27.22) on Tuesday, November 26, 2002 at 9:36AM :
: Why do these definitions matter anymore?
+++I'll tell you why I think they do...almost all of what passes for Assyrian activism, patriotism, culture, intellect, journalism, hysteria, scholarshit...in other words our very notion of what it means to be Assyrian, really comes down to an anger and resentment and hatred for Islam.
+++We've said we want a homeland, taken from us by "Arabs"...what they really mean is they want a Christian enclave...or Christian rights. Take away the religious criteria for being a "true" Assyrian and you have no case for any unique claim to being exclusively or purely Assyrian. That's why they insist all Muslims in Iraq are Arabs from Arabia and have to get out of OUR land. Because it ruins their argument if you assert that Assyrians also turned Muslim...big deal.
Take religion out of the equation and we are all desecendants of the ancients, some who have moved there recently, 1200 or 300 or 100 years ago, but who identify with that land and culture now...and we are divided by adherence to various religions, which we have ample evidence can turn brothers and sisters into murderers of each other's families and their own...and we have some of us influenced by Muslim culture and some by Christian...and some by Arab and European and some by American and Persian, and Turkish, French and Russian etc.
The Christian/Western faction insists they are the only true and pure and real Assyrians. The rest of them don't much care, or care just enough to protect Betnahrain, whatever it is called and all they want to do is live in peace...if the friggin Christians would leave them alone.
It is important because it HAS been important, and all these Phalangists want to keep it front and center, even to the point of burning the entire country if they have to...but for their RELIGION...not for Ashur.
It will fade away someday. The danger is that it will insist on taking everything else with it. That's where you and I and others come in who don't subscribe to this idiocy...who don't see this as central to who we are at all...in fact who recognize that this way dissolution and disappearance lie...never mind madness...we crossed that bridge long ago.
Hang in there.
-- pancho
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