The Inside Assyria Discussion Forum
=> A Historic Evening to Remember
| A Historic Evening to Remember |
|
Posted by
Jeff
(Guest)
jeff@attoz.com
- Friday, April 23 2004, 20:05:22 (CEST) from 69.14.124.228 - d14-69-228-124.try.wideopenwest.com  Commercial -  Windows XP -  NetscapeWebsite: Website title: |
![[ 200 x 182 - 2.58 ko ]](http://www.auf.nu/images/artImages/seminarium27mars_parpolacherry(1).jpg) 2004-04-23 A Historic Evening to Remember On March 27, 2004, the Assyrian Youth Federation in Sweden (AUF) organized a historical seminar as part of Assyrians´ cultural and educational program.The event convened at the School of Economics and Commercial Law at the University of Göteborg, Sweden. The event was welcomed with great enthusiasm as over 350 members of the Youth Federation attended. They came by buses, trains, cars, and every other mean possible from all over Sweden to be part of this evening and to listen to the lectures of the celebrated Assyriologist Professor Simo Parpola (Department of Assyriology at Helsinki University, Finland) and Assyriology student Zack Cherry (Uppsala University, Sweden). The seminar that evolved around the Assyrians´ cultural heritage and ethnic richness and history commenced at 1:00 p.m. and ended around 7:00 p.m. Prof. Parpola´s lecture "Assyrian Identity in Ancient Times and Today," stressed on Assyrian ethnic and cultural continuity throughout the centuries. Parpola stressed on certain important turning points in Assyrian history and the evolution of the Assyrian name in its historical, political and linguistic context. Parpola explained how Assyrians embraced Christianity, which has become an indelible part of the Assyrian identity, but it has also subjected them to endless persecutions and massacres, which decreased their numbers drastically. He added that unfortunately, Assyrians are split into rivaling denominations and political groups and that for Assyrians to survive as a nation, they must unite under the Assyrian identity of their ancestors. The lecture could be read in English at the following URL address: http://www.auf.nu/cafe/pdf/parpola_eng.pdf For those interested in reading it in Swedish, please visit: http://www.auf.nu/cafe/pdf/parpola_sve.pdf ). Prof. Parpola prepared his presentation specifically for this Assyrian Youth Federation’s educational and cultural event. In the second presentation, Zack Cherry concentrated on the Assyrian language and its developments and evolution from the early beginning to modern times. Mr. Cherry´s lecture was titled "From Cuneiform to the Alphabet – From Akkadian to Aramaic: The Development of Language and Writing System in Ancient Assyria". Mr. Cherry is considered a role model for the Assyrian students and he is morally supported by the Assyrian people and on his turn he has dedicated his knowledge to the Assyrian organizations and youth. This was not the first time that Mr. Cherry presented his lectures to the youth. During the international summer camp of the Assyrian Youth Federations (AUF, AJM & AJF) in 2003, he inspired the youth and encouraged them to be involved in Assyrian studies and in their national history and culture. The two highly qualified experts in Assyriology showed how the Assyrian identity continued through their names, whether "Suroyo and Suraya" or "Suryoyo and Suryaya," which originates back to the Asuroyo (Asuraya) and Ashuroyo (Ashuraya), and these are equivalent to the English name "Assyrian." They showed how their language has continued to throughout the long history of the Assyrian people and civilization; A 7000-years history. This was not all. Music has always been a tradition among Assyrians. The audience enjoyed as well quality music and national songs performed by a living legend Habib Mousa. Mousa opened the event with a song that goes like this: Yalta min Dimmi Ya Aturayta en howyat ahmi Atur la mayta (Oh Assyrian girl, my own blood, if you stay with me Assyria will not perish). Entertainment continued during intermittence periods as the audience enjoyed the music of Josef Cacan, second generation Diaspora Assyrian musician Shikri Johanen, and Benjamin Yousif, whose popularity is growing stronger every year. This was icing on the cake. This seminar was the final part in a series of events that completed a project called "ARYO," which was initiated and organized by the board of the Assyrian Youth Federation (AUF). The project had a specific goal and that was to provide the tools necessary to strengthen the concept of Assyrian identity in the mind of the Assyrian youth in Sweden and promote Assyrian culture among them. Besides this gathering at Göteborg, ARYO presented as well two weekends full of lectures and cultural activities earlier. Among the present at this seminar were representatives from "Living History Forum in Göteborg" along with Swedish radio "Qolo" reporters. Worth mentioning that the seminar was supported by "The National Council of Swedish Youth Organisations" and "Living History Forum in Göteborg." Finally, for those interested, the AUF has made a short documentary and it is available here: http://auf.nu/images/media/seminarie2004.wmv Furthermore, a report by "Qolo" Radio about the event could be listened to at this URL address: http://auf.nu/images/media/qolo040407.ram Pictures from the seminar here » --------------------- |
The full topic:
|
|
Content-length: 5740 Content-type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded Accept: text/xml,application/xml,application/xhtml+xml,text/html;q=0.9,text/plain;q=0.8,video/x-mng,image/png,image/jpeg,image/g... Accept-charset: ISO-8859-1, utf-8;q=0.66, *;q=0.66 Accept-encoding: gzip, deflate, compress;q=0.9 Accept-language: en-us, en;q=0.50 Connection: keep-alive Cookie: *hidded* Host: www.insideassyria.com Keep-alive: 300 Referer: http://www.insideassyria.com/rkvsf/rkvsf_core.php?.3Qcd. User-agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.0.2) Gecko/20030208 Netscape/7.02 |
- 04/23 21:25Powered by RedKernel V.S. Forum 1.2.b9