The Inside Assyria Discussion Forum

=> Identity 101 - Zinda Interview with Professor Joseph (Questions)

Identity 101 - Zinda Interview with Professor Joseph (Questions)
Posted by Tiglath (Guest) - Friday, November 12 2004, 2:53:39 (CET)
from 161.114.228.150 - gemini-01.compaq.com.au Australia - Windows XP - Internet Explorer
Website:
Website title:

Identity 101

Zinda recently had the chance to interview Professor John Joseph an author and historian….(Brief 1-2 paragraph introduction detailing your work, books etc.)


1. In Nations and Nationalism, Ernerst Gellner argues that nationalism occurs in the modern period because industrial societies, unlike agrarian ones, need homogenous languages and cultures in order to work efficiently. Thus, states and intellectuals mobilize campaigns of assimilation through public education and the culture industries.
What exactly is Nationalism and have our people grasped this concept yet?

2. The Mellamu project run by Professor Simo Parpola, the head of the State Archives of Assyria at Helsinki University is attempting to show the continuity of the ancient Assyrians throughout the millennia right down to the present day. In your opinion will this project conclusively show that the modern Assyrians are the descendants of their ancient ancestors or will it leave more questions unanswered?

3. While the Assyrian writer Fred Aprim from the Church of the East attempts to show the continuity of the ancient Assyrian identity, Johhny Messo from the Syriac Universal Alliance, has come to your defense on Zinda while attempting to push the Syriac Universal Alliance’s Aramaen identity adopted by the Syrian Orthodox church. Meanwhile we have another writer, like Ghassan Hanna from Chaldeans online who is a member of our Chaldean church but also holds a differing view from both writers and provides evidence showing the continuity of the Chaldean identity. Why are the views of these 3 writers so divergent?

4. The late Professor Mateev once told me that the Shiites of Iraq are the descendants of the ancient Sumerians and Babylonians. What about the people of central and northern Iraq? Does your study of history point to an annihilation theory or an assimilation theory of the ancient Assyrian majority?

5. We have heard about the Saddam Hussein - a descendant of Tikrit, a Nestorian city that converted to Islam only 200 years ago – to Arabise the minorities of Iraq. Meanwhile in the north we have Mustafa Barzani – who’s Kurdish tribe converted to Islam only 300 years ago – also attempting to Kurdify the minorities in northern Iraq. Why are the dominant ethnic/religious groups so intent on creating a homogenous identity and nation? Why is this also evident in our Christian sects who go to great lengths to differentiate their church, language and identity and either Assyrianise, Chaldeanise or Aramaenise the other group(s)?

6. In light of the comparative evidence, what exactly has your extensive research about our identity revealed? Who are we?

7. Does this understanding of our identity change our political goal in the Middle East? Should we be pursuing human rights rather than a homeland?



---------------------


The full topic:



Content-length: 3224
Content-type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded
Accept: image/gif, image/x-xbitmap, image/jpeg, image/pjpeg, application/vnd.ms-excel, application/vnd.ms-powerpoint, applicatio...
Accept-encoding: gzip, deflate
Accept-language: en-au
Connection: Keep-Alive
Cookie: *hidded*
Host: www.insideassyria.com
Pragma: no-cache
Referer: http://www.insideassyria.com/rkvsf3/rkvsf_core.php?.8fhu.
User-agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; .NET CLR 1.0.3705; .NET CLR 1.1.4322)
Via: 1.1 AU-GEMINI-01



Powered by RedKernel V.S. Forum 1.2.b9