The Inside Assyria Discussion Forum #5

=> Just Who Is Indigenous and Where?

Posted by pancho (Guest) - Saturday, September 15 2007, 23:53:13 (CEST)
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Pursuing some very non-scholarly research I stumbled across a book titled “Iraq, 1900 to 1950” by Stephen H. Longrigg, issued through the Royal Institute of International Affairs and published by Oxford University Press, 1953. It’s one of those “stupid books” our nationalists don’t need to bother with because they know the “truth” from any number of old people and ignorant priests with whom they happen to agree….so why disturb themselves?

For the rest of us it is an interesting book that goes into great detail about conditions in Iraq written by someone who was living there all those years and has the advantage of first-hand knowledge from the top down…also there is an extensive bibliography including official correspondence, declarations etc.

The modern Assyrians, first called Nestorians by the author, figure prominently when you consider what a small group they were….except that they caused trouble far beyond their numbers would have indicated. I’ll quote from the book later but what struck me right away was the realization that starting from the First World War, the nationalists among us were all…all, foreign to Iraq. There were Assyrians living in Iraq prior to the war and certainly Chaldeans too…but these groups, the Chaldeans especially, were well used to life among Iraqis and at no time clamored for a country of their own. Indeed the Chaldeans have never made this claim. When the borders of Iraq were finalized the native Assyrians and Chaldeans, were content to join the larger Iraqi nation.

The malcontents among them were the resettled refugees from Urmia and Hakkari who were never “indigenous” to Iraq to begin with…except in their romantic, straw-filled, heads as the “direct descendants of Ashurbanipal” who had “came home to Assyria”, albeit as a result of the war. Those from Hakkari were crushed when that region was kept by Turkey and not annexed to Iraq, as they’d hoped. Some among them having taken up arms, under Agha Poutrous, against their lawful government, were unwilling to return to their villages and unwelcome as well. Those who’d remained neutral were as concerned they would suffer retaliation without British protection…besides, having abandoned their lands they knew it would be an uphill battle to regain much.

The refugees from Urmia were not welcome to return either and so these two groups found themselves trapped in an Iraq that was a new country for them. To go from Turkish/Persian rule to Arab rule was unwelcome and the Marshimun, especially, kept agitating and pleading with the world to “do something”. Perhaps he yearned for a return to the Millet system of the Ottomans under which he’d been both spiritual and secular leader to his people. But those days, under an empire, were gone, replaced by a cry for democracy and nationalism, neither of which could provide such independent rule for minorities amounting to a state within a state. Whatever verbal promises were made to him or Agha Poutrous, in Britain’s hour of need, nothing existed on paper of any force such as the Balfour Declaration which contained explicit and official promises made to the Jews.

Great Britain says it tried to secure some satisfaction for the refugees but nothing proved acceptable. Ultimately the Marshimun’s followers made the disastrous trek to Syria, believing that a country would be made available to them there, were imprisoned, at first, with the remnant slinking back to their villages in Iraq after trading shots with the Iraqi army. It was a case of bad timing, for this latest foray (though there had been violent incidents when the Assyrian Levies rioted) came at a time when the government Cabinet, never stable and in this case widely unpopular, needed a rallying point and found it in the general distrust and anger among the Iraqi people at these, by now, unwelcome Assyrian refugees who refused to settle peaceably, grateful for the refuge provided them, but went on armed rampages, either on their own or wearing the uniform and carrying the weapons of the British formed Levies. To make the point clear an act of collective punishment was visited on the village of Semele by the Iraqi army. Regretable, but certainly within the bounds of normal behavior among all nations..Christians foremost among them.

Every scheme ended in disaster until Britain, refusing to involve itself further, washed its hands of these contentious tribes. This led to charges of betrayal, failed promises and even a secret desire to ruin the “great” Assyrian nation out of some never specified fear that it would “unite”. The British tried to convey the message that, for better or worse, the refugees of Urmia and Hakkari, unwilling to return to their native lands, would just have to make the best of it as citizens of the new nation of Iraq, whose government had made several accommodations already. While most did just that, there remained a dedicated group who began pestering the Iraqi government to give them “their” lands back, meaning not Hakkari or Urmia but “Assyria”. These were, almost without fail, the Assyrian refugees, recently settled and given safe haven, who had no claim whatsoever as the “indigenous” people of Iraq…except through the fantasy that they were all direct descendants of the ancient Assyrians…a meaningless argument anyway but one calculated to sway peasants who, understandably, felt they needed all the help they could get..

Iraq…indeed the entire region, knows this to be the case…understands that these people, whoever else they may be descended from, came from either what became Turkey proper…or Iran and as such have no claim whatsoever as the indigenous people of Iraq, having settled there barely 90 years ago. For this reason, above all else, their “nationalistic” ravings, while pleasing to their own ears, were viewed as nothing more than ingratitude, at best, but more accurately as sedition and treated accordingly, by the law of all nations.

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