The Inside Assyria Discussion Forum #5

=> Re: A Night to Honor Narsai David

Re: A Night to Honor Narsai David
Posted by pancho (Moderator) - Tuesday, October 11 2011, 15:44:25 (UTC)
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I've since had some email exchanges with their vice-president, a dear old pal, who tells me that when the assyrians fled to the north they found that Qurdish schools did not teach in Arabic so that our kids were at a disadvantage...it was for this reason that the push was on to translate textbooks into assyrian. The fear was of course that our children would be forced to become Qurdish, if they had to learn Qurdish...just as we claim that by learning Arabic they forgot assyrian and who they are.....apparently no one worries about their kids reading English language textbooks, or Swedish language textbooks, in fact I'm sure parents insist their kids learn fast and well and get out there and succeed...get over any tribal or ghetto mentality....but we strive to foster such attitudes over there because we want to "save" the heritage and language.

But success in Iraq, intermarriage in Iraq, integration and even assimilation in Iraq is anathema....why? Because assyrian kids will "forget who they are and lose their heritage"....but who are we kidding? It is in free America and the West that our kids forget it all...in the West where we do next to nothing to "remember who we are"...that's because we don;t really mind forgetting...not in Christian countries....sure, we'd prefer it if our kids acted like they never left the old country, if they were even born there...but those of us here are bound and determined that they not forget over THERE...there, in the middle of a war zone where once the foreigners leave and the Iraqis want the northern part back, they're going to encounter a generation of assyrian kids who maybe don't speak Arabic but English, assyrian and Qurdish...the languages of all their favorite people.

The assyrian language schools and textbooks were not necessary in order that our kids not forget the language, or the heritage...they were getting that at home just like they were fifty years ago when there were no assyrian highschools...that could have continued in the north, the home could have been the place to carry on teaching whatever is worthwhile about the heritage and language...there was no need to learn math in assyrian...but there WAS a need to keep them assyrian....this is the big fear...this is the motivating factor....it is not to save lives or preserve a heritage and language: that was happening anyway, just as it was in the past, before this war....it was good enough then, it was good enough now.

The fear is that the kids over there will identify, or even be friendly and maybe intermarry, with the hated Qurds, even though we admit that they, and not we, are the ones who made a safe haven we are welcome in...we take advantage of what we can but we'll be damned if we'll allow our kids to study in their schools, even though they learn as much assyrianisms as when they went to Arabic language schools...this is all about maintaining that separate identity...not to "teach the language and keep the heritage", at least not in that noble-sounding way...what we dread is that being assyrian will become as unimportant and uninspiring as it is HERE...we are afraid that those there will show as little interest in it as do our kids here....although here we don;t mind at all if they assimilate...it is only over there, where there literally are guns to heads of our children that we INSIST they become ever more and better ASSYRIANS! And, by the way..."what about getting us a part of Iraq we can call our own?" How can we continue making these wild claims if we become comfortable living with Qurds and Arabs....? How can we demonstrate a pressing need for our own territory if we come to live in peace and harmony with our Muslim and Qurdish neighbors, if they stop being our "enemies" and "mortal foes" how can we win sympathy from the UN and maybe Great Britain so they will "save us"???...where would be the emergency, the urgency if we "got along"?

The Chaldeans have achieved this, they lived and worked and played among all Iraqis and never gave a thought to resurrecting Chaldea! They never had the paranoia or indulged in the fanfare we do about "remembering who we are"...and without paranoia and so many fears, they succeeded in Iraqi society and learned how to succeed when they came over here...and today they are far stronger and richer and better connected than we are...and they are even MORE devoted to their culture and heritage and language than the assyrians....because they studied success...and took it with them while we cultivated paranoia, fear, tribalism, avoidance, escape from reality and wishful thinking about our "glorious past" which has kept us weak, divided, filled with envy and childish...not to mention ineffective.

That's what's wrong with this equation: we are helping, but not the people...we are helping them to "keep being assyrian", but not in order to survive and maybe even thrive....we are helping them, in part, because we know we failed miserably over here, failed to keep it important to our kids...and let's face it, it really isn't important..it's nice, but you can certainly get on in life and thrive without it...you can marry non-assyrians, forget the language and whatever history we think we have, and live well and be happy and fulfilled...and you could do the same in Iraq....BUT, if you do that in Iraq you might come in time to identify with the hated Arabs or Qurds and THAT must never happen....even though the greatest chance for survival over there, especially in the coming years, is not exactly to forget all that, but at the least to not emphasize it so much and above all NOT to drive a wedge once again between us and them. That one thing has been deadly to us in our history over there, and it is something we NEVER feared over here, it made some of us uncomfortable and sad for a while, but we quickly got over it, but not there, not in Iraq, not surrounded by Muslims instead of Americans....

...we are playing with fire but THEY are the ones who will be burned.



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