The Inside Assyria Discussion Forum #5

=> The Assyrian Argument Revisited

The Assyrian Argument Revisited

Posted by pancho (Moderator) - Saturday, March 14 2009, 19:27:29 (CET)
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Never mind “Taking Our Country Back!”...our nationalists can’t even engage in an open discussion on this topic...and they’re going to go live in the middle of pissed-as-hell Muslims? Right.

The argument goes like this;

“We know we are Assyrians because our parents told us so and there is no need of any proof....we know there are no Chaldeans because there is no proof, no matter what their parents told them. We know Assyrians are Christians because we were the first to convert....and we don’t have to prove that either. We also know that no Muslim can be an Assyrian because if he is Muslim, and since Islam is from Arabia, then he must be an Arab. If, by some strange occurrence such as “forced” conversion (because “we know” that is the only way it happened), an Assyrian did convert to Islam, that person is no longer Assyrian because he does not speak the Assyrian language or practice the Assyrian religion (Christianity) or culture AND he does not talk-a-lot about being Assyrian but prefers to consider himself Arab primarily and takes pride in the great Islamic Empire, placing Muhammad above Jesus.”

After years of seeking intelligent life in Assyria this is the best I have managed to find...these are the arguments favored by so-called modern Assyrians.

Not needing to give “proof” is fine so long as we’re all chatting by the water cooler, or in a bar. In that atmosphere you can say you’re an Apache or German and no one will care to challenge you or demand any evidence. But, if you want to cross borders, apply for a visa or passport or birth certificate or any benefits that accrue to citizenship or nationality, then you will indeed have to bring evidence. What “Mommy told me” will not suffice. In serious things, as we see, Assyrians certainly have to have evidence to back their claims....not least when they are demanding the return of “their” lands...or their “indigenous” rights....or claiming “persecution” for what are essentially acts of sedition and treason, which result in prosecution...not persecution..

To deny Chaldeans legitimacy for lacking the evidence Assyrians also lack or, worse, claim is not necessary when required of THEM but must be presented when Chaldeans make the same claims is hypocritical to say the least. It is true that there has grown a certain movement in some Assyrian circles to allow Chaldeans legitimacy...but this has only come about recently and is motivated by a cynical effort to increase their numbers so as to have more clout. In their heart of hearts no Assyrian really believes Chaldean claims....just as in the depths of their souls Chaldeans find a too-close association with Assyrians troubling because of Assyrian bigotry and hatred for all things Arab. Cynicism on both sides drives this apparent rapprochement...nothing more.

The Christian part of this argument is based on the claims that Assyrians were the first to convert, in apostolic times no less...either through King Abgar or Mar Somebody-or-other. These are both legends having absolutely no basis in historical fact. However, to be converted to the teaching of Jesus at any time during his time on earth, or for the following 70 years or so, would be to convert to Judaism, as there was no such thing as a Christian religion during all that time.

Assyrians insist that all Muslims in BetNahrain today must be descended from the original Arab conquerors because Islam is an “Arab” religion, not indigenous to BetNahrain. Their foreign religion “proves” that they cannot be “indigenous” Assyrians.

However, Christianity is not indigenous to BetNahrain either and the argument can be turned against those making it by showing that all Christians in BetNahrain, having converted away from the original, and only truly “Assyrian” religion, cannot be indigenous. Islam came from Arabia....Christianity came from Judea. Neither is indigenous to the land. If today’s Muslim is a direct descendant of the ancient Arabs, because of his Arabian religion, and therefore has no claim to or rights in the lands of the ancient Assyrians...so too do all Christians descend from ancient Jews and likewise have no claims to or rights in BetNahrain.

It is undoubtedly true that the most fervent Assyrian nationalists come from and are raised in villages, far away from the more cosmopolitan centers where people are forced to mix and adapt to one another. In more isolated villages ethnic pride and nationalism, a sense of “we against they”, is far more pronounced and easier to maintain. In such villages there are no formal schools and certainly none that are maintained by the government for the Assyrian children exclusively. In these villages the only school available to Assyrian children can be found in the village church, run by a well-meaning but largely ignorant local priest who teaches a highly prejudicial version of what he claims is history. Given such limited schooling, and of a wildly bigoted and nationalistic bent, it is not surprising that children from these villages do not go on to earn higher degrees. If they do continue their education they must go to the larger cities where colleges maintain a stricter standard for what passes for history especially. While it is possible for the village student to keep whatever history he has learned back home while pursuing a degree in medicine or engineering or accounting in the big city college, he cannot benefit from or do well in or indeed even tolerate any advanced courses in history or even the humanities in general. Not only has he been stuffed with a wildly biased and inaccurate history of the Assyrians vs the Arabs...of Islam and Christianity...but his mind has been shorn of the even-handed qualities and temperament required for truly academic studies free from prejudice and bias. He has become unfit for the real study of any sort of history, not just his own.

As for languages spoken....the modern Assyrian speaks Aramaic, not Assyrian...and Aramaic is the language of the people of ancient Aram/Syria and not Assyria/Mesopotamia. The Aramaic language is also not “indigenous” to BetNahrain....as English isn’t to America...or Australia. It is a foreigners language brought across borders. Both Arabic and Aramaic are “foreign” to BetNahrain....as are Christianity and Islam. If an Assyrian today can speak the Aramaic language of foreigners and believe in the religion of foreigners and still account himself an indigenous Assyrian with rights to the land....then so too can a Muslim speak a foreigner’s language and believe a foreigner’s religion while still demanding his rights to the land. Both Christians and Muslims, Aramaic and Arabic-speaking Iraqis have equal claims to the ancient land of the Assyrians. If you allow the one, with all its foreign components, you must allow the other.

Finally, Muslims in Iraq, every one of them, recognizes and respects the ancient peoples of the land...all of them. They accept gladly their connection to not only the ancient Assyrians but to the Sumerians, Babylonians, Hittites, Hurrians etc. The real difference between the Muslim Assyrian and the Christian Assyrian is that the Christian makes no mention of the far more recent Islamic phase in the life of BetNahrain...or sees it as anything but a disaster and calamity....even though the Arabs proved far more tolerant than the Byzantine Christians. But this hostility developed in recent times when the Arabs came to be blamed for modern Assyrian failures and bad judgment.

While Muslim Assyrians pay homage to their ancient Assyrian culture they also respect their more modern history as a great Islamic empire built on the achievements of all the ancient empires in the land...something the Christian Assyrian will not admit and tries to ignore or slander. Understandably, history for the modern Assyrian ended in 638 A.D. with the Arab Conquest. For Muslim Assyrians this was merely the beginning of yet another great era in the spectacular history of BetNahrain which encompassed several great empires and peoples. The Christian denigrated or ignored every achievement since that date, while the Muslim took pride in 1,400 years of Muslim rule, spreading its own genius plus Classic civilization to Europe and the New World. For this reason the Assyrian Muslim is not preoccupied exclusively with the ancient history of the land...while to the Christian, that is all there is.

The arguments made by Christian Assyrians are not convincing and contain within each one the very tools needed to dismantle it. This may explain why no Assyrian nationalist dares have this debate in the open....because he brings to the debate the very weapons needed to destroy all of his cherished beliefs.

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