The Inside Assyria Discussion Forum #5

=> my response

my response
Posted by pancho (Guest) - Saturday, November 3 2007, 19:45:17 (CET)
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Naturally I’m not qualified to get into any detailed analysis…however, I’d find the “lost A” or “unpronounced -A-that-was-always-there” hypothesis more convincing if someone could produce other words that were handled equally. Maybe there are such examples but no one thinks to give them…though it would make it easier to swallow.

I quote the last part:

“It is the contention of this paper that the Çineköy inscrip­tion settles the problem once and for all.”
Spoken like a true scholar. Like I said, it isn’t a matter of proof or ever knowing for certain-sure, evidence is accumulated, hashed over, thrashed over, old stuff is re-visited as will the new stuff be one day…hardly something to cut each other’s throats over. The paper ends with “contention”…anything more definitive and it could only be printed in Zinda or that Journal that isn’t.

My position has always been that when sources disagree; take whichever one suits you best. That’s what you do and it’s what I do. The best way to fast-forward is to ask ourselves what the end result is of proving this, one way or the other. Let’s look at what happens if we disprove it first…

Let’s say by some magic means we discover that we aren’t lineally descended from the ancient Assyrians but that all the ancient people are represented in all the modern people in that region today, barring all those whom we could prove moved there from someplace else…but let’s leave them out of it. Since you’re a most reasonable fellow you’ve already discounted the role of any religion in determining who can and who cannot claim Assyrian lineage. If everyone has that heritage, then no one has any exclusive claim to it, especially not in claiming indigenous lands be returned to them…something the Native Americans and Irish Catholics can’t even get away with.

So what happens to all those who believed they were the lineal descendants, and who’ve based their political demands on that direct linkage? What do they lose and what do they gain? If the claim is seen as bogus by whatever means, what do those people lose? Assuming it had been some sort of crime to claim lineal descent in demands for a country of their own, an act of sedition they’ve been paying for regularly, the discovery, finally, that there’s no valid basis for such a claim may discourage those making it to risk being punished by law for their sedition…more than that it would clearly mark them off as a band of fanatics whose extreme behavior, that much easier now for the non-fanatics to comprehend as false, might at least spare them all from group-punishment. Like a crazy person doesn’t have his family committed along with him, those who refuse the obvious proof would be seen as beyond the pale…and their friends and families would be believed when they said they wanted no part of such claims.

If that happened then the Christians of Iraq, my main emphasis, would be reduced to the reality that they are indeed Christian Iraqis…no more and no less…and that all that divides them from their fellows is one form or another of Judaism. Seeing themselves as only Iraqis, and not the lost and wronged remnant of an ancient people with some special claim on anything, they might settle down and go about their business, as most of them have been doing since the Arabs came, certainly under Saddam. They could still practice the dearest thing to them, their Christian faith, especially as now it was stripped of any hint of political sedition, demands for territory etc. This would spare them any additional abuse from the government and in time, any serious abuse at all because their neighbors would see them as full citizens of the same country.

They could go on using their Aramaic language…it being no threat now…naming their children what they wanted and working as they were doing before. No doubt they would suffer persecution from some quarters here and there, but no more than Blacks or women for that matter when in America they demanded equal rights and protection under the law. This kind of thing has happened everywhere and one good way to minimize it is not antagonize the dominant majority needlessly.

Any other harm? I can’t see any.

What about outside of Iraq? If this were proven, beyond a shadow of a doubt..or accepted as if it were…what would be the negative impact on the Assyrians of America, Europe and Auatralia? None, as far as I can see, with the added benefit that we wouldn’t be inundated with calls to rescue people, unless of course other nations attack Iraq…in which case our help for ALL Iraqis would help ease the situation for the Christians back there…so I don’t see anything bad coming from such a pass.
The Assyrians now in the West would still be able to worship freely, teach their language and, if some should remain adamantly determined, they could go on building monuments, libraries and museums and calling them Assyrian if they wanted to…no harm would come from this because the people of Iraq and elsewhere would have agreed to accept the incontrovertible proof that those who insist they are Assyrian were clearly wrong and had some other agenda…which, thankfully wouldn’t have much impact on the Christians in Iraq and elsewhere because they would have distanced themselves quite openly from all such claims, in light of the supposed proof that the claims were false.

In other words, those who insist, could go right on insisting…but they would no longer have a handle by which to drag in their fellows of Iraq, who after all pay the real price.

And what if, on the famous other hand, this claim is proven and we find that the people we call Assyrians really and truly are…then what?

Let’s take the West first. Will this proof make any difference to their lives…in any practical sense? Since they believed it anyway they can have the immense satisfaction of saying, “we TOLD you so”! They can then build even more monuments, open more hospitals, museums, dance companies etc., to show their pride and that they are still alive and as engaged as ever their forebears were.

And those in Iraq…what would they do as a result of this confirmation? Would it be any safer now for them to demand the return of their stolen lands? Of course not. Everyone knows all lands have been stolen, several times, and this is the way things are done in international law. I suppose the Assyrians could get in line behind the Native American tribes, north, central and south, the various islanders and Europeans and people on all continents, all with a much more recent claim than the Assyrians, and clamor or wait patiently for justice…and they wouldn’t get it. For practical purposes, where you say politics intervenes, it would make no difference at all, except make things that much worse for them…as it has till now, without that conclusive, incontrovertible proof that they are definitely the Assyrians…in other words this “proof” will only make things worse for them.

Would there be any benefit to them, in Iraq? Not so long as they use the proof to demand what international law admits they aren’t owed. If one nation did such a thing it would set a very bad precedent and piss a lot of governments off because such claims would pile up something fierce…so no one is going to be the first to make such an accommodation, even if it has been proven beyond any doubt…as is already the case with many Native tribes who still have treaties in their possession signed by Congress and the president…who’ve never gotten anything by it. If they dropped this claim, somehow coming to their senses, or having the radicals thrown out of the country, jailed or hanged, as has happened already…in time they could build all the Assyrian monuments, museums, hospitals, symphony orchestras as they wanted to…so long as there was no intention to use these as fronts to foment sedition…which they could have done all these years past…but never did.

My conclusion from this is that there’s absolutely nothing to be gained, for the Christians of Iraq, in finding out they’re definitely the descendants of the ancient Assyrians…those who believe it now, without such ironclad or universally accepted proof, believe it already and it’s cost everybody plenty, with no gain that I can see…maybe you can. With only a few speaking out about it now, there’s been enough distrust, suspicion and retaliation…if the entire community were to take up the chant, the government would likely become panicked and take really harsh measures to put down mass sedition…in other words; all united and speaking with one voice, and with proof in hand, the only result would be even greater government retribution, which they’d have every right, by the common law of nations, in meeting out. So, what’s the point?

Whether it’s ever definitively proven or no, the crux of the matter is that it would avail nothing towards getting what you call a “political” solution…but only make things worse if the entire mass of Iraqi Christians made the same demand based on rock-solid proof. How could it be otherwise when we see, without such proof where the authorities are concerned, a crack down on all who make the claim. If it was ever proven the reaction would, of necessity, be far worse.

The real question, I think, is what do those who promote this point of view; the claim that all the evidence is in and points to their conclusion, stand to gain, or lose, by it.



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