The Inside Assyria Discussion Forum #5

=> ..you'd swear ....

Posted by pancho (Guest) - Tuesday, August 7 2007, 1:46:52 (CEST)
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...if you didn’t know any better, that modern so-called Assyrians living in the West felt an obligation to get their Christian brethren in Iraq killed, tormented or driven out of the country. While they’ve all removed themselves from a place they swear is filled with Muslim hostility and persecution, they agitate, give speeches, write horrendous letters to world leaders from the comfort of North America, Europe and Australia, all of it predicated on a belief that this will somehow inspire western Christianity to go to the rescue of the Christian minority which has, to date, resisted the temptation to leave Iraq in spite of the so-called “persecution” they supposedly suffer daily at the hands of Muslim Iraqis

Reading the first chapters of Dr Joseph’s “Muslim-Christian Relations” one can see that this error in judgment, this dependence on their co-religionists from outside BetNahrain, to “save them” is nothing new. Throughout their history these Christian heretical sects and even at times Orthodoxy, have aligned themselves with those attacking BetNahrain in hopes of gaining some advantage…and have paid the price.

Dr Joseph’s book is a scant 146 pages long with an additional 100 pages of notes and bibliography…an impressive piece of thorough research and scholarship. The book sheds much needed light on a place and time that has received little attention from scholars pursuing greater finds…this is a backwater of sorts to the general public as well as students of history…but is essential reading for us to understand how we came to be where we are now and…what the true nature of Christian-Muslims relations were and not the overblown tales of persecution “for no reason”, other than our Christian faith, which are still in use to obscure our actual history…our own mistakes and instead blame “cruel” Islam.

It is especially revealing now that this war on Iraq grinds on, brought to BetNahrain yet again by foreigners who are Christians…and the impossible, recurring, dilemma this has presented to the native Christian minority…either tempted to take sides with their co-religionists because of perceived “promises” made, or suspected of secret sympathies with them by their Muslim neighbors, exacerbated by the relentless calls of the ex-pat Christians to “save” Iraqi Christians from Muslim persecution…both of which have been, and still are, ample cause for retaliation…as these things go.

This is not something new but a constant theme in relations between the two, something Dr Joseph ably lays out for the reader. It is especially important to understand this chapter of past history because all the same forces and errors are about to be repeated, even in the face of the most recent tragic losses the Christian Iraqis have suffered, promising even greater loss to come. Having learned nothing and vowing to “never forget”, our nationalists are once again gearing up for more of the same by continuing to make their bogus demands for “their” indigenous lands back….a claim they feel justified in making because in the 19th century AD Europeans gave them that “golden opportunity” by declaring that the Nestorians living above the ruins of the ancient Assyrians were the exact same people as those buried there 3000 years before. This has often led them into traps they have unwittingly laid for themselves, believing they are “owed” their “nation”, believing those foreigners who knew how to tantalize them while promising nothing in writing and doing nothing in fact…except to use them and then leave them exposed to retaliation on their retreat.

It is a pity that this book sells for $120 and is therefore out of the reach of many…though it can be found in most university libraries. As was mentioned this is not a topic of widespread interest among the general population so that not enough demand exists to lower production costs. This, however is beyond Dr Joseph’s power to change…though he would certainly prefer if it were otherwise.

That’s by way of introduction…a brief summary will follow. This will, however, allow our nationalists to hurl insults at all who don’t take them at their own estimation.

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