Assyrians in Iraq
Posted: Wed Jul 27, 2005 7:58 pmAssyrians in Iraq
In 1933, the Iraqi government held the Patriarch of the Church of the East, the Mar Shamun, under house arrest. When he left Iraq to appeal to the British with regard to how the Assyrians were being mistreated in Iraq contrary to the agreement at Iraq's independence to refrain from discrimination against minorities, he was stripped of his citizenship and refused reentry.
During July 1933, about 800 armed Assyrians headed for the Syrian border, where they were turned back. While King Faisal had briefly left the country for medical reasons, the Minister of Interior, Hikmat Sulayman, adopted a policy aimed at a final solution of the Assyrian "problem". This policy was implemented by a Kurd, General Bakr Sidqi, who, after engaging in several clashes with the Assyrians, permitted his men to kill about 3,000 Assyrians, including women and children, at the Assyrian villages of Simel/Simele (Sumayyil) district, and later at Suryia.
The Assyrian repression marked the entrance into Iraqi politics of the military, a pattern that has periodically re-emerged since 1958, and offered an excuse for enlarging conscription. The hugely popular Assyrian massacre, an indication of the latent anti-Christian atmosphere, also set the stage for the increased prominence of Bakr Sidqi. In October 1936 Bakr Sidqi staged the first military coup in the modern Arab world.
This period also marks the intensification of denominational antagonism among Aramaic speakers in Iraq as some church institutions began to distance themselves from the members of the Church of the East who were seen as magnets for Muslim antagonism. It is from this period that, as the new Mosul-born patriarch of the Assyrian Apostolic Church of Antioch and All the East (Jacobite) came into the pinnacle of this church's hierarchy, he began to move the Church away from the term Assyrian and toward the term "Syrian." At the same time, this Church moved its See to Damascus, Syria.
In modern times, Assyrians, for whom no reliable census figures exist in Iraq (as they do not for Kurds), have been doubly mistreated; first by their Kurdish neighbors, then by Saddam Hussein's Ba'athist regime. Assyrians were deprived of their cultural and national rights while at the same time the Baathist regime tried to co-opt their history. In northern Iraq today, a similar pattern is emerging as Kurds attempt to rewrite the history of the region to give it a Kurdish flavor and diminish its historic Assyrian heritage. As in Ba'athist Iraq, there is a strong tendency in Iraq today to recognize only two ethnic groups: Arab or Kurd. However, the Kurdistan Autonomous Region has claimed that it has been instrumental in the renovation and support of Assyrian churches and schools.
After Saddam Hussein's fall in 2003, the Assyrian Democratic Movement was one of the smaller political parties that emerged in the social chaos of the occupation. Its officials say that while members of the Assyrian Democratic Movement also took part in the liberation of the key oil cities of Kirkuk and Mosul in the north, the Assyrians were not invited to join the steering committee that was charged with defining Iraq's future. The ethnic make-up of the Iraq Interim Governing Council briefly (September 2003 - June 2004) guiding Iraq after the invasion included a single Assyrian Christian, Younadem Kana, a leader of the Assyrian Democratic Movement and an opponent of Saddam Hussein since 1979.
[edit]
Neo-Assyrian revival
Many Assyrians currently have an apocalyptic belief in the future of their nation, based on the following passage from the Bible:
At that time there will be a highway from Egypt to Assyria. The Assyrians will visit Egypt, and the Egyptians will visit Assyria. The Egyptians and Assyrians will worship together. At that time Israel will be the third member of the group, along with Egypt and Assyria, and will be a recipient of blessing in the earth. The Lord who leads armies will pronounce a blessing over the earth, saying, "Blessed be my people, Egypt, and the work of my hands, Assyria, and my special possession, Israel!" (Isaiah 19:23-25).
At the same time, recognizing the dire prospects for the survival of any Aramaic-speaking, Christian Syriac-based community in Iraq, a slow process of ecumenicism on the one hand, to bring together the various church groups, and a political awakening is taking place. Both in the large diaspora and in the Middle East, enhanced communication, especially through the Internet and by e-mail is breaking down the barriers that 20th century nationalism in Iraq, Syria and Turkey in particular, had fostered. While there are still many quarrels, the multi-lingualism of Assyrians and the rise in communications in English, is breaking down some of the antagonisms. To some extent, the quarrels are fed inadvertantly by Western scholarship combined with a lack of cultural and historical knowledge among Assyrians themselves. Many continue to link language use with ethnic name: since all Assyrians speak one of two living forms of Aramaic (eastern and western), the assumption is made that this must also become the ethnic name of the group. Others who want to revive classical Syriac, the revered liturgical language of the community, insist on some term having to do with the word "Syriac." Because the indigenous word in both dialects for the people themselves and for the language is "suryoyo" or "suryaye," some take the facile route of equating these terms with Syriac or Syrian without realizing that the terms Assyrian and Syrian are the same.
Similar disagreements over language and unity exist among many minorities in the Middle East which have had no state structure. Assyrians have managed to preserve Aramaic for more than two thousand years without any state backing. The rich traditions and history of this people have provided sustenance in times of persecution before. The cultural heritage and the language will help to preserve the community again.
In 1933, the Iraqi government held the Patriarch of the Church of the East, the Mar Shamun, under house arrest. When he left Iraq to appeal to the British with regard to how the Assyrians were being mistreated in Iraq contrary to the agreement at Iraq's independence to refrain from discrimination against minorities, he was stripped of his citizenship and refused reentry.
During July 1933, about 800 armed Assyrians headed for the Syrian border, where they were turned back. While King Faisal had briefly left the country for medical reasons, the Minister of Interior, Hikmat Sulayman, adopted a policy aimed at a final solution of the Assyrian "problem". This policy was implemented by a Kurd, General Bakr Sidqi, who, after engaging in several clashes with the Assyrians, permitted his men to kill about 3,000 Assyrians, including women and children, at the Assyrian villages of Simel/Simele (Sumayyil) district, and later at Suryia.
The Assyrian repression marked the entrance into Iraqi politics of the military, a pattern that has periodically re-emerged since 1958, and offered an excuse for enlarging conscription. The hugely popular Assyrian massacre, an indication of the latent anti-Christian atmosphere, also set the stage for the increased prominence of Bakr Sidqi. In October 1936 Bakr Sidqi staged the first military coup in the modern Arab world.
This period also marks the intensification of denominational antagonism among Aramaic speakers in Iraq as some church institutions began to distance themselves from the members of the Church of the East who were seen as magnets for Muslim antagonism. It is from this period that, as the new Mosul-born patriarch of the Assyrian Apostolic Church of Antioch and All the East (Jacobite) came into the pinnacle of this church's hierarchy, he began to move the Church away from the term Assyrian and toward the term "Syrian." At the same time, this Church moved its See to Damascus, Syria.
In modern times, Assyrians, for whom no reliable census figures exist in Iraq (as they do not for Kurds), have been doubly mistreated; first by their Kurdish neighbors, then by Saddam Hussein's Ba'athist regime. Assyrians were deprived of their cultural and national rights while at the same time the Baathist regime tried to co-opt their history. In northern Iraq today, a similar pattern is emerging as Kurds attempt to rewrite the history of the region to give it a Kurdish flavor and diminish its historic Assyrian heritage. As in Ba'athist Iraq, there is a strong tendency in Iraq today to recognize only two ethnic groups: Arab or Kurd. However, the Kurdistan Autonomous Region has claimed that it has been instrumental in the renovation and support of Assyrian churches and schools.
After Saddam Hussein's fall in 2003, the Assyrian Democratic Movement was one of the smaller political parties that emerged in the social chaos of the occupation. Its officials say that while members of the Assyrian Democratic Movement also took part in the liberation of the key oil cities of Kirkuk and Mosul in the north, the Assyrians were not invited to join the steering committee that was charged with defining Iraq's future. The ethnic make-up of the Iraq Interim Governing Council briefly (September 2003 - June 2004) guiding Iraq after the invasion included a single Assyrian Christian, Younadem Kana, a leader of the Assyrian Democratic Movement and an opponent of Saddam Hussein since 1979.
[edit]
Neo-Assyrian revival
Many Assyrians currently have an apocalyptic belief in the future of their nation, based on the following passage from the Bible:
At that time there will be a highway from Egypt to Assyria. The Assyrians will visit Egypt, and the Egyptians will visit Assyria. The Egyptians and Assyrians will worship together. At that time Israel will be the third member of the group, along with Egypt and Assyria, and will be a recipient of blessing in the earth. The Lord who leads armies will pronounce a blessing over the earth, saying, "Blessed be my people, Egypt, and the work of my hands, Assyria, and my special possession, Israel!" (Isaiah 19:23-25).
At the same time, recognizing the dire prospects for the survival of any Aramaic-speaking, Christian Syriac-based community in Iraq, a slow process of ecumenicism on the one hand, to bring together the various church groups, and a political awakening is taking place. Both in the large diaspora and in the Middle East, enhanced communication, especially through the Internet and by e-mail is breaking down the barriers that 20th century nationalism in Iraq, Syria and Turkey in particular, had fostered. While there are still many quarrels, the multi-lingualism of Assyrians and the rise in communications in English, is breaking down some of the antagonisms. To some extent, the quarrels are fed inadvertantly by Western scholarship combined with a lack of cultural and historical knowledge among Assyrians themselves. Many continue to link language use with ethnic name: since all Assyrians speak one of two living forms of Aramaic (eastern and western), the assumption is made that this must also become the ethnic name of the group. Others who want to revive classical Syriac, the revered liturgical language of the community, insist on some term having to do with the word "Syriac." Because the indigenous word in both dialects for the people themselves and for the language is "suryoyo" or "suryaye," some take the facile route of equating these terms with Syriac or Syrian without realizing that the terms Assyrian and Syrian are the same.
Similar disagreements over language and unity exist among many minorities in the Middle East which have had no state structure. Assyrians have managed to preserve Aramaic for more than two thousand years without any state backing. The rich traditions and history of this people have provided sustenance in times of persecution before. The cultural heritage and the language will help to preserve the community again.