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=> Re: Nationality Vs. Ethnicity/Assyrians the latter, no?
| Re: Nationality Vs. Ethnicity/Assyrians the latter, no? |
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Posted by
Maggie
(Guest)
- Tuesday, September 27 2005, 1:17:28 (CEST) from 69.225.16.12 - adsl-69-225-16-12.dsl.skt2ca.pacbell.net  Network -  Windows XP -  Internet ExplorerWebsite: Website title: |
Emil, There's no "nationality" left anywhere in the world today. Not in the real sense, anyway. Today, it is a word used to describe your passport status, i.e. a U.S. national, an Iraqi national, a French national, etc. Every country you can think of today is a hodge podge of people. Ethnicity-Today, the closest we come to an ethnicity is in existential terms. We are the descendants of an ancient people called the Assyrians, but that could describe just about anyone from the Middle East. Today, we are all mixed and we would have to draw charts and family trees if someone should ask us to prove our ethnicity. Yesterday, we celebrated the Assyrian Food Festival, and my son was asking what's the difference between Assyrian food and Iraqi food. My answer was NOT A DAMN THING! All Iraqis eat Harisa, Dolma, Koubba Hamoth, koubba bulgar, potatoe chap, bourag, fasolia, bomia, curry, rice, kabob, gus, etc., etc., etc. Then he asked me what they eat in Jordan, or Lebanon? Same damn thing, they may not call it koubba, but "kibbi", or they may call gus "shawirma" but it's all the same damn thing! When I tell Assyrians we are all the same people in the Middle East, they become outraged! Why? because deep down they know the only thing that seperates them from the rest of the Middle Easterners is their religion. For example, when I was a young girl in Illinois, my teacher asked me to help her host a party for the foreign exchange students, because I spoke Fluent Arabic and German. There was a young boy from Iraq there, and they were asking me and him what the difference between our cultures were because he said he's an Arab, I said I'm an Assyrian. He and I could not come up with a single difference, UNTIL it came to religion. When we were asked what religion we were, one of us said "Christian", the other "Muslim"! Had the people who were born in the city of Sumer NOT called themselves Sumerians, had the people born in the city of Akkad NOT called themselves Akkadians, the people born in Ur NOT called themselves Urartian, we would not have Sumerians, Assyrians, Armenians, etc., today, but all one people. na·tion·al·i·ty (nsh-nl-t, nsh-nl-) KEY NOUN: pl. na·tion·al·i·ties The status of belonging to a particular nation by origin, birth, or naturalization. A people having common origins or traditions and often constituting a nation. Existence as a politically autonomous entity; national independence. National character. Nationalism. eth·nic·i·ty (th-ns-t) KEY NOUN: Ethnic character, background, or affiliation. An ethnic group. indigenous, national, native, racial, traditional, tribal All the same thing, philosophically --------------------- |
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