The Inside Assyria Discussion Forum #5

=> To Be Or Think You Be

To Be Or Think You Be
Posted by pancho (Guest) - Friday, February 23 2007, 0:51:02 (CET)
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No one understands better than me that for someone NOT to have any relatives living in Iraq at this turbulent moment would not understand what it means to have OTHERS call you Chaldo/Assyrians,

..this is an appeal to emotion. It isn't scholarly or scientific or fair. I didn't have relatives living in Vietnam either but that made little difference to the crime being committed there or my revulsion...what we're discussing is how these "errors" came into being...you can't yell about your pain as a way of deflecting the argument...discussing this topic and exploring it in no way damamges your relatives, quite the oppsoite, they are being damaged because of these sorts errors that keep putting our people in increasing danger...what you're attempting to do is no different than what Bush says when he says it's wrong of you to criticize his war in Iraq...because "we have our American sons and daughters over there and no one who doesn't have a son or daughter fighting over there cannot understand what it means to hear criticism of this war to those who have relatives there", meaning shut your mouth...and so on.

...this makes a discussion into a maudlin thing and shows that you will go to any length, not to clarilfy the topic, refute it any way you can...but try to get sympathy on your side and make it seem that ANYONE who dares be so insensitive to you and the situation, because he has no relatives there, as to criticize "Assyrians" just doesn't "understand.

..these are unworthy attempts to defelct or shut down discussion..

(Catholic Assyrians) or Christian Kurds, or any other invented name other than Assyrian,

...but the point under discussion is, precisely, that "Assyrian" is as much an invented name as any of the others...you too miss the essential spirit of the thing..no one, absolutley no one is saying that Assyrians never existed in the place now known as Iraq..what we are saying is that there is no creditable PROOF, none at all..that the claims by the modern Nestorians to being the descendants of those ancient Assyrians are valid...that's all...and to discuss all sides we need evidence and proof and claims and referrences, from all sides, all laid out so we can decide and get to the bottom of it..or, as you keep saying, to the "truth"..which you claim to have always revered...well it looks more and more like this "truth" is merely YOUR notion of it...which is what Dr Joseph says is EXACTLY the problem with ALL our "truth seekers".

We aren't certain of the "THINGS" we believe...we are certain that we "BELIEVE" them. It's not the same thing. You have no certain proof that you are Assyrian...you're just CERTAIN that you are...and also certain that you don't NEED any...which may do for teevee and articles in Zinda but will not get you anythiong anywhere else...unless you follow the model of the Kurds, the Americans and the ancient Assyrians too, and TAKE what you want and manage to keep it.



ESPECIALLY when you have lived your entire life on the same soil that was ALWAYS and historically known as Assyria.

..it was not "always" known as Assyria...Assyria did not exist from the dawn of recorded history...it came to be known as Assyria later and then stopped being called Assyria altogether...and the lands the Assyrians conquered became known as the Assyrian Empire...which none of them are known as today..and what WAS Assyria has been Iraq for a long time...just as what was Gaul is now France...for any Frenchman or woman to appear on the scene today and INSIST that France has "always been and always will be" Gaul" and that he or she demands a "real" passport with the "correct" name of the country; "GAUL" written on it is absurd and would get you locvked up or certainly laughed at.


Yes, no one cares about these things except those Assyrians who have continuously lived there,

...what 'things' are you referring to? if you mean the sufering of the people there, then you're wrong...many people care and want this war ended and wish it had never started...if by "things" you mean your insistance that the land and people have ALWAYS been Assyria..then you're still wrong...I care for the suffering of the people...as I care for the suffering of the truth about how we came to call ourselves Assyrians, because we didn't always and only started to recently...that doesn't mean people haven't MENTIONED Assyrians throughout history...of course they have since the name appears in the Bible and all these people are Christians who learned about Assyrians from that book...who then were only too happy to believe, as the dreamy white man was eager to assert, that they were the descendants of the ancient people...I care very much about THIS THING...which is the reason I asked for the book and am now studying it furiously...because I CARE..not for your fables or anyone elses...but for understanding the other side of the argument...without having to hear that I just "don't care", like you presumably do, because you have family dying there and hurt a lot.

..I won't close my mind or mouth because either you or Bush choose this cheapest of all tactics to silence criticism and honest inquiry.


since time immemorial,

..they have not been known as or called by people, including themselves, Assyrians from time immemorial...they stopped BEING Assyrians a long time ago...and then the Nestorians living there STARTED calling themselves Assyrians a short hundred years ago...and I still await your PROOF, with sources and evidence and referrences to the contrary.

and have always enjoyed some sense of autonomy from Baghdad,

...that was for their Christian religion...never for anything "Assyrian" about them..in fact this is what has caused the Nestorians of Iraq so much grief to this day...that a small group of hotheads have insisted to the world that they ALL are Assyrians who deserve this that and the other thing...this is something the Iraqi government has never credited...they are more than willing to concede that the Assyrian HERITAGE is a part of the tapestry called Iraq... woven by ALL the people of that region since the dawn of history..but that the Nestorians alone REMAINED "Assyrian" all those centuries is not only absurd...but completely unsubstantiated UNLESS refference is made to those origianl errors indulged in and then foisted on us and swallowed whole by us, and with gusto, by the Europeans.


and have had Assyrians running their own affairs in the north, such as mayors, administrators, judges, etc.


...the judges and etc. who ran those things ran them as IRAQIS, not Assyrians There was no separate law for Assyrians that an "Assyrian" judge could administer, it was the same IRAQI law for everyone, you're thinking of the Milelt system and that was only granted to religious minorities, not "ethnic" groups..for what separate CIVIL LAW could an ethnic group demand???...the only way that was ever true was when and if the Iraqis accepted your claim that to be Christian is also to be Assyrian..in that sense you can call a Christian IRAQI who is elected mayor an "Assyrian"...but his claim to being Assyrian forms no basis of his duties or job description or recognition by the governbment..it's just something he calls himself, like his family name..but he can make no separate or speacial law for his relatives.

BUT all of a sudden to have everything taken away from you by some Kurds, who have taken over your lands, villages, administrative offices, government buildings, etc. and now want to call you Christian Kurds, and your lands Kurdistan,

..it happens all the time. History isn't fair and stamping your foot and screaming that it SHOULD be or that someone OWES you justice is the part of a child...the Iraqis too have had things "taken away from them"...but when they fight they FIGHT...all we do is squabble and screetch...fight with KNOWLEDGE...give us FACTS...not hurt feelings.

and impose Islamic Shariaa laws


..Muslims don't like Christian Sharia laws iomposed on them which tell them that their wives can walk about semi-naked and their children see X rated movies...and these things are all imposed by the separation of church and state, so far. I happen to prefer it this way but the Muslims feel as imposed upon by Christian laws as you do by Muslim Sharia..it wasn't too long that Christians were imposing their own Sharia on OTHER Christians to the tune of, "watch that sucker burn, doo-wah, doo-wah".

and Islamic courts upon you, where you no longer have control over your own lives, your destiny and the future of your children, IT HURTS, to say the least,

..of course it does...but so what? You can only get so far in life excusing your sloppy emotional and intellectual state because you're "hurting"...who ISN'T hurting these days or hasn't been hurt recently? Welcome to the world...but this has nothing to do with human understanding, intellect and the higher functions which we have to struggle to maintain if there's any hope of one day being able to contain the hurt we all suffer...nothing will change and only get worse, as it has, if people, Americans especially, say, like you do, "But we HURT"!! For they were "hurting" terribly after 9/11 and hurt "so much" and needed instant relief for their hurt that they were immune to reason but had to rush off and kill Iraqi children when not a single Iraqi child attacked anything...they too felt justified by their HURT in closing their minds to anything but the emotional appeal of demagogues...so leave your hurt by the door, if you can..and enter with a cool and calm mind and see if the topic can be explored for everyone's mutual benefit...as we wish now Americans had done years ago before this lastest escalation of a 17 year war against Iraqi mothers and fathers fighting for their childrens' lives..

and I don't expect ANYONE outside of Iraq to understand all this, much less have sympathy for those who are trying to survive, and keep what little they have left!

...then you're wrong...what the hell did you understand then about the Palestinian cause that you were so wrapped up in it? Did you have relatives in Vietnam that you oppsed that war and tried to enlighten people as to the errors and lies behind it? You may not "expect" people to understand, but thank goodness your expectations don't form our reality.

...all this said...I'm going back to trying to understand a most fascinating history book and with a growing admiration of just what Dr Joseph took on when he decided to explore us...talk about guts!...for look at what we, who have mostly not read the book or read through it only to find his "errors" and his ALONE..but give ourselves carte-blanche to smear and slander and libel him, his motives, his qualifications and his reputation...all that's left is for someone of us to call his mother names...which I'm sure has happened several times over already.



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