The Inside Assyria Discussion Forum #5

=> saving Assyrians

saving Assyrians
Posted by pancho (Moderator) - Saturday, October 24 2015, 20:58:30 (UTC)
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History is something that actually exists, especially recent history. We can wish it were otherwise and refuse to accept it, but at our peril. The history of Assyrians in the modern era has been dominated by one thought held by many; the desire for a homeland in Iraq. And this has caused us nothing but trouble and loss and is even farther from materializing than ever before...and it was always a near-impossibility.

Even before we desired this we had another serious confrontation with history as it is and not as we would like it to be. I'm referring to the number of times Christian armies have invaded our homelands and the immediate losses and suffering we have endured for a. placing our hopes in such invaders to “save us” and b. joining them to fight against our neighbors. In every case, from Peter The Great's invasion to WW I and WW II to these most recent and ongoing attacks, we have always thought they could bring salvation but our enthusiasm for the attacks and prodding the attackers have only resulted in more loss, more refugees and more death.

The goal the Assyrian Aid Society set itself was a noble one; to provide comfort and support for Assyrians caught up in this most recent war. The Assyrian community has responded generously for the past several years raising a few million dollars plus various other sorts of aid and support. Injured children have been brought to the United States for life-saving surgery and the lives of Assyrians, at least in the beginning, improved from where they were in the early days of the conflict.

Though I have participated in a small way in such relief efforts I felt all along that this time it was different. This time it was not one or two Christian nations attacking Iraq but several and the goal would be almost impossible to achieve because for every “enemy” killed, two more would arise. Indeed the wars against terrorism are said to be long-ranging and open-ended and today no one can see an end in sight. These were new days, a new kind of war and our people would be ground down in the process. A better grasp of our history might have alerted us that this time would not be like anything we had experienced before.

Many of those giving aid made it a condition that they would only help those Assyrians who remained in Iraq. We would fly a child to America for surgery, but we would return him or her back again. I believe it was the same ideology that has dogged our lives for 150 years; we believe we can have an Assyrian homeland and to keep that dream alive an Assyrian “presence” must be maintained in Iraq, at all costs. And it has cost.

How much wiser, and more humane, it would have been to save lives, rather than use lives to maintain a dream, an ideology, an idea of a homeland of our own. It is safe to say that not one of us would wish ourselves or our families to be the ones maintaining this “presence”...that we are as glad as we can be that our parents got us out and kept us out and that we left ourselves.

We may still cherish that idea, but we have far less people left alive and many so distraught and displaced that their generation will be lucky to barely survive...and, in the end, where will it be safe for them over there?

From the beginning, if we had known our history and valued the usefulness of keeping every Assyrian alive, and safe too, there would be more Assyrians left alive today...and each of them could have raised families and given us that many more. We desperately need more Assyrians, not less. We gambled with lives, for a dream, and they lost.

Had we put our resources to bringing Assyrians out, especially children, we would have really and truly “saved Assyrians”. I understand the romantic appeal of an Assyria existing once more, or a section or triangle...but it would have been better to place lives above ideology.



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