Posted by Iraqi Panch from ? (63.164.145.161) on Friday, April 25, 2003 at 7:22PM :
Your father's Russian, your mother's Spanish...you were born in England but spent your first fifteen years in Germany...what the hell are you? On top of that your sister was born in Iceland and since the divorce she's spent ten years in France...what do you all talk about...which culture do you relate to...what "are" you? Seems clear the safest thing to call such a person is an Earthling.
In them old hoary days when people tended to live in one village, separated from others by mountains, oceans and a lot of fear and supersitition...a person could count on being one thing..."pure", if you will. But those days are long gone...at least for many of us. That's one of the problems with these national Troglodytes and Neandarthals of ours...you can take the Assrin out of the Old Country...but you can't take the Old Country out of the Assrin.
Assyrians from way back were a tolerant and accepting people who allowed captive populations or visitors and immigrants to worship their own gods...none of that Hebrew, "we have the True Word and we'll kill you if you don't take to it and ONLY it". These days we're mixing around and in danger of seeing the lamb lie down with the lion and in spite of what they all say, the religious people don't really want that...don't want an African lamb lying down with a German lion...a Jew lamb with a Muslim lion.
Our Assrins want desperately to turn back time...all the way back to when there were pure Assyrians and no Chaldeans and of course it can't be done. But they try, or talk and act like they wish they could do it...it would be so much easier that way. But things aren't that way anymore...we are all over the place, intermarried, new languages, new homes, new religions, new governments, new cultures...so much so that no one can define an Assyrian, or give any good reason to be one.
Is Firas Assyrian...is Peter...is the Ghassbag Chaldean? They'll each answer "yes"...but haven't the slightest idea of what it means...what you do when you are Assyrian or Chaldean these days...and ALL of them are more American than anything else...hell they're trying damn hard to be, a lot harder than they're trying to be Assyrian or Chaldean. The only thing we have tried desperately to be is Christian...and that's something shared by so may people that it hardly defines us outside of religion.
Who really wants to be Assyrian anyway. I mean besides the ones who think it confers some class or dignity to an otherwise totally unremarkable character? The ones who "talk" forever about it? How do you show you are Assyrian...by eating more of that kind of food than Korean food? Who has been born in "Assyria"...who carries Assyrian identification papers. No one. It's something in the mind...a belief, that's all. People say they "feel" Assyrian...Wilfred and Jackie can even shed a tear on cue. Beyond that, they haven't much to say about it. Even if your blood was pure Assyrian...what does that signify when nothing else about you is?
It's a safe bet there wont be any Christian enclave in the MidEast for a long time to come. Hell I'm surprised they don't kill every last Christian and then send them packing. It may not appear that way to us...but to the Muslims of the world, their religion and culture is once again being attacked by Christians. Just as our Assrins and others see only Muslims in the MidEast...they see ony Christians in the West. It was a CHRISTIAN country that killed their unoffending children with Sanctions and then with war...not "America". We don't see Tunisians or Egyptians or Syrians when we look at them either...we see Muslims...terrorists...people of an "evil" religion. How benign do you suppose Christianity looks in Baghdad right now?
It's not only pointless but counter productive to play into this game any longer. The West comes like a monolithic juggernaut rolling over our people all the easier because they're busy defending or attacking arcane religious points among each other. The West has only one god..."Money"...and its handmaidens, Power and Violence. The West can find common ground for the duration...they'll split hairs and you afterwards, first they're gonna run you down. Same reason the Mongols were so effectively devastating against the divided Muslim princelings in the 13th century. Once the Muslims realized they were being picked off one by one, they banded together, stopped fighting about the Prophet's turban and routed the Mongols...too late...Islam never recovered from that forty year devastation, something they could have confronted and beaten had they come together.
T.E. Lawrence found it impossible to unify the Arabs within one country...one desert. Nasser saw the writing on the wall, tried to forge Pan-Arabism as a response to Western unity but it didn't work. Today even Europe, that bloody battleround, is trying to unify so they can carry more clout. When the West came to China and Japan there were two distinct reactions that determined the course of much history and misery. The Chinese, convinced their remote country was a Celestial Kingdom, had no use for the West and refused to even deal with it. The Japanese saw the war ships, the guns, the uniforms, the technology and the spirit that took people sailing into the unknown and decided they had better learn or else what happened to prostrate and ineffective China would be their own fate.
There are things that have to be accepted about the MidEast...it is Muslim, has been for 1300 years...and no amount of murder will change that. Christianity has been digging its own grave there. It's noble of the Assyrians safely out of the MidEast to want someone to stay behind...but you aren't doing them any favors, not unless they downplay their religion and stop being such patsies for the West. We will just have to accept that the Assyrian heritage is represented by the people of Iraq...regardless of what religion they are. There is no basis to imagine that Christian culture is somehow Assyrian culture, any more than Muslim culture is. Truth is, there's no longer an exclusive or "pure" Assyrian or Chaldean culture anywhere...least of all in the West where Christianity will ease us into total assimilation...something already well on the way to complete success. At least in Iraq the total heritage of the country can be protected and studied...and it isn't true that they are changing it to Arab history...that's more Assrin nonsense.
Assyrians are in far more danger in the West than in the MidEast...as a cultural identity and heritage that is. There is no good reason to be Assyrian here...none, and even those who "talk" about it the most, do precious little about it. Jackie is just greasing her skids for other things....so is my cousin in Chicago, so are they all. You want to help the identity...get the West to leave those countries alone, or really and truly help them...not likely.
We aren't going to impose anything Assyrian on them...what would it be, what do we have? I mean besides Christianity? Kha B' Nissan they already celebrate as they do the Aikitu fesitval...why the hell wouldn't they? These aren't Christian or Muslim celebrations...they're from before that time...whether Sumerian, Chaldean or Assyrian...they are a part of the pre-Judaic history of that region. There isn't anything Assyrian we could take back to BetNahrain...those of you thinking of something, are thinking as Christians...it ain't the same thing. The people of Iraq have every reason...damn good ones too, to despise your Christian cant. Christians don't declare "Pre-emptive Murder"...they just don't...so cut it out with the homilies.
-- Iraqi Panch
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