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=> Dr./Prof. Aprim Strikes AGAIN!

Dr./Prof. Aprim Strikes AGAIN!
Posted by Jeff (Guest) - Thursday, November 11 2004, 6:42:32 (CET)
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Letters to the Editor



The Misguided Professor & the Reckless Agitator

Fred Aprim
California

This is in response to Mr. Johny Messo's article that appeared in the last issue of Zinda (# 40) on November 2, 2004.

Mr. Messo starts his article by misleading the readers and following a typical practice by every person that defends a certain ideology and agenda. He quotes this author and states: “Why would an Assyrian professor … respond to what an Assyrian nationalist would say?”

I need to clarify that Mr. Messo is playing with words here and presenting this author's quote in a way that altered the entire meaning of the premise. The full sentence that I wrote stated: "Why would an Assyrian professor reappear only to respond to what an Assyrian nationalist would say in these troubled times and when Assyrians are trying to unite?"

Would Mr. Messo kindly answer these questions: Where was Prof. Joseph for the last few years? Why didn't he criticize for example Habib Hannonah's "The Church of the East in the Nineveh Plain" and his description of the towns and villages of Telkaif, Alqosh, Karamleh, Bartella, Baghdeda, etc? Why didn't he evaluate Yousif Hurmiz Jammo's, "The Remains of Nineveh or the History of Telkaif" regarding the Assyrian heritage of this Christian village of north of Iraq? None of the two north of Iraq natives entertained even remotely the so-called Aramean ethnic connection of these historic villages. Was Prof. Joseph objective while ignoring these accounts for example? Still, it was not surprising to see Mr. Messo run to defend Prof. Joseph, who in the past has strongly defended the Aramean existence and survival in his writings.

Mr. Messo presented Prof Joseph as someone who saw himself as: 'morally obliged to reprove the biased methods of Mr. Aprim, who profiles himself as a “nationalist” as well as an “author and historian,…'". I need to emphasize here that in no time I have ever referred to myself as an author or historian. I have many personal disagreements with many of the Assyrian web masters who take my articles and add these titles to my name. I have quarreled several times with these web masters and asked them to remove these titles; however, they have repeatedly responded that they feel that my many articles justify adding those titles to my name. I gave up after many attempts. Mr. Messo is more than welcome to contact both web masters at www.atour.com and www.nineveh.com for confirmation.

Why is Character Important?

Why do people resort to certain ways of responding to certain individuals in regards to certain matters? To me personally, it is a matter of character. Sometimes we must understand a person and his/her background in order to have a better picture of why that person does what he/she does or say. Reality is that history is one of those subjects seldom argued for the sake of history because it is often strongly politicized. Mr. Messo, is a self-acclaimed Aramean and a well-known Assyrian antagonist according to many Assyrians I have contacted in the Netherlands. This explains his defense of Prof. Joseph.
I did not label Prof. Joseph as a CIA agent, as Mr. Messo claims. I only explained the background of the institution that helped him complete his education in the United States. In fact, the last sentence about the Ford Foundation part in my article states: "This does not mean that the FF does not occasionally provide grants to individuals who might have conflict with U.S. foreign policies, yet seek academic research."

Picking and Choosing

It is funny that when a scholar picks and chooses his references, he is referred to as objective; meanwhile, when an Assyrian nationalist or activist does that he is accused of being biased and selective. Why is Mr. Messo undermining the work of an Assyriologist like Prof. Simo Parpola? What motivates Mr. Messo to cite a lawyer like Francis Sarguis in judging historical matters argued by an Assyriologist? What are Francis Sarguis' academic credentials in the studies of history to be cited or used in order to evaluate Prof. Parpola? If Mr. Sarguis believes that Prof. Parpola is raising eyebrows in the academic world, one can clearly see how Prof. Joseph has raised more of the same.

Mr. Messo selected a quote by Prof. Edward Odisho hinting that Prof. Odisho accepts Prof. Joseph's claims that the Aramization of Assyrians was complete. Prof. Odisho in no way came close to making such conclusions. In fact, it was the Arameans who were assimilated in the Assyrian society. Prof. Odisho asserts that we, the Suraye (Asori), are Assyrians. Prof. Odisho argues that the Greeks do not have the Aramaic sound 'sh' to pronounce 'Aššur' (Ashur). Therefore, they use the softened 's',' hence Asurios was the closest they could come to the Assyrian Akkadian term 'Ashuraya' and the Biblical 'Ashuri' or 'Ashshuri.' Furthermore, since the Greek culture played a dominant role in the classical literature, the Greek form “Assur” overshadowed the original Akkadian Aššur (Ashur). It is very likely that the English terms Assyria and Assyrians were derived from the Greek. Additionally, the Greek form of the word Asurios may have spread to other languages like Turkish, Persian, and Armenian in the form of Asur (Odisho 1988, 13-14). Prof. Odisho did not claim that by the word Suraye he meant Arameans, rather Assyrians.

Therefore, Mr. Messo is also picking and choosing to prove a point. Isn't this what the "scholarly world" is all about? Why do scholars, like Joseph, pick certain references when trying to make a point?

Andre Parrot is one of the world’s greatest authorities on the Ancient Near Orient, whose description and analysis are considered a masterful combination of theology, art history, and archaeology. He described the Assyrians in his publication The Arts of Assyria as such:

In all, from the earliest times to the downfall of the Assyrian empire, one hundred and sixteen kings successively occupied the throne of Assur. This continuity is all the more remarkable when we compare it with the eleven kings of Akkad, the five of the Third Dynasty of Ur, the eleven of the First Dynasty of Babylon and even the thirty-six Kassite monarchs. This is not to say that Assyria enjoyed independence, still less hegemony, throughout the period. Several times Assur and Nineveh came under foreign rule; Akkadians and Sumerians occupied both cities for a while. Nevertheless, Assyria preserved her racial integrity and lost nothing of that spirit of enterprise, which had led her to found trading stations and colonies in far-off Anatolia in the late third and early second millennium B.C. (Parrot 1961, 1).

Does that say that the Assyrians were subjected to complete Aramaization as Prof. Joseph claims?

The Akkadian Connection

Mr. Messo later states: "Without referring to any sources, Aprim further averred that 'recent discoveries show that Assyrian Akkadian language and the cuneiform writing system was still in use well into Christianity. Who would use Assyrian Akkadian but Assyrians?'"

Mr. Messo and Prof. Joseph question the survival of Akkadian Assyrian language, when neither of them is a linguist and has not thoroughly researched the issue. Joseph's lack of knowledge in this field is obvious from his false claim.
I need to stress that by adopting the Aramaic language, the Assyrians did not completely relinquish completely their Assyrian Akkadian language, neither did they give up their original Cuneiform script. The Aramaic language that the Assyrians began to use in around the middle of Eight century B.C., and continue to use today under the term Syriac, has loan words, or was influenced by the Assyrian Akkadian. Here are few references to consider:
1. Jean Bottéro affirms that there existed Akkadian script that dates back to the year 74 of the Christian era (Bottéro 1995, 206).

2. Other scholars have shown that the Akkadian language survived until the third century in the Christian era. M. J. Geller, a professor at the University College London, writes:

“I have argued elsewhere that Akkadian was likely to have survived throughout the Parthian period, at least until the mid-third century A.D.” (Geller 2000, 3).

The claims that the Assyrian Empire fell, the Assyrians disappeared, or that they were Aramized because they relinquished their Assyrian Akkadian and adopted Aramaic is simply unfounded as the above references demonstrated. Furthermore, in Assyria, one can hardly finds documents about the Assyrian Empire affairs that were documented in Aramaic even after Aramaic was officially in use. Most of the records being excavated from the latter parts of the Empire and all the way to the date of its political fall continue to be in Assyrian Akkadian Cuneiform.
The above two references assert, contrary to Prof. Joseph's claims, that the Assyrians did not stop using the Assyrian Akkadian language in the Eighth century B.C. when they adopted the Aramaic language. In fact, they used the two side by side. If the Akkadian language survived until the third century A.D., one could reasonably ask who else could have preserved it if not the Assyrians or Babylonians of Mesopotamia. (Note: Read more about this issue and further references in my upcoming book).

The Syriacs!

Mr. Messo states: "So here you have already a scholar who has written two priceless books about the modern histories of the West- and East-Syriacs respectively." I wonder what Mr. Messo means by the words "West Syriacs" and "East Syriacs." Such words never existed as representation of any group of people. In recent years, we have begun casually to use the word Syriacs in reference to the Arabic word "Suryan." Historians and theologians have consistently used the "East Syrians" and "West Syrians" and not what Mr. Messo presented.

The Arameans (Aramaeans) Issue

Concerning the Arameans, Mr. Messo claims that: "… Joseph has convincingly corrected some of Aprim’s remarks, …" He then claims that the Aramaization of the ancient Assyrians was well documented! Mr. Messo states: "After I could not refrain from exposing Mr. Aprim’s bias á la Joseph, my actual intention was, since nobody else did, to express my opinion …"

I am surprised with such statement. I have presented many references, which show clearly that the Aramean society did not have a chance to survive as such. If so, how was Joseph so convincing, unless Mr. Messo is being biased in his accusations? It seems natural to me that an Aramean will run to defend a professor who had defended the survival of the ancient Aramean society.

Prof. Joseph citing Mazar states: “an impressive phenomenon in the history of the Arameans is their tradition of unity and distinctiveness, which remained unimpaired even in their period of decline.” (Joseph 2000, 13)
The above description of Aramean society is in complete contradiction with documented views by many scholars and historians. Professor Amelie Kuhet writes: “Many problems beset scholarly understanding of the appearance of the Aramaeans. Partly it is connected with the fact that the general designation 'Aramaeans' masks the fact that they are not a unified group, except in terms of their language” (Kuhrt 1998, 393).

Historically, we can consider the Aramaic language as the backbone of the Aramaean society, with its wonderful contribution to mankind, as Prof. Hitti explains. However, he informs the reader that even the Aramaic script was not theirs; the Aramaeans borrowed it from the Phoenicians (Hitti 1951, 110).

There is no solid proof that the Aramaeans survived as people. In due time the Aramaeans, Hitti writes: “assimilated the higher culture of their Semitic cousins, the Amorites and Canaanites, among whom they had settled” (Hitti 1961, 93).

What certain scholars, such as Joseph, claim is speculations on their part at best. In Mesopotamia, the Aramaeans had considerable influence indeed. Certain Assyrian kings we are told had Aramaean wives, but after all is said and done it seems that they were assimilated within Assyrian society, just like those in Babylon had assimilated within the Babylonian social infrastructure. On the other hand, their kinships in Syria were lost to Islam. Where are the Arameans of Egypt, southern Iraq, and northern Arabia? If they disappeared from those regions, why are Joseph and Messo assuming that they survived in Assyria?

Final Thoughts

Mr. Messo tries very hard to boost Prof. Joseph's image, the image of his "pro-Aramean identity" defender. Messo is trying very hard to sell Joseph to the Assyrian people and sugar coat his own opinions with those of another who praises Joseph. A common Assyrian can hardly consider an Assyrian professor, who tries to implant doubt in his/her mind, as objective. Joseph is a scholar and he has an agenda like almost every other scholar or historian. To contradict a Pan-Arabists like Khaldun S. Husry is the least Joseph could do. What is disheartening to Assyrian nationalists is when an Assyrian author or scholar goes out of his/her way to implant a "doubt" about the Assyrians' survival in the readers mind under the guise of objectivity.

The problem with the scholarly community is that it is acceptable for a professor to say "A" said so about subject matter "X", however, "B" argued the contrary. However, when a common person talks about subject "X" and says that "C" said something completely different from "A and B," his work is not considered because he does not hold an advance degree. This is unfortunate. Not everything in history is documented. There are times when certain subjects had oral history and tradition instead of written history due to various reasons. Why not consider this oral history and give it the consideration it deserves, especially when logic and reason backs such historical claims? Why does Joseph continue to rely on certain 19th Century missionaries and travelers for his references? Why does not he search the most recent findings and bring sense to the bias of those missionaries and travelers who never had a chance to examine material archaeologists have excavated and is being translated?

Few years back, nobody knew anything about Afghanistan; but in a span of few months bookstores were stacked with publications about the country and its people. It suddenly turned to a hot topic and everyone joined the cause. The same is true with the Kurds, who had no documented history but they created one for themselves and flooded the world libraries and bookstores, especially in the past 10 years. The Assyrian issue is not a hot topic today. There are only numbered people who have dedicated much time to address the Assyrian history from the Assyrian perspective. Assyrians need to publish as many books in English as possible. When the time comes, foreign writers will look for publications and references to use when talking about the Assyrians. We do not want the books by Prof. Joseph to be the only written material out there as their references. It is our moral obligation to embark on such a project because the day will come that the Assyrian cause will take center stage in world's politics.

References:

Odisho, Edward Y. The Sound System of Modern Assyrian (Neo-Aramaic). Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1988.
Parrot André. The Arts of Assyria. Translated by Stuart Gilbert and James Emmons. New York: Golden Press, 1961.
Bottéro, Jean. Mesopotamia:Writing, Reasoning, and the Gods. Z. Bahrani and M. Van De Mieroop, trans. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995.
Geller, M. J. Paper titled "The Survival of Babylonian Wissenschaft in Later Tradition," in The Heirs of Assyria. The Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project. Sanna Aro and R. M. Whiting, ed. Helsinki, 2000.
Kuhrt, Amélie. The Ancient Near East: c. 3000 – 330 B.C. 2 vols. London: Routledge, 1998.
Hitti, Philip K. History of Syria: Including Lebanon and Palestine. London: Macmillan & Co. Ltd, 1951.
Hitti, Philip K. The Near East in History: A 5000 Year Story. U.S.A.: D. Van Nostrand Company, Inc., 1961.

[Zinda: For another response to Prof. John Joseph's article published in Zinda Magazine, see Mr. William Warda's "Who's Deceiving Whom?". Click here.]

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