The Inside Assyria Discussion Forum #5

=> Lucian the Syrian

Lucian the Syrian
Posted by pancho (Guest) - Tuesday, February 19 2008, 19:43:43 (CET)
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He wasn’t an Assyrian. He says himself that he was Syrian, a Semite whose native language was Syriac…his exact words come down to us as ,”I am Syrian from the Euphrates” (Durant, ‘Caesar and Christ’ p. 495).Born around 130 AD, 742 years after the fall of Nineveh, he remembered enough to know he was Syrian, not Assyrian. In fact the Romans knew both Assyria and Syria as separate regions…they did not mean Assyria when they said Syria…each was distinct. Herodotus also knew them as separate and distinct…there was no confusing the two back then…this has only started recently when our nationalists have had to explain why our people never called themselves Assyrians until after Layard and Rassam…why they called themselves Suraye, or Syrians, all those centuries and not Ashuraye…their explanation is that Syrian “always meant Assyrian”. Well then why didn’t the people SAY SO all those years?

We’re the ones who’ve tried to turn Lucian into an Assyrian..he knew he wasn’t. The province of Assyria was well known to the Romans, so was Syria…anyone born in the region known as Assyria would have been called an “Assyrian”…regardless of ethnic origin, just as today Italians or Russians born in America are called Americans…place of birth doesn’t change your ethnicity. Not for several generations at least.

I don’t understand why it’s so difficult to understand that the ethnic Assyrians who were conquered by Persians and Babylonians and then had Greeks and Romans rule them simply forgot their heritage and identity. They retained Aramaic because it was the language of their bible, their most precious possession and the source of their dearest identity; Christian…any knowledge that they were the grandchildren of Tiglath Pilessar was long gone…we didn’t even know who these people were until the Brits dug them up for us.

As for Aramaic Hanna Hajjar says it was an Assyrian language…had nothing to do with the Armeans…well, what else can he say? He says it’s never been heard of that a great people would adopt the language of minor tribesmen…and that Aramaic was a development or outgrowth of Assyrian. If it’s true that a great people wouldn’t adopt the language of a minor people and Aramaic was an invention of the Assyrians, why would a Great people give the name of a little people to their OWN language?

Our nationalists can maintain themselves only by mucking up the waters…like their Christian religion their nationalism thrives on obscurantism…clarity of thought, exact speech, insightful, accurate hypothesis is death to them. Just as “one is three and three is one” in their religion so does “Syrian mean Assyrian mean Aramaic too” in their “political” dialogue. Any ideology or belief that depends on mystery and confusion and sowing idle doubt with specious arguments…especially when those making such arguments all of a sudden find they have no “time to waste” when called to account for irregularities and hilarities is not to be trusted.

Why is it so hard to admit that Assyrians forgot who they were and in time blended with the dominant cultures of their region? Don’t we see that happening today in the West? In fact, don’t we warn our children not to forget their language? Why? Why do we warn them about that…and why do we try periodically to set up schools to teach our history so “we don’t forget”? In 150 years that our people have been coming to America the majority of them forgot who they were…we see it happening now within one or two generations…we saw the Arabs bring a new religion and language to the MidEast and everyone “forgot” who they’d been…same happened with Aramaic…people forgot their own languages for the new one which came with their new religion…it happened in America where the indigenous people took on a new religion and language and in time forgot who they were….there isn’t anything odd or revolutionary in this…the Sumerians forgot who they were and blended in with the Assyrians who conquered them...the English of America soon forgot they were English and became the proudest Americans…and so it goes.

The Assyrian “heritage”, not the identity, is alive and well in BetNahrain…as its benefits and achievements are known around the world and have become a part of the machines and buildings, art, literature and music of countless people. Everyone in Iraq shares equally in this heritage…but the identity is long gone. Even among us there is no Assyrian identity. We’ve merely tacked on the term “Assyrian” to our Christianity…as we tacked it onto our Nestorian churches in 1976 AD. The Christian minority of Iraq is also an Assyrian minority…the majority of Assyrians being the Muslims…and this majority of Assyrians doesn’t recognize any “rights” belonging exclusively to the Christians…they also reject the idea that Christians have been persecuted by them…and they certainly see no reason to give them any part of what is everyone’s country. Any way you cut it, the argument our nationalists make, as well as their claims to persecution, are bogus.



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