The Inside Assyria Discussion Forum #5

=> wikieditor responds......

wikieditor responds......
Posted by pancho (Moderator) - Thursday, April 26 2012, 14:49:53 (UTC)
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I assumed that you being an Assyrian, as you claim, would understand the definition of who is an Assyrian. But fine, I will try to give you a short introduction:

..."you" will give me an introduction? Just who are you, and what is your standing? Have an historian give me a definition and we might get somewhere. Dr. Joseph has a definition. Dr. Joseph was born into this same community with all the usual beliefs and legends you cling to, but Dr. Joseph went out and got himself a real education on the subject. I thought on Wikipedia you have to cite reliable sources. I don't even know your educational level, any books written, any scholars who accept you as a peer. I know you've been studying Syriac since you were ten, but you're going to "teach" me? Is that how it works here? Let's hear Joseph's definition, at least before yours.

“The people who today call themselves Assyrians are, strictly speaking, members of a cultural and religious group, molded together into a minority by ties of a common language and, until the nineteenth century, a common church membership which, until the birth of the modern nation-state in the Middle East, was the strongest tie among people.” p 32

...now, why don't you bring a citation from someone who has a doctorate in Middle Eastern history, who has been a professor for thirty years, Emeritus, who is a published author with a real and actual publisher and not X-Libris or any other vanity-press outfit, and, though this is optional, has been honored by having a college building named after him, and who is called upon by the State Department as an expert in THIS field. And please, do not bring an expert on ancient Persian history, ancient Assyrian history, a Semeticist, Semanticist or linguist....lets stick to THIS field and those who could get a job teaching in THIS field.

:"Assyrians are people who are sometimes known as Chaldeans, Syrians, Syriacs, etc. are a CHRISTIAN ethnoreligious group. It's mainly composed of the churches that follow the Syriac Christian tradition with the exclusion of the Maronite and the Syrians of India."

..that is a tautology right there, at the opening. The very thing in question; the existence of modern "Assyrians", is what you start off accepting as fact. It has yet to be proven, I mean by real proof, that there ARE modern Assyrians...and yet you start out with your "definition" by telling me .."Assyrians are...." when the whole issue is that there ARE no Assyrians. Let's settle the main question before you start telling me what Assyrians are divided into.

Where do you get these "definitions" from...aina...ankawa...and just what are they?..Would an American like to hear the assessment of the American Civil War by the Sons of the South? Or of Catholics by Protestants? Where did you get this definition from, if not your priests. What historian gave you this definition? Or, like myself, did you get it from your grandparents? Cite me the source where you found this.

:The Assyrian are divided into two groupings based on their Syriac Christian tradition:

...Divided by whom, if not themselves, which is where they got this "definition" as well.

Eastern, which includes the Church of the East, the Chaldean Catholic Church, the Ancient Church of the East, and a number of small protestant and Eastern Orthodox groups.

...I know all this. But it exists nowhere else except in our community. Everything you state about the division of our churches is just that: the division of our churches. That is not the issue...you can point to a time in history when this occured, it is NOT in question. What is also not in question is the time and place when we began calling ourselves Chaldeans and Assyrians...THAT is the issue. I don't need to hear our myths over again...I know them well. As I mentioned, my grandfather was Dr Baba Parhad, if you know about Assyrian "history" and nationalism you know who he is and who Dr Freyfoun Aturyaya was. I grew up with this stuff, so did Dr Joseph, the difference is that he went out and got an education in the subject while you remained with the myths and legends that please our community so. Give me an HISTORIAN of equal standing, not a Wikieditor to give me his Wikihistory on Wikiassyrians...please.

And a Western group that includes the Syriac Orthodox and Catholic Churches.

...oh, for the love of all that makes sense. You are so embedded and embroiled in these legends and myths you can't even understand where actual historians fit in. It's as if you were told you belong to a branch of the Rockefeller family of billionaires and the thought turned your head and left it there.

As you see there is no place where a Muslim or a Buddhist Assyrian would fit.

...if I defined American as "only Christians", which the KKK certainly does, no Jew would fit in to America. This is only one of your problems...you have defined Assyrian as someone who HAS to be Christian..that is YOUR doing. What happens to a CHRISTian who leaved CHRISTianity? Can he claim to still be a CHRISTian? Of course not. What happens to an ASHURian who leaved Ashur for CHRISTianity? Can he still claim to be an ASHURian...of course not. If you're going to give yourself a dispensation to remain ASHURian while leaving ASHUR, why can't an ASHURian leave Ashur for Muhammad?

..there is no reason in the world why a Muslim or a Buddhist or an atheist can't be Assyrian. You have the only "nation" where one loses his nationality by changing his religion. Even an Israeli can remain so if he leaves Judaism. You have defined yourselves as exactly what you are: a religious sect with a national front.

You can call it a "Christian sect" but the same also applies to the Armenians, Jews, Serbs, Croats who are also defined by their "sect".

...yes but they have a COUNTRY where you can have a NATIONALITY and that nationality is not dependent on religion. You don't have a country, you never had a country, you never will have a country...you are a handful of Christian sects giving yourselves airs as being descended from ancient heroes, based on nothing more than your wish that you are, who have tried in the past to use this, admittedly Christian status of yours to get a Christian enclave for yourselves. Naturally you don't "like" Dr Joseph's works...not because of his research, accuracy and conclusions, but because he shows you all for what you have tried to be. All you've managed to do to refute him is nit pick at the edges, which is strange coming from someone who has no professional standing at all, that I can tell. I know you don't mean to, but this kind of thing is what makes the vast majority of people scoff when someone uses Wikipedia as a serious reference. Your cavalier treatment of the books of one of the recognized experts of this field should be an embarrassment to Wikipedia...especially when you couple that with your wide-ranging search for ANYBODY who seems to show Joseph wrong, without ONCE showing just where he is wrong, except as I say, to nitpick.

:I see that you are confusing ethnicity with nationality.

...I am!?

One can be an Armenian citizen of ethnic Armenian descent, this is how 98% of the citizens of Armenia define themselves. But there are also Yazidi Armenians, Russian Armenians, etc... The same applies to America, Americans are not an ethnic group therefore you have Italian Americans, Armenian Americans, Russian Americans and so forth...

...and since you have no country, no nation and no nationality to hand to anyone, and a self-definiton as "Only Christians can be Assyrians", you get to set the rules. We are not talking about how people "define themselves", that is precisely the problem where so many ten-year-old experts exist. People can define themselves any way they like. It is when OTHER people accept their definitions of themselves that they are allowed to cross borders and taken seriously. So far the only people who define YOU as Assyrian, all have the same delusions, for no one else does. No one else, that is, who has any knowledge of the actual field. Dr Joseph knows all of the usual arguments and "proofs" , it's you, the "editor" here who knows nothing of his, and finds nothing wrong with making proclamations just the same.

...and, where are your citations and sources for all that you just gave me? I don't mean YOU as a source, or any other self-serving person or agency. You can imagine what kind of heat Joseph has taken for bothering to study this subject...but bring any expert, who has real standing, and not just someone born into the same myths, and have him or her enlighten us.

..I'll say it again; Wikipedia is the only encyclopedia where you'll find this kind of stuff. The Britannica admits there are Christians today who CALL themselves Assyrians....but that is a mere statement of fact about what people call THEMSELVES...the Britannica does not go on to give us myths and legends and unsubstantiated "facts" about these Assyrians, as Wikipedia does. That should tell you something all by itself. (~~~~)



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