The Assyrian Minority & The Iraqi Mosaic

Here’s an interesting subject I’ve been pondering upon for a while now. Minorities in Iraq. That country is home to a stocky spectrum of populations. The main ones are famous, The Shia’, the Sunni, and the Kurds, having lately marketed themselves very well. But that is not all. There are also Turkomans, Assyrians, Yezedi, Armenians and Shabak.

It is fair to say that all of these minorities, including the Kurds, have been heavily persecuted at one time or another. The Kurd gassing is the most famous ill-doing against a community in Iraq. But I am not interested in “the most famous”. I want to write today about a people who once ruled a good share of the known world.

That people is the Assyrians, who today have a constant dilemma facing them. Those that still live in their ancestral lands and villages, mainly in Iraq, Turkey and Iran, must constantly ask themselves, what is more important: living in the homeland, or living probably better, somewhere else, say in the West?

And in Iraq, for a long time now [over a century], the Assyrians have had massacres, genocides and mass deportations to help them decide to get the hell out of there. But they do this with a heavy heart, knowing they have little choice, but to leave a land their ancestors once ruled proudly and brilliantly [read further below for a very brief and not so accurate history].

There has always been a constant stream of atrocities committed against Assyrians, but for the past 100, even 200 years, this trend has intensified. From 1860 onwards, large-scale barbaric murder was committed by Kurds against Assyrians. These were assaults in which over 10,000 people would die. In 1895 too, much blood was spilled. In 1915, over 40 villages were destroyed and their inhabitants exterminated. 1933 is known for the Simele massacre [a village cleansing], and many other crimes.

More recently, the nature of the assaults has changed. It has gone more into terrorism, where popular or leading figures of the community are killed or kidnapped. Villagers are expropriated and made to flee. The perpetrators of these crimes, often Kurdish, even when identified, were never brought to justice, perhaps because certain Kurdish leaders appreciate, or even coordinate these assaults.

I could go on, really. But that is not my aim here. What I think is crucial for us to realize is that these ancient people are nearly finished. They have suffered a genocide over decades and decades and now, lacking greater exposure to the phenomenon, the world is about to let them disappear for ever as the Diaspora integrates with its host nations culture, and the homelands are abandoned for ever. More importantly, a beautiful, peaceful, rich and ancient culture is about to fade away within 2 or 3 generations.

Something ought to be done to finally bring to light the miseries of at least Iraqi Assyrians, if not all Assyrians who have also often been annihilated heftily.

Some background: The great military age of Assyria started around 4,500 thousand years ago. The Assyrians ruled for about 2000 years, achieved great advances like paved roads, locking systems, but also conceptual progress, such as the idea of imperial administration. Nevertheless like all empires they went greedy, expanded, and collapsed. Half a millennia later, with their embracing of Christianity [33AD], a new age of prosperity [through religious power] came and lasted 13 centuries, when abusive taxes on Christians made some convert, the Mongolians invaded Assyria and soon after, the Arabs and Arabic, took over.

Here are a few relevant links from which I drew much info, many thanks:

The BBC finally talks about Iraq’s Christians here

This site contains link to Assyrian communities and history

The Assyrian News Agency is great when there's new stuff and has amazing maps.

Click here to learn about how others help needy Assyrians, and consider helping too.

Assyrian Society UK

The site www.atour.com went out of business it seems. If anyone knows what happened, let me know.

Finally if you find that I am misinformed please tell me so.

American Operations in Iran, Legal Aspects.

Well A few weeks ago the Iranians claimed to have caught a few spies [read “Iran and Nukes” further below] and I’m sure some people in the States chuckled. But the latest news have reinforced their claim.
New Yorker Magazine ‘investigator’ Seymour Hersh has written an extensive article at www.newyorker.com in which he lays out, briefly, the bits and pieces of ‘evidence’, most of it anonymous, that he has collected.
I thoroughly recommend reading that article and there is no need for me to repeat what you’ll read there.
I have found that the legal details were the most interesting. In order to ensure that the operations do not get into any legal trouble, they are ran by the army and not the CIA.
President Bush is essentially making the CIA less and less relevant, and perhaps some will say, this is normal: It’s an Intelligence Agency, not an Action Agency. But that’s missing the point.
The reason why this legal aspect is interesting is because lawfulness is what defines history, essentially. And when the law is successfully bent, though we may remember it now, in just a few decades, people will barely recall. They will merely remember the event that unfolded.
In ancient times, when two princes quarreled over the throne, they couldn’t openly kill each other. One of them needed an elaborate and legal-ish plan to get rid of the other, to avoid accusations of being a throne thief for ever. When the United States organized the 1953 coup against Iranian prime minister Mossadegh, they were extremely concerned with getting the Shah to sign some mock-official documents officially dismissing Mossadegh (even though the Shah had no such actual power). And of course, more recently when the US launched their war on Iraq, they obviously wanted the world, through the UN, to approve and thus legalize their war.
Of course, might you say, everyone wants to be one the right side of the law. Yes indeed, everyone does. But when this desire comes from an entity which has the power to twist the law as it pleases, in the process, it makes a mockery of the law. The UN became significant when it refused poor Powell’s power point lies. That day, the law stood firm. And this war went down as an illegal war.
Compare the Iraqi campaign’s aura with Afghanistan’s aura. Sure, the Afghans are still miserably unsafe and prone to poppy farming. But in fact, the world agreed on removing the Taliban, and that campaign was ‘legal’. The reason why things are not well there is completely unrelated and different (the west failed to keep its promises, and it’s one messed up country anyway).
Similar things could be said of the patriot act and of these infiltrations in Iran. Legal does not necessarily mean good. And these latest news will only benefit extremists in the Arab world and in the streets of Tehran.