A Wake Up Call from Our Long Siesta of Seventeen Centuries
Emanuel Kelaita
Spain
For the last seventeen centuries we have been considered no longer a Nation but a Religious Community, with no National aspirations and a meaningless existence.
Let the true Nationalists Reformers of our beloved Nation turn the tables, and free our Nation from the heavy yoke of our Greedy Religious Leaders and their influence. For once let us live in dignity as a Nation where we shall be respected along with the Arabs, Kurds, Turkmen's, and others in Iraq, and not to be considered a bare Christian minority were we will be given the status of "Ahel AI Dhimma" or third class citizens in our own Ancestral homeland.
It looks like the AUA declaration is the mouth piece of the Assyrian Church of the East especially after the recent speech by Mar Gewargis in Iraq followed by the defiant letter sent by Mar Meelis from Australia last week to the Iraqi President, Prime Minister, Parliament, The Constitutional Committee, The United States, United Kingdom Government, and their representatives in Iraq asking for the
1. Constitutional recognition of the historical and national name of the Assyrians
(including, Chaldeans, Souryans).
2. Constitutional recognition of the Assyrian national rights in Iraq.
The latest speeches by Mar Dinkha and Mar Aprim are typical examples to confirm this tendency. But, let me ask the reader, were all the prelates of our church present in Australia when this letter were decided upon? Furthermore, were all of them consulted? The answer to both questions is a sure NO. Let me further ask, isn’t this letter from the Assyrian Church Synod openly and clearly splitting our nation by marginalising the Chaldeans and the Suryanies. Isn’t this letter misleading and dirty politics? And yet our church leaders continuously deny that they interfere in our national politics.
Can't you see my brothers and sisters that our historic and institutional Churches Instead of preaching unity and reconciliation our church leaders are seeking the separation of our ChaldoAssyrian Nation with the help of some faked nationalists of today. These church leaders have been splitting our Nation for the past seventeen centuries. Along with other foreign religious fundamentalist, they have been the real cause for the annihilation of 50 million Christians that were killed because of such selfish aims.
It is not surprising to notice that they have acted even more negatively after the removal of Saddam.
The Assyrian Church of the East leaders bear the biggest burden from all the rest, by marginalising all the other Churches, such as the Suryaniyeen Churches whether Catholic or Orthodox, and the Chaldeans Church. They dare to consider the adherents of the Presbyterian churches null and void. Quite a few of our great writers and nationalists belong to Protestant, Orthodox and Catholic churches. But, unfortunately, our Assyrian church don’t recognize these facts.
Mar Addai from the old Calendar of the Nestorian Church (B) whose Church split from the main Nestorian Church (A) In the 1960s went along with Mar Gewargis of Church (A) in recommending Mr. Gewargis Bacous as their preferential candidate in the government against Mr. Yonadam Kanna's choice. Indirectly weakening the position of Mr.Yonadam Kanna in the Iraqi government, because he was getting out of their control and becoming a very popular political figure for all Christians in Iraq.
Can’t you see that the only time the rival churches agree on something is when they desperately need to crush a true Nationalist? They do so, because they always have assumed that a true nationalist is a threat to their establishment. Once this is accomplished, they are back at each other’s throat.
My dear brothers and sisters stick with our unified national name ChaldoAssyrians, or for that matter with any other name that ultimately will bring together the unity of our nation for the time being. Let our future generations decide on any changes they might deem fit.
Let us break away from the corrupt influence of our Church leaders and follow our true National aspirations, for once. Let us not loose this Historic Golden opportunity in Iraq. If we miss this coming election like the one in January 2005 we are going to be the biggest losers among all Iraqis.
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The Assyrian Identity and the Nomenclature
A comparison Between Truth & Fact
By Ashur Giwargis – Beirut
Translated to English by Mary Challita – Canada
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I need to make one more point here, Assyrian religious leaders have the tendency to twist words of people like myself. They take what we say against them and their weak action and bend our statements claiming that we are speaking against our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ and against our beloved Christian faith. Well, my fellow Assyrians, I am not here criticizing Christianity, the Bible or the ideals for which the Kingdom of God stands for. Please understand me when I say it is the ill intention of the majority of our church leaders as exemplified by today’s Assyrian Church leadership that I wish to criticize and expose and clearly say that it is they, not us, the nationalists, that ARE against Christ, due to their selfishness and utter corruption. In fact, I consider myself a person of a stronger faith in God than they are.
Now, back to my previous point. Give your full support for the unified slate and don't listen to the fundamentalists and the ultra nationalists of the Assyrians, Chaldeans or Suryaniyeens. They are the puppets of either their Religious leaders or the KDP or simply working for their own personal gains and fame. They never had any regrets and never will, for being the cause of splitting our one nation.
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We should support only the religious leaders who truly and faithfully support the unity of our one nation, as Christ has commanded all believers to be like him bringing peoples and nations close to one another and ultimately to God.
I consider myself a good Christian but I am really disappointed with our Church leaders that have NOT carried truly the message of love and unity of our Lord JESUS CHRIST who plainly told his disciples to be united as he and his father are one.
You can clearly see that our church leaders expect all our political organizations whether Assyrians, Chaldeans, and Suryaniyeens to take instructions or guidance from them so much that our parties political declarations must go along the mentality of the Church leaders policies otherwise, our political parties will be doomed and considered outcasts by their community, because we are still considered a priestly nation and rightly so.
The Jewish reformers assembled in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1885 made a statement that they considered themselves "No more a Nation but a Religious community." Similar declarations had already been made in Germany, France, Holland, and Poland. Once the Jewish reformers bluntly admitted for the first time in twenty centuries that they were a Religious Community, they immediately woke up and started planning and envisioning the establishment of the “Mighty State of Israel " which was created in spite of their internal conflicts or external enemies.
The Jewish Nationalists Reformers solved the problem of the Compound name and agreed among themselves that Israel shall be the Nations name, Jews shall be called the citizens of this new Israel Nation and Hebrew shall be the official language of the Nation. Once this was agreed upon, the Jews from Diaspora poured back to Israel from all over the world with their different ideologies and beliefs united under the triune of this political agreement among themselves.
The Chaldeans, the Assyrians, the Suryaniyeens, the Arameyeens, and the Maronites once they rid themselves from the influence of their Religious leaders, miracles can be achieved in starting to set this New Nation on a new path of renewal and prosperity.
My dear brothers and sisters from Bet Nahrain go for it and grab this opportunity, don't hesitate for a minute for this is your right. We are desperately in need of a homeland that we can call " Our Sweet Home". This can only be accomplished once we are able to separate our political affairs from our religion and religious leaders.
All of us as Christians prefer to have a secular state in Iraq, simply because all the citizens of Iraq are going to be equal under the law of a secular Iraqi State, even though each citizen may belong to a different faith. But when it comes to forming the foundations of our own Nation we are against secularism simply because each one of our Institutional churches wants to have the final say and to marginalise the rest. Aren't we very similar in our thinking and attitudes to the fundamentalists of the Sunni Wahabi sect? And yet we condemn them. Aren’t we the world’s greatest hypocrites?
Mr. Yonadam Kanna is not a fanatic Assyrian and is willing to create a realistic nation in unifying all our different names that have been used and existed in our nation for centuries, with no one left out or marginalised. I have come to know this individual for his foresight in accepting the fact that we are all from the same roots of Bet Nahrain. Why can’t we unite under a compound or any other acceptable name that pleases all the segments of our nation? He obviously realizes that if we go each under a separate name we will loose our credibility among the Arabs, Kurds, Turkmans, and the Allied Coalition which freed us from Saddam. He realizes also that our numbers in Iraq works against us. If we, the Chaldeans, Assyrians and the Suryaniyeens come together, we could be talking about approx. one million people in Iraq, which roughly speaking is 4% of the total population. He also realized that since we stem from different religious communities, without hesitation he approached the leaders of our powerful institutional Churches. The results from these meetings were quite fruitful in the early stages.
The Assyrian Prelates didn't have any objections whatsoever, that we were all brothers in Jesus Christ, same goes for Mar Emanuel Delli, where he personally attended interviews on AI Jazeera station and others along with Mr. Younadam Kanna. Mar Zakkai of the Suryaniyeens gave his blessings and support on a carte blanche basis for his representatives to go along with Mr. Younadam Kanna of ADM under the ChaldoAssyrian Compound Name. The Assyrian Church leaders did not oppose it. But, later on, they all got scared and realized that the unification of our Nation was going to be catastrophic to their positions and self-serving interest. (this is where they always have been wrong, for the past seventeen centuries).
So they began to play their old tricks of dividing our people and ruling them. This policy nowadays is only practiced by a few Dictators such as Saddam and some other corrupted leaders, but their time has been running out.
Our Church leaders knew the mentality and the weaknesses of their national political parties and their stooges, so they turned these parties against this new compounded name of ChaldoAssyrian. Later on, one by one, they openly retracted their support for this compounded name of ChaldoAssyrian.
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Dr. Emanuel Kamber the newly elected General Secretary of the AUA whom I had the pleasure and the privilege of working with him in the AUA “B". We both served a couple of years in the project of renovating the Assyrian Society of Great Britain in the 1980s. We both joined AUA “B“ because we did not agree with the dictatorship of the AUA “A” and their methods of appointing their delegates world wide, since it was based purely on the individual’s financial status. Dr. Kamber used to be a staunch supporter of Zowaa. In fact in our AUA congress which was held in London in 1982, he insisted that AUA “B“ in its declaration must mention clearly that it supports Zowaa morally, politically and financially. Unanimously this notion was agreed upon and adopted. This was the strongest AUA declaration ever written openly supporting the Assyrian Democratic Movement (Zowaa) in Bet Nahrain. Remember folks, this was during the days when Mr. WMD (Saddam) was very powerful and ruling Iraq.
Regrettably It has been noticed lately that Dr. Emanuel Kamber has changed dramatically and that now he is clearly working along the lines of the Assyrian Church of the East mentality and those of Dr. Sargon’s policies. He is clearly against the ChaldoAssyrian unity. This will be recorded in our Nations historical archives, that the two main Ph.D. holders have made their sole objective to split our nation with their stubbornness in sticking with the “Assyrian only” name, knowingly clearly that they are fulfilling the plan and adhering to the directives of the Assyrian Church of the East leaders, and therefore, automatically those of the KDP.
All the AUA’s executive committee and most of its members with the exception of a few that were elected are completely against the ChaldoAssyrian Unity.
Openly the newly elected executive secretary Ms. Mary Younan from the AUA branch of Canada, sitting in the hotels lounge along with Mr. Yatron Darmoo the representative of Dr. Sargon, and Andy Darmo, the Chairman of the Assyrian church in U.K. were openly and loudly attacking Zowaa and Mr. Yonadam Kanna personally.
This is another example of the AUA and the Assyrian church representatives attitude towards the unification and the reconciliation, in uniting our political parties in Iraq.
AUA is the oldest Assyrian Political Organization and supposedly the mother of all Umbrellas, which was created 37 years ago in Pau, France, at the house of our Great General Agha Petros’s son Dimitri, whose father had used officially the Compounded name of AssyroChaldean to unite our nation after the turn of the 20th century. As usual the Nestorian Patriarchal family presently ”Assyrian Church of the East” were deadly against this name, in particular Surma Khanim. The results were disastrous. The AUA’s Shaftless Umbrella was supposedly to unite the Chaldeans, Assyrian, Suryaniyeen, Arameyeen, Moraniyeen, etc. Unfortunately the AUA’s pathetic and shameful declaration of 23 points did not once mention the name of the Chaldeans, Suryaniyeens, or any other segment of our people.
In the opening gathering of the AUA Congress held in the Assyrian Society of Great Britain in London on the 7th of July 2005 their, ex-General Secretary Senator John Nimrod in his opening remarks said, that before coming to London for the Congress he had informed the Assyrian American Federation and his Holiness Mar Dinkha of the Assyrian Church. In other words, the AUA clearly and undoubtedly is the mouth piece of the Assyrian Church working together in splitting our nation.
I was amazed by the majority of the AUA delegates and attendees, they were still living in the 1968 mentality, most of the founders of AUA in 1968 were in their thirties and now they are in their late sixties, they have not reformed one bit, and they are not ready to reform.
A few delegates asked me for my honest opinion as to whom they should elect as the General Secretary ? I said without any hesitation Dr. Emanuel Kamber. My reason was, because he is a straight and honest fellow, whom I had the privilege of working with for 24 years. My only reservation and I made it very clear was that he should not be under the thumb of the Assyrian church leadership or any other entity for that matter. But, nevertheless, I am still puzzled as to how did Dr. Emanuel Kamber agree to sign the 23 infamous points of the final AUA declaration?. The first point in their declaration is: “We reaffirm that there will no longer be a variety of names to divide the Assyrian people, but all will be referred to as ASSYRIANS.”
The point serves as an open hypocrisy and a real dictatorship which, ultimately shall DIVIDE our Nation, while had they used the ChaldoAssyrian term, they would have most definitively UNITED our NATION.
Let us compare the true Suryanis Nationalist party “ADO” statement of the 3rd of July 2005 in supporting the ChaldoAssyrians with that which was sent by Dr. Kamber on 3rd August 2005 to the Chairman of the constitutional committee in Iraq.
In the 2nd paragraph Dr. Kamber is stating that Assyrians of Iraq are between 1,000,000 to 1,250,000 million people. These figures can only be correct when Dr. Kamber along with his powerful and influential religious leaders admit for once (whether they like it or not) that the people of these figure consists of Chaldeans Catholics, Assyrian “Nestorians” and Syryanis Catholics and Orthodox. If Dr. Kamber is talking purely about the people who call themselves Assyrians in Iraq, then he should adjust his figures to a number that is well under 100,000, namely, less that 10% of what he is projecting.
In the 3rd paragraph of the same letter Dr. Kamber is stating that the Assyrians were not recognised before or during TAL, and so he is stressing that the Assyrians should be recognised. In other words he is clearly stating that the AUA does not recognize the ChaldoAssyrian name that was inserted and chaired by a Gabbara of our ChaldoAsyrian nation called Mr. Younadam Kanna from ADM “ZOWAA”, the party that Dr. Kamber strongly supported some twenty years ago. Things must have changed in the last ten years with the new developments in the northern part of Iraq.
I was also shocked to see that somebody like Mr. Younathan Bet-Kolia from the Iranian AUA chapter who is an MP in the Iranian government, representing Assyrians and Chaldeans of Iran not objecting to this AUA’s pathetic declaration of not mentioning the Chaldean name not even once.
I think the Chaldean Iranian community should have a serious talk with Mr. Bet Kolia.
I was not surprised by Mr. Praydon Darmoo’s position which was consistent with his previous stances since he as a “Qayyouma Pateriarkaya” of Mar Dinkha was the one who attacked the policies of the AUA “B”, namely, the political arm when it was getting out of control of the Assyrian church leadership, exactly the same situation with today’s ZOWAA.
Bravo to all our institutional church leaders and their Puppets for serving the KDP policies, which are clearly to divide our Nation during this constitutional battle and the next elections into at least three separate groups of Chaldeans, Assyrians, Suryanees, and possibly others.
Stick to your National Unrealistic Dreams and Songs for the next 25 centuries.
Most probably now we will go down in the constitution as merely CHRISTIANS divided into Chaldeans, Assyrians, Syryani. Etc. which by implication will become only religious denomination rather than one ethnic and cultural entity.
The AUA has been very weak for the last ten years, especially in the time of Senator John Nimrod who did not know anything about the actual situation in Iraq including the differences that are centuries old, that exist among the different segments of our nation.
Is it true that Mrs, Shwarten the sister of Senator John Nimrod donated a sum of US$ 5,000,000 to the AUA foundation? If yes, how come the previous AUA’s Executive board members and their respectful treasurers did not come up with proper audited accounts? Could the new respectable treasurer Mr. Joseph Jingo clarify and enlighten our Assyrian community since they are automatically members of the AUA’s UMBRELLA and have all the right to know about this huge some of money in detail ? Many thanks for all the above in advance for your kind answer to my questions.
Dr. Mar Sarhad Jammo and the other Chaldean prelates are doing exactly the same damage in opposing the ChaldoAssyrian name. Same old story instead of uniting us they are splitting the Chaldean from the Assyrian and the Suryani.
I have a sincere advise to both Mr. Noori Petrous Atto and Mr. Ablahad Afram Sawa and others brothers and sisters who are in the same political alliance. Start reforming yourselves instead of blindly following the views of your church leaders who also carry policies of divide and rule. It will be healthier for our nation if you started using your energy towards the unity of our nation. Start ironing your differences with ZOWAA and Mr. Younadam Kanna and other true Assyrian nationalists who are trying their best to unite our nation, regardless of their church leaders agenda and plans. Why should anyone be scared of the unification of our nation under the ChaloAssyrian name? Or, do you have your own hidden agendas? You must not count on the support of your religious leaders, neither their wrath, because they have deviated from the true teachings of Jesus Christ and have divided the Christian church instead of uniting it. And, when the time comes and the religious leaders change their agendas they are well prepared to drop you without a parachute.
Mar Zakkai is really scared that maybe he will loose the adherents of his church and they might either join the Assyrian church or the Chaldean church so he is going as far as saying that all the Suryanyeens are Arabs, my suggestion to him is that he should completely change the liturgy of his church to Arabic and call his church the Arabian Orthodox Church.
The Chaldeans and Suryaniyeens should realize that the animosity from the Assyrians towards their Chaldean and Suryaniyeen brothers was definitely prompted by none other than the Assyrian church leaders and their stooges for centuries. They are the experts in sowing the seeds of divisions instead of those of love and unity. Unfortunately, the same thing has also been demonstrated by the Chaldeans and the Suryaniyeens Church leaders.
I would like to ask any true nationalist whether Chaldean, Assyrian, or Suryani who dreams about a homeland in Iraq, would he gain more if he goes separately, or if we all joined hands and went together as one united nation, we will be better off? I think any logical person will agree that “United we stand and divided we fall” except of course our Church leaders who would love to see us go on separately, so they can hold their comfortable chairs and control us for another seventeen centuries.
Maybe some of the Suryaniyeens leaders are afraid that they might dissolve in Assyrianism or vice versa, or some Assyrians might think that after a few generations they might dissolve into Chaldeanism and so on. Why are we afraid to dissolve with each other? Isn’t it better to dissolve among our own Eastern Christian churches and peoples, instead of dissolving into Arabism, Kurdiesm,Turkmanism, Americanism, or Europeanism?
Most probably our future generations will be very proud of our great accomplishment in the early 21st century that we were an enlightened generation and were able to finally break away from the chains of slavery, and free our nation from the hypocrisy and the dogmatism of our institutional Church leaders and finally we were able to unite unanimously under one name that of the ChaldoAssyrian.
Mar Emanuel Delli lately changed his mind and contradicted his previous written letter in supporting the ChaldoAssyrian name. Now he openly wants to go under the Chaldean name with his newly found Chaldean parties stooges. How can our true National leaders rely on our church leaders?
Mar Zakkai came up with a bigger bang and said that the Suryaniyeens are Arabs, and that Jesus Christ was an Arab as well. This is new to my ears, because I was told since childhood that Jesus Christ’s earthly father Joseph and his virgin mother Mary were Jews. (SUBHAN ALLAH) Don't be surprised tomorrow if they might call Jesus a Mexican or even a Kurd from the Barazani clan and maybe even a staunch supporter of the ancient KDP. Already some of our distinguished Assyrians in the north of Iraq, from the KDP are calling our Assyrian Church, The Church of Kurdistan.
All our Church leaders have been very effective and are experts in splitting the true Christianity into so many different denominations each claiming that only through his true teachings you are following the steps of Jesus Christ.
Sometimes I wonder to which church did Jesus Christ belong? What about if Jesus belonged to the real desert Coptic Rabbane of the Shheit desert in Egypt? This would really be catastrophic to the adherents of our Ancient Nestorian church, because they still consider us as heretics.
On the other hand may be JESUS CHRIST truly belonged to the teachings of the Protestant Churches and not to any of our recognised Institutional Churches “Etawate Shlikhayeh”. In this case the Assyrian, Chaldean, Suryani, Maronites, Coptics, Catholics, Greeks and Russians are all doomed.
Could our Church leaders please work and concentrate seriously together and iron out these important divisions among themselves first, instead of wasting their time in our national politics.
Sometimes our national organizations play some pathetic roles such as the ADP in Syria, Just because their opinion differs from ADO “Mtaqasta”. And because ADO is in agreement with ADM position of endorsing the ChaldoAssyrian name so the ADP, is deadly against this unification. This was my impression when meeting with them two months ago in Tell Tamer, Khabour, Syria.
Our National Organizations should reform to the needs of the 21st century and especially the events that took place in Iraq lately, that of the removal of Saddam and his rotten regime.
All our organizations should quickly tear their old constitutions and re-write their new ones in light of the new Iraqi constitution, taking into consideration the needs of our people in Iraq, not in Iran, USA, Russia, Georgia, Armenia, Syria, Europe, or Australia.
With my full respect to our national leaders in diaspora, and their limited knowledge of the actual situation on the ground in Iraq, they should be listening more carefully to our national leaders who are struggling on daily bases in Iraq and not in California, and in particular to the General Secretary of the ADM which is the strongest national movement ever since the downfall of our nation, who has been struggling for the last 26 years in Iraq, and whose members were martyred by the brutal regime of Saddam, and until now. Our charismatic leader is struggling to get us a small and realistic homeland in the plains of Nineveh in the western part of Iraq.
It seems to me that most of our diaspora nationalist leaders, along with our church leaders, are very jealous of the ADM. My advice to the aforementioned groups is to pack up their bags wherever they are and go back to Iraq to the Crimson Zone. And, of course, they should be well prepared in some diving techniques, just in case some terrorist insurgent should come their way. They should also take in consideration that they might be sleeping in some very pathetic conditions, not the five star hotels that they are used to in diaspora.
Once they have seriously taken this giant step then they can sit together on equal bases with ADM and maybe then they can elect a new leadership for our nation, but until such time we all should fully support the ADM’s true leadership in uniting all the segments of our nation under the compound name of “CHALDOASSYRIAN” and NOT the BRACKETS in the letter that was written by the Assyrian Church Synod in Australia and authorized obviously by Mar Dinkha which was read on Dr. Sargon’s pathetic AssyrianSat TV & Co. with Mr. Sargon emphasizing on the brackets over and over and over again.
Our Nationalistic Organizations if they are ready to REFORM should wake up and realize that this is the 21st century. We are not in the Hakkari Mountains any more. The times of the Chief of a Clan: Agha, Mallik, Reyyees or other well known family names with long histories like Ashierattee, Shapetnaye, Urmyians are all past history. The rules of the 21st century are very simple. Any capable individual even if he is the son of a widow like General Agha Petrous could be elected and can become the leader of our Nation.
We the ChaldoAssyrian, in diaspora should all go and VOTE. Keeping one thing in mind, do we want to vote in order to separate our nation? Then we should vote for slate 139. Or, if we want to vote for a stronger unified front with all our Christian brothers in unity and solidarity in Iraq, then, we should unanimously vote for the only unifying slate of Rafidain which is the ChaldoAssyrian 204.
Note: In case the slate numbers are changed in the coming elections. Make sure that you vote for the ChaldoAssyrian with Syriac language as the culture.
This article was written by a true Assyrian Nationalist who believes sincerely and with good intentions that the only PORQANA (salvation) for our Nation is through our unified name that of the ChaldoAssyrian in order that we can stand tall and proud.
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