Compassion and Justice
Israel was in the same predicament as is Assyria now. Nevertheless,
the UN with its firm action freed Israel from its adversaries. In
recent years, the collapse of the Soviet Union created circumstances
favourable to the three states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania to
free themselves from the clutches of Russia and regain complete
independence. Israel in 1948 was successful in liberating itself. It
achieved independence by proclaiming the Establishment of the State
of Israel in part of its biblical land. Such achievements came about
because of the combined efforts of the subject nations, the
international community and the UN. Assyria needs to be granted an
independent voice as a stateless nation, its people the status of
refugees, and its case to be promoted and supported at international
level.
There are some similarities between the situation of Assyria and
that of Bosnia-Herzegovina in regards to its geopolitics. Earlier,
in 1907 Bosnia-Herzegovina was ceded to Austria-Hungary by the
enfeebled Ottoman Empire for a mere two million Pounds Sterling
(£2,000,000).
In Post World War I, the Province of (Vilayet) Mosul eventually fell
under the sphere of British political influence. In March 1925,
Britain annexed Vilayet Mosul to the Hashemite Kingdom of Iraq, over
four years after establishment of Iraq in early 1921, and over six
years after the Armistice of November 11, 1918. Western Allies gave
away Vilayet Mosul, - the hub of the Assyrian homeland - to the
Arabs and Islamic countries, with total disregard to the traditional
rights of the dispossessed Assyrian people.
After the collapse of communism and disintegration of the Soviet
Union in the early 1990s, and break-up of its satellites, the
international community, through the UN, helped certain Balkan
states regain their freedom, such as Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia.
Several European countries, like Germany, Austria, England and
Australia played the role of host. They accepted hundreds of
thousands of Bosnian Muslims as refugees, cared for them and
hospitalised their sick and wounded children.
After a few years, the majority was returned to Bosnia for
rehabilitation. The West, led by the international community played
the role of the Good Samaritan and acted the role of King Solomon.
Yet, this very same international community turned its back on the
Assyrians when they called for help in Post World War I. The League
of Nations forsook its human attributes. It failed to implement the
program it had initially sponsored for the return and rehabilitation
of the Assyrians in their traditional homeland of the Mosul
Province, for lack of either will or the financial means.
The West, in reality, did not behave like the wise king and just
judge, but like wolves among sheep. After plundering Assyria, they
neglected its people, and scattered them to the four corners of the
earth. The West dismembered the Assyrian nation and sold its people
to its traditional enemy, shattering their hopes and aspirations.
The international community denied them the right to live in the
safety of their homes under protection of the League of Nations and
to reshape their destiny and lead a normal life as any other small
nation.
Bosnian Muslims like to be referred to as Muslims by the media.
While the Muslims refer to the native Christians of Bosnia as
Croats, Serbs or Gypsies to give the world the false impression that
Bosnia had once been predominantly Muslim. Bosnia was a Christian
kingdom, never a Muslim state. The Ottoman Turks ruled it for over
five centuries until the early 20th century. Muslims in the occupied
territory of Assyria behave in the same manner, claiming the whole
region Islamic. Muslims refer to the Assyrians as Nestorians or
Christian Kords. The media deliberately, either out of ignorance or
out of indifference, keep the Assyrian identity suppressed.
The Arabs in the Middle East seem to follow this same pattern of
behaviour. Assyrian and Christian cultures are suppressed in a
concerted effort to diminish and completely remove their image as
they do in other Islamised countries such as in Afghanistan, Egypt,
Algeria and Kosovo-Serbia.
In Afghanistan, its radical Islamic government blew up the two giant
Buddha statues and destroyed other non-Islamic artefacts in a bid to
rid itself of all trace of Buddhism. In Egypt, the Islamic
government distorts the census of the Christian Coptic population to
give the world the false impression that the census of the Christian
Copts of Egypt is steadily on the decline. The Islamic authorities
continue to reduce the census figure of the Christian Copts of Egypt
to understate the Christian population as insignificant. The Coptic
census of Egypt is estimated at about thirteen to fifteen million
(13 to 15m).
In Algeria, the Christian Berbers are not recognized as natives of
the land, neither does the Algerian government recognize their
native language as extant. Similarly, the Christian Berber natives
are officially classified as Arabs, disregarding the Berber language
and the right to their heritage. Instead of reviving the Berber
language, Islam annuls it. Yet, the ethnic Albanians in Macedonia
demand that their Albanian language be officially recognised as the
second official language of Macedonia.
In Lebanon, Christian shrines along the highways and near villages
seem to be systematically disappearing and Christian customs and
activities pressured to withdraw to their own locales. In Indonesia,
the destruction of crucifixes and torching of churches has become an
Islamic ritual. In Iraq, the central government simply denies the
existence of Assyrians nonchalantly and refuses to recognize them as
natives of northern (Mesopotamia) Iraq. It considers those presently
residing in the country as alien drifters from Iran and Turkey.
Members of Iraqi political parties, in exile, forming an Iraqi
National Congress (INC) in opposition to the current Iraqi regime,
behave in like manner. They distance themselves from members of
Assyrian political parties. They disallow them to join the said
organisation, in exile, in opposition to Saddam’s regime. Members of
the (INC), under the leadership of Mr. Ahmad Chalabi shun the
Assyrians as undesirable foreign elements. Western governments in
support of such Iraqi opposition parties, in exile, may wish to
bring to notice and correct such undemocratic practices.
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