It is
still not too late. The Assyrians (with all their segments) need to unite.
The Assyrians need to have their own separate electoral slate, all of
their own, detaching their names from non-Assyrian electoral slates,
forming one separate slate independent of all others. They need to know
where they stand in regard to their loyalty to their electorate and
country. And as to whether they are recognized as full citizens of the
Republic of
Iraq or disenfranchised subjects. In this
case, they need to choose as to whether they wish to remain as
second-class nationals of ambiguity, living on fringe benefits, or take a
venturesome course of action worthy of their self-esteem.
It is
hoped that the Assyrians on the ground (in the north) will not oppose such
a move by considering it as in conflict of their interest. Since the
Assyrians are ignorant of their future, in the formation of the
forthcoming state of Iraq, they have the legal right to stir up the issue
and present it to the world body of nations in the hope of reaching an
acceptable outcome, or at least find out the truth.
The
clergy of the (Chaldean) Catholic brethren have already stormed the high
head of the EU states, the United States and the Vatican, deliberating on
their future. The Iraqi Christian officials, on the other hand, seem to be
doing it in dribs and drabs, behind the Assyrian back, yet hardly
successfully, keeping the Assyrians in the dark.
Not all
the parties are necessarily sincere in promoting the Assyrian name in
their agenda. There are some, who are reluctant to relate their racial
identity or antecedent to Assyria and its history. There are certain
groups that do not cherish the true aspiration of the overall majority of
the Assyrian people. They would rather continue as they are, blend in and
fuse with the whole surrounding majority, than risk facing an
unpredictable outcome of an ominous future. Perhaps their suppressed lot
and dire situation obliges them to override venturing into the field of
taking the challenge to revealing their warm feelings and close identity
with their Assyrian brethren. The so-called Chaldeans seem to have abjured
by suppressing their subconscious mind, unable to free themselves from
bondage. They are hiding behind an identity that does not relate to them.
They have picked geographical locations and historical names and labeled
them on themselves. They are unwarrantable. They are so remote and distant
in time and place that they do not relate to their Assyrian originality.
It is sad that they live in bewilderment. They are living in a
make-believe world of deceit, not of conviction but for survival. Until
they come to term, each with one's self, and lift and clear the pressure,
from their repressed conscience, time will continue ticking, jabbing their
conscience until judgment day.
Some
parties and groups prefer to choose and cherish some specious names that,
though familiar, have long past their usefulness. They are either ancient
or derivatives of the name of Assyria proper but have since served their
purpose and are no longer useful. In order to reach out to people, who
cling to such archaic terms, the Assyrian parties need to unite, form one
political body, under a well-organized leadership, to speak in one voice
to reflect the true meaning of the Assyrian name, in order to aspire its
entire nation towards statehood. Such representation would help resolve
the name issue in their efforts towards attaining their goal more
effectively. This would help the person involved in the name issue to make
a clear-cut decision as to whether to stick to the adopted derivative, or
accept Assyria as the name of his nation and national identity. Many such
derivatives have reached the point of becoming fictitious and their
non-existent nations a myth. They hang on to such antiquated derivates,
not because of choice, but because of the long-term adaptation to them and
the necessity to survive.
Recently, the Kurds have been seriously lobbying in the corridors of the
UN to gain recognition as being the indigenous people of Iraq. They, the
Kurds, claim that they have historically inhabited
Assyria
earlier than the Assyrians! Wow, what a fallacy! In later years, with the
emergence of the religion of Islam, the Kurds accepting the Islamic faith
helped the invading conquerors of the Middle East to annihilate the
Assyrians bringing them on the brink of extinction. Self-confessed Kurd!
Perhaps the Kurds, being accessory in crime, imply that the Assyrians were
massacred at the hands of their enemies (in participation with the Kurd)
in the early years of Anno Domini for embracing Christianity, and with the
passage of time, became extinct. Witty Kurd. With such wit, no one can
beat the Kurd. not even the Irish. (With due respect to the Irish people,
I respect, admire and love the Irish people for their courage, resilience,
and love of their country, and of course for their witty and humorous
jokes, whether on them, or
interchangeably on others).
Going
back into history, in the aftermath of WW I, and after the collapse of the
Ottoman Empire, the State of Turkey was established in its place. It
emerged as The State of Modern Turkey, partly at the expense of the
Armenians and the Assyrians and the Greeks. The Assyrians were evicted
from their original dwellings and lost their land. Their territory was
annexed to
Turkey
and included in the newly modified borders of Modern Turkey. The Assyrians
lost all their Hakkari territory, partly to Turkey, and partly to the
newly created states of
Iraq
and Syria. The Assyrians were prevented from returning to their homes. In
the process, they were all prevented from doing so, including 400 thousand
Armenians. Not considered as refugees, they were abandoned and left
stranded. Many headed to big cities and towns like
Aleppo,
Damascus, Tripoli, Beirut, Mosul, Erbil, Kirkuk, Baghdad, and surrounding
villages. Assyria's usurped land was added to Turkey's landmass, under the
newly re-established government as the State of the Republic of Modern
Turkey. Turkey's plan was to seize Assyria's land and annex it to its
landmass. In return, Turkey would withdraw from Vilayet Mosul, for the
rehabilitation of the Assyrians as a compensation for the loss of their
territories of Hakkari and Urmia.
Thus,
following expulsion of the Assyrians from their native land, Modern Turkey
acceded to the British proposal over Vilayet Mosul. It excluded Vilayet
Mosul from Modern Turkey. Turkey withdrew from Mosul peacefully and handed
the Vilayet over to the British Mandatory Power. Turkey extricated itself
from the Assyrian problem. Concerning the Assyrian unresolved question,
Turkey described their expulsion from Hakkari and Urmia as irrelevant and
no longer related to it, since its handing over of Vilayet Mosul to the
British, through the defunct League of Nations, for resettlement and
rehabilitation of the ousted Assyrians in part of their native country, in
Vilayet Mosul. The finger points at the mandates of the Anglo-French Power
at the time.
The
Hashemite Kingdom of Iraq was established in March 1921. The fate of
(Vilayet) Province of Mosul hanged in the balance. In March 1925, Mosul
was officially annexed to Iraq. Mosul Province became part of the
Kingdom or
Iraq.
The Mandates sold the disadvantaged Assyrians to Islam for oil. In
August 1933,
Iraq,
in collaboration with the British, schemed to uproot the Assyrians from
Iraq, all together. The Iraqi government delegated psychotic Kurdish
General, Bakir Soudqi, to take disciplinary action against the Assyrian
natives, men women and children. General Bakir Soudqi applied the
traditional Islamic exemplary punishment. In the first week of August
1933, he ordered the massacre of all the Assyrian residents of the Town of
Semele, and Assyrians found in the villages around the Semele town. He
charged the Assyrian civilians of involvement in subversive activities
against a legitime government, Iraq. The Assyrians were punished for
demanding their right to their traditional homeland.
The Government of Iraq, described the Assyrians
as aliens and rebellious. Semele is an Assyrian Town. The name, Semele
is an act of homage, in praise of God's power and creation. At a
distance, far away from Semele a huge mountain commands a majestic view. (Briekha
eili Shem-eil) -
Hallowed be God's
Name. The early Assyrian natives that built the town gave it the name
Shem-eil (pronounced Sem-ele)
as an offering of homage.
Assyria
until its dismemberment was ruled by the
Ottoman Empire. In Post WW I,
Turkey
and Persia absorbed N and NE of Assyria. Since August 1914, the majority
of the Assyrians that had been expelled from their homeland live in
neighbouring countries or abroad. Turkmen and Kurds, being Moslems, have
since overwhelmed their number, in north of Assyria (Iraq). Since Post WW
I, the Kurds have been drifting from the surrounding countries,
deliberately seizing Assyrian land, and populating their villages. The
Kurds have been feasting on the misery of the Assyrian displaced people,
with the full knowledge and blessings of the warring parties of the two
World Wars.
Though
doubtful, yet if democracy could be tailored, in Iraq, as is the case now
with the Arab Sunnites, Arab Shiites and Kurds, the current Iraqi
Government could surely include the Assyrians in the political equation
and allocate an adequate province for them in north of Iraq.
It is
against human decency to abandon the Assyrians and treat them as
throwaway, driving them away to live on the outskirts of the cities as
fringe dwellers. Several Assyrian families, who have escaped to the north,
live in the open, under trees and in cemetery yards, with little food and
shelter and less so, other amenities.
In order to help democratise the country, the Iraqi Government is called
upon (1) to restore the national identity of the Assyrian, (2) to
recognise the Assyrians as the indigenous people of Mesopotamia, of which
Iraq being part thereof (3) and to return them to Iraq to re-own their
land in the north. The Assyrians, being an historic part of the people of
(Mesopotamia) Iraq, are entitled to their province of an administrative
region, in line with the Arabs and the encroacher Kurds. Nineveh Province
is the historical land of Assyria. Assyria is the land of their
ancestors. Their Assyrian surviving descendants still live in Ninveh and
its surrounding towns and villages. It is legitimate to delineate it to
the Assyrians - not to the Kurds. Demographically, Assyrians are part of
the existing peoples of the Middle East. Their history is deeply rooted in
the Middle East region, particularly in northern Iraq.
Inclusion of the Assyrians in the political equation would bring to
success and satisfaction the establishment of
Iraq
on sound democratic principles. Assyrians cannot remain living in limbo.
Assyrians are not asking for more than their rightful share. Being of
Assyrian nationality and indigenous to the
Middle East, it is astonishing that these two lawful points have until now
been ignored, trivialized and wavered. The Iraqi Government has to decide
as to whether the Assyrians are IN or OUT, and make a final decision as to
their future political status in the
Federal
State of Iraq. They are no less deserving than the Kurds.
The
desire of the Assyrians to live as true Iraqis, equal to the rest of the
citizens of the country, seems to be a far-fetched wish. There will be no
peace in the Middle East. Islam's plan is to suck in Lebanon into the Arab
League as a Moslem state. Moreover, unless Israel accepts the
one-man-one-vote principle, the Palestinians will ultimately reject any
other solution to statehood and end up in a catastrophe. It would be
either all or nothing. The Assyrians, on the other hand, are asking for
only a share of their rightful entitlement. They have fared worse than the
Christian Arab and the Israelites. At least, the Christian Arabs and Jews
are officially recognized as such and identified by their national
identity; the Assyrians are not. They are called Nestorian, Christian,
Iraqi, Chaldeanassyrian, and ChaldeanAssryianSyriani. To continue to be
insulting and rub it in, Kurd has recently been added to the list of name
calls.
Yet,
neither of the two above states (Lebanon
and Israel) is considered as fully independent. Not because they are not
legitimate, both are legitimate, but because security and peace are
absent. Though Israel is stable and its economy marginally surviving, its
surrounding enemies would love to ravage it to utter destruction. While
Lebanon is being toyed with, flung from side to side, like a sea lion
playing with a ball, flinging it up high then resting it on its nose or
roughing it into the pool, with no prospect of ever freeing itself from
its rival that is growing in strength by the day.
Lebanon
is the victim of the wild beast of
Hezbullah,
Syria
and Iran: the tail, the body and the head. The recent incident between
Lebanon and Israel was just the wagging of the tail. The body has not yet
moved, feeding itself, by stacking more deadly weaponry and the head, (Aql-Al-Muddabbir)
the schemer has not yet sneered to show its fangs to vent its venom. It is
a matter of time. The whole of the native inhabitants of the
Middle East will eventually have to show reverence or genuflect to the god of
their state to survive.
In the
case of Israel, the only way for Israel to ensure its survival is to
apportion the parliamentary seats of their Knesset. To guarantee itself an
overwhelming majority, Israel would be obliged to allocate two thirds of
the seats to the JEWISH nationals. It would thus secure sixty six percent
plus (66.6%) of the seats - an overwhelming majority to enable it to
control its government and guarantee its survival. The remaining one third
(33.3%) may be apportioned among the remaining factions such as Arab
Christians, Druze, Arab Moslems, etc. This lobbying on the part of the
Palestinians is now being enhanced. Islam will never allow the emergence
of a non-Moslem state in the Middle East or in any other part of the Abode
of Peace of the Islamic Umma Nation. The one-man-one-vote system would be
dead in its track. Whether the Palestinians will accept this apportionment
is yet to be seen.
Religious groups, conflict of interest and clash of cultures are ravaging
Lebanon. Establishment of its national assembly is based on apportionment
of seats on ethnic and religious basis. Increase in the census of a
certain faction, causes tremor, tipping the balance in its favour,
prompting its interest over and above the interest of the public.
It is the root cause of instability of its so-called democratic system.
This scenario has been going on since its establishment in 1946. To
stabilize the country, elections should be run on secular basis, civil
law, and true and meaningful democracy. Those who promote religion to gain
office, target the gullible. Gullibility in the parliament leads to a rise
in internal conflicts and recurrence of violence. This leads to chaos,
coercion, and resistance, ending in armed confrontation, upheaval,
destruction, and loss of life and ruin of the country and its economy -
known as the vicious cycle of
Lebanon.
In
addition to their massacre, and continued persecution during the past
century, at the hands of their neighbouring countries and roving Kurds,
over 400 thousand Armenians and Assyrians were driven out of their homes.
They were forced to walk the long journey of the death march to the end.
Following declaration of the
11 November 1918 Truce, the Ottomans abandoned the death march of elimination. Long
columns of hundreds of thousands of civilian "evacuees" of men, women and
children were suddenly halted. They terminated their march and just dumped
them at the point where they had stopped in their tracks, at whatever
point they had reached, in the middle of the desert, on the outskirt of
cities, towns and villages, in rugged mountains and along riverbanks and
the roadside. They were left to their miserable fate without aid, food or
shelter. Starving and exhausted, the irregulars preyed on them. Their
children were kidnapped and their elderly killed for trying to hide and
shield their children.
The
Turks stopped all the expelled Armenians and Assyrians (now termed
"evacuees") from returning to their original dwellings. They threatened
them with death if they attempted to return to their homes. The ejected
Armenians and Assyrians were all abandoned and left to a miserable fate.
They remained stranded, left to fend for themselves. None of the stranded
Armenians and Assyrians was allowed to return to his native home. Plans
had already been drawn up by the two-warring-party signatories of the
Truce to fragment and assimilate the stranded Armenians and Assyrians with
the Arab Islamic majority in the newly created Islamic states. The present
Armenians of Aleppo and Assyrians of Khabur are testimony to that.
In the
aftermath of WWI, all the Balkan states that had been under the heavy yoke
of the Turkic rule eventually regained their independence one way or
another. The four non-Moslem colonized states of the
Middle East were not. They were dismembered and annexed to the neighbouring
Islamic countries of
Iran,
Iraq, Syria and Turkey. The traditional rights of the Assyrians and
Israelis were completely ignored. Their ancestral homeland was not
restored to them. They were not liberated in the true sense of the word.
They remained shackled under the "Millet" Rule of Islam. None of the
Western victorious countries gave a hoot, about the dire state of Biblical
Israel and the state of
Assyria
and their surviving peoples.
It would
be appropriate and legitimate for the
Federal
State of Iraq to agree to designate, in the North, a demarcated Assyrian
Region, in line with that of the Arab and Kurdish Governorate Regions,
within the Federal State of Iraq. Assyrians are indigenous to the Middle
East, in particular to the northern part of Iraq. They are, by right,
entitled to have part of their homeland restored to them. They are
dissimilar from the Arab and Kurd in racial identity, language, religion
and culture. Yet, though a minority the Assyrians are part of the majority
of the Iraqi populace. To survive and thrive,
Assyria needs to have its own exclusive Assyrian delimitated region. They
have the criteria that entitle them to return to their homes as
Assyrian, same as the Arab and Kurd. They are not asking for more than
their rightful share of entitlement.
Seizing
other people's land by force contravenes international conventions. The
key issue here is Moslem seizure and usurpation of other people's land.
When or by whom, yesteryear or centuries ago, by Arabs or Persians, Turks,
or Kurds, is irrelevant. The surviving Israelis and Assyrians are the
traditional and rightful owners of their land. They have the legitimate
right to retrieve it, with the assistance and support of the international
community and world body of the United Nations. No one, be it a person or
nation, rich or poor, politician, diplomat, or political leader, should be
above the law. None should be above the law. Assyrians are not demanding
'a pound of flesh'. They are not seeking vengeance. The Assyrians are
asking for part of their traditional land to be returned to them.
Like the
Palestinians, racially, the Kurds do not relate to the Middle East. They
are Arian in race. The Assyrians, Jews and Arabs are Semitic. Their roots
are deeply seated in the Middle East. The historical homelands of
Assyria,
Israel
and Arabia had existed there for millennia. Not so, with the Kurds. How
long would the world keep on denying it, and why deny it? The difference
between the two peoples is that, the Kurds allege that the Assyrians are
infinitesimal, phasing out, and on the brink of extinction. The
Palestinians, having been arabised, deny their Aegean origin and call the
whole of the Biblical Land of Israel "Palestine", thus denying their
Aegean roots. The Palestinians consider the Israelis, either non-existent,
foreign Zionist or Arab. The majority of the Assyrians have been expelled
from their homeland. While the whole Palestinians have been assimilated
with the Arab invading forces. They have since lost their original
identity, melted into the Arab-Islamic crucible melting pot. The name "Palestine"
is a political term more than a physical reality. How long will this world continue eluding itself and live on
deception?
A case
in point, if the four neighbouring countries, namely, Iran, Turkey, Syria
and Iraq, plus the future prospect of a so-called "Kurdistan" is added,
they would in the end, arrogate nearly seventy percent (70%) of Assyria.
What more do these greedy states want? Or is the West determined to
vanquish Assyria and its surviving people altogether, just to endear
itself to Islam. Does this mean that Islam has really instilled fear in
the heart of the Western world, leaving it gutless?
How and why does so-called Kurds, a people of
obscure and non-Semitic origin become acceptable and included in a Semitic
political equation, while one of the most ancient, deep-rooted people of
the Semitic race, namely, Assyrian, be excluded from its historical and
rightful place of the equation? Is it
because Assyrians are Christians, and not Moslems? Is the world heading
towards dividing itself, each according to its whim, ending in destroying
itself to oblivion? Whoever claims to be virtuous is wicked. Moreover, the
world is filled with wickedness. Otherwise, humankind would not have
invented a multitude of different religions and dumb gods to expiate his
sins.
The
Assyrians and Israelis are part of this world family. They did not just
mushroom haphazardly from under the ground, or drop from the skies. They
want the hub and heartland of their homeland returned to them. As the
indigenous people of Mesopotamia and native inhabitants of northern
present-day Iraq, the Assyrians have every right to reclaim, if not all,
at least part of their ancestral land up north. The Assyrians and the
Israelis have the right to their historical land, to return and live in
their traditional homeland, free and under their sovereign rule.
The
Assyrians are not prepared to sacrifice the remaining portion of their
ancestral land to the Kurds. The Assyrians need to be specific in their
demands, one of which should be urging the Kurds, through the world body
of nations, to return hundreds of Assyrian villages and land parcels which
have been seized since the early sixties, and hundreds more in earlier
years since Post WW I, to their Assyrian rightful owners. The displaced
Assyrians, now living in diaspora, must be guaranteed their return to
their original dwellings.
Well, if
it is (HALAL) lawful, after a period of over five centuries, for the
so-called Albanians, to return to Kossovo, Serbia, and claim it as home
for themselves, why is not the same law being applied to help the return
of the Assyrians to their homes? The Assyrians of Hakkari-Van, Turkey and
Urmia, Iran were evicted from their native land in the past century. They
ended up in the Province of Nineveh (Mosul). Some were rehabilitated in
isolation of their kinfolk in Iraq and Syria. Others were dispersed into
the Moslem majority and the rest were left stranded. They were scattered
all over the
Middle East and left to fend for themselves with a view to their gradual
assimilation with the Islamic majority to phase out their identity to
extinction. The two warring parties deliberately did so to deny the
Assyrians the right to return to their original dwellings. The warring
nations concluded peace treaties at the expense of the
Middle East
non-Moslem nations, using them, at times, as bargaining chips and at other
times, as a scapegoat.
The
Assyrians, being racially different from the Persian, Arab, Turk and the
roving Kurd, need to be recognized as the native inhabitants of former
Mesopotamia. Historically, the hub of Assyria was the Province of Nineveh,
(known by the Turks as Vilayet Mosul). Historically, the Assyrian Empire
covered the whole region of the Middle East. In its zenith, its demography
extended from Urmia (Iran) E, all the way through to Hakkari (Turkey)
W, down to the borders of present-day State of
Syria SW,
and to the Persian Gulf SE.
In the
latter years of Rome's waning power and influence, and fading glory, and
shrinkage, the Euphrates River became the dividing borderline that
separated
Assyria between the two warring nations of
Persia
and Rome. East of the Euphrates became a Satrapy and fell under the
Persian political sphere of influence. Up to the West of the Euphrates
became Roman Vassal/s.
Until
the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in 1918, Assyria had been functioning
as semi-autonomous, under the traditional system of tribal rule. Assyria
was legally described as a Turkish Province. During the Armistice of
11 November 1918, the two warring parties of WW I ended their armed conflict, by
signing an armistice truce, to the mutual benefit of the belligerents,
less the Oriental colonized states. They ignored the basic human and
traditional rights of the four colonized non-Moslem nations that had been
living under the archaic millet provision of the Islamic Shari'a Law. They
preyed on them. Like ravening wolves, they all ganged up and turned on the
four non-Moslem colonized nations, tore them apart and cut them to pieces
like 'mieces' and wiped their nations off the map. Those that survived the
carnage were isolated from the world scene and treated as throwaway. The
slaughterers' hands are still soaked in the warm blood of millions of
innocent Armenians, Jews, Assyrians, and Arab Christian, men, women and
children. It was, indeed, crime of the century, kept under wrap, which the
belligerents refuse until today to admit of having ever occurred. Imagine
them now being active members of the UN and having the power to cast their
vote. Democracy? Millions of homeless, internally and externally
displaced refugees, living in destitution, have yet to see that.
To
safeguard and defend its borders, during the outbreak of WW I, the Ottoman
Empire decided to mass over 60 to 120 thousand Turkish troops alongside
its eastern front with Iran. Turkey, at the behest of the German
intelligence, incited the Moslem Kurds to attack the Assyrians and drive
them off, away from their Assyrian native land, of the district of
Hakkari. Turkey sought the assistance of the marauding Kurds to eliminate
the Assyrians by declaring on them the traditional Islamic Jihad. After
expelling them, Turkey annexed the usurped Assyrian territory to its newly
created eastern border of Modern Turkey. Turkey has since extricated
itself from the Assyrian question, denying any wrong doing against them.
Since their internal displacement, in the
Middle East, in Post WW I, the Assyrians have been leading a miserable life,
uncertain of their future. Ninety years on and the Assyrians are seeking a
solution to their unresolved problem. It is hoped that the West would not
fall again into the same trap and rely on the Kurds or cunning diplomacy
of certain greedy countries for control of the
Middle East.
The Kurds and a number of Western countries are infamous for their
deception and illicit dealings. The Kurds are now raising their heads high
for being partners in their crimes against humanity, under the pretext of
liberation movements.
The
Kurd's policy in Assyria, present-day Northern Iraq, is to ensure that the
reins of Power of the Moslem Kurds remain wholly in their hands, similar
to what is currently happening in the Serbian Province of Kossovo. The
Kurds are intent on reining-in the Assyrians at all cost. Their ultimate
objective is to marginalize them from public office and rob them of their
land to curb their influence and discourage them from striking deeper
roots to remain on their soil and land as true citizens of their Assyrian
homeland. One of their main aims is to annul the name
ASSYRIA and replace it with the factious so-called name "Kurdistan."
Kurds,
by insisting, that Assyria be termed "Kurdistan", is an indication that
the Islamic Dar Al-Silm States of the Abode of Peace would cede the whole
of Northern Iraq to the Kurds. The so-called Kurdistan would emerge as an
Islamic State, rather than allow the non-Moslem native Assyrian Nation
rehabilitate in her homeland. The Kurds being traditionally Moslem would
be accepted as part of the Abode of Peace. Islamic religion is one of the
criteria that guarantee preference of the Moslem Kurd to the Assyrian
Christian. By Kurdifying Assyria, "Kurdistan" becomes an Islamic State,
part of the Abode of Peace of the Islamic Umma Nation.
The
Kurds, who do not have an historical link to
Assyria, are entrenched in usurping
Assyria
proper. They arrogate it under the fictitious name "Kurdistan".
Kurdistan Mountains have, since time immemorial, acted as the outpost
landmark, a buffer zone, separating Assyria Proper from Kurdistan
Mountains. The Kurds inhabited the landmark mountain range - a roughly
crescent-like chain of mountains, for seasonal pasturing of their herds.
The area extends from Zagros mountains southwest of Iran, ranging through
northward towards south Asian countries, adjacent to
Mesopotamia
north, and all the way to Toros mountains southwest of Turkey. This
crescent-like chain of mountains also acted as a demarcation and buffer
zone to Mesopotamia Proper. This is an historical fact. It is a travesty
that the international community does not admonish such rebellious and
reckless claim on the part of the Kurds. Unless, of course, Dar Al-Silm
states have willingly included the Kurds in their agenda as part of their
strategy to become and Islamic State and be added to the Abode of Peace -
a loss to democracy; a gain to Islamic colonial expansionism.
The
whole of present-day northern
Iraq
is admittedly part of Assyria's historical and geographical landscape and
expanse. While the Biblical land of Israel encompassed an expanse, over
three times its present size. People of the dismembered nations of Israel
and Assyria are not extinct, as many are led to believe. Assyrians, Jews,
Copts and the Christian Arabs make scores of millions. Although the Arabs
and Kurds have reduced their number in the north due to constant
harassment and abuse, the Assyrians do exist. They are alive and kicking.
The West claims to be aiming at breaking new barriers, to pioneer and
reach for the stars. If so, let them first clean their act, here on earth,
put their house in order, then aim at the universe to reach out for other
planets. First, let them love their neighbour as themselves then go on
goodwill missions, to spread amity beyond their world, if they are so keen
and intent on so doing.
