THE ASSYRIAN SITUATION IN IRAQ

international | rights, freedoms and repression | news report Friday June 20, 2003 00:16 by Wardina Nahrin

While all other minorities raise their ethnic flags the Assyrian flag is absent from Iraqi towns and villages. The general population feels that the Americans are there today and will leave few months from now and if they raise their flag the Moslems will turn against them later. Assyrian families received letters ordering them to abide by the rules of Islam, such as wearing the veil, or face harsh consequences like rape and murder among other things. Assyrians of Iraq have almost completely forgotten how to believe and pray. Assyrians have been, for all practical purposes, culturally Islamized.They have forgotten their savior Jesus Christ.

Rev. Ken Joseph Jr. has traveled to Iraq twice, before and after the War. On his second trip to Baghdad after the war, he brought with him tons of supplies for Assyrians, including drinking water, food, and medicine. He returned few days ago to the United States. We talked on the phone, and then we met for a while before his presentation.

I had seen him days before leaving San Jose for Iraq prior to the start of the war. Meeting him this time around was as if I was looking at a different person; he was not the joyful Ken I had met few months earlier. Obviously, the situation of Assyrians in Iraq had affected him, which was reflected throughout his presentation. In one certain moment he was so emotional that he could barely speak and that left tears in everybody's eyes. The presentation he gave in San Jose on June 11, 2003 was very depressing and discouraging for me. The picture he gave about the Assyrian affairs is completely different from what we hear through the Assyrian political organizations present in Iraq.

Rev. Joseph stressed in his presentation the importance of appropriate and qualified Assyrian representation in their negotiations with the Americans, who are going to decide the fate of Iraq. The Assyrians of Iraq, says Rev. Joseph, are not qualified to carry on sophisticated dialogue in English and are not in position to make any demands because they are afraid from the Kurds and the Shi'aa. Whatever demands the Assyrian representatives are making, are coming from a point of weakness and not from strength. The Assyrians, he says, seem to suffer from a Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome. Decades of oppression have left the Assyrians of Iraq afraid; they lack self-confidence; and are hesitant from presenting their rightful demands. They need qualified Assyrians from the Diaspora on the ground in Iraq to give those in Iraq moral support and to negotiate with the Americans aggressively.

The Assyrians of Iraq, continues Rev. Joseph, lack the basic communication skills in the language of those making the decisions, i.e. English. They are so happy when they get an opportunity to meet with the Americans but when they do, they seem to be content with having the meeting itself rather than addressing their demands. Furthermore, they seem sometimes confused about what the outcome of the meeting was all about! Rev. Joseph explains that in one specific meeting for example, in which he was present, he personally understood one thing while the Assyrians thought that the Americans had promised them something else!

Furthermore, Joseph stresses that the Assyrians must not rely on verbal promises and must be careful with the language the Americans are using. It is vital that any promises be documented and official, because at the end of the day, verbal promises could be forgotten all together or they simply would not stand. Most importantly, the Iraqi constitution is going to be written soon and Assyrians need urgently to look for qualified individuals, lawyers for example, or experts in how constitutions are constructed and phrased because how the constitution is worded could make a lot of difference.

One of the things that caught Rev. Joseph’s eyes throughout his visits was the absence of the Assyrian flag especially when everybody else raises their ethnic flags. He asserts that he visited so many towns and villages and he did not see one Assyrian flag. Before the war, he was told that Saddam will turn on them if they did that. What was the excuse for not raising the Assyrian flag after the liberation of Iraq, Joseph wonders. Many Assyrians had told him that nobody cares for, supports, or backs them up and they believe that the Americans will betray them just like the British did in the past. The general population feels that the Americans are there today and will leave few months from now and if they demand too much, ask for protection, or raise the flag, for example, the Moslems will turn against them later. Rev. Joseph then explained that Assyrians must ask for at least autonomy and self-rule; it is the only way to guarantee their protection because they cannot survive as a weak minority among a hostile majority.

One alarming point raised by Rev. Joseph was the fact that Islamic fundamentalists are not only controlling the south, but also enforcing their control over Baghdad. Fundamental Islamic groups, says Joseph, are laying their hands over many Iraqi service institutions, such as hospitals. These groups had infiltrated the hospitals and had began to install their connections in the administrative personnel depts. and started to pay the employees who have not been paid for months, thus gain their support. Joseph brought our attention to the letters that are being sent to Assyrian families ordering them to abide by the rules of Islam, such as wearing the veil, or face harsh consequences like rape and murder among other things. He had a sample of one such hand-written letter with him.

On June 13, BBC on-line News published an article in which UN officials confirmed the intimidation practices of Islamic extremists and the specific demands of radical clerics that women and girls, even Christians, must wear the veil. One UN Iraqi staff member had received a hand-written letter saying that she would be killed unless she started covering her hair, the BBC reported.

The June 13th issue of The Christian Science Monitor (CSM) touched on the issue of the treatment of women in the new Iraq. The CSM stated that women are being told to wear the "hijab," an Islamic head scarf, and the "'abaya," the big and billowing head-to-toe black cloth that is placed over a long black cloak—which itself is worn over a woman's under-clothing—with a separate, tightly fastened head scarf, similar to the chador worn in Iran. This is happening everywhere, including the universities. One wonders if the new Iraq is going to be ruled by the Islamic Shi'aa cleric and the fate of the Assyrian Christians in such society.

Rev Joseph was distressed by the fact that the Assyrians of Iraq have almost completely forgotten how to believe and pray. He adds that the Assyrians have been, for all practical purposes, culturally Islamized. He continues to state that they have forgotten their savior Jesus Christ; and have forgotten the promise of God that Assyrian will rise again. Whenever meeting with Assyrians, he reminded them with the Isaiah 19:23-25: "In that day shall there be a highway out of Egypt to Assyria, and the Assyrians shall come into Egypt, and the Egyptians into Assyria, and the Egyptians shall serve with the Assyrians. In that day shall Israel be the third with Egypt and with Assyria, even a blessing in the midst of the land: Whom the Lord of hosts shall bless, saying, Blessed be Egypt my people, and Assyria the work of my hands, and Israel mine inheritance."

One final note, Rev. Joseph tried hard to avoid talking about the name issue even when he was asked about it. Repeatedly, he excused the audience for not being able to answer questions or discuss issues in connection with this matter. However, he was so pressed that he finally stated that he really did not want to get into that specific issue but he explained: “I have met some hundred individual members of the Chaldean Catholic Church and asked every single one of them whether they were Assyrians. The only answer he received each time was a clear ‘No’." Rev. Joseph left it at that.

I was very disturbed throughout the three-hour long presentation and the following question and answer session. We are getting two different pictures here and one does not know whom and what to believe. Is the future of Iraq as rosy as our political groups are portraying it or is Iraq on the brinks of being another Iran or perhaps Lebanon?