FORGIVE THEM FATHER, FOR THEY KNOW NOT WHAT THEY DO
By Samy H. Adam
Kurdish Media, UK
May 19 2006
Zggurt at Ashur
No fair historian or student of political science disagrees with the
statement: “The Kurds have suffered the longest and persecuted the
most by savage and vindictive foes than any other nation during the
20th century”. It is a miracle that the people, language and culture
survives. The newly created Arab, Persian and Turkic nation states
after WW 1, have been in a continuous state of war with their organised
armies, air forces and all the toys of destruction afforded to them
by an indifferent world in order to erase the Kurds from existence
in the middle-east. Just like they successfully done to the ancient
Armenian, Chaldean and Assyrian communities.
It was only the fortitude and courage of the Kurds, the emergence of
Barzani as the undisputed leader of the Kurdish resistance movement,
whose tenacity and resilience guided a doomed cause towards hope
and salvation and finally the mountains or fortress Kurdistan, that
ultimately saved the Kurds, Divided, weak and unfulfilled but alive.
While waging their desperate struggle for survival, the much maligned
and oppressed Christians communities in Iraq, Turkey, Syria and
Persia, the Chaldeans, Syriacs, Armenians and Assyrians became the
natural allies and bonded brothers of Kurds and active participants
in the struggle for emancipation. During the early sixties the names
of Malak Chako and Margrate Malak spread throughout the world as
legendary guerrilla commanders. Muslim blood mixed with Christian
blood in a heroic saga of unselfish and patriotic resistance to the
evil and racist Arab-Turkic and Persian tormentors. Mosques along with
ancient churches were destroyed, along with villages and hamlets. The
Bishop of Kani-Masi was the roving Ambassador for Barzani and the
resistance abroad. No Iraqi must ever forget how an army unit led by
an Arab nationalist officer from Mosul set fire to the mouth of the
cave where 70 men, women and children from the Christian villages of
Dhaka and Sorya, near Duhok were hiding, shooting every one trying
to escape and suffocating the rest. That was in April of 1969.
A lot of water has passed under the bridge since. When Saddam’s
Bedouins savagery and bloodthirsty regime buried alive the people
of Kurdistan and destroyed its villages, the Christian communities
fled to the safety of Baghdad and the big Arab cities and ultimately
abroad. This was exactly what the Baath Arab nationalists wanted:
all Iraqi Christians to become model Arab citizens like Tariq Azziz or
leave the country. Were a great deal of money was spent by the regime
on the major Christian communities in Detroit, Melbourne..etc. to
create through a network of collaborators and greedy businessmen and
apolitical and indifferent Diaspora unaware of its history and true
place in the Iraqi society and the great contribution of Christians
and their sacrifice for the salvation of Iraq, either through the
great liberal and communist parties or the Kurdish resistance movement.
It saddens me to say that Saddam’s plans have almost worked. Large,
apolitical and unaware Iraqi Christian societies have mushroomed
all over the western world misguided and poorly informed by a set of
selfish, utopian and unrealistic politicians and political parties and
societies, many of whom were collaborators and informers in Saddam’s
security apparatus’. Their contribution both moral and material to
their brethren in the homeland has been negligible compared to the
Shiite, Kurdish and Sunni communities abroad. It was sad to see that
less than 7% of them voted during both general elections. It is even
sadder to see the shallow and crass TV satellite stations pretending
to be Assyrians or Chaldeans continuously attacking our best allies
and friends, the Kurds, and so called ‘patriotic’ Assyrians all over
Europe and the US activating and distorting information to demean,
implicate and spread hatred of Kurds while leaving the real tormentors
of our people, the ones who burned our churches and schools, and
killed and assassinated our doctors and lecturers in Basra, Dora,
and Mosul continue killing and expelling the remaining Christians
from their ancient habitats. The Kurds welcomed the fleeing Christians
housed and befriended them.
Since 1992, Assyrians and Chaldeans have become an integral component
of the Federal movement and played an important role in the Kurdistan
Regional Government, and the parliament in Erbil. They are part of
the administration, security, army and commercial life of the region.
I’m sure that many reactionary Kurdish tribes and individuals and
clergy harbours ill will towards our people, after all it was backward
Kurdish tribes who collaborated with Saddam to carry out the Anfal
campaign and massacre their own people.
Many isolated incidents of injustice against Assyrians occur, but can
anyone deny that the Kurdish political leadership has gone further than
any other political leadership in the entire Muslim world to address
the problem on equitable and fair bases. The holly Qur’an strictly
ordains that “your ruler and guardian must be of your faith”. And even
during the British mandate no Christian was allowed to be a Governor
of even the smallest sub district, even the Christian ones. The Late
and much lamented Franso Harriri became the governor of the most
populous city and the capital of Kurdistan, Erbil millions of Kurds
wearing black poured into the streets in grief upon his assassination
by Islamist terrorists.
The first Christian administrators for Telkef and Alkosh, Christian
cities in the Mosul district were installed by Peshmerga’s after its
liberation in 2003. Numerous churches and temples have been built,
schools teaching in Syriac language have been established, colleges
and Universities for Assyrians and Chaldeans are being planned by
KRG, clubs, associations and parties are founded from Sulaimaniyah to
Kani-Masi. Our people are free, proud and unafraid they voice their
discontent freely in their publications and media against excesses by
corrupt KRG officials. Our children are not constricted by fear from
Muslim bullies and Arab racists who think Christians are only good
to be bar tenders, waiters and septic tank cleaners, that withdrawn,
docile and resigned face worn by native Christians all over the
Islamic world indicating subservience is absent in Kurdistan. It is
our homeland. It is our future and our right, and together with our
compatriots and brother Kurds we shall protect and advance our region
to democracy, and prosperity.
So what does Assyrian nationalists in the Diaspora want. They
swear and denigrate the Kurds, portray them as the worst enemy,
continuously insult and spread hate in their websites and satellites
and literature. Do they think that if the Kurds were erased totally
from their homeland, it will be given to Assyrians? Do they think
that by hating and shouting the UN or USA will create a state for them
build houses, swimming poles and shopping centres just like the ones
in California or Sydney and then invite them to return to the republic
of Assyria?.. Stop hallucinating O sons of Nestor and Sinhareb. Stop
spreading hate against our brothers and allies and give a little
of your vindictive thoughts to our real tormentors and historical
oppressors. Come back to the land of your ancestors and help rebuild
and repopulate it. We might become autonomous, federal or independent
but only if: (1) we get back physically and claim our heritage. (2)
If we enter into an alliance with the Kurds tempered in fire and
steele and a common struggle against Turco, Persian, Arab despotism
and Islamic fundamentalism. Without these two conditions, we do not
stand a chance of bringing back even a shadow of the glory of Ashur.
O ‘Father thou art in Heaven forgive the ignorant and the misled and
the paid bearer of falsehood from among my people, they know not what
they do.