It was such an honor and privilege to read posts on Facebook and Twitter from Kerry Kennedy who included me in Women’s History Month Spotlight. Thank you, Ms. Kennedy, for this unexpected recognition.
Kerry Kennedy is the President of Robert F. Kennedy Center Human Rights and the author of “Speak Truth To Power” and “Being Catholic Now.”
By Reine Hanna
March 8, 2017 marks International Women’s Day. Here are 12 of many Assyrian women inspiring positive change across the globe. (The list is not in any order)
Attiya Gamri (Haarlem, Netherlands)
Born in Tur Abdin, Turkey, Attiya Gamri is an Assyrian member of parliament in the Netherlands. Attiya is also the President of the newly established Assyrian Confederation of Europe, and as such is the leading voice for more than 500,000 Assyrians across Europe. In this new role, Attiya advocates forcefully for the rights of Assyrians in the homeland, and looks to build stronger diaspora communities in European countries.
Rosie Malek-Yonan (California)
Rosie Malek-Yonan is a woman who wears many hats. She has gained international recognition as an actress, author, and activist—among many other things. Born in Tehran, Iran, she is a descendant of one of the oldest and most prominent Assyrian families. Rosie has dedicated much of her career to advocating for the rights of Assyrians, using her platform to bring attention to the Assyrian Genocide of 1914-1918. She has starred in major Hollywood films. As a human rights activist, Rosie has challenged world leaders for their failure to protect Assyrian communities in the Middle East.
Jonta, “Yimma d’Nahla” (Nahla, Iraq)
Helen Malko (New York City, New York)
Nineveh Dinha (Salt Lake City, Utah)Swedish-born Assyrian Nineveh Dinha is the founder of HER Magazine. She spent a decade working as a journalist for local television stations in Arizona (KYMA, NBC) and Utah (KSTU, FOX) and made appearances on Fox News, before pursuing her dream of launching her own digital publication. Through HER Magazine, Nineveh seeks to recognize the pioneering achievements of today’s women – who are forging the path for others to make their mark.
Muna Yaku (Erbil, Iraq)
Dr. Muna Yaku is a Professor of Law at Salhaddin University in Erbil. She is a widely respected advocate for Assyrian rights in Iraq. She was elected to serve as the only representative of Assyrians on a committee formed when the Kurdistan Regional Government began drafting a new constitution in 2015. Members of the KRG Constitutional Committee sought to reduce the rights of minorities during the process. Despite the pressure, she fought forcefully for the rights of Assyrians. When it became clear that her demands would not be met, she bravely walked o the committee in protest, saying “These are my principles, and I will never betray my people. I will not take part in the exploitation of my people.”
Sumer Homeh (Nairobi, Kenya)
Sumer Homeh is the founder and CEO of LocalAid, an organization that strives to empower vulnerable children and marginalized communities in Kenya. Under Sumer’s leadership, LocalAid has established a number of sustainable development projects which are aimed at ending poverty, such as the LocalAid Community Health Clinic, providing free services for people living with HIV/AIDS, and the New Horizon Family, a home for former street children, providing all of their basic needs and practical education in sustainable agricultural skills. An Assyrian native to Australia, she is a long way from home.
Savina Dawood (Ankawa, Iraq)
Co-founding Etuti Institute is just the latest item to be added to Savina Dawood’s resume. A beloved Assyrian activist, Savina has made a name for herself by voicing human rights violations against Assyrians in Iraq and Syria. She has dedicated her life to humanitarian work, entering conflict zones and providing food, shelter, water, and medicine to internally displaced people. Through Etuti, Savina works to empower Assyrian children and young adults in Iraq and Syria—in the hopes of creating a new generation of leaders in the Assyrian homeland.
Atorina Zomaya (Chicago, Illinois)
Atorina Zomaya is the founder of Assyrian Kitchen—an interactive cooking show based out of her hometown Chicago. Assyrian Kitchen explores traditions and ingredients that make up the Assyrian cuisine. Known for her contagious smile and entrepreneurial spirit, Atorina has recently partnered with the Oriental Institute to host Assyrian cooking classes. She was also recently featured on Windy City Live for her newest product, Buried Cheese. Outside of the Kitchen, she has been involved in a number of cultural and humanitarian projects related to Assyrians.
Maryam Shamalta (San Jose, California)
Maryam Shamalta has quickly become a household name in the Assyrian community worldwide. The host of “Khayla d’Attayouta” or The Assyrian Feminine Power on Assyrian National Broadcast, Maryam uses her weekly television program as a platform to empower Assyrian women. Each week, she invites inspiring Assyrian women onto her show to talk about their achievements in their various fields. In a community that has traditionally has been dominated by male personalities, Maryam has changed the game.
Kara Hermez (Stockholm, Sweden)
Kara Hermez is an Assyrian activist based in Sweden known for her courage. She is an international advocate for Assyrian rights in Iraq and Syria, representing Swedish Assyrians in the Assyrian Confederation of Europe. She has been featured in a number of television programs and various publications regarding her work as an Assyrian. Just last month, she returned home to northern Iraq with two Swedish journalists highlighting injustices faced by Assyrians in the region.
Samar George (Khabour, Syria)
Samar George is barely recognizable now as a soldier in the Assyrian Khabour Guards. In 2016, photos of Samar kneeling over her husband’s casket went viral after he was killed in action just months after they’d married. Not long afterwards, photos surfaced of Samar in uniform, training with the Khabour Guards. She decided to honor her husband’s sacrifice and carry on his mission by taking his place on the battlefield, defending Assyrian lands against terrorism and other threats. The Assyrian region of Khabour in northeastern Syria saw its darkest period when ISIS invaded its villages in February of 2015. It is said that Samar now carries her late husband’s gun.
❖❖❖❖❖
This article is re-published with permission from the author, Reine Hanna.
Wishing everyone a very Merry Christmas
and if you celebrate other faiths,
I wish you a very Happy Holiday Season filled with love and peace.
The Crimson Field is available at Amazon and The Crimson Field
In August of 1933, the Simele Massacre would become the first of many massacres committed by the Iraqi government against the Assyrians of Northern Iraq. The systemic targeting of this Christian nation rapidly extended throughout 63 Assyrian villages in the Dohuk and Mosul districts resulting in the deaths of 3,000 Assyrians.
The Simele Massacre would also become the inspiration for Ralph Lemkin who would later coin the term “genocide.” In 1933, Lemkin made a presentation at the League of Nations Conference on international criminal law in Madrid. His essay on the Crime of Barbarity as a crime against international law was presented to the Legal Council. Based on the Simele massacre, Lemkin’s concept of the crime would later evolve into the idea of “genocide.”
Today, Assyrians around the world commemorate this event on August 7th as the Assyrian Martyr’s Day.
Happy Assyrian New Year, Akitu! 6761 years and still standing strong!
Akitu, is the Assyrian New Year Festival. In Assyrian it is also called Kha b’Neesan which translates into “the first day of Spring.”
The Akitu Festival began with the Sumerians. The word Akitu means “barley” in Akkadian. The Sumerian calendar had two festivals one in the Autumn beginning in the month ofTashritu in celebration of the “sowing of barley,” the other in Spring, beginning in the month of Nisannu celebrating the “cutting of barley.”
The Babylonians celebrated Akitu but only in Nisannu, a festival that lasted eleven days in honor of the supreme god Marduk and his crown prince Nabu.
The Assyrians also adopted the Akitu Festival when in 683 BC King Sennacherib built two Akitu Houses, one outside the walls of Assur, and the other outside Nineveh.
Modern day Assyrians continued to celebrate the festival but called it Kha b’Nisan, the first day of Nisan or Spring, however, it is usually observed on April 1st, which corresponds to the start of the Assyrian calendar. In recent years, the Akkadian name, Akituhas been re-adopted by Assyrians and is the most important national festival.
After the invasion of Babylon, the Persians adopted many Assyrian and Babylonian customs and practices. The celebration of Norooz (new day) on 21 March, has its roots in the Akitu Festival.
© 2011 Rosie Malek-Yonan. All Rights Reserved.
FOX 11 News video report.
Published : Tuesday, 21 Dec 2010, 2:49 AM PST
Reporter: Christine Devine
Posted by: myFOXla.com
Los Angeles – Christians who live in Iraq are targets of terror, and becoming an endangered species. That’s the disturbing message coming from the Simon Wiesenthal Center, where leaders of many faiths came together to call attention to what’s happening.
On October 31st, suicide bombers attacked a Christian church in Baghdad, killing 68 people.
The Christian community says al Qaida has targeted them, and that the church bombing is the latest of many incidents.
Thousands of Iraqi Christians are leaving the country.
Rosie Malek-Yonan, author of “The Crimson Field“, the story of the massacre of Assyrian Christians a century ago, weighs in on whether history is repeating itself.
Related Articles The Christian Post and Christian Today Australia:
Faith Leaders: Stop Religicide of Iraqi Christians
Assyrian Christians will be among those minority groups that will not be free to worship as they choose this Christmas, according to Rosie Malek-Yonan, Assyrian activist and author of The Crimson Field, which chronicles events of the Assyrian genocide in Iraq.
“They will be playing a game of Russian roulette,” Malek-Yonan said. “They never know when they leave home to attend church if that is going to be their last mass, if that is going to be the last time they will leave home.”
(Los Angeles) – In the aftermath of the October 31, 2010 Massacre at the Church of Our Lady of Salvation in Baghdad, the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, California, hosted a Press Conference at the Museum of Tolerance on Monday December 20, 2010, to expose the crisis that the Assyrian nation has been facing in Iraq.
The Simon Wiesenthal Center is one of the largest international Jewish human rights organizations with over 400,000 member families in the United States.
Assyrian activist, Ms. Rosie Malek-Yonan, and religious leaders of various faiths were invited to attend the conference to call attention to the extermination of Assyrian Christians in Iraq.
Conference speakers included Ms. Rosie Malek-Yonan, author of The Crimson Field, Dr. Carl Moeller, CEO of Open Doors, Fr. Alexei Smith, Director, Ecumenical and Inter-religious Affairs of the Los Angeles Archdiocese, Imam Jihad Turk, Director of Religious Affairs of the Islamic Center of Southern California and Swami Sarvadevananda, Assistant Minister of the Vedanta Society of Southern California.
Also in attendance were Randolph Dobbs, Secretary of the Spiritual Assembly of the Bahais of Los Angeles, Nirinjan Singh Khalsa, Executive Director of the California Sikh Council and Joel Pilcher, V.P. of Communications for Open Door.
In his introduction, Rabbi Yitzchok Adlerstein, director of Interfaith Affairs at The Simon Wiesenthal Center noted that the systematic campaign of persecution of Christians in Iraq, namely the Assyrians, was a repeat of what happened to the Jews in the1940’s. He thanked Ms. Malek-Yonan for bringing the plight of the Assyrians in Iraq to the attention of the Wiesenthal Center and said, “We call on all people of faith, and all Americans, to speak up for the embattled Christians of Iraq and against the disturbing pattern of violence against other faiths and places of worship.”
In her media address, Ms. Malek-Yonan thanked the Wiesenthal Center and Rabbi Adlerstein for hosting the press conference but stressed the importance of not reducing the Assyrian Nation to a mere religious designation as it only served to further eradicate the Assyrians from their crumbling ancestral homeland.
An outspoken advocate of the Assyrian identity, Ms. Malek-Yonan said, “Assyrians were in the region long before Iraq was a country and long before the advent of Christianity.” She spoke of the personal nature of the Iraq War against her nation. “This war is personal. It is my nation…my blood.” Her heartfelt comments struck a chord with the attendees as I glanced around the room and witnessed the quiet nods in solidarity. “The Assyrians in Iraq will be playing a game of Russian roulette this Christmas. They never know when they leave home to attend church, if that is going to be their last mass.”
Ms. Malek-Yonan spoke of the crimes committed against the Assyrian nation in Iraq since the beginning of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. She criticized the silence of the western media in the face of the ongoing atrocities committed against her vulnerable nation including sixty-six bombed churches, massacre, kidnappings for ransom, murder and the total devastation of lives.
Ms. Malek-Yonan also touched upon the Assyrian Genocide of 1914-1918 and the Semele Massacre of Assyrians in Iraq and explained that the term genocide was coined as a result of the Semele Massacre.
The conference attendees called on the U.S. House of Representatives to pass HR 1725, a resolution “condemning and deploring the murderous attacks, bombings, kidnappings, and threats against vulnerable religious communities in Iraq.”
Perhaps the most poignant moment of the day came at the conclusion of the Conference, when Imam Jihad Turk, Director of Religious Affairs of the Islamic Center, expressed to Ms. Malek-Yonan his disdain for the maltreatment of the Christians in Iraq.
Ms. Malek-Yonan asked, “Why then do you not stand with us and make public statements condemning the acts of violence and aggression against Christian Assyrians? Why have the peace loving Moslems not attended any of the Black Marches around the globe in opposition to the Baghdad Church Massacre?
“We didn’t know what was going on in Iraq. No one informed us,” Mr. Turk replied.
“So now you know, Mr. Turk. Now you are informed,” replied Ms. Malek-Yonan.
In a follow-up to the Press Conference, Ms. Malek-Yonan, was interviewed by Fox News that aired the same evening in a live broadcast.
The YouTube link to the Fox News interview can be found here.
After leaving the Museum of Tolerance, I sat down with Ms. Malek-Yonan to ask her a few questions. She graciously obliged.
Miller: I noticed when you got up to speak today, you had a prepared statement but then you folded it and spoke from your heart. Can you elaborate on that?
Ms. Malek-Yonan: I was very honored and appreciative to be given the opportunity to speak at the Conference, but I was also getting annoyed that the Assyrian identity was kept out of the equation by all the westerners. Yes we are a majority Christian nation, but that is separate and apart from our national identity. I had to address that fact and it became necessary to dispense with my prepared statement and speak from my heart. I am very much involved in the Assyrian fight for recognition. I’m part of the movement. I live it and deal with it daily.
Miller: If you can describe Assyrians in one word what would that be?
Ms. Malek-Yonan: Tolerant. And how befitting that the Press Conference was held at the Museum of Tolerance.
Miller: Why do you say tolerant?
Ms. Malek-Yonan: Just look at what Assyrians are enduring and yet they don’t retaliate against their oppressors. When they bomb our churches, we don’t go bombing their mosques. We remain tolerant. Perhaps one day our oppressors will learn to be tolerant as well. They will have to in order to become a democratic society.
Miller: What is your view on the Iraq War?
Ms. Malek-Yonan: You haven’t done your homework if you have to ask me this question.
Miller: I think I know your view. I want others to know it as well.
Ms. Malek-Yonan: I am absolutely anti war! I was against the Iraq War from the onset. War was not the answer because there was no pending question that warranted the attack or invasion of Iraq. Weapons of Mass Destruction was just a cover story. Unfortunately the Assyrians and other minorities in Iraq became casualties of a senseless war that has caused devastation and loss of precious life on all sides.
Miller: What about the non-Assyrian or non-Christian Iraqi casualties of war? Do you ever speak for them?
Ms. Malek-Yonan: They have louder voices and resources than the Assyrians. There are enough activists and politicians fighting their cause. But Assyrians have no voice. As I said before, war devastates all sides. It’s only natural that I speak for Assyrians.
Miller: What will you do next?
Ms. Malek-Yonan: Continue to write, speak and educate. Continue to call upon Congress and the European Union to address the crises Assyrians are facing. Though I know those calls will fall on deaf ears as they have in the past years. But for the sake of the Assyrians in the homeland and the multitude of refugees still struggling in Iraq’s neighboring countries, we must speak out at every opportunity.
Miller: What keeps you going day after day?
Ms. Malek-Yonan: The belief in the basic goodness of humankind. I hope that one day we will in fact witness democracy, equality and tolerance not just in Iraq but also throughout the world. It many not happen in my lifetime, but one has to hold on to hope and work towards bringing that dream, that idea to fruition. Assyria will never be abandoned because I am not alone in the peaceful battle for her.
Miller: Thank you for your candor and Godspeed.
Ms. Malek-Yonan: My pleasure.
by T. Miller
20 December 2010
Photo of Rosie Malek-Yonan Courtesy of John Chimon
by Rosie Malek-Yonan and Soner Önder
23 November 2010
(AINA) — When on 31 October 2010, the Church of Our Lady of Salvation in Baghdad was purportedly seized by terrorists, Al-Qaida’s Iraqi affiliate, the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI), claimed responsibility and defined churches as: “The dirty place belonging to the infidels that Iraqi Christians have long used as a base to fight Islam.”
The well-organized attack on civilian parishioners and priests resulted in a terrifying hostage takeover. As the drama unfolded, it became one of the bloodiest massacres against the Assyrians since the beginning of the 2003 Iraq War. Three priests and 68 non-combative parishioners were murdered and dozens of terrorized men, women and children wounded, leaving a nation forever emotionally bewildered and scarred. Amnesty International called the barbaric attack a “war crime” while worldwide, Assyrians view this massacre as yet another attempt to uproot their existence from the Middle East.
In a press release, ISI stated: “All Christian centers, organizations and institutions, leaders and followers, are legitimate targets for the mujahedeen (holy warriors) wherever they can be found.”
However, the selection of Christian Assyrians as “legitimate targets” by fundamentalists is not a new phenomenon. One can find similar events throughout the course of history.
But why do they want to target the Christian Assyrians?
The simple answer is that these fundamentalists want to rid Iraq of its Christian population. Historically, one can find deeply rooted discourses towards Christians in the Middle East, which also constitute the background for the present-day discrimination, oppression and massacres.
Hostages and Infidels
It is common knowledge that Christians in the Middle East are viewed as “infidels” and “collaborators” with Western countries and as such have become targets whenever there is a crisis in the region involving Western countries, particularly if the west is the aggressor. Fundamentalists such as Al-Qaida often act out their aggression against Western politics by attacking Christians in their own backyard. The rapidly shrinking number of Christians in the region attests to that.
What is remarkable in the case of the Assyrians of Iraq is that they are not only in the midst of an ethnic cleansing but also a religious cleansing since they are essentially the people of the cross and as such, not only have they become hostages in their own churches, but are also hostages in their own homeland. The tolerant behavior of the Assyrians particularly their acceptance of others in the region is viewed by the oppressors as being submissive and since the Assyrians do not strike back in retaliation, they continue to remain easy prey.
Even though Assyrians are the indigenous people of today’s Iraq, having been there long before the creation of Iraq and the birth of Christianity, they are treated as outsiders and are being forced to leave their homeland. This peaceful nation has been turned into a “hostage nation” with no one negotiating a release. They are hostages since so many have virtually nowhere to go and no means to help the situation they are trapped in.
The mass migration into neighboring countries in the past several years has produced catastrophic results. Poverty, kidnappings for ransom, and the lack of provisions for even a meager existence is what this “hostage nation” is forced to contend with since the international community has until now to a large extent ignored this massive problem. Their thunderous silence is a contributing factor to the ongoing violation of the human rights of the Assyrian nation and all Christians who call the Middle East home.
In the eyes of the Assyrians, this indifference to their suffering is nothing new. The 20th Century was wroth with events that shaped the future of this small nation as it clung to survival through periods of genocide, massacres, discrimination, death marches, and forced mass migration to distant shores. To say they are disappointed in the international community for not having shown interest in their crisis is indeed an understatement.
Sometimes it is difficult to find the right words when confronted with unbearable reality. The bloody Church Massacre in Baghdad is indeed one of those times. It leaves one speechless. To convey mere words of condolences is simply not enough for the survivors and a nation in mourning. This is more than just a tragedy when one hears the testimonies of the surviving eyewitnesses and studies the published and unpublished photos and videos of the bloodshed. Bodies ripped to pieces, chunks of flesh stuck to wood and plaster and a desecrated house of worship turned into a house of death.
How does one begin the healing process? How does one mend the minds and hearts of the survivors who will forever recount the long ordeal and the aftermath of such a tragic event? The bombed church will be rebuilt. Bullet holes will be repaired. Shattered glass will be replaced and a new coat of paint will cover the bloodstained walls and ceiling. But what does one do with the memories that will linger on at Our Lady of Salvation? How can one push the ghosts away that will remain there for all eternity?
These collective images reconstruct the post-modern version of El Guernica. For the minorities of Iraq, the war against human rights and humanity has reached its boiling point. All polite social behavior is meaningless when despicable acts are unleashed on the meek. Offers of condolences are hollow words to the Assyrians who are facing extinction.
What this nation needs is a concrete plan of action to be formulated and enforced immediately for their protection.
Admittedly, the Church Massacre in Baghdad did generate a modicum of sentiment from the international community, more so than in the past. But the overall reaction has been weak. The obligation for a serious global address of the ethnic and religious cleansing of the Assyrians including all its various Christian denominations in Iraq is met by avoidance of the issue altogether. Most Western leaders and in particular the U.S. are defining this critical moment in history by their words or lack there of. It is not only this ancient civilization that is on the verge of extinction. It is rather the beginning of the demise of all civilizations when humanity crumbles and no one attempts to stop the domino effect that will soon become a global epidemic.
Is it just wishful thinking on the part of the Assyrians and many other ethno-religious minorities to continue to wait for the Iraqi Government and the international community to bring about peace and safety to the region?
Samuel Beckett’s 1948 absurdist play, Waiting for Godot, serves as a grotesque metaphor for the Assyrians. They are much like the two main characters of the play who wait for Godot while occupying themselves over a course of two days with everything from the mundane to even contemplating suicide. And Godot never arrives.
Assyrians have been waiting for Godot for many years. They waited for Godot during and after the Assyrian Genocide (1914-1918) when two-thirds of that nation perished in Ottoman Turkey and Northwestern Iran. They waited for Godot during the 1933 Simmele Massacre. They waited for Godot during the first and second Gulf Wars. Today Assyrians are still desperately waiting for Godot.
ESTRAGON: What do we do now?
VLADIMIR: Wait for Godot.
ESTRAGON: Ah!
Silence.
VLADIMIR: …What are we doing here, that is the question. And we are blessed in this, that we happen to know the answer. Yes, in this immense confusion one thing alone is clear. We are waiting for Godot to come—
ESTRAGON: Ah!
Post Saddam: Unfolding the Assyrian Destiny in Iraq
Before the US-led invasion of Iraq, there were around 1.4 million Assyrians living in the Iraq. Today less than 400,000 remain. Following Saddam’s fall and during the reconstruction of Iraq, many NGOs reported that minorities have become even more isolated and discriminated against in all aspects of social and political life, inevitably turning into soft targets for Al-Qaida and related sub-contractor organizations.
To date, the Iraqi Government has proven to be incapable and grossly unmotivated to protect the ethnic and religious minorities who are citizens of its own country. This indifference is resulting in massacres and mass exodus particularly in the case of the Assyrian Christians. Assyrians are facing two choices: either continue to wait for Godot or flee from Iraq. The latter is a difficult decision in light of the fact that many do not want to leave what they recognize to be their ancestral homeland dating back thousands of years. Despite this, multitudes have been forced to leave for Western countries.
According to UNHCR statistics, although Assyrian Christians constituted 3% of the Iraqi population before the war, 15% of the registered refugees are in fact Assyrians of all Christian denominations. According to church sources, 40% of Iraq’s post-war refugees are Christians.
Those who fled to neighboring countries continue to live in deplorable conditions. There are numerous published reports on the alarming circumstances of these refugees in Syria and Jordan.
Refugees who are able to reach Western countries, more often than none, will face an unfriendly reception. This attitude partly stems from the financial burden host countries are forced to bear, resulting in the development of inhumane and unethical policies in dealing with Iraqi refugees. Closing their borders and sending these helpless refugees back into the middle of conflict and doing almost nothing for their protection in Iraq, is unjustified and does not fit with democratic moral values.
The Approach of the International Community
Western countries have moral and political obligations to act effectively not only by voicing their concern, but by actively protecting the human rights of at risk nations. Why are they then casting themselves in the role of Godot?
On 26 October 2009, the US Senate adopted Resolution 322 whereby expressing the need to call for a more effective policy. However, the crux of the problem has not been addressed and nor has a specific measure been developed regarding the protection of the ethnic and religious minorities in Iraq.
A statement issued by the White House Press Secretary, Robert Gibbs, in the aftermath of the Assyrian Church Massacre in Baghdad, is indicative of the superficial approach to this massive problem in Iraq: “The United States strongly condemns this senseless act of hostage taking and violence by terrorists linked to al-Qaeda in Iraq…”
The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) has stated that it is time for the Obama administration to “ensure that U.S.-Iraq policy prioritizes the plight of the country’s vulnerable religious minority communities (…)”.
On the issue of “political agenda”, political scientist, John W. Kingdon (1984), theorizes that the first necessary step is the recognition of a question as a “political problem.” Applying this to the situation of the Assyrians, their problems in Iraq are not recognized as a specific “political problem” to warrant the issuance of a strategic policy. Thus, many countries are not becoming vested in this issue and do not see this as worthy enough problem.
One of the obvious pitfalls of isolating the Christian question is that since they are in fact Iraqi citizens, they are being treated equally and not looked at as a separate ethnic group that is internally under attack by other Iraqi citizens. Inserting this kind of diplomacy is just a polite way of overlooking the question altogether. This argument is definitely blind and unethical with regards to the specific problems of minority groups.
The March Towards the End of Time for the Assyrians and Other Minorities in Iraq
The end of time is close at hand for the Assyrians in Iraq. On the heels of the Church Massacre there were additional attacks on individuals and on Christian Assyrian homes resulting in more murders and devastation. One does not need to be an analyst to predict the future. It is rapidly writing itself.
Assyrians have lost their patience after seven years of endless attacks, constant threats and the nonchalant shrug of the international community. Peace is nowhere in their future and their homeland.
The UK based, Archbishop Athanasios Dawood, has openly advised all Christians to leave Iraq. A week after the massacre, in an interview with an Assyrian, the respondent said, “In my neighborhood they all hate me…When you see people on the streets, they ask, ‘Why are you still here? You should leave…'”
Although it may seem wrong to advise people to leave their homeland or country of origin, however, one must consider the safety and welfare of the innocent who are caught in the crossfire of a situation not of their own making or choosing.
If this acute condition persists and no serious efforts are taken for the protection of these people, they will rapidly flee. In that case, is any Western country ready and willing to receive thousands of refugees? Is any government ready and willing to orchestrate a safe mass exodus without merely distributing them around the globe but relocating them near already established Assyrian communities in order that the integration into a new life will not be a complete culture shock? They will need the support of their own communities in the diaspora.
It must be noted that German and French officials have offered asylum to Iraq’s Christians, however, according to the Washington Post (23 November 2010), Yonadam Kanna, the Christian Representative in Iraq, has rejected asylum offers from the west, criticizing them as “meddling in Iraq’s problems.”
No Democratic Future for Iraq Without Minorities
The U.S. must develop a clear and concrete policy to address the core problem it had a hand in creating. The United Nations Secretary General must play a key role by taking immediate initiative to follow through with a solid plan to insure the security and well-being of these minorities. Similarly, the European Union, particularly the High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy must become involved in the process in order to develop a European approach to the question at hand. Considering the fact that many refugees are seeking protection in EU Member States, this question should be of high priority to the EU. International humanitarian organizations, the Iraqi Government and even other Middle Eastern countries must all step up to the plate.
In order to discuss the different dimensions of the problem and focus on finding common solutions, an international conference focusing on the situation of Iraqi minorities can be a significant starting point. With the UN or Iraqi government’s initiative, such an international conference may be able to bring all concerned policy makers, including states and NGOs under one roof leading to the development of a new policy for the protection of all minorities in Iraq and eventually all minorities in the Middle East.
Finally, it is essential to consider as a viable solution, the realization of a self-administrative area in the Nineveh Plains in Northern Iraq where Assyrians and other ethnic and religious minorities constitute the majority of the population. Aside from its potentially democratic function, a self-administrative area can become a “shelter” for Christian Assyrians and other minorities in Iraq. If the true aim of Iraq is to realize a democratic society and not an Islamic state, it must tolerate and safeguard all its citizens regardless of differences in religion, language, ethnicity, race and gender. As a matter of policy, Iraq should immediately provide effective security measures in Baghdad, Mosul and particularly in other areas where minority groups are targets of Al-Qaida and other terrorists groups. With the disappearance of its indigenous people, there will be no democratic future for Iraq. Without democracy in the region, the demise of the human race is at hand.
©2010 Rosie Malek-Yonan and Soner Önder. All Rights Reserved.
Rosie Malek-Yonan, Author, The Crimson Field
Soner Önder, Political Scientist, Stockholm University
Published: Assyrian International News Agency
by Rosie Malek-Yonan
Assyrian International News Agency
23 August 2010
Los Angeles (AINA) — What will you do if a loved one is kidnapped? To what extreme will you go to see them returned safely? Will you pay a kidnapper to have your child returned? What will you do if the authorities do not mount an investigation? Will you give in to the demands of the kidnappers? How much will you pay to have your teenage son returned? What if you can’t come up with the thousands of dollars being extorted for the return of a brother or sister? Would you pay the ransom knowing there is a chance you would still never see your abducted father or mother?
These are not just hypothetical questions. They are questions Assyrians have been forced to reconcile with since the onset of the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. The targeted kidnapping of Assyrian Christians in Iraq has been big business and will continue to escalate with the U.S. withdrawal from the region.
How to pay for the release of a loved one is a monumental concern for those who have no means to pay the kidnappers. On the other hand, paying off kidnappers in Iraq carries a greater ramification as the U.S. treats these Assyrian victims as colluding with Islamic terrorists.
But what if you didn’t have the means to pay the ransom? What then?
This is the anguish Yonan Daniel Mammo’s family has been living with since his abduction several weeks ago.
Yonan is married and has two small children. They live in the Assyrian neighborhood in Kirkuk. Yonan’s sister and brother also live in the area. His children have no idea why they have been separated from their father, though I suspect his six-year-old daughter will most likely understand more than her two-year-old brother. She is old enough to know her mother’s tears are caused by her father’s absence.
Yonan graduated with a bachelor’s degree in English from Baghdad University. He worked at Hammurabi Exchange Office on Al-Jamhwaria Street in Kirkuk and supported his family on a modest salary of $300 a month.
At 8 pm on 29 July 2010, when Yonan left his place of work, four armed gunmen jumped out of a BMW in front of the Exchange Office and took the Assyrian man as hostage. According to witnesses, Yonan was stuffed in the trunk of his abductor’s vehicle. That evening, Yonan’s family waited for his return. There was no sign of him. The family clung to hope and prayer. Nothing else was in their power. With the dawn of a new day, their hopes were shattered.
On 30 July 2010, the Muslim kidnappers used Yonan’s own cell phone to contact the family. Yonan was allowed to briefly speak with his family. He informed them that he was taken against his will. The kidnappers then demanded ransom in the amount of USD $150,000 for Yonan’s safe release. When the phone went dead, Yonan’s family realized their nightmare had already begun. Countless Assyrians had been kidnapped. They knew all the stories. All the lives that had been cut short. And now the tragedy was theirs to live through.
Yonan’s family did not have the means to come up with this kind of money.
Two weeks dragged on. When on 14 August 2010, the kidnappers realized that this was an impossible amount for the family to raise, they lowered their demand to USD $100,000.
On 23 August 2010, sources informed me that the local police in Kirkuk raided several locations in the city in search of Yonan but came up empty-handed.
There has been no other contact with the kidnappers.
This Assyrian tragedy has not come to an end yet. Yonan’s future rides on the morals of his hostage takers as his family continues to hold on to hope that perhaps they will be able to raise the money to buy back Yonan’s freedom.
The Assyrian tragedy in Iraq is the hidden carnage that the world has chosen to ignore. But what of the role of the elected Assyrian officials in Iraq? What are their responsibilities towards members of their nation in these cases? Why are they not publicly demanding the release of Yonan? Why are they not publicly demanding a full investigation? Why are they silent when so many Assyrians continue to suffer in this manner? Why is Yonan’s release not being negotiated with the kidnappers? Why must the family remain in isolation and live in fear of further retaliation from the kidnappers?
One family member writes in frustration, “Why am I Assyrian? Why am I Christian?” These are questions of frustration that stem from Islam’s intolerance of the Assyrian nation in Iraq.
What if Yonan were your father, brother, son, husband or friend? What would you do?
© 2010 Rosie Malek-Yonan. All Rights Reserved.
Rosie Malek-Yonan is an Assyrian actress, director and author of The Crimson Field. She is an outspoken advocate of issues concerning her nation, in particular the Assyrian Genocide and the plight of today’s Assyrians in Iraq since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion. On June 30, 2006, she was invited to testify on Capitol Hill about the genocide and persecution of Assyrians in Iraq. The study of the Assyrian Genocide globally absent from the curriculum of educational institutions changed when in 2009 the SUNY system (State University of New York) added “The Crimson Field,” to its curriculum for a World Literature class. She has worked with many of Hollywood’s leading actors and directors. She played the role of Nuru in New Line Cinema’s “Rendition.” To schedule an interview with her please send your request to contact .
Akitu, is the Assyrian New Year Festival. In Assyrian it is also called Kha b’Neesan which translates into “the first day of Spring.”
The Akitu Festival began with the Sumerians. The word Akitu means “barley” in Akkadian. The Sumerian calendar had two festivals one in the Autumn beginning in the month of Tashritu in celebration of the “sowing of barley,” the other in Spring, beginning in the month of Nisannu celebrating the “cutting of barley.”
The Babylonians celebrated Akitu but only in Nisannu, a festival that lasted eleven days in honor of the supreme god Marduk and his crown prince Nabu.
The Assyrians also adopted the Akitu Festival when in 683 BC King Sennacherib built two Akitu Houses, one outside the walls of Assur, and the other outside Nineveh.
Modern day Assyrians continued to celebrate the festival but called it Kha b’Nisan, the first day of Nisan or Spring, however, it is usually observed on April 1st, which corresponds to the start of the Assyrian calendar. In recent years, the Akkadian name, Akitu has been re-adopted by Assyrians and is the most important national festival.
After the invasion of Babylon, the Persians adopted many Assyrian and Babylonian customs and practices. The celebration of Norooz (new day) on 21 March, has its roots in the Akitu Festival.
©2010 Rosie Malek-Yonan. All Rights Reserved
With the onset of the 2004 US-led invasion of Iraq, the ancient Assyrian Christian community was at once under attack. An early sign of violence against the Assyrians was the bombing of the Holy Spirit Church in Mosul on 26 June 2004. To date, 65 churches have been attacked or bombed; 40 in Baghdad, 19 in Mosul, 5 in Kirkuk and 1 in Ramad
Thousands of Assyrians have fled their ancestral homeland in Iraq and are living as refugees in Jordan, Lebanon and Syria. Western media and the press has willfully neglected to report the countless murders, rapes, kidnappings for ransom of Assyrians in Iraq. In 2006, a western source in Iraq informed me that there was a “blackout” on Assyrian stories out of Iraq. At the invitation of the U.S. Congress, on 30 June 2006, I brought these deliberate atrocities against the Assyrian nation in Iraq to the attention of the U.S. government in a testimony I gave on Capitol Hill. Congressman Christopher Smith assured me that he would look into all the crimes against my Assyrian nation. You can find the text of my Congressional Testimony here.
Six years later, the violence against Assyrians shows no sign of letting up. The Iraq War has now lasted longer than WWI during which time the Assyrian nation lost 2/3 of its population in a systemic ethnic cleansing in Ottoman Turkey and northwestern Iran.
With the 2010 Iraqi elections just a few days away a new wave of threats, intimidation and murder is being unleashed against my nation in “so-called” democratic Iraq in order to deter Assyrians from going to the polls.
On Sunday 28 February 2010, hundreds of Assyrians in Baghdad came out in a peaceful demonstration against the murder of ten Christians in Mosul. The murders sent Assyrians in a mass exodus from Mosul. On 4 March 2010, the United Nations humanitarian arm reported that 4,320 Iraqi Christians were displaced following the recent unrest in the northern city of Mosul.
The International Assyrian News Agency (AINA) published the following list of the Assyrians who were murdered in February 2010:
♰ February 20: Gunmen entered the house of Aishwa Maroki, 59, and killed him and his two sons: Mokhlas, 31, and Bassim, 25.
♰ February 20: Adnan al-Dahan, 57, was found with bullet wounds to his head in the northern Mosul district of al-Belladiyat. He had been kidnapped from his grocery shop the week before in the neighborhood of Al-Habda, also in northern Mosul.
♰ February 17: The bullet-riddled body of Wissam George, a 20-year-old Assyrian Christian, was recovered on a street in the south Mosul residential neighborhood of Wadi al-Ain.
♰ February 16: Zia Toma, a 21-year-old engineering student, was killed and Ramsin Shmael, a 22-year-old pharmacy student, wounded.
♰ February 15: Rayan Salem Elias, a Chaldean Christian who ran a business dealing in a traditional meat dish, was killed outside his home in East Mosul.
♰ February 14: Fatukhi Munir, an Assyrian Catholic, was gunnd down inside his shop in a drive-by shooting.
The recent events in Mosul, should give the Assyrian communities outside of Iraq enough of an impetus to go out and cast votes without fear of persecution or loss of life. For those of us who live comfortable lives in the west, the importance of voting in the 2010 Iraqi elections are even greater than ever. We are at a turning point. In the upcoming Iraqi elections that will take place on March 5, 6, and 7, we are limited to five seats only! Please take the time to vote your conscious and don’t remain unconcerned.
If you are an Iraqi citizen, or have a parent or grandparent born in Iraq, you are eligible to vote. Please exercise that unique right!
But before heading out to the polls, here’s what you need to take with you to cast your vote in the United States:
Iraqi born citizens: Two forms of identification, an Iraqi passport and Iraqi citizenship and a US identification or passport.
American born citizens: Parent’s Iraqi passports or Iraqi citizenship documents along with either a US identification or passport.
You may cast your vote for any of the following slates and choose any of the 48 candidates on the slate. There are also three Christian candidates running in Prime Minister Maliki’s Party. You do not have to cast a vote for a candidate from a political party you do not agree with. You can choose any slate and any candidate from the same or a different slate.
Slate #389 (Two Rivers List) The Assyrian Democratic Movement
Slate #390 The Assyrian Chaldean Syriac People’s Council
(Note: The Kurdistan Democratic Party and Massoud Barzani are openly supporting this slate since the candidates are card carrying members of the KDP and as such this vote will in essence be for a KDP member.)
Slate #391 The Chaldean Council
(Note: The primary candidate, *Hikmat David Elias Hakim, is a card-carrying Kurdistan Democratic Party member. Please be aware that this vote will be a KDP vote!)
Slate #392 The National Ur List
(Note: *Ablahad Efrem Sawa Hanna is a card-carrying member of the Kurdistan Democratic Party. Please be aware that this vote will be a KDP vote!)
Slate #393 (independent) Sargis Jospeh Sargis
Sargis Jospeh Sargis Ohan
Slate #394 Ishtar Democratic Coalition
Slate #395 (independent) John Joseph Thomas Yousif
John Joseph Thomas Joseph
Slate #337 Prime Minister Maliki’s Party
Please get out to the polls and vote! Your vote will send a loud message to our brothers and sisters in Iraq that they are not forgotten and that we stand with them. If you are among the handful who are calling for the boycotting of the elections, I am asking you to take a hard look at the bigger picture. No one will care if we boycott. But they will gladly take what is rightfully ours because we will be giving it to them. Step in the shoes of members of our own nation who can’t make the trip from their homes to a voting place to simply cast a vote because they are being threatened. I am also asking you to please consider those who will bravely make the deadly trip to the polls.
Please vote! The alternative will be devastating for the future of the Assyrian nation.
by Rosie Malek-Yonan
4 March 2010
Assyrian International News Agency
Guest Editorial by Rosie Malek-Yonan
24 January 2010
Los Angeles (AINA) — The State University of New York, also known as SUNY, is the largest university system in the United States. With sixty-four campuses, it can be traced back to 1816. Four Ivy League State University of New York colleges, which still exist today at Cornell University, were established in 1862.
Professor Ellene Phufas, who teaches World Literature for the SUNY system, contacted me to include my book, “The Crimson Field” about the Assyrian Genocide (1914-1918) for her students to read.
This all came about after Professor Phufas read an article I wrote for AINA about my book’s website being hacked into and defaced by Turkish criminals. Though the actions of cyber-terrorists are a felony in the U.S. and most countries, they did in fact increase book sales, caused option offers and paved the path for my book to become a vehicle for the study of the Assyrian Genocide at institutions of higher learning.
“I have the privilege of selecting texts that I believe are very significant and sometimes ignored or unknown,” Professor Phufas wrote to me.
Up until now, the study of the Assyrian Genocide that coincided with WWI, and took place in Turkey and northwestern Iran in the Assyrian inhabited region of Urmia, was globally absent from the curriculum of educational institutions.
“The Crimson Field” is on its way into classrooms and in so doing the Assyrian Genocide is no longer invisible. It was required reading in 2009 and will continue in 2010. Phufas’ own translation of Ilias Venezis’ “NOUMERO 31328” had previously been used as an example of books about the Christian Genocides in Asia Minor by Ottoman Turks and Kurds.
Professor Phufas gave me her rationale for selecting “The Crimson Field”:
“The interplay of history and fiction is a subject of immense range and has been used to greater or lesser effect over the years by ethnic groups who have been victimized by catastrophic genocide aggression and hatred. A successful author of such a work must also necessarily be a researcher in order to delve into the past and the horrible events that have occurred especially if there is no substantial body of scholarly material available in the academic milieu of that particular historic event. From this point of view a work such as this becomes as significant a historical document as any other written by the standards of historical research methods. When a work such as this, is one of few if any to be found, then it become even more important that the wider public becomes aware of these events. Such a work is Malek-Yonan’s ‘The Crimson Field.’
For many years of my life I was vaguely aware of modern day genocides, but was overwhelmingly familiar only with the Jewish Holocaust committed by the Nazis and their allies in Europe during WWII. I was vaguely aware of the Armenian genocide but that too was a reality beyond my immediate concern or interest. It was never discussed in Church or any of my courses while at college. After I started teaching at Erie Community College in Buffalo, NY, I came into contact with refugees from Southern Sudan, people who had witnessed and survived unbelievable horror: indiscriminate bombing, enslavement, rape, and even crucifixion. I realized then that all these refugees had been victimized because of their faith – they were Christians who had been deliberately attacked by Muslims and the Islamic government in their country for the simple fact of being Christian. As I started to read about their plight, I began to discover and re-discover my own history, that of the Greeks, Armenians, and Assyrians who had virtually disappeared from Asia Minor now the land called Turkey. And then I learned that they had disappeared not because of emigration for political positions but simply because of the genocidal ethnic cleansing policies of the Turkish government based on religion and ethnicity before, during, and after WWI.
Millions of people had vanished in a brutally short time: men women and children murdered as well as forced into exile from their millennia-old homelands. Having read many works about the Jewish holocaust I wondered why there were so few sources – both fictional and non-fictional about the Christian Holocaust in the Middle East, a tragedy that continues to this day especially as experienced by the Assyrian People of the Middle East in Iraq, a people who had already suffered repeated attempts to wipe them out and who had somehow managed to survive. Why was so little, if anything, being said in the popular media about these millions of victims? Why were repeated attempts to recognize the Armenian Holocaust being debated and then mysteriously dropped from sight? Why was the Greek Genocide of Asia Minor not being discussed or even written about except rarely and only fairly recently?
I decided that there were some small steps that could be taken that were within the realm of my capability. First I started translating works from Greek into English, realizing that many of the descendants of the Greeks who came to America could no longer read Greek. Secondly, I decided that I would use works of literature in my classes at the college…works that focused on the deliberate attempt to destroy the millennia old communities of the peoples throughout the Middle East. However, very few sources were available. Then one day by reviewing the AINA website I found out that an author called Rosie Malek-Yonan had written a book called ‘The Crimson Field.’ Not a moment passed before I ordered the book and read it—yes, in one night. I knew that this would be a world that my students could read about and understand while at the same time learn about a people who so often resided in the recesses of our minds if at all. Yes they were as important as the Jewish Communities of Europe, as the Southern Sudanese of Sudan, or the Tutsis of Rwanda. Their story had to be told too. Malek-Yonan had started the process.
I can only hope that more authors of these above mentioned communities will begin to tell their stories – the stories of the ancestors who lived and died, and yes, some of whom survived. Santayana had it right: ‘Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.’ We can no longer afford to keep the past in darkness, what the Ancient Greeks call ‘Lethe’ – concealment or forgetfulness. We owe our unforgettable ancestors a debt of memory: We cannot give them anything else. But we can at least give them their words back and an audience to read them. That is the first step.”
Every Assyrian is a living link to the genocide. The past does not end. In writing “The Crimson Field,” I wanted to at the very least preserve the history of my own family but the process and end result has proven to be much more than that.
© 2010 Rosie Malek-Yonan. All Rights Reserved.
Rosie Malek-Yonan is an Assyrian actress, director and author of The Crimson Field. She is an outspoken advocate of issues concerning Assyrians, in particular the Assyrian Genocide and the plight of today’s Assyrians in Iraq resulting from the 2003 U.S.-led invasion. On June 30, 2006, she was invited to testify on Capitol Hill about the genocide and persecution of Assyrians in Iraq. She is on the Board of Advisors at Seyfo Center in Europe that exclusively deals with the Assyrian Genocide and is an Ambassador for the Swedish based Assyrians Without Borders. She has worked with many of Hollywood’s leading actors and directors. She played the role of Nuru Il-Ebrahimi, opposite Reese Whitherspoon in New Line Cinema’s “Rendition.” To schedule an interview with her please send your request to contact @ theCrimsonField . com .
Published: Assyrian International News Agency
“I am an Assyrian.
That is not negotiable.
I may not have a country with boundaries, but my country is in me.
My country is in my soul and in my heart.
I am Assyria.”
from Rosie Malek-Yonan’s THE CRIMSON FIELD
Remembering the Assyrian Genocide (1914-1918)
View videos dedicated to the Assyrian Genocide:
An Assyrian Exodus (ENGLISH)
An Assyrian Exodus (EASTERN ASSYRIAN)
An Assyrian Exodus (WESTERN ASSYRIAN)
(Los Angeles – AINA) At the Assyrian Universal Alliance’s 26th World Congress held in Sydney, Australia, in May 2009, Rosie Malek-Yonan, author of The Crimson Field, was named as “the 2009 Assyrian Woman of the Year” for her substantial contribution in advancing the Assyrian national cause by promoting international recognition of the Assyrian Genocide and for her extensive efforts in conveying the needs of the Assyrians to the United States government.
This prestigious award is given annually to well-known individuals in both the Assyrian and Non Assyrian communities in acknowledgment of their achievements in providing individual service to the Assyrian community worldwide.
The selection process of the AUA 26th World Congress was made after a special committee chose a number of names that included those who have achieved excellence in community accomplishments, leadership and service.
The Assyrian Universal Alliance is a member of Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization (UNPO).
Press Contact for Ms. Malek-Yonan:
Trip Miller
The Trip Miller Company
Assyrian International News Agency
Guest Editorial by Rosie Malek-Yonan
1 June 2009
Los Angeles (AINA) — In the early part of the 20th century, the Ottoman government carried out a deliberate and systematic mass ethnic cleansing of its Christian inhabitants, namely the Assyrians, Armenians and Greeks. The proclamation of a fatwa for jihad against the Christians in Turkey quickly spread to northwestern Persia, in the densely Assyrian populated region of Urmia (Urmi). From 1914 to 1918, two-thirds of the Assyrian population perished in a genocide that has remained cloaked under a shroud of secrecy. However, the anonymous Assyrian Genocide’s staggering losses of 750,000 souls remains ever present in the remembrances of a nation that has vowed to never forget.
My maternal grandmother and paternal grandparents were survivors of the Assyrian Genocide. As I was growing up, the oral history describing the events of 1914 through 1918 by my grandparents were constant to me, just as they were to most Assyrian families. There seemed to be a need for a steadfast vigilance by these family elders who spoke of the mass murders of our nation in great detail.
Touched by a single event that unified the Assyrian nation, for survivors such as my grandparents, the constant retelling of these events was indicative of the personal conflict the elders were sorting through and a reflection of the frame of mind of much of the nation.
In time I began collecting corroborating letters, photos, family journals, family war diaries, newspaper articles and clippings and the quest for documenting and preserving this unwritten chapter of Assyrian history.
The extraordinary events my grandparents described formed images that hung in my mind haunting me my entire life. To this day, I am astounded at the valor of all the survivors and how they faced their demons and lived to tell their tales as eyewitness to their own tragedy. Their bravery and dauntless spirit and ability to endure in times of adversity were nothing short of remarkable.
I am in awe of the fallen Assyrians who called on their own courage to face the heinous crimes committed upon them. They are the silent heroes of my nation.
Those who know no compassion and mercy astonish me. Those who live daily lives weighted down by hatred resulting from ignorance. The very ones who continue to condemn Assyrians for their nationality and religion.
But mostly, I am still lost in admiration of my grandparents’ sense of dignity, honor and grace that was the code by which they lived. They were among the more than 70,000 Assyrians forced to flee Urmia in the final mass exodus of the winter of 1918 that split off in two opposing directions. My 18 year-old maternal grandmother, Maghdleta, whose husband had just been murdered, fled north towards the Russian frontier, while my paternal grandparents bundled their newborn infant and followed other Assyrians south towards Mesopotamia. Not everyone was as lucky as they were to reach safety.
Though the perpetrators of these crimes against the Assyrians were Ottoman Turks, Kurds and local Turks in Persia, I was never taught to hate an entire race of people. Everyone must be judged on his or her own deeds. “Don’t condemn one man for the sins of another even if they share the same blood or name,” my grandmother would say.
In 2005, I published my book, The Crimson Field, chronicling the life of Maghdleta, my grandmother’s hellish reality of the Assyrian Genocide. At the time, I wasn’t aware of the extraordinary journey I was about to embark upon. I was simply making a record of one Assyrian family’s life.
Against everyone’s advise, I sent a copy of The Crimson Field to a Turkish journalist from Istanbul. She wrote back saying: “It will be a privilege for me to read your book and to have a deeper insight about one of the oldest cultures of the world and their great tragedy. How I wished my heartfelt apology could alleviate the sufferings the Assyrian people have gone through! Your considering me as an elder sister would be a great consolation for my feeling of shame for being a member of a nation which is responsible for those sufferings.”
The book I had written to document my family’s history was rapidly leading to bonds across the seas with strangers whom I have come to know as friends.
The withholding of historical facts and the manipulation of evidential findings and lack of global public education on the subject of the Assyrian Genocide has not only lead to the persistence of denial by governments around the globe including the United States, but it has also perpetuated the continuation of a century-old raced-based hatred and hostility.
However, the Turkish journalist’s statement to me reinforced my belief that there are courageous people who will stand with the Assyrians in their quest for the recognition of the past atrocities committed against my nation. Truth shines its own light and will emerge through darkness.
While Assyrian sympathizers are bountiful, Turkish laws prohibit journalist or anyone for that matter from publicly acknowledging and supporting the Assyrian Genocide. For this reason, I will not reveal the identity of this journalist who will surely be condemned for her perspective on a subject still taboo in her country.
The pledge of friendship with this remarkable Turkish journalist as well as scores of other Turkish readers of my book, are the bonds of humanity and understanding that I had hoped my book would bring about. Atrocities committed by a nation cannot reflect every member of that nation. Every person shall stand alone on judgment day regardless of ethnicity, gender, religion and color of skin.
In her final review of The Crimson Field she writes: “It’s a deeply moving, impressive, inspiring book, full of emotions and vivid depictions of life. I admire it.”
But it is naive to presume that one journalist’s viewpoint is representative of all Turks. Clearly there still exists a deep racial hatred and intolerance that is passed on from generation to generation. Since 2005, my book’s website has been hacked into by Turks several times (AINA 1-21-2008, 11-20-2007). The latest and sixth such incident occurred just last week. The Turk behind this malicious act was most probably a young hacker who knows nothing of the circumstances of the Assyrians who seek justice and not revenge.
This Turkish hacker has no idea who my grandmother, Maghdleta, was and what sacrifices she made to ensure the safety of future generations of her family and nation. All he sees is a book that represents a nation that he must hate not because of anything done to him or even his family but because he blindly follows in the footsteps of his father.
Ironically, as savvy as they are, the only thing these Turkish hackers have managed to accomplish thus far is to drive the sales of my book through the roof! Perhaps a nod of gratitude is in order for this economic boost.
The Turkish government’s shroud of secrecy to suffocate the Assyrian Genocide is slowly slipping as more and more hackers continue to bring focus on this issue through Internet vandalism. Though I cannot condone such dreadful behavior, I can’t help but chuckle at the end result.
The acceptance of the Assyrian, Armenian and Greek Genocides will ultimately result in the downgrading of many Turkish notables who have been revered as historical heroes of the Ottoman Empire.
I am an optimist and will hold out to the idea that perhaps one day, civilization will advance to a level when we can begin to have open dialogue about all genocides and holocausts without contributing to more hatred even if we have to downgrade a few heroes.
© 2009 Rosie Malek-Yonan. All Rights Reserved.
Rosie Malek-Yonan is an Assyrian actor, director and author of The Crimson Field. She is an outspoken advocate of issues concerning Assyrians, in particular bringing attention to the Assyrian Genocide and the plight of today’s Assyrians in Iraq since the U.S. lead invasion of Iraq in 2003. On June 30, 2006, she was invited to testify on Capitol Hill regarding the genocide and persecution of Assyrians in Iraq by Kurds and Islamists. She is on the Board of Advisors at Seyfo Center in Europe that exclusively deals with the Assyrian Genocide issue. She has acted opposite many of Hollywood’s leading actors and has received rave reviews both as an actor and director. Most recently, she played the role of Nuru Il-Ebrahimi, opposite Reese Whitherspoon in New Line Cinema’s “Rendition,” directed by Oscar winning director Gavin Hood. To schedule an interview with Rosie Malek-Yonan, please send your request to: contact @ thecrimsonfield.com.
The first Assyrian religion was Ashurism derived from Ashur, the Assyrian supreme god. In the first century A.D. under King Abgar V of Edessa, Assyrians were the first to collectively as a nation convert to Christianity.
Considered as the first Patriarchs, Thaddeus, Thomas and Bartholomew lay the foundation for the Church of the East in 33 A.D. Today, the church’s official name is the Holy Apostolic Catholic Assyrian Church of the East with Mar Dinkha IV as its Patriarch with his See in Chicago.
By 451 A.D. in the Council of Chalcedon, a conflict arose over the belief of whether or not Christ’s single inseparable nature was both human and divine, leading to the split of the Church of the East thus giving birth to the Syriac Orthodox Church (Jacobite). Presently, Mor Ignatius Zakka I is the Patriarch of Antioch and all the East with his See in Damascus.
By 780 A.D. the Syriac Orthodox Church witnessed a division when Mar Maron lead his followers from Syria to Mount Lebanon and founded the Maronite Church, named after its founder. The church is now a Roman Catholic Uniate and its Patriarch is Mar Nasrallah Boutros Sfeir with his See in Bkirki, near Beirut.
When in 1552, election vs. hereditary became the main source of dispute in choosing a Patriarch in the Church of the East, the election faction split off, establishing allegiances with the Catholic Church of Rome. Pope Julius III named this new church, the Chaldean Church of Babylon to distinguish it from the Church of the East. Emmanual-Karim Dally is its Patriarch with his See in Baghdad.
Today Assyrians are also members of other Christian denominations of Assyrian churches, including Presbyterian, Evangelical, Pentecostal and Baptist. And of course there are Assyrians who have no religious following and those who have been forced into Islamization.
Leading to WWI, almost all Assyrians continued to live in their ancestral homelands of Northern Iraq, Southeast Turkey, Northwest Iran and Northeast Syria. The Assyrian Genocide of WWI, the Semele Massacre, continuous persecution and policies of Arabization, Turkification and most recently Kurdification, forced many Assyrians to leave their ancestral homelands. During the gulf war of 1991 and the 2003 U.S, lead invasion of Iraq, hundreds of thousands of Assyrians were forced to flee Iraq. Additionally, the 1979 Iranian Revolution also witnessed a huge migration of the Assyrian population from Iran.
The recent mass exodus and forced migration of Assyrians from the Middle-East has dispersed the four million population to live in diaspora in their adopted countries across the globe.
Regardless of religious denomination, regional dialects and geographic setting, Assyrians are of one common ancestry sharing the same history and struggles.
© 2009 Rosie Malek-Yonan. All Rights Reserved
Akitu, is the Assyrian New Year Festival. In Assyrian it is called Kha b’Neesan which translates into “the first day of Spring.”
The Akitu festival began with the Sumerians. The word Akitu means “barley” in Akkadian. The Sumerian calendar had two festivals one in the Autumn beginning in the month of Tashritu in celebration of the “sowing of barley,” the other in Spring, beginning in the month of Nisannu celebrating the “cutting of barley.”
The Babylonians celebrated Akitu but only in Nisannu, a festival that lasted eleven days in honor of the supreme god Marduk and his crown prince Nabu.
The Assyrians also adopted the Akitu Festival when in 683 BC King Sennacherib built two Akitu Houses, one outside the walls of Assur, and the other outside Nineveh.
Modern day Assyrians continued to celebrate the festival but called it Kha b’Nisan, the first day of Nisan or Spring, however, it is usually observed on April 1st, which corresponds to the start of the Assyrian calendar. In recent years, the Akkadian name, Akitu has been re-adopted by Assyrians and is the most important national festival.
After the invasion of Babylon, the Persians adopted many Assyrian and Babylonian customs and practices. The celebration of Norooz (new day) on 21 March, has its roots in the Akitu Festival.
©2009 Rosie Malek-Yonan. All Rights Reserved
by Rosie Malek-Yonan
11 March 2009
(AINA – Los Angeles) He is only seven-years-old and another one of the children of Assyria who has gone missing without a trace.
I received his photo and information less than 24 hours ago. Time and time again, I kept returning to the photo of the beautiful dark eyed boy with dimples framing his smile and I wondered how many more Assyrian children will be snatched from families in the Middle-East who are desperately trying to make it through just one more day without incident.
The photo belonged to Aishu Auraay.
He loved learning to read and write Assyrian. He attended classes at the Assyrian School at Mar Oraha Church in Jaramana, located some ten kilometers Southeast of Damascus.
On Tuesday, 2 September 2008, Aishu and his sister, Aumta, left home to meet up with a friend and the three walked to the Assyrian School at Mar Oraha Church. That afternoon Aishu was seen playing in the school/churchyard playground. When at 5:30 P.M. the school bell rang, he never made it to class and was nowhere to be found.
His sudden and unexplainable disappearance left his family devastated and in shock.
For twelve years, Aishu and his parents, Auraay D. Nissan and Yuneea A. Zumaeeah and five siblings, Mati, Aumta, Katreen, Linda, and Auleen lived in Tel Kepe (Telkaif), fifteen miles from Mosul in Iraq. On 16 November 2007, the family was forced to flee to Syria in search of freedom from oppression. Little did they realize that by crossing into Syria they were embarking on an unthinkable journey no one should experience. Having arrived in Syria, the family was obliged to live in three separate locations in the vicinity of Mar Oraha Church.
Aishu’s family, like most Assyrian refugee families was subjected to extortion, harassment, threats and discrimination by bands of criminals who continually prey on the helpless as soft targets.
When Aishu’s disappearance was reported to the authorities, the local police with no results conducted a poor investigation at best. Six months later, the bewildered and distraught family arrived in Australia in March 2009 without their beloved Aishu. They have now settled in western Sydney near Fairfield. Having finally arrived in a country far from the criminal elements they were accustomed to confronting daily, nothing settles their troubled minds and broken hearts knowing a part of them is left behind in Syria.
For Aishu’s parents, today hope is their guiding light as they stumble through their darkest hours.
The family now wants to re-open the investigation into the disappearance of their son by seeking the aid of international organizations and police agencies.
They are also looking to the Assyrian community to lend a hand in their endeavor to locate Aishu by keeping his image and name in the public eye by placing his photograph on personal, business and social network websites such as Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter as well as satellite television programs.
Most refugees facing abuse and exploitation are generally reluctant to come forward with information and decline to speak to police or local authorities. But they may confide in other family members and friends. In this case, Aishu’s family believes that someone may have information that can lead them to his whereabouts. Therefore, the public is asked to contact family members and friends that live in Jaramana or have recently migrated from there or visited the region.
As this is an on-going inquiry, the public is asked not to jeopardize the investigation by posting any publicly undisclosed details or information they may have on forums or websites. Instead you are asked to submit your information privately and directly to the contacts below. All information submitted will be handled with the utmost confidentiality and care.
Primary Contact:
Mr. Gaby Kiwarkis
Telephone: +0410086479
Secondary Contact:
Mr. Ashur Isaac
Official Website for Aishu Auraay
©2009 Rosie Malek-Yonan. All Rights Reserved.
Rosie Malek-Yonan is the author of The Crimson Field and can be reached at Rosie.
Published: Assyrian International News Agency (AINA) 12 March 2009
Press Release
5 February 2009
The untold Assyrian Genocide of 1914-1918 was a systematic ethnic cleansing of the Assyrian people perpetrated by the Ottoman Turks, Kurds and Persians. Two-thirds of the Assyrian nation totaling 750,000 souls perished in the Ottoman Empire and Northwestern Iran as a result of genocide, starvation, dehydration, disease and exposure to elements while thousands fell victim to kidnappings, forced assimilation, deportation and migration.
The Assyrian Genocide is a missing chapter of world history. For the Assyrian people, it is very difficult to fathom how the genocide of a nation, can so easily be dismissed and intentionally ignored by the international community. To date, the Assyrian Genocide has not been publicly acknowledged.
Rosie Malek-Yonan’s AN ASSYRIAN EXODUS is a short video project that has brought Rosie Malek-Yonan (author of The Crimson Field), David Yonan, Ninos Aho and Emil Brikha, four accomplished Assyrian artists from around the world in a common belief, that while the world may not acknowledge the Assyrian Genocide, however, through the arts, the history of the Assyrian nation can be preserved.
This project is dedicated to the memory of the victims of the Assyrian Genocide and those forced to walk the “Death Marches.” Survivors who safely made the unthinkable journey to distant shores around the globe, were able to secure the identity of future generations of Assyrians now living in diaspora.
The text of this video p
Presented in English, Eastern Assyrian and Western Assyrian languages, An Assyrian Exodus video project is a Rosie Malek-Yonan and Emil Brikha Production recorded in Los Angeles, Chicago, Sweden and Malta in 2008.
Official Facebook Fan Page for Rosie Malek-Yonan’s AN ASSYRIAN EXODUS video project.
For further information about this project and how to reach the artists, please contact: Trip Miller at The Trip Miller Company.
roject is derived from the overture of the original full-length piece by the same title, written and performed by Rosie Malek-Yonan, which was previewed in Hartford, CT in August 2008. The stories of An Assyrian Exodus are based on Malek-Yonan’s personal family journals and war diaries written during the final exodus of the Assyrians fleeing from Urmia, Iran in 1918.
YouTube Links:
Rosie Malek-Yonan
4 July 2008
I stand for a thousand voices. I stand for the voices of the past. I stand for the voice of my Assyria. I stand for those who speak to me in my dreams, consuming my mind. They nudge me out of sleep to tell me their stories. Their images haunt me. I lay awake to hear their tales:
“You didn’t walk the Death Marches, but your soul was here among us. You will carry the memories of our nation with you when you are born in the future. You will have the memories of the ragged people we became. You will know our pain. You will see our eyes. They stifled our cries but you will hear us. Be our voice. Tell our tale.
We carried very little on our backs and so heavy a load in our hearts. Fear and panic crippled us. Sleep was snatched from our eyes. Comfort gave way to blistered feet and thirsty mouths.
Mothers with swollen bellies carrying hope of the future, sang lullabies to stone babies discarded on the roadside.
We witnessed our Assyrian nation being torn down soul by soul. But we pushed on days into nights. We prayed nights into daybreak hoping to survive the carnage.
We didn’t know it then, but we, living a threadbare existence, were planting the seeds of the future children of Assyria even as we dragged our tired limbs across the desert towards the unknown.
The Death Marches into the wilderness became a journey to safeguard the future of the Assyrian nation. You are the future of Assyria.
Strike a match to light the night out of its darkness. Don’t forget us. La menshiyat.”
I strike a match to light the night out of its darkness. Le menshiyan. I will not forget.
© Rosie Malek-Yonan 2008. All Rights Reserved. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Rosie Malek-Yonan with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
Note: This piece is the “Overture” to a one-woman-stage play written and performed by Rosie Malek-Yonan. The play is based on true family journals and war diaries of the Malek-Yonan Family written during the Assyrian Genocide of 1914-1918 and the final Assyrian Exodus from Urmi, Iran in 1918. The play was previewed in August 2008 in Hartford, CT.
by Rosie Malek-Yonan
26 November 2008
The quotes we believe in, say a lot about who we are. His favorite quote is: “A musician must have the heart of a gypsy and the discipline of a soldier.”
His name is Elden and he’s a soldier at heart. He is a young man who lives in the epicenter of the Assyrian homeland. He can hear the steady heartbeat of Assyria pounding in the ancient tombs of his ancestors. He can feel the pulse of his nation pumping life into his veins. He knows the history of the Assyrians who have walked the land he treads on. His cradle rocked where civilization was once born. A common ancestry links him to me, but our realities are a world apart.
“I finished my high school in Assyrian language. The dream is still going on here,” explains Elden. “Our mother tongue, our language is preserved. There are schools that teach in Assyrian language. All subjects are translated to Assyrian. Can you believe that?”
I envy Elden’s excitement for having graduated from an Assyrian school though I realize the hefty price tag attached to that privilege.
“I believe in unity. I hate discrimination. I am Assyrian,” says Elden in no uncertain terms.
He is one of the children of Assyria. He was only a boy when the war in Iraq started. But growing up in a war-zone, childhood is short lived. Now at twenty-one, he has seen more than his Assyrian brothers and sisters outside of Iraq will ever witness.
The Internet is his connection to the outside world. From his home in Iraq, he sends me an urgent message: “Our fellow brothers in Mosul are in danger… Someone has to do something or they are eliminated.”
Elden is acutely aware that Assyrians living in Iraq are powerless. He knows that his life is balancing on the grotesque edge of devastation. He pins his hope on his nation living outside of Iraq to do right by him and those like him who remain loyal to the motherland at any cost.
How do I respond to Elden’s plea? Can I promise him that my nation is doing everything in its power to safeguard its own people? Can I give Elden my word that help is on its way? Can I tell him that we have a National Plan? Can I assure him that the wellbeing of our nation in atra, our homeland, is the priority of every Assyrian around the globe and that every Assyrian community and church has set aside its internal conflicts to devise a mutual plan that will ensure his future and the future of all the children of Assyria? How do I respond to the appeals of a young man who has a limited future in the only country he will know as home?
I become paralyzed when Elden and other young Assyrians from Iraq write to me. I wonder how to reply truthfully without stripping away hope because without hope to nourish the soul, the children of Assyria will wither and die.
Elden writes to me: “You are free but you should come and see what’s going on here…Any how thanks…”
I reply, “Stay strong.”
“You’re not here. You just don’t know!” He reiterates.
He is right. I don’t know. I write back to him meaningless words of encouragement, “We haven’t abandoned you. Our thought and prayers are with you…”
“You just don’t know…”
Elden stops writing for a while. I read his frustration when he stops communicating. He finally breaks his silence: “Our votes will be stolen. Our people will be intimidated to not vote Assyrian. Thank you and I wish you a good day.”
“Elden, our greatest challenge will be to find optimism in a time when the world is spinning out of control in confusion and chaos,” I reply. “Please don’t give up hope”
In reality what I was saying is that his greatest challenge would be to find optimism. After all, it is he and those living in Iraq who face overwhelming challenges in search of survival while the rest of us sit comfortably in the west dispensing advice from a safe distance and most of us go on about our daily lives unscathed by the violence that is furiously writing our present history in blood.
A student from Iraq writes to me: “It’s very bad…The U.S. did this to us. Now the Arabs and Kurds won’t leave us alone.”
No…I guess I will never fully know. I am not there. But what I do understand is living as an Assyrian in Iraq, is to perpetually wear a badge of condemnation.
It’s Sunday, October 12, 2008. It’s a somber morning in the village of Nahla, in Northern Iraq. A slow procession makes its way down an unpaved road. Young Assyrian children carrying flowers walk ahead of a coffin weighing upon the shoulders of pallbearers who have carried Assyrian coffins more times than they should ever have to in a life span.
The remains of fifteen-year-old Ivan Enwia Younadam are laid to rest in the gaping mouth of the earth that swallows him whole. An Assyrian flag covers the mound of dirt and rocks mark his grave.
Ivan should be kicking around a soccer ball and chasing dreams of seeing the world one day. Yet here I am, thousands of miles away, sounding an elegy for a boy whose absence from my nation, I sharply feel and mourn. A boy I have never met but he is a son of my nation and my brother. He matters to me. He was another one of the children of Assyria.
Just eight days earlier, Ivan was standing in front of his home in Mosul, a stone’s throw from the Alzhara mosque. Three gunmen approached him and in a flash, his life was snatched from him so violently…so senselessly only because he was an Assyrian. He was shot at point blank range and killed instantly.
What went through Ivan’s mind in that split second as he gazed down a barrel of a gun?
Who now but a few will remember him in a year? In five? In a decade?
I want every Assyrian to remember Ivan. I want the world to remember Ivan.
Despite the constant threats of “leave or die” posted at Assyrians doors testing their will and endurance, Elden declares, “I am not afraid of anything.”
“You have the soul of an old Assyrian warrior,” I tell him.
“Thank you,” he replies and remains quiet a beat or two. I can sense a rare smile crossing his otherwise solemn young face. “I really want to help from all my heart. But a single person cannot do anything here.”
His future like the future of the Assyrian nation is uncertain at the moment. Remaining in Iraq keeps our roots in place. But today, Iraq is a deadly prospect for the indigenous people of that land who have just as much right if not more, to choose to remain there.
I would like to write to Elden and say: We’ve been planning demonstrations around the globe and we’re coming out in droves to support you. We are making a difference! We are trying our very best!
But that wouldn’t be entirely true. Though many decent and hard working Assyrians continue to organize rallies globally, they must contend with opposition from their own kind who still ridiculously argue which flag to waive at an Assyrian rally! One flag. One nation. Perhaps that idea is too simplistic. So while we squabble, Assyrian lands and property are confiscated leaving our nation displaced and in exile.
“Innocent souls are more important than land…Nobody can ignore our identity, says Elden. “Our written history is not going to change. Our mother tongue, our language is preserved.”
Yes, indeed, our mother tongue is preserved in the homeland. But can the same be said for Assyrians who have migrated to the west, raising a new generation of Assyrians who do not speak their mother tongue?
Iraq is being emptied of its minorities. A campaign to exterminate Assyrians has been underway since the 2003 invasion of Iraq by the United States and its Coalition Forces. Shrouded in silence, the maltreatment of the Assyrian nation for its ethnicity and faith continues with renewed determination and effort.
The latest surge of attacks arrived on the heels of a single event that put into motion the murder of thirty-two Assyrians in Mosul while 15,000 fled to the Nineveh Plain. On September 24, 2008, the Iraqi Parliament’s removal of Article 50, a key clause that would have reserved seats on Provincial Councils for Christians, triumphantly resulted in Mosul being cleansed of its Assyrian population. Assyrian lives are gutted. A nation is uprooted and stripped of its liberties and human rights. Once again Assyrians embark on an exodus to destinations unknown.
We blame religious extremists for much of the violence against Assyrians and other minorities in Iraq. Is this meant to infer that it is only a small group that is anti Assyrian, anti Christian, anti all minorities? Or are we masking the truth as to not offend the true criminals? Who are these religious extremists? If they are an isolated group, then it stands to reason that the majorities who must not be religious extremists will stand with the minorities to defend their rights. How many are standing with the Assyrians?
The term genocide is defined as the deliberate killing of a large group of people, especially those of a particular ethnic group or nation.
How many deliberately killed constitutes genocide?
This is a violent time for the children of Assyria who are living life on the run. For nearly 2,000 days, the Assyrians in Iraq have been under unprovoked attacks.
It’s not about which particular group is targeting and killing the Assyrians. It’s about an ethnic cleansing to rid Iraq of Assyrians. Much like the Ottoman Turks did during World War One.
Today democracy has its own interpretation in Iraq. The new Iraqi constitution that was meant to protect the rights of all its citizens has failed its minorities since its inception.
I wonder if all hope and talk of establishing an autonomous region with legislative and executive authorities where Assyrian would be the official language is nothing more than nonsensical and fanciful wishing while our nation on ground zero takes flight. Or will someone in the not so distant future remark, “The children of Assyria did not die in vain. This is how it all began. These were the sacrifices our nation made to resurrect Assyria.”
Though we are thousands of miles apart, the stars that blanket Elden’s night sky are the same as mine. I bid him goodnight and light a candle for all the Children of Assyria.
Stay safe my young Assyrian warrior.
© Rosie Malek-Yonan 2008. All Rights Reserved. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Rosie Malek-Yonan with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
Note: Article published in AINA (26 November 2008).
I am an Assyrian. I have no ambiguity about who I am. A singular name identifies my nation. But a nation is not one thing. Isolated, it is not tangible. A nation is a sweeping halo that encompasses many communities, dialects, regions, customs, tribes, politics, religions and religious denominations.
We as Assyrians, claim that we love our nation. That’s a noble sentiment. But love of nation without the unconditional love of its many colors regardless of differences, is merely to love the “name” devoid of all its humanity.
People are the heartbeat and soul of a nation. People make a nation tangible. People create the history of a nation, past, present and future.
Flag-waving patriotism is meaningless so long as we continue to hate, segregate and cast-off humankind when they don’t fit our perception of what our nation is.
Love of Nation was recorded in the U.S. and Malta.
© Rosie Malek-Yonan 2008. All Rights Reserved. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Rosie Malek-Yonan with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
by Rosie Malek-Yonan
5 October 2008
Los Angeles (AINA) — On Sunday October 5, 2008, the Assyrian community of Southern California gathered at the Federal Building in Westwood to take a stance against the Iraqi Parliament’s recent removal of Article 50. Ms. Rosie Malek-Yonan delivered the following speech at the rally that was attended by several hundred Assyrians from different groups, organizations and churches of various denomination.
~~~~
My name is Rosie Malek-Yonan. I am an Assyrian. Today I stand before you on behalf of my Assyrian nation in Iraq.
We Assyrians come from many communities and belong to various churches, denominations, political groups and speak many dialects. But today we have come together in a voice of solidarity.
The Assyrians are the indigenous people of Mesopotamia, presently Iraq. Today’s Iraq is our ancestral homeland. It was our home long before the Arab invasion and long before Britain carved Iraq out of the remnants of the Ottoman Empire in the 1920’s. Our handprint is everywhere in a region rich with Assyrian history, culture and tradition. We Assyrians still speak the language of Christ and were the first nation to accept Christianity in the first century A.D. We have lived in the region for the past 6,000 years even after the fall of Nineveh, our capitol. The Assyrian nation is deeply rooted in the region and has managed to maintain its identity for centuries despite political, historical and geographical changes throughout the centuries.
Since the beginning of the Iraq War in 2003, the Assyrian nation has been under siege, facing far greater danger than the average Moslem Iraqis. As minority Christians living in Iraq, not only have we been denied our most basic human rights, but Islamic extremists have been forcing Assyrians out of Iraq through various tactics such as deliberate and systematic attacks and continuous abductions by merciless kidnappers who leave Assyrian families mourning their loved ones even when a ransom is paid. Assyrian lands and property are confiscated and families driven out of their homes.
Our churches have been targeted and destroyed because they represent Christianity. Our clergy have been brutally dismembered and murdered. Our children have been victims of hate crimes. Our women have been kidnapped and raped. Our men have been kidnapped and killed. Our businesses and homes have been destroyed.
We have been paying ransom to our captors since the beginning of the war. Our community has been dispersed but our spirit is still not broken. We will not be severed. Our 1.4 million population before the Iraq War has now been dwindled down to less than half a million. Assyrians still living in the interior of Iraq, are subjected to violent hate crimes and their human rights are disregarded. But we have not given up hope. We are still standing and have not sought revenge. We have not fought violence with violence.
Assyrian refugees who have crossed the border from Iraq into Jordan, Syria and Lebanon are living in squalor conditions. Where they were once productive members of society, they are now reduced to living as refugees in poverty and neglect. We, who have gathered here today, speak for them. We are the voice of members of our Assyrian nation in Iraq who cannot be heard today.
Recently Iraq’s three-member Presidency Council approved and adopted a new and long-awaited Provincial Election Law, removing the final stumbling block for polls to proceed in early 2009. This law will allow the new Provincial Councils to push ahead with economic reconstruction in Iraq.
On September 24, 2008, Iraq’s 275-member Parliament passed the Provincial Election Law but in a move that has stunned the minority citizens of Iraq, particularly the Assyrians, and has drawn criticism from the United Nations, members of the Iraqi Parliament removed Article 50, a key clause that would have reserved seats on Provincial Councils for Christians and other minorities.
The new law allows a fixed quota of 25% for women, but other Iraqi minorities, such as Christians and Yazidis, have been omitted with the removal of Article 50. We are calling on Iraq’s Presidency Council and members of the Iraqi Parliament and lawmakers to immediately reinstate Article 50.
On Thursday October 2, 2008, Staffan de Mistura, a UN special representative, disapproved of the removal of Article 50 and called for it to be reinstated by October 15. Despite the fact that this bill is now effectively a law, the Iraqi Parliament can amend the legislation.
The Assyrian nation is making an appeal not just to the Iraqi government, the United States and the United Nations, but to the citizens of the world to stand with us to reclaim our rights and the right to representation.
With the removal of Article 50, so-called “democratic” Iraq will shift back to being a conservative Islamic State that will no longer recognize the rights of its minorities, particularly the Christians.
The reconstruction of Iraq cannot succeed when the rights of the country’s minorities are stripped from them.
As the indigenous people born in the cradle of civilization, the Assyrian identity must be recognized and preserved and, therefore, Assyrians demand representation in the Iraqi Parliament as an integral part of Iraq’s future.
Regardless of their numbers, the Assyrians will always remain in the region and will continue to call the land between the Tigris and Euphrates their ancestral and rightful home. The Assyrians are entitled to fundamental rights and to representation in the government of which they are citizens.
Democracy in Iraq will fail if it does not treat all members of its society equally under the law. The removal of Article 50 will ensure the failure of democracy in Iraq and will ensure not only discrimination against Assyrians in their ancient homeland, but will treat them as 2nd class citizens.
Assyrians have already paid a heavy price since the beginning of the Iraq War. The liberation of Iraqis must encompass all its citizens, including the Assyrians, and not just the Sunni, the Shi’ites and the Kurds.
The removal of Article 50 suppresses the rights of Assyrians and other minorities. If this is a means to remove the ethnic structure of Iraq, it will not. The removal of Article 50 will not erase the diversity of cultures, religions and ethnicities that make up Iraq. But what the removal of Article 50 will do is to revert Iraq to the old path of dictatorship in dealing with its minorities.
Assyrians from all corners of the world, including Iraq, have come together in peaceful demonstrations in a voice of solidarity against the removal of Article 50. Today Assyrians of Southern California are adding their voice to our brothers and sisters around the globe. Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, have stated in various interviews in the past few days that they will be amending the change in the law immediately.
Though one cannot always count on the promise of politicians, the Assyrian nation is counting on them to do the right thing and to restore Article 50 in order to ensure that the law protects the rights of Assyrians and all minorities.
If the removal of Article 50 is meant to act as a final blow to the systematic attacks on Assyrians to ensure a complete uprooting of these Christians from Iraq through mass migration or assimilation to result in a complete loss of the Assyrian identity, be rest assured that the Assyrian identity will never be lost.
© Rosie Malek-Yonan 2008. All Rights Reserved. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Rosie Malek-Yonan with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
Note: Published in AINA (6 October 2008), Zinda (10 October 2008), and The Christian Post (6 October 2008)
Los Angeles (AINA) — Rosie Malek-Yonan author of The Crimson Field who serves on the Board of Advisor at Seyfo Center Europe and U.S. was invited to send a statement regarding genocide to be read at the House of Lords on 12 March 2008, chaired by Lord Rea.
Statement of Rosie Malek-Yonan to the House of Lords (London):
“In order to strive for world peace, we must first clean house.
By that I mean we must acknowledge all genocides without exception. So long as these open wounds are not healed, we continue to pass on the hatred and anger towards one another because we feel defenseless. It is time to end the cycle of violence and hatred by opening the dialog about atrocities that have occurred to all people of all nations particularly those nations who have been subjected to genocide.
No one nation is above the rest. No one genocide is more important than the rest.
The very definition of genocide is the deliberate killings of a large group of people particularly those of a certain ethnic group or nation.
The recognition and acceptance of a genocide, and mass murder of nations is not to merely point a finger at a tyrant guilty of those crimes. It is acceptance of facts and truths with the ultimate goal to mend bridges between the races. It is not to merely condemn but to create the first step towards world peace.”
On 24 April 2008, Ms. Malek-Yonan was asked to provide another similar statement to be read at the House of Commons (London) at the Armenian Genocide Day Conference, Sponsored and Chaired by Andrew George M.P.
Statement of Rosie Malek-Yonan to the House of Commons (London):
“The absence of the negotiation of world peace is the single greatest threat to humanity and the future of a violent-free world.
In order to achieve freedom from war, we must examine the actions that continually create the cycle of anger and hatred as the catalyst to any conflict between nations.
World peace will always remain a distant thought when reconciliation in the aftermath of genocide is not at the forefront of all discussions of human rights violations relative to those crimes.
When we perpetually allow the practice of genocide and holocaust and consent to the denial of such actions to linger for decades as in the case of the Assyrian, Armenian and Pontic Greek Genocide, we are in essence consenting to denial as a compromise. Denial is not compromise.
To the survivors and the children and grandchildren of the survivors of the Assyrian, Armenian, and Pontic Greek Genocide of 1914-1918 in Ottoman Turkey and northwestern Iran, there is no valid justification for the renunciation of facts.
With the acknowledgement of past and present genocides we can slowly begin to mend the broken bridges that may ultimately lead the human race to eradicate bloodshed and violence among nations of this world. But so long as we turn a blind-eye to these killings, we are sanctioning the ongoing slaughter such as today’s modern-day Assyrian Genocide occurring in Iraq since the beginning of the 2003 war.
A formal pronouncement by the Turkish government of the Assyrian, Armenian, and Pontic Greek Genocide will bring closure to not only the survivors of the genocide, but also to the Turkish people in that the nearly century-old hatred can begin to give way to human solidarity. Anything short of that will surely continue to threaten all hope of peace.”
© Rosie Malek-Yonan 2008. All Rights Reserved. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Rosie Malek-Yonan with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
23 April 2008
Assyrian International News Agency
Guest Editorial by Rosie Malek-Yonan
5 April 2008
Los Angeles (AINA) — The latest victim of the Assyrian Genocide unfolding in Iraq is 40 year-old Father Youssef Adel, the parish priest at Saint Peter and Paul Orthodox Church in central Baghdad.According to reports from AP and Reuters, just a few hours ago at approximately 11:30 a.m. on Saturday 5 April 2008, Father Adel was gunned down at the gates of his own home near the church in Karrada neighborhood. After the shooting, the assailants sped away by car. Father Adel’s body was taken to Ibn Nafis Hospital in central Baghdad.
Father Adel was an engineer by trait, when six years ago he became a priest and served at a church in Dora, south of Baghdad. When the predominantly Sunni neighborhood became too violent for the Assyrians, Father Adel transferred to Karradah where he continued to serve his people. Now he leaves behind a young widow.
Assyrian news media outlets, writers and activists have been consistently reporting on crimes committed against their nation since the beginning of the Iraq War in 2003. When the news of this latest murder of a member of my nation came early this Saturday morning, I wondered how many ways would I write the same article time and time again? It’s the same scenario. Only the names change. And despite our pleas, no one is moved enough within the U.S. Government to take serious action to protect the Assyrians in Iraq.
Has the human race become so desensitized, that these atrocities no longer phase anyone?
The Assyrian nation has been on a rapid decline since the beginning of the war when the population of the Christians was about 1.4 million while today less than one third remains in Iraq.
Thousands have lost their lives in the Iraq War including Shi’a, Sunni, Kurds and Americans. However, the Assyrians have become the subject of an ethnic cleansing that will potentially wipe out that nation completely while the others will continue to survive when this war will eventually come to a long and exhaustive end.
The Assyrian Genocide in Iraq is the untold tragedy of the Iraq War. As the indigenous people of that region, many Assyrians refuse to leave the land of their ancestors especially when they recently celebrated the 6578th Assyrian New Year. However, many Assyrians have fled to neighboring Syria, Jordan and Lebanon where they are now stranded with no hope of ever going back or moving forward. A few have been fortunate enough to make it to the relative safety of western countries. But for those Assyrians who don’t have the means to leave the killing fields in Iraq, life is just a game of Russian roulette.
© Rosie Malek-Yonan 2008. All Rights Reserved. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Rosie Malek-Yonan with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
Rosie Malek-Yonan is an Assyrian actor, director and author of The Crimson Field. She is an outspoken advocate of issues concerning Assyrians, in particular bringing attention to the Assyrian Genocide and the plight of today’s Assyrians in Iraq since the U.S. lead invasion of Iraq in 2003. On June 30, 2006, she was invited to testify on Capitol Hill regarding the genocide and persecution of Assyrians in Iraq by Kurds and Islamists. She is on the Board of Advisors at Seyfo Center in Europe that exclusively deals with the Assyrian Genocide issue. She has acted opposite many of Hollywood’s leading actors and has received rave reviews both as an actor and director. Most recently, she played the role of Nuru Il-Ebrahimi, opposite Reese Whitherspoon in New Line Cinema’s “Rendition,” directed by Oscar winning director Gavin Hood.
AINA Guest Editorial by Rosie Malek-Yonan
18 March 2008
Los Angeles (AINA) — While leaving Mosul’s Holy Spirit Cathedral on February 29, 2008, gunmen abducted Archbishop Paulos Faraj Rahho, killing his driver and two bodyguards (AINA 2-29-2008). Twelve days later, the kidnapped archbishop was found dead, buried in a shallow grave near Mosul (AINA 3-13-2008).
The widespread condemnation of last week’s death of the 65 year-old Assyrian Archbishop of the Chaldean Catholic Church in Mosul, Iraq has been reverberating around the world. From Prince Hassan bin Talal of Jordan to Pope Benedict XVI, the expression of outrage has been heard. There’s no shortage of statements issues by various Assyrian, Chaldean and Syriac groups, individuals and journalists. Various Christian groups around the globe have also been lending their voices in support of the Christians in Iraq. Stories of Archbishop Rahho’s death streaming the news for the past two weeks, clearly attest to the fury.
Pope Benedict XVI issued an urgent request during his Sunday sermon this week to end the massacre in Iraq. Will an abstract plea of peace in Iraq bring about change? Will the Pope’s cry of “enough to the violence in Iraq” stop the brutality? Or will the words of the pontiff quickly fade into oblivion by his next Sunday’s Vatican sermon? The Pope has made similar pleas in the past that have gone unanswered.
Did the U.S. government show enough concern to quickly and actively look for Archbishop Rahho while he was fighting for his life in the hands of his captures? It was repeatedly reported that he suffered from a heart problem and was dependent upon medication for survival that he was deprived of by his kidnappers.
Clearly the outrage was not enough to prompt the U.S. government to take immediate action while the archbishop was held for ransom.
But what if it had been an American, European, or Israeli abducted for ransom? Would the world have reacted differently?
Alone and abandoned, Iraq’s rapidly declining Assyrian Christian nation is left to fend for itself while besieged by daily terror. Unarmed and isolated, this small nation cannot fight the extreme terrorism that is targeting its people. Not even in retaliation do the minority Christians in Iraq strike back against their aggressors. These systematic violent attacks have now turned into a full-blown genocide against the Assyrians, the indigenous people of Iraq that includes the Chaldeans, Syriacs, and all the other various Christian denominations.
With millions of dollars vested in the Iraq War and with all its sophisticated war machinery, the U.S. has no handle on this conflict that has been erupting in the battlefields of Iraq since 2003. How then can an unarmed and unprotected small minority with no funding and no weaponry expect to survive under the same conditions?
After more than four years of deliberate attacks on the Christian population in Iraq, there seems to be a “momentary outrage” about the death of an archbishop. But time and time again, we have witnessed the emergence of a “momentary outrage” that falls short on impulsion. On October 11, 2006, Fr. Paulos Eskandar, a Syrian Orthodox priest was beheaded with his arms and legs hacked off. Surely that crime should have been enough to capture the world’s attention and to bring about change in the treatment of the Christians in Iraq.
But how long will these cries of unjust against this latest offense last? Now that Archbishop Rahho has been laid to rest, will he, too, fade from memory like all the others before him? Or will the “momentary outrage” continue long and loud enough for the good citizens of the world to take on a more proactive role to save this nation from extinction? Will President Bush have the courage to take off his blinders or will he continue to stumble in the dark until his final day in office?
With every attack on the Christians in Iraq, I ask, “Have we reached the blistering point? Will this be the turning point for the Assyrians?” I usually find my answer when I see the stories rapidly fading.
Certainly the death of Archbishop Rahho is a great tragedy but by no means is it an isolated case and should not over shadow the systematic and targeted murder of countless other innocent Christians in Iraq.
In June of 2006, my American government, the same government that attacked Iraq, invited me to testify on Capitol Hill about the persecution of the Assyrians in Iraq since 2003. There was a promise of hope in the air. I witnessed the “momentary outrage” on the part of the members of the Congressional Committee of the 109th Congress I appeared before. My testimony even brought Representative Betty McCollum to tears.
The “momentary outrage” lasted long enough to prompt Congressman Christopher Smith to visit Iraq and meet with Assyrian Christians including Pascal Warda, a former minister in the Iraqi transitional government, and turned in my report to U.S. Officials in Iraq.
Believing to be a man of his word, I have since been holding Congressman Smith accountable for his promise to me when on the record he stated:
“I thank you for that very powerful testimony. I just want you to know that you point out no one’s taking notice. The reason why we invited you and wanted you here was to try to begin to rectify that. To raise this issue with our own government and other coalition partners, especially the Iraqis. Your testimony will be used, I can assure you, to try and rectify things.”
But even though the atrocities committed against Assyrian Christians were brought to the attention of Washington and my report went full circle when Congressman Smith returned it to the “scene” of the crime, it did not reduce the amount of violence perpetrated against Assyrians in Iraq. On the contrary, the brutality escalated into an unstoppable frenzy while the West continued to turn a blind eye. The promise of hope vanished.
From 2003 to 2008, 48 churches have been attacked, bombed, burned and destroyed. In January 2008, seven simultaneous attacks were made again on churches and monasteries. Assyrian children and clergy beheaded and dismembered. Assyrians kidnapped for ransom and murdered. Young Assyrian boys crucified. Women and young girls raped. Assyrian men and boys tortured. Infants burned. Assyrians intimidated and threatened. Land and property confiscated. Business destroyed. Forced migration in a large-scale exodus from Iraq that at one point escalated to 2,000 Assyrians each day. Muslims carrying out threats of Convert or Die. Forced Islamization by way of Assyrian Christians ordered to pay a jeziya, a tax levied on Christians, a practice that is entrenched in ancient Islamic practice. Despite all the crimes against the Assyrians in Iraq, this small nation has continued to remain peaceful, patient and tolerant witnessing its own demise through a modern day ethnic cleansing with the full knowledge of the U.S. and the Coalition Forces making them silent accomplices to these crimes.
Today’s Assyrian Genocide in Iraq is reminiscent of the Assyrian Genocide of 1914-1918 in Ottoman Turkey and northwestern Iran where two-thirds of that nation were exterminated. Silent accomplices to those crimes were plentiful.
Since the liberation of Iraq, hundreds of thousands of Assyrians, who were once productive members of society in their homeland in Iraq, have become refugees, stranded and now abandoned in Syria, Lebanon and Jordan. They once owned businesses, homes, communities, schools, and churches. Now they live in absolute poverty, forsaken with no hope on the horizon as they face deportation from those respective countries.
Perhaps Congressman Donald Payne’s June 30, 2006 comment on the record to me was more apropos when he stated, “The wheels of justice sometimes grind slowly.” In the case of the Assyrians, the wheels of justice have stopped.
In June of 2007, a year after my Congressional Testimony, the U.S. Congress approved a $10 million aid through a Sub-Committee on State and Foreign Operations to assist the minorities in the Nineveh Plain in Northern Iraq, namely the Assyrian Christians. Compared to the destructions of lives brought upon the Assyrians in Iraq by the U.S. invasion, a $10 million aid is a band-aid solution to a much deeper, and far more serious problem.
The Leave or Die message regularly delivered to the Assyrians of Iraq by the Muslims is a daily reminder of the instability the U.S. has created for that Christian nation. Unless an immediate plan is put into action to establish an Assyrian administered region in Iraq, with a police force drawn from Assyrian towns and villages in the Nineveh Plains, this ancient civilization will without a doubt disappear.
The simple fact is that when the United States, a Christian country, attacked Iraq, it was seen as an attack on Islam. The Assyrian Christians of Iraq including all the various religious denominations have become a target of retribution against the western Christian invaders. The reluctance on the part of the U.S. to save the Christian minorities in Iraq may stem for the simple fact that the Muslim Iraqis will view this as the U.S. “helping one of its own.” Could this be one of the reason the U.S. government chooses to not deal with this embarrassing disaster?
The Christians in Iraq did not start the war in Iraq. Today they are caught in the line of fire while the U.S. continues to evade the human tragedy of the genocide it is directly responsible for when President Bush first ordered the attack on Iraq.
The actions of the U.S. government are nothing less than irresponsible. Why should the Assyrians have to pay the price of this war with such heavy losses? These losses will never be recouped.
As an American citizen and as an Assyrian, I am outraged at the callousness of my government in addressing the predicament it has placed my Assyrian nation in. If the intention of the U.S. is to continue to act as though it does not notice this problem, then before washing its hands completely of the chaos it has created in the Middle-East firstly it must train and arm the Assyrian Christians fully so that they can combat and cope with the daily attacks. Secondly, it is imperative that the U.S. and Iraqi governments immediately deal with the Assyrian issue in the same manner as they did in dealing with the Kurds back in 1991, by establishing an “Assyrian Safe-Zone.” With the help of the United Nations, the prosperity of this region can slowly begin, and perhaps finally the Assyrians will be able to once again become a thriving nation on their own, much like the Kurds.
© Rosie Malek-Yonan 2008. All Rights Reserved. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Rosie Malek-Yonan with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
Rosie Malek-Yonan is an Assyrian actor, director and author of The Crimson Field. She is an outspoken advocate of issues concerning Assyrians, in particular bringing attention to the Assyrian Genocide and the plight of today’s Assyrians in Iraq since the U.S. lead invasion of Iraq in 2003. On June 30, 2006, she was invited to testify on Capitol Hill regarding the genocide and persecution of Assyrians in Iraq by Kurds and Islamists. She is on the Board of Advisors at Seyfo Center in Europe that exclusively deals with the Assyrian Genocide issue. She has acted opposite many of Hollywood’s leading actors and has received rave reviews both as an actor and director. Most recently, she played the role of Nuru Il-Ebrahimi, opposite Reese Whitherspoon in New Line Cinema’s “Rendition,” directed by Oscar winning director Gavin Hood.
by Rosie Malek-Yonan
12 March 2008
LOS ANGELES, CA – With the world’s attention focused on the battlegrounds of Belgium and France, under the protective mask of WWI, the systematic extermination of Assyrians, Pontic Greeks and Armenians in Ottoman Turkey was carried out by Sultan Abdul-Hamid II, and the Young Turks, Enver Pasha, Talaat Pasha, and Djemal Pasha, the hallmark of the first Genocide of the 20th century.
Today in Turkey, openly discussing or writing about genocide and holocaust carries a heavy punishment including imprisonment. The fear instilled in Turkish society is implemented in an effort to conceal a nearly century-old dark chapter in its Ottoman past.
While freedom of speech and uncensored dialog about these genocides are heavily suppressed, the dialog is now slowly unfolding elsewhere in the democratic free world and the west. Just last week one such dialog was broadcast via the airwaves of Australia’s National Radio.
I was invited by a producer of Turkish descent to speak about the Assyrians and the Assyrian Genocide on the program Triple J, the National Youth Network of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
As an Assyrian, I found it very encouraging to have received an invitation from a Turkish producer to speak about a subject that is virtually taboo and unlawful in her own country.
But as I suspected, in no time the inevitable occurred.
In what is becoming a predictable and common behavior, Turkish hackers once again attacked my book’s website. This latest incident trailed on the heels of last week’s radio broadcast. This is the fifth such attack on the website of The Crimson Field, a book I wrote about the Assyrian Genocide.
If the string of assults in the past several months by Turkish hackers against Assyrian websites, including that of the Assyrian Academic Society, is meant to intimidate Assyrians from speaking about the Genocide, obviously, these tactics on the part of the hackers are futile.
Today’s Assyrians still carry with them memories and the wounds of those losses. And yet they are expected to remain quiet. When that expectation is not met, they encounter aggressive demands and intimidation to keep silent. The Assyrian nation will never remain silent.
Terrorization and bullying will not keep a nation silent when two out of every three Assyrians were murdered in the genocide and mass ethnic cleansing orchestrated by the Ottoman government in the early part of the 20th century.
What I find inexcusable is when decent members of society, irrespective of ethnicity, remain complacent with a do-nothing attitude, contributing to the cycle of fanaticism and odium in regards to the question of the Assyrian Genocide of not only last century, but also the ongoing violence towards that nation particularly in Iraq since the beginning of the 2003 war.
© Rosie Malek-Yonan 2008. All Rights Reserved. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Rosie Malek-Yonan with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
Note: Published 12 March 2008: AINA, Zinda, Eastern Star News Agency, Tebayan, Ankawa and Christians of Iraq
Rosie Malek-Yonan, Assyrian activist, actor and author of The Crimson Field, is an outspoken advocate of issues concerning her nation, in particular bringing attention to the Assyrian Genocide as well as the plight of today’s Assyrians in the Middle-East since the 2003 invasion of Iraq by the United States and its Coalition Forces. A tour-de-force,The Crimson Field is a brilliant and gritty literary and historical novel with enormous implications. Uncompromising and unflinching, it is based on real events and true family chronicles set to the backdrop of the Assyrian Genocide of 1914-1918.
by Rosie Malek-Yonan
1 January 2008
I am an Assyrian. I have no ambiguity about who I am. A singular name identifies my nation. But a nation is not one thing. Isolated, it is not tangible. A nation is a sweeping halo that encompasses many communities, dialects, regions, customs, tribes, politics, religions and religious denominations.
We as Assyrians, claim that we love our nation. That’s a noble sentiment. But love of nation without the unconditional love of its many colors regardless of differences, is merely to love the “name” devoid of all its humanity.
People are the heartbeat and soul of a nation. People make a nation tangible. People create the history of a nation, past, present and future.
Flag-waving patriotism is meaningless so long as we continue to hate, segregate and cast-off humankind when they don’t fit our perception of what our nation is.
© Rosie Malek-Yonan 2008. All Rights Reserved. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Rosie Malek-Yonan with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
11 November 2008
Los Angeles (AINA) Like an umbilical chord still connected to its bitter past, the Assyrians cannot detach from the events perpetrated against their nation by the Ottoman Turks, Kurds and Persians in the shadows of WWI. The past looms unsettled. The past waits patiently and stubbornly to be made right so that the Assyrian nation can finally be at peace. The Assyrian nation has been mourning its dead for 92 years. It is time to lay them to rest with honor. It is our human right.
Assyrian nationalists and educators such as Mr. Sabri Atman are doing their part to educate and create worldwide awareness of the recognition of the Assyrian Genocide.
This week, Assyrians of America welcome Mr. Atman in their midst. His arrival in the U.S. is indeed a bittersweet encounter for the Assyrians of this region. We are reminded of the importance of remaining vigilant today in safe guarding our history and our past to ensure our nation’s future so that it may be free from oppression and persecution.
Mr. Sabri Atman, founder and director of the Assyrian Seyfo Center in Europe, is presenting a lecture on the topic of the Assyrian Genocide entitled “Genocide, Denial, and the Right of Recognition.” The five-city American tour that began in Los Angeles on November 9th at the Assyrian American Association of Southern California, will continue on to San Jose (November 10th), Turlock (November 11th), Detroit (November 16th), and end in Chicago (November 17th) before he heads for Armenia with the same powerful message.
I had the honor of attending Mr. Atman’s lecture in Los Angeles. He presented the facts clearly and succinctly. But what was most striking about his presentation was his unshakable conviction to demand justice for his Assyrian nation from the Turkish government.
“Today we are not blaming every Turk or Kurd for the past events. But this was done to us in their name,” said Mr. Atman.
Indeed, the silence of the majority and the opposition of many today to recognize the Genocide of the Assyrians, Armenian and Greeks, only emphasizes the support of the denial of these Genocides.
Mr. Atman carried with him a palm size reddish stone from his homeland in Southeast Turkey where he is banned from ever visiting. The stone is a constant reminder of the bitter memories of not just his family’s past but also the past of the Assyrian nation that is perpetually battling 92 years of defiance by the Turks.
Like most Assyrian families, the death of his grand parents at the hands of the Ottoman Turks, is a memory that follows him daily. “The Assyrian nation has inherited incredible scars.”
“We Assyrians live in many different countries, but our existence is not recognized. Our fundamental rights are not recognized,” said Mr. Atman. According to him, the year 1915 was one of the dirtiest pages of Turkish history and consequently, “the Assyrian people did not just suffer a tragedy. They suffered a genocide!”
It is true that as children, we Assyrians grew up learning and hearing about the atrocities committed against our nation during WWI. “We shed tears of blood,” resonated Mr. Atman. A statement I know only too well when I remember the eyes of my own grandmother, who was a survivor of the Assyrian Genocide. She was one of the lucky ones, unlike the rest of her family.
“We are the grandchildren of the Genocide. They owe us an apology.”
An apology that is long overdue.
© Rosie Malek-Yonan 2008. All Rights Reserved. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Rosie Malek-Yonan with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
Note: Published 11 November 2007: Assyrian International News Agency, Eastern Star News Agency, Zinda Magazine, Christians of Iraq, Ankawa, and Tebayan
Rosie Malek-Yonan is the author of The Crimson Field and serves on the Board of Advisors of Seyfo Center in Europe and the United States.
by Rosie Malek-Yonan
24 May 2007 (AINA)
I want to look up at the Heavens and see the moon over Assyria. Often, I have wondered what it would be like to be able to say, I come from Assyria. To hold an Assyrian passport. To know that there will always be a home to return to free of persecution and fear. What would it be like for the language of the country to be the language I freely speak at home? Assyrian. What would it be like for all the sounds and sights to be predominantly Assyrian? What would it be like to see the Assyrian flag everywhere in its natural habitat? What if the local post office and all postage stamps were Assyrian? What if all schools, businesses, government offices, courts, judges, barbers, grocers, teachers, mechanics, president, vice president…were Assyrian? What if I could go to church without the fear that it can blow up at any time? What if my nation would never be persecuted for its Christian faith? What if I was no longer the foreigner in a foreign land, but a native in my own land? Would the street signs be in Assyrian? Would the marquees above businesses and theatres be in Assyrian? Would job applications be in Assyrian? Would the operator answering the phone speak my language? Would the tourists carry an Assyrian phrase book? Would all the Assyrian artifacts and national treasures return home to their rightful heirs?
I don’t know if this will come to pass within my lifetime. But I can dream because I’m an artist and dreams are that with which artists sketch. I dream of looking up and seeing a moon over Assyria casting its light on a tired people finally able to lay their heads and sleep at home in peace. While I dream of the Assyria that can be, I remain the orphan living in foster care. I look to the compassion of humanity for a nod of acceptance knowing that I will always be the outsider…not just a foreigner, but the one without a country…the adopted child coping as best as she can with the throbbing desire to find her way back home.
For the time being, home is America where driving down any street, one is bound to run into an American flag or two on any given block. It’s nothing out of the ordinary. Many homeowners and businesses display the American flag. They multiply on the Fourth of July, Memorial Day or historically significant days. The stars and stripes wave from car antennas. They are on uniforms of all sorts. We are accustomed to the sightings. But in Diaspora, what we Assyrians are unaccustomed to is spotting the Assyrian flag in a public location that is not associated with anything Assyrian.
Woodbury University’s 22-acre campus nestled at the foot of the Verdugo Hills is a private four-year school, located in Burbank, California. Just twenty minutes north of Hollywood, it is a stone’s throw from the heart of the entertainment industry with nearby studios such as Disney, Universal, NBC, Warner Brothers and DreamWorks Pictures SKG. With about 1,500 students, the university offers degrees in its School of Architecture and Design, School of Business and Management, and School of Arts and Sciences.
Entering the tranquil setting of the campus through the massive ornate black iron gates just off Glenoaks Boulevard, an Assyrian flag proudly waves at the passersby, with the word ASSYRIA boldly printed in black on the flag in block letters.
So why has this university permanently installed an Assyrian flag at its entrance?Two years ago, a patriotic Assyrian by the name of Jean Kardously, established an annual “Assyrian Design Scholarship Competition” at Woodbury University. Pushing the envelope, on April 4, 2007, he insured that the Assyrian flag would be recognized and displayed on the Woodbury University campus.
To most, it may seem like a small gesture. After all, it’s just a flag. But for a nation that is struggling for recognition it is more than just a flag. It is a faint heartbeat. Until the resurrection of Assyria, we look to the kindness of strangers who welcome us in their midst and publicly acknowledge us by our name.
I look up at the Heavens tonight and see the Moon Over Assyria illuminating a humble Assyrian flag proudly posted in a foreign land waiting to return home.
© Rosie Malek-Yonan 2007. All Rights Reserved. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Rosie Malek-Yonan with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
Note: Published 2007: Zinda Magazine, Eastern Star News Agency, Assyrian International News Agency.
Rosie Malek-Yonan Blog 