BETWEEN HOPE

AND

HOPELESSNESS

PETER H. TALIA

To my mother who

gave me hope the midst

of hopelessness

Acknowledgement

It is my happy task to thank all those who have in any

way contributed toward the publication of this work.

Indirectly my thanks go to all those whose books and

ideas the writer has employed, and directly to all those

who have assisted in the preparation of this little book

by offering information, suggestions and advice.

Special thanks are extended to Mrs. Rose Dartley and

The George Mardinly Foundation for Assyrians, Inc., for

their encouragement and financial support; to Doctor

Sharukin Yelda, M.D., who volunteered to read the

manuscript, offer his criticisms and corrections, and

write the Foreword.

PETER H. TALIA

Table of Contents

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

FOREWORD

L INTRODUCTION

13

2. IN SEARCH OF IDENTITY

18

3. AN ECHO OF ETERNITY

37

4. MEANING BEYOND ABSURDITY

50

5. WHERE TO FROM HERE?

To A Sense of Direction

69

To A Sense of Understanding

74

To A Sense of Self-Confidence

78

To An Understanding of Church and Politics 83 To A

Compelling Sense of Unity

91

CONCLUDING REMARKS

Foreword

I have known Dr. Peter Talia for the last eight years since

he moved here to Chicago and started the Assyrian

Evangelical Covenant Church in 1978. Ever since Peter

and I have been very closely related and have enjoyed each

other’s friendship.

On different occasions, and under different

circumstances, Peter and I have discussed certain views

and interests related to the Assyrian cause, language,

history, and culture. We both share these views and

interests to a great extent.

I also became better acquainted with Peter when his first

book, Our Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow, “History, Dilemma, And Destiny Of The Assyrian People,” appeared in

1980. I "recommend his first book and this one as well to

every Assyrian. They offer a clue and a key to the painfully

confused situation that shrouds the Assyrian community.

Personally, I have derived a great pleasure in reading his

two books, and I am pleased to be invited to write the

foreword to this one.

In these books, Peter traces the history of the Assyrian

people, conditions, miseries, dilemmas, and a way out of

these dilemmas, a hope of a brighter future, and a way to a

compelling national unity. I believe these books will be

generally

useful to all those Assyrian men and women who are

honestly and seriously seeking persistent questions on the

meaning of national identity, group security, and the calls

of duty. These books are significant and much needed as

a major contribution toward helping the contemporary

Assyrians solve many of their new and often unique

problems.

My friend Peter holds a doctorate degree in theology

and has taught here and abroad and has written several

articles in different publications. I am greatly delighted to

write the Foreword to his book.

S. Yelda, M.D. Chicago, Illinois 1985

CHAPTER I

Introduction

There was never a time in which human hope was so much

emphasized. Yet there was never a time in which human

hope was so rarely accomplished. There was never a time

in which human rights were so much stressed everywhere.

Yet there was never a time in which human rights were so

meagerly achieved. There was never a time in which man

was so powerful. Yet there was never a time in which man

was so much in fear of his power. We are so much

impressed by our intellectual and physical powers that we

deny any presence beyond our power. We are so proud of

our superficial power that we are totally incognizant of the

Supreme Power.

We have grown rich materially, but poorer morally and

spiritually. Hence this abundance has brought us neither

peace of mind nor serenity of spirit. We have shot satellites

in the space but we have a weird dread of men in our souls.

Modem man has lost his direction because he failed to

remember his destination. Man in his confusion is a

messenger who has lost his message. How embarrasing for

man to be the greatest miracle on earth and not to

understand it! How disturbing for man to have been

created in the image and likeness of God and to be

incapable to recognize it.

13

Strange enough, we have been able to put man on the

moon where no man lives, and yet we have not been able to

put our trust in man. Indeed, to a great extent, modem man

has conquered the outer space. Yet he is impotent to

conquer his own inner space. Most assuredly man has

subdued nature, but has miserably failed to subdue his own

nature. No wonder that Alexander Pope’s axiom was, is,

and will always remain true, “The proper study of mankind

is man.”

We have discovered the farthest islands in the Pacific,

and the obscurest man in the remotest regions, and yet

ashamedly we have deliberately neglected a whole people,

the Assyrian people, an entire ethnic minority for hundreds

of years, a people with legitimate aspirations to enjoy the

rights they have coveted for centuries, a people who has

experienced so many shattered dreams and blasted hopes.

We wait for that blessed moment when the indifferent

nations of the world awake from their slumber to our

needs. When they do, we will forgive them their

negligence.

Our age is the first in the history of human insanity to be

identified with a highly sophisticated and drastically

deadly weapon. Never before in living memory has man

feared man so much. Nation suspects nation, and everyone

distrusts his neighbor as himself. Since the dawn of human

history, eight thousand treaties have been broken, and only

one percent of the time teas man spent in peace. It is

reported that “since the end of World War II in 1945, the

world has not been totally at peace for a single day.” *.

In 1980,1 wrote a book entitled, Our Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow, “History, Dilemma, and Destiny of the Assyrian

People.” In that volume, I briefly sketched the tale of a na-

14

tion, the Assyrian nation, its history and mystery of twenty

Chicago Sun-Times, March 27, 1985, p. 39.

five hundred years, its present dilemma and its future

destiny. This volume is a sequel to the first. In this one I

suggest wholeheartedly that the Assyrian community come

out of its obscurity and hiddeness and prove to the world

that it is still alive. I have devoted the second chapter to a

search of identity. The Assyrian people must ethnically and

presently realize that they are internationally essential to

world community in general and to the Middle East in

particular as their forefathers were more than twenty five

hundred years ago. We must realize that our present

existence is important not only to ourselves but to the rest

of mankind. We ought to remind the world that we are still

alive and will not die unless we ourselves declare our own

demise.

The third chapter I have entitled, “An Echo of Eternity.”

By that I mean that this nation cannot possibly perish. The

reason for my argument is based on the prophetic passage

in Isaiah 19:23-25. “Meaning Beyond Absurdity” is the

rubric for the fourth chapter. The thesis advanced in the

chapter is a search for a better existential meaning after

almost three thousand years of meaningless existence.

Chapter five “Where To From Here?” includes several

topics, such as, “To A Sense of Direction,” “To A Sense of

Understanding,” “To A Sense of Self-Confidence,” “To

Church and Politics,” and “To A Compelling Sense of

Unity.” Finally, looking over the whole structure of the

discussion I shall bring all the threads together under

conclusion and end our tour. I hope this will be an in-

teresting journey in our life, if I have the words to write

15

and you, my reader, patience to read.

The world about us is changing rapidly and dramatically,

and every change appears to make it more mandatory that

we match the strains and the stresses, problems and

possibilities, circumstances and seriousness of all its newly

constituted interrelationships with added moral and

spiritual and social resources.

Assyrians of today ought to be alive and sensitive to

their poignant needs, grasp a serious vision of their present

and future situation, and rekindle a compelling

responsibility. We do not ask flippant questions, we face

tantamount problems involving our entire community,

calling for a solution. This is no day to let down. It is a day

for all of us to rise from the graves of our national slumber.

With God’s help and good will of good men, a dream can

come true, a distant and dreary journey can be

accomplished, and a nation can be resurrected. And when

that happens, many skeptics will be surprised.

I have attempted to make the book as simple as possible.

Technical terms have been purposively avoided without

affecting the accuracy of the main themes or ideas, so that

it is accessible to any educated man or woman.

However, the book may require an effort of

concentration on the part of the reader. He may have to

read slowly some passages and go over them twice. There

is nothing in them that an intelligent person cannot

understand if he or she is willing to try.

The present writer has done his best to be lucid.

Nevertheless, if there are ideas or passages that are not

familiar to the reader,

I beg him to make the effort of handling them, criticizing

them, taking them to pieces, and by trying to replace them

16

by better ones. Any constructive criticism is welcome.

In our case, the time has come for all men of good will

and of good faith to become conscious of the part they can

and must play in our national life if we desire to have a

better and meaningful existence.

Everyone of us must share a responsibility in our present

condition for a better future situation. But this

responsibility

can materialize into a constructive effort only if we

realize the fall meaning of our lives, the significance of

our endeavors, and of our struggles for the high destiny

of our nation.

CHAPTER n

In Search of Identity

‘ 'Every man is the architect

of his own fortune. ”

Appius Claudius

In 1975, six million Americans travelled overseas,

mainly to Europe in a quest for their origins. I do not

condemn these seekers for their quest for their past.

Today black people emphasize the black culture and

history. The Red Indians, Mexicans, Irish, and many

others tell us the same thing and make the same claims.

And we endorse the legitimacy of their claims.

17

Who are we? We are the descendants of a great

nation, the Assyrian nation that once ruled over many

territories and climes two thousand years before Christ.

We are the offspring of those noble men and women

who once were masters of many arts and who taught

many ancient nations many things. We are the heirs of a

great and exploited country in the world named,

Mesopotamia. We are the heirs of a past that has

enriched the_ modem museums of the world. I for one

am not ashamed of my past nor of my present. My

shame is for those who have become so inhuman to me

by their negligence, forgetfulness, and inconsideration. 1

1 For a full detail on the subject, see my book, Our Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow, Chapter I

18

Since seventh century B.C., the remnant of the

Assyrian nation has been desperately searching for its

past identity and has deliberately been neglected and

forgotten by superpowers, sub-powers, all powers. At

this moment of writing we are possessed by thirteen

nations of the world, yet we possess no national home of

our own. For hundreds of years we have faithfully served

many world governments, yet we have no government of

our own to serve. This is Assyria’s tragedy and world’s

shame. On most occasions for our dilemmas we have got

solutions that do not solve, answers that do not answer,

and explanations that do not explain. We aske the nations

of the world not only to be their brother’s keeper but

their neighbor’s promoter. We have a right to demand,

“Love thy neighbor as thyself. ’ ’ We do not ask for

protection but recognition. We ask for another chance,

for another new beginning, and we shall prove to the

world that we can be pioneers as were our forefathers

almost three thousand years ago.

For the last three millennia we have lived in spirit of

peril among friends and foes on hostile territories of

many lands, from comer to comer with no permanent

base and no abiding city. Albert Camus, the French

philosopher, once remarked that there was only one

really serious philosophical problem for man: and that

was suicide. May I differ with him and suggest that there

is only one serious existential philosophical problem; and

that is martyrdom. Is there anything worth dying for?

The miseries of this world have given us no rest. We feel

fiercely because we have suffered deeply. I am writing

these lines painfully because I have experienced pain

personally in my own body, and I have seen it more than

19

once in the tears of my parents. I was bom in one

country, raised in another, and educated in three others.

At this very moment, I have no country I can call my

own.

We have seen many promises broken. We have lived

many lives and died many deaths. In the words of the

Psalmist, “How long, O Lord? Many a time have they

afflicted me from my youth.” Bertrand Russel, the British

philosopher, once stated: “The life of man is a long march

through the night, surrounded by invisible foes, tortured

by weariness and pain, toward a goal that few can hope to

reach, and where none may tarry long.” 2

Throughout these unhappy centuries of our unhappy ex-

istence, we have come to realize that life without identity

is not worth living. Just to be may be a blessing, but to be

needed is redeeming. We desire to be needed. We crave to

be identified as a people and recognized as a nation. We

do not want to be left alone unrelated to anyone. A nation

cannot pour her heart, her prayers, and her aspirations into

a vacuum. We are of no importance unless we are of

supreme importance to God and mankind. The

fundamental elements in the life of a nation are something

to perform and accomplish, something to have, and

something to hope for. A people cannot live without a

future. A nation may die not only for the lack of material

provision, but for the lack of recognition, appreciation,

and self- expression. No people can live meaningfully

without the past as well as without the present. We are a

people in whom the past endures, and in whom the future

demands toil, skill, and will. What happened to us as a

2 Bertrand Russell, Mysticism and Logic (New York: Norton, 1929), p. 56.

20

nation once upon a time may happen another time.

This is our drastic dilemma. We do not ask a question to

be answered, we pose a problem to be solved—a problem

involving a whole nation. I emphasize this aspect as much

as I can for I realize that there is no dignity without

identity.

We seriously recognize what is at stake here in our lives is

more than the fate and destiny of one generation. We are

struggling for the fate of our coming generations yet

unborn.

We emphasize that we no longer want to be foigotten

into oblivion. For centuries we have been used, miusued,

abused, and misunderstood, by so many nations

throughout so many centuries. We no longer want to be a

thing tossed about, but a nation to be respected.

The demand for self-respect is part and parcel of our

twentieth century revolutionary upheaval of our time, and

is quite as essential as the economic, political, and social

factors. It can hardly be suppressed. This is one of the

reasons why the continent of Africa is such a powder box

in contemporary civilization. Serious trouble will continue

unless the attitude of many people can be changed in time,

for the demands of human nature will not change. If

correction does not come in a good way, it will enevitably

come in a bad way, of which Libya’s colonel Kaddafy and

Ayatollah Khomeini are only two terrifying examples.

We wholeheartedly reject to be described by world an-

thropologists and historians as living fossils, as ancient

relics decorating modem human history and society, but

to be fashioned into a people in order to contribute to

modem society as our forefathers did to theirs.

For many years the cardinal element in our national life

21

has beeta pain-pain so acute, so old, and so deep that it

emerges in almost every moment of our sorrowful

existence. We are “a brand plucked out of fire” (Zechariah

3:2).

At this very moment of writing, in the so-called the

most civilized century of human history, many Assyrian

brothers and sisters are suffering the nightmare of

migration. Some are ousted from Turkey and headed to

some European country.

Others are migrating from Iraq to Athens, Greece. Still

others are on their way from shattered Iran to Italy. Some

of them have spent six years in Athens on their way to the

United States, •hoping some day to land on the “Land of

the Free and the Home of the Brave.” Still others are

tossed to far Australia. And all of us are stranded between

Middle East and Europe, between Europe and America,

between Australia and Canada. Many of us die without

being the citizens of the country in which we newly

reside.

In search of our national identity and human dignity and

social solidarity, we are handicapped by the stigma of

belonging to no one and to nowhere. An Assyrian of the

twentieth century finds himself in a vacuum. He has no

base in any direction on which to build himself, to exert

influence, and to attain leverage. He is a child of many

cultures but he belongs to none. What a frustration! How

can one entrust his destiny to a philosophy nourished

solely on despair?

The following is a typical incident. Five years ago an

Assyrian with his four daughters and one son walked on

foot three days and three nights from Iraq to Iran across

the mountains and valleys in search of a better life.

22

Finally he ended up in Sweden.

We are a people tom apart from era to era, from country

to country, yet all of us have maintained hope in the midst

of hopeless and senseless situations. In the midst of these

circumstances we have tried to hold onto physical life

amid psychological demise. In the face of ache, anguish,

and anxiety of living in so many uncertain situations and

in so many foreign lands where hopes unborn have died,

we have firmly believed that justice buried will rise again,

a nation forgotten will be remembered again, and a tree

cut off will blossom again.

Very few people like us in human history have moved

about so much from distress to distress. By no means I am

a pessimist, particularly when it comes to matters of

national interest. Pessimism is a poor chisel to carve

tomorrow’s justice and optimism, and die Mure of the past

must not be an excuse for foe dormancy and negligence of

foe present and foe future.

Inspite of all these misfortunes, mistreats, misuses,

forgetfulness, and negligence, we have never made our

protests heard in public squares of foe large cities. We

have never arranged riots in foe capitals of foe world. We

have never demonstrated. Our voices, our protests were

uttered silently in our homes, in our sanctuaries, in our

clubs, in our prayers. This is foe language of foe forgotten,

of foe neglected, of the unheard.

It is interesting and heartbreaking at foe same time to

note that when any mischief or disaster touches a minority

group, everyone hears about it, it is immediately spread. It

is advertized, popularized, commercialized,

sentimentalized, and capitalized. But let such a disaster

touch foe Assyrian people anywhere, no one hears about

it, it is not even mentioned.

23

For nearly twenty five hundred years we have never

raised a sword against any enemy. Rather many swords

have been used against us. If we have raised any arms

against any enemy, it is because we have been forced to.

People do not understand this: You push a man into a

comer. He behaves desperately. Then you ask in wonder:

Why does he behave desperately? People forget that man

can suffer up to a point. The body, the mind, can endure

so much torment, so much physical agony and mental

distress, then no more. Yet in a fog of uncertainty,

hopelessness, and despair, we have practiced patience and

self-control.

We have detested and continue to detest violence in all

its phases. We have categorically been admonished by the

Prince of Peace, “Whosoever shall smite thee on thy right

cheek turn

to him the other also.” We believe that retaliation,

violence, postpone problems; it does not solve them.

We believe that by God’s mercy and in His own good

time and by good will and co-operation among the

nations of the world in general and of the Middle East

in particular, constructive solutions to our long tragedy

will be found, and our long search for our identity will

cease.

Over and above the melancholy of our national

existence, of our fears and tragic experiences, hovers

the might of hope. Hope is our power. It is our power of

expectation, perception and recognition.

It is reported that as Christopher Columbus sailed

across the unchartered coarse waters of the Atlantic

Ocean, not knowing where he was heading, wrote in his

diary: “This day we sailed on course WSW.” Surely he

24

must have been filled with ^ hope, faith, and confidence

that he was headed in the right direction, that he would

reach his destination. Also he must have had moments

of despair and hopelessness that he would never reach

his desired goal, that he might flounder endlessly on un-

friendly waters, perhaps lost forever to the world.

Things could not have been wose with him. His ships

were damaged and the men on them threatened mutiny.

Did he at times lose his hope and faith and confidence

of finding the New World? Of course he did.

But in moments of despair, frustration, and

demoralization, Columbus gathered up his courage. He

knew he had to be right, and he kept on going, because

he had the inner integrity, mighty faith, and strong

hope.

In these searching moments of despair, of futility, of

panic, during our voyage across the rough and

uncharted seas of frustration and uncertainty in search

of our identity, we are called upon to show integrity,

self-respect, hope and faith of

finding our new world of tomorrow after so many

unhappy yesterdays. Greatness exists when we are trying

to be great in the face of crisis, at the time of doubt,

distress, and despair, in the frustrating attempt of

searching for our roots. In die midst of such unpleasant

circumstances, can we write die words of Columbus,

“This day we sailed on,” and then live by them? It is our

moral responsibility to do so.

Many years ago, Longfellow wrote a couplet to all

people for all times, but most of all for us:

When you are an anvil, hold you still;

When you are a hammer, strike your fill.

25

Generally, life is a great balance between the anvil and

the hammer. Yet our life has been an anvil for the

hammer of many nations for the last twenty five hundred

years.

From die beginning of our end in 612 B.C., when we

became the anvil for the Medes, the Persians, and

Babylonians, we were lost in the sea of these nations that

once was Assyria’s vassels.

Then came Alexander the Great who swept over East

and West and tried to Helenize everyone and everything.

He did to a great extent. Even our theologians and

theological centers five hundred years later adopted

Greek language and concepts to elucidate their

theological and philosophical terminologies. Although

this time we were lost in a sea of culture, in a confusion

of languages, nevertheless we were lost. It is conjec-

tured, and it might well be true that had the Bible not

been written in the Greek language, it might have been

written in the Aramaic language, our liturgical language.

And why not? Jesus spoke in Aramaic, and many

scholars argue with certainty that portions of the Bible

were originally written in the Aramaic language.

The physiogomy of a nation comes alive in its language.

Language alone makes common knowledge and common

action possible. No people can maintain the memory,

tradition, the lore, and the culture of its own without it.

Parents transmit the national language to their children but

they do not create it. At the moment this is our only

precious legacy.

Alexander the Great and his successors passed away and

a new era dawned in the horizons of the Middle East. A

new people emerged rising into importance about 240

26

B.C. and remaining the holders of the sceptre till A.D.

240. The organization of their empire “was of the loosest

description.” In this respect “they present a parallel to the

development of their Turkish descendants.”

Someone has made an interesting observation: “It was in

this period of Parthian rule, and in this religious milieu,

that Christianity was first preached in Assyria. The faith

was brought by teachers who arrived in the country from

Edessa, though they may not have been actually of that

state.” 4 Although Assyrians were given a fair share under

Parthian rule, nevertheless, there was a humiliating form

of persecution. “This was the kidnapping or ‘capture’ of

their daughters as either slaves or concubines.” 5 And the

writer continues by saying that Christians had to endure

this sort of humiliating experience, and suffer still in those

lands or did until very recent days. “In days shortly before

the Great War, the Christians of Mesopotamia used to lose

as many as 1000 girls per annum in this way, in spite of

the cross, tattooed on their foreheads, to mark them, and

the earliest of their chronicles complain of the custom as

existing in the second century.” 6

4W.A. Wigram, The Assyrians And Their Neighbors (London: G. Bell and Sons, 1929, p. 53.

5Ibid., p. 38.

^id.

We were not only losing our property; we were losing our

precious daughters to heathens and barbarians. We were

losing our personal identity, integrity, advanced by pagan

authority. For centuries later the memory of such

oppression made death more desirable to us that life

itself.

Then came the Sassanid rule, and the next one hundred

and fifty years (500-650) were no better for us Assyrians.

27

From 530-579, during the reign of Chosroes I, Assyrians

suffered heavy persecutions at the hands of the Sassanids.

Among the victims of this period was the great patriarch

Mar Aba I who held office from 540-552. 3

Then another persecution occurred which lasted almost

forty years during the reign of Chosroes II (590-628),

“and was full of every kind of horror. Any time when the

Shah-in-Shah happened to be at war with Rome, Assyrian

Christians were subject to frequent harrassment. And for

about seventy years these periodical massacres were

endured.” 4 The feeling was thus expressed by the Assyrian Christians: “We are Christians, and cannot ever

give up our faith. But can we not do something to show

the Shah-in-Shah that we are not precisely the same brand

of Christians as those in the Roman empire, and therefore

need not be massacred every time he happens to have a

quarrel with the emperor.” 5

Then came Muhammed and made Arabia permanently

Arab. When the Arab conquest was completed, things

were not very much different to us Assyrians. A foreigner

remarks: “During the* Arab conquest, the Assyrian

nation could do nothing but remain quiet and, in fact, ‘lie

low’ and let the storms pass over them, hoping that the

blast would do as little harm as might be to their nation.”

6 Under the Califate of Omar I (634-644), Assyrian Christians were to pay kharj, a tax on land, and also jizyeh,a poll tax levied in lieu of military service, whereas Moslems

3Audrey R. Vine, The Nestorian Churches (London: Independent Press, 1937), p.

65.

4W.A. Wigram, p. 53.

^id., p. 53.

6Aubrey R. Vine, p. 91.

28

had only to pay zakat, a kind of alms to the poor. As to

discrimination in other ways, Assyrians had to wear

distinctive dress, they were not allowed to ride on

horseback, and they were not permitted to carry any

weapons; no new churches were to be built on fresh sites,

but permission was given to repair or even rebuild

existing ones. 7 Under Omar II (717-720), although a short reign, the Assyrians suffered greatly. In his zeal for

Islam, Omar applied harsh laws to Islamize non-

Moslems. The result was a great increase in professing

Moslems, for the acceptance of Islam now meant not only

exemption from jizyeh, but also from kharj. Besides, the

punishment for renouncing Islam once accepted was

death. “Omar also enforced the laws of restriction, in par-

ticular that against building new churches, and ordered

the destruction of all that had been recently built.” 8 There was another period of persecution under the Caliph

Mahdi (775-785). One horrible feature of this persecution

was the inhuman treatment of Christian women as many

as a thousand lashes with bull’s hide thongs being applied

to make them apostatize. Caliph Harun ar-Rashid (785-

809), although his personal physician was an Assyrian

named Gabriel, destroyed many churches in Syria,

Palestine, Antioch, including those of Basrah and

Ubullah.

During the Califate of Mutawakkil (846-861), the

Assyrians

suffered from a severe application of the repressive laws.

Christians were commanded to wear distinctive garments,

"Ibid., p. 91.

8Ibid., p. 92.

29

with a patch on their shirts, were forbidden to attent

markets on Fridays. The graves of their dead were to be

destroyed, their children were not allowed to attend the

Moslem schools or be taught Arabic, and a wooden image

of the devil was to be nailed to the door of every

Christian’s house. In addition, a number of churches and

monasteries were demolished. This relegation to slave

status, this sort of degradation by Mutawakkil meant a

“spirit of intrigue and low cunning, and a readiness to

adopt any dirty means to gain a desired object.” 9

Someone concludes this period with an interesting

observation: “The Assyrian church and nation then settled

down to the life of a ‘millet’ under Muhammedan rule,

which means that for centuries it had little history.” 10

Then came the dreadful reign of Jenghiz Khan (1162-

1227), and the terrible and terrifying age of Tamerlane

(1336-1405). Both had two slogans of which

unashamedly boasted: “That grass could never grow

where his horse had set his hoof.” And the other, “There

is but one God in heaven, there should be but one ruler

upon earth.”

During this period, Assyrians were reduced to a

position of humiliation and subjection. Under one ruler

name Ghazan, fierce persecution began within his

domains. One of his decrees reads: “The churches shall

be uprooted, and the altars overturned, and the celebration

of the Ucharist shall cease, and the hymms of praise, and

the sounds of calls to prayer shall be abolished; and the

heads of the Christians, and the heads of the congregation

of the Jews, and the great men among them shall be

9W.A. Wigram, p. 80.

,4Ibid., p. 78.

30

killed.” 11 In many areas these orders were literally carried out. It is reported that Assyrians sold almost

everything they had to bribe the authorities in order to

save their churches. Another edict under the rule of

Kharbanda Khan reads: “...that each person should pay a

khaij tax of eight dahecans, that they should be smitten in

the face, their beards plucked out, and should have on

their shoulders a black mark.” 12 Yet in spite of all these horrible incidents, our ancestors remained faithful to their

faith and bore these torments silently. However,

Kharbanda Khan, seeing that these means could not crush

these great men, ordered them all to be made eunuchs,

and to be deprive of one eye, unless they became

Moslems.” 13 Tamerlane was the worst of all the rulers that Assyrians had to come under. He swept down to

Baghdad, plundering, ravaging the city in its entirety on

its surrender, even though it was still the abiding center of

the Commander of the Faithful and the successor of the

Prophet of Islam. In his sack of the city, any soldier was

counted disgraced who did not bring at least one head to

add to the pile of skulls that Tamerlane raised. And most

probably they brought many Assyrian heads. “In another

campaign, the province of Adiabene-the Mosul-Erbil

district was practically depopulated. This was to a great

extent a Christian province at the time, having been the

stronghold of the Assyrian church since the days of Mar

Adai. Nisibis, a great city still, was reduced to the

wretched village that the traveller sees now where carved

Roman columns stand in front of mud-built hovels, to

11Aubrey R. Vine, p. 154.

12Ibki., p. 157.

13Ibid., p. 157.

31

bear witness to the present inhabitants of the great men

who were there before them.” 14

Our horrors under the Turks and Kurds are closer to our

memories. We have heard them from our fathers and

mothers, from our grandfathers and grandmothers with

harrowing experiences. We have heard lacerating stories

related to our sojourn in the unfriendly land of Turkey, in

the Hikkari mountains under Turkish Valis, Khans, and

under Kurdish Miras and Aghas.

In the year 1847, a heavy calamity fell upon us

Assyrians in the Turkish mountains of Hikkari under Mira

Bedru Khan, a Moslem fanatic. Many fearful massacres

were conducted by Bedru Khnan, and in one case a

number of some 2000 Assyrians who had held out as long

as their food lasted in a mountain stronghold and then

surrendered on solemn promise of safety, were hurled

over the steep precipice. The Patriarchal House itself

escaped, in spite of the efforts made by Bedru Khan to

“extirpate that nest of serpents.”

In another general massacre, about fifteen thousand

Assyrians were butchered by the Turks and Kurds. Again,

our daughters were captured and carried away. One such

incident occurred in our own home.

We found life impossible under Turkish and Kurdish

chiefs. So during World War I, we were forced to leave

the Turkish soil to Iraq never to go back again. It was a

terrible journey to make on foot. Someone remarks: “They

were constantly harassed by warlike tribesmen along their

route, and shortage of food, and water caused grave

hardship. It is estimated that by the time they left Urmi

14W.A. Wigram, p. 145.

32

they had been reduced from the pre-war 100,000 to about

70,000, and that of these not more than 50,000 arrived in

Mesopotamia. These figures are themselves eloquent of

their privations and sufferings.” 15

And not very long after our arrival in Iraq, the Moslems

killed six hundred Assyrians in the two villages of Dohuk

and Sim- mel, just north of Mosul.

One cannot study the conditions of the Assyrian people

without being touched by the plight of the Assyrians. We

are essentially an afflicted people with a sense of

helplessness, discontent, and uncertainty. Outwardly we

may seem satisfied, but inwardly vulnerable, always on

the verge of misery, prone to suffer mentally and

physically. Scratch our skin and you will come upon

layers of affliction, misery, calamity, and uncertainty.

We claim no superiority over any people; we claim

superior suffering over many people. We are entitled to a

place of our own in this world because we have soaked

the land of Turkey, Iran, and Iraq with the blood of our

forefathers and martyrs. We do not want to expel anyone

from his homeland. We do not want to rob anyone of his

land; we want our own land— the land of our ancestors.

We want to restore our identity and integrity.

I believe that the present time is the best and proper

time to be a hammer shaping a new Assyrian society

rather than to be anvils molded by the old hammers. The

present moment is the right moment to make us new men

and give us a new vision, a new hope infused with love

and justice that will change gloomy yesterdays into

cheerful tomorrows, and lift us from the fatigue of despair

15Aubrey R. Vine, p. 198.

33

to the buoyancy of hope. A dark, confused, and unjust

world waits for this new kind of hope.

Let us not minimize our role. The hope of the world has

always been and still is in the hands of the dedicated

minorities. The pioneers of the past and present in

educational, scientific, philosophical, and religious

freedoms have always been from among die minorities. A

committed minority, a creative handful of earnest

individuals can make it evident to larger communities that

hesitation, vacillation and procrastination on important

national issues can no longer be tolerated. It will take such

a dedicated minority to work untiringly to change or to

win the uncommitted majority. Such a minority may

transform our greatest dilemmas into our glorious

opportunity.

Unfortunately, the political and intellectual leaders of

the world have never made a serious effort to realize even

in a reluctant fashion, the tenacity, the depth, and

authenticity of the Assyrian people as a national and

historical reality with deep roots in the Middle East. We

believe that now is the time they do. For the drama of this

neglected people has lasted too long. Let us finish it once

for all. “The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air

have nests,” but we the Assyrians have nowhere to lay our

heads. We, a people of nomads, an Ara- mean race, a

people of mourning, shall never abandon the hope of

regaining our identity and status. For these many years of

dread, disaster, distress, whether in Turkish mountains or

in Iraqi plains or on Lebanese shores or in the “Home of

the Brave,” we have never abdicated the hope of restoring

our identity with the glory of our forefathers once more.

This search for our identity has become the central hope

34

in our national life, symbol of all hopes.

I have purposively chosen this rubric because it is so

important psychologically. As long as the mind is

enslaved the body can never be free. Phsycological

freedom, a solid sense of self-esteem, is the most

powerful weapon against long nightmare of physical

slavery.

To end this chapter, it should be mentioned that for the

last two decades there has been a national awakening, a

conscientious resurgence among the Assyrian people

especially among the students in this land from coast to

coast. Personnally I have noticed this national spirit

among our young men and women during my speaking

engagements on many occasions. I have been uplifted,

somehow gratified, and delighted by this new national

phenomenon, by this novel spirit, by this enthusiastic

search for identity. I hope this national movement will

find a proper and sound leadership.

Moreover, the International Confederation of the

Assyrian Nation (I.C.A.N.), is tiying to secure a seat for us

at the United Nations as observers. If and when that

happens, it will be the first step for the first time that such

an important event has occurred to us for many centuries.

At this very moment of our present social, economic,

and political cataclysm, this national movement seems to

be so dynamic, so powerful, that it is already affecting a

national change in the motives and conduct of our men

and women both individually and collectively. This

movement is an indication of feeling that Assyrians must

be their own spokesmen, that they must be in the primary

leadership of their own organizations and institutions. It is

a part of the search not only for manhood but for those

35

who have had such a crushed and bruised history to feel

and know that they are men, respected, that they have the

organizational ability to map their own strategy and shape

their own programs, and determine their own destinies.

These young men and women want to speak for

themselves.

During one of his speeches the late President Dwight

Eisenhower said, “Now ours is a time when great tilings

must again be dared in faith.” I can find no better golden-

text than these words. Our generation need not be the last

generation nor the lost generation nor the least generation.

We, who are now living can become genuinely dedicated

to the great dream than mankind has yet known. We dare

not lose time, we dare not trifle. Our course of history in

this generation depends totally upon the nature of the dream

which possesses us, upon our dedication to it and upon the

courage and enthusiasm with which we pursue it.

CHAPTER m

An Echo of Eternity

“In that day shall there be a highway

out of Egypt to Assyria, and the

Assyrian shall come into Egypt, and

the Egyptian into Assyria, and the

Egyptians shall serve with the

Assyrians. In that day shall Israel be

the third with Egypt and with Assyria,

a blessing in the midst of the land:

Whom the Lord of hosts shall bless,

saying, Blessed be Egypt my people,

and Assyria the work of my hands,

36

and Israel mine inheritance.**

Isaiah 19:23-25

“And a highway shall be there, and a

way, and it shall be called the way of

holiness; the unclean shall not pass

over it.**

Isaiah 35:8

The story of civilization itself has often been narrated in

highways. In the fourteenth century when Chaucer, the

English writer, wanted to describe the whole of England

on a great canvas, he chose a highway—the road to

Canterbury—for the scene of his great narrative poems.

The very word “highway” has thus come to capture

men’s imagination. The highway is the symbol of

settled life. The people with whom you walk and talk on

the highway are your trusteed friends. They help to

mold your life and thoughts, and you in turn help to

construct their opinions, thoughts, ideals, and

convictions.

There are two important passages in die book of

Isaiah which deals with highways. One of them is so

familiar to us Assyrians that almost a schoolboy knows it.

37

The other is scarcely known to any of us or to the

typical reader of the Scripture at all. The familiar

passage consists of what we may call the most

outstanding, almost unbelieving series of sentences in

the Old Testament. It tells us of a particular highway of

friendly communication among those ancient enemies,

Assyria, Egypt, and Israel. It foretells of the joyous day,

its prophecies of a glorious age when all these three

animical nations shall worship God together, and all

three shall be known as His people, the work

of His hands, and His inheritance. This highway will

one day open vistas of fraternity. It has to do with the

highway of friendship.

Someone has succinctly described this highway.

“Over it pass not the armed forces of contending foes,

but the peaceful ambassadors of trade and politics. The

oracle closes with the picture almost unique in ancient

prophecy, of a great conciliation: Assyria, Egypt,

Israel—the triple alliance of faith.” 20 Over twenty six

hundred years ago, Isaiah saw clearly what the modem

world dimly see, that peace and prosperity are not

basically a matter of treaties but of a new spirit in

human relationships. Will there be a day when the

38

prophecy shall read:

Blessed be America my people,

And Russia, the work of my hands,

And the Commonwealth of Nations, my

inheritance?

Assyria was being hated without any just cause,

Egypt was suspicioned with a constantly deepening

feeling, for Egypt was the coquette of the ancient world,

inveigling little nations into hopeless wars and failing

them in the hour of their extremity. As a super power in

the ancient Middle East, she lost her credibility.

Yet it is of these nations we read that together with

Israel, they are to be a blessing in the world, a highway

of friendliness is to unite them, and they are all to be the

happy, and fruitful possession of the living God. The

enmity between these nations will turn to friendship.

All narrow limitations of race and creed will be stripped

off. With this verse we reach the culmination of unity

among these three nations. The close connection

between them is expressed by means of the figure of a

highway

^The Interpreter's Bible, Vol. V, (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1956), p. 282.

which extends from Egypt to Assyria. They will live

together when they will worship together. All three will

be equally chosen people. And let it be stressed that this

prophecy has not come to pass yet. We wait that some

day it will be fulfilled. Never in the history of the Middle

East have these three nations worked so closely together

or so politically united as described in Isaiah 19:23-25.

Edward J. Young, a prominent modem theologian

asserts the above theory by saying, “The reference is not

39

to the Egypt and Assyria of Isaiah’s day, but to the

descendants of those nations.” 21 The prophet rises to the

contemplation of a glorious realization of the future

situation that is extensively and intensively complete.

Isaiah closes his chapter with a solemn benediction

which God pronounces upon these three nations. Assyria

is the work of His hands, by which the prophet means

that in a special sense, Assyria is God’s people. Could

anything higher be said of Assyria?

We are not God’s enemy as many people think, nor is

God the enemy of the works of His hands. He is our God

as well as the God of our enemy. We may be each

other’s enemy, but we are not God’s enemy. We may

break His promises and ordinances as we often do, we

may prove faithless, but God’s faithfulness cannot be

broken by man’s faithlessness. He loves us as He loves

Israel and Egypt, America, Cambodia, India, Japan as

long as we uphold His commandments and live ac-

cording to His precepts. When we break His

commandments, we break ourselves on them. God is

every nation’s pedigree. He is either the Father of all

nations or of no nations. His image is either in every

man or in no man.

The unfamiliar text, almost unobserved, describes the

2‘Edward J. Young, The Book of Isaiah, Vol. II, (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerd-mans Publishing Company, 1969), p. 43.

highway of holiness upon which no unclean foot shall

walk. It has to do with the highway of exclusiveness.

This highway of holiness must become friendly and the

highway of friendliness must become holy. The two

highways together are severely practicle and inevitable.

As part of the ancient Assyrian nation, and parcel of

40

God’s prophecy with other nations, we are endowed with

a unique, a very precious and abiding promise, the

promise, the consciousness that we are included in God’s

providence and prophecy.

There are many nations mentioned in the Old

Testament, but there are only three that are particularly

blessed. “Blessed be Egypt my people, and Assyria the

work of my hands, and Israel mine inheritance.” Our

blossoms may be crushed, our leaves may be dry, but we

are seriously sustained, strengthened, and upheld by the

faith that comes from the core of our roots in God’s

Book and His promise. We may be forgotten by many

modem nations and peoples, but not by the One who

raises up nations from dust and humbles them to dust.

We may be of no significance to the world of today, but

we are of supreme significance to God whose nations are

the work of His hands, His people, and His inheritance.

We may have many foes and few friends, but we have no

substitute. We are a unique people, and one day in God’s

own good time and place we are going to play a unique

role. A nation rooted in the Bible cannot be snuffed out

like a candle or plucked out like a flower. A nation

promised to form a highway* with other nations, and

particularly blessed, cannot perish. We are an echo of

eternity. If God sustains us, who will overthrow us? If He

is with us, who can be against us? If He is going to build

a highway through us, who is going to block it?

We may be of no concern to man, but we are of great

con- cem to God. We are not alone when discarded by

man. We have God and His promise on our side. We may

have no friends in this world, but we can prove that the

Lord in heaven is our strongest ally here on earth.

41

Biblical Assyria, God’s handiwork, is going to be a

model nation, its political no less than its religious life is

to be lived with reference to the law of God. But a model

nation cannot exist in the geographical vacuum. It needs

a territory on which to establish itselh. And according to

the Bible, Mesopotamia is to serve as that territory. Our

imperishable homeland is in God’s time. We meet God in

time rather than in space, in moments of faith rather than

in a piece of space.

The old sense that Israel is the only nation of God does

not hold true any more. Israel is no longer the only

creation of God, His chosen people, His heir; but all this

applies to Egypt and Assyria now, as well as to Israel.

There is an essential equalization of all these three

nations. From now on there is to be no essential

difference between these three nations and their relation

to God.

It is this sort of ever-present flame of divine promise

and hope burning in our hearts and souls that keeps us

marching forward through the awful vicissitudes of

modem world, and gives us strength among the strong

although we are weak among the mighty. We have

outgrown many a garment and many a girdle, and we will

still. We as a people do not boast, not even claim that we

are better than others. We only claim that we are the

offspring of once a mighty nation that greatly contributed

to ancient world, and that we have experienced more than

others. Therefore, we claim that if we are given another

chance, we shall enrich this present poor world as our

forefathers enriched theirs.

In joy and in grief, in tears, torments, and tribulations,

our hearts, minds, and memories throughout these many

42

ages, in many lands have always turned to this God’s

covenant, to this fundamental hope strongest than all the

strength of men. Any attempt to sever this vital

connection between God and us will be an outstanding

affront to Biblical faith. It will not do justice to God’s

covenant. Over and beyond our maladies, fears, failures,

persecutions, and hopelessness hovers the power of hope

in God’s promise. With anticipation, perception, and in-

tuition, we wait for this promise to come to pass. Our

way is paved with prophetic statements, a bulwark that

never fails. In forming our nation, we are cognizant of

responding to the Biblical covenant, to a categorical

imperative that has kept speaking to our hearts, minds

and souls, knocking at our doors throughout the ages, and

which will never become obsolete or stale. Our roots are

far too deep for anyone who ignorantly attempts to

uproot them.

To wait does not mean inaction. On the contrary, it

means readiness, awareness, and severe action. Good

soldiers in battlefields while they wait for

reinforcements, hold their positions. They even

counterattack. But unless they believe, trust, that they can

wait in confidence, they might very well surrender. To be

able to wait, we must prepare for the arrival of our rein-

forcements from up high.

As a people, we groan in distress and hopelessness,

swing between hope and frustration. Out of our land, we

are scattered in many lands, whether voluntarily or

involuntarily. Our souls are dried away. But we have

taken all these unpleasant experiences as learning

experiences.

The late Dr. Carl Jung, a Swiss psychologist and

43

psychiatrist had a patient who once wrote to him as

follows: “Out of evil, much good has come to me. By

keeping quiet, repressing nothing, remaining attentive,

and, hand in hand with that, by accepting reality-taking

things as they are, and not as I wanted them to be—by

doing all this, rare knowledge has come to me, and rare

powers as well, such as I could never have imagined

before.” 16

That is our story. Out of evil much good has come to

us. We have accepted things as they are, not as we have

wanted them to be. And of all this, rare knowledge has

come to us, the knowledge that no seed returns to life

save by the way of death.

Materially we have nothing. Yet we have everything—

faith and hope in the divine promise. Personally I believe

that without this promise we are done forever. This

perhaps is the secret of our history: to choose to wait for

the fulfillment of God’s promise rather than to make any

rash and foolish attempt without His involvement in our

efforts. We believe our universe, our future, and all that

contains would be an inferno mightier than Dante’s

without a God who cares for us and who has included us

in His program for future generations. This is not an idea

but a real story, a drama to be played and completed, the

drama of a people, a land, and a divine promise. God

wants to do more for us than merely relieve our pain, or

alter our circumstances or make life more tolerable or

mor comfortable, if we give Him another chance. This is

our challenge. Assyria is apdy designated as “the work

of my hands,” implying that this nation is lovingly

16Alson J. Smith, Primer For The Perplexed, (New York, The John Day Co., 1962) p. 177.

44

fashioned out of a shapeless lump into a vessel of honor,

separated, dedicated for a high and holy purpose.

Assyria is not a symbol of fantasy, but a home, and the

land is not an imagination but a possession, a

commitment of our destiny. How can anyone expect us

to betray our pledge: “If

I forget thee, O Nineveh, let my tongue wither within

me.”

It may sound quite plausible to advance the argument

that if the right of the Assyrian people to return to their

land is admitted on the ground of history, then the whole

map of the Middle East would have to be remade and

confusion would ensue. But does the argument really

arise? Do the descendants of the Romans, for instance,

claim entry into England? Do they need England? Does

their future, their destiny, their very existence depend on

settling in England? Do British people claim their

possession of India? Do they actually need India? Does

their very existence depend on India? Do the Red

Indians claim America? Or do the Arabs for that matter ,

press to return to Spain? Is it a matter of life and death to

them? The argument is fallacious and misleading. But

for us Mesopotamia is a matter of life and death. As a

matter of fact it has been for us a matter of death for the

last twenty five hundred years. Our very existence

depends on it. It is very vital for us.

To have faith, to wait does not defy human reason but

rather to share divine wisdom. There is no substitute for

faith, no alternative for prophecy, no surrogate for hope.

We have not discovered this faith, nor created this hope

nor written this prophecy about us. God has revealed

them to us, and we have believed His revelation. It is

such knowledge that makes our soul immune to despair.

45

We have to face it—either there is no hope—either we

will soon be erased from the face of this planet—or there

does exist that mighty hand somewhere with

supernatural might to intervene in our affairs and save

us.

There is an interesting incident in the life of the

ancient Jews in the Old Testament. The people of Israel

murmured and groaned in distress in the wilderness. Out

of Egypt, the land of plentiful food, they were driven

into the wilderness. Their souls were dried out; there was

not much: no meat to eat, no water to drink, no garments

to wear. All they had was a promise of a land they had

never seen before. But they believed this promise,

particularly Moses. So he cried to God: “If thou thyself

do not got with us, take us not out of wilderness”

(Exodus 33:15). This perhaps is the secret of our

existence, history: to choose to remain in the wilderness

rather than be abandoned by Him.

We, as a mourning people, have never abandoned the

hope of regaining the land of our ancient forefathers and

the glory of our mighty nation. Our attachment to the

land of our inheritance is an everlasting link. It is true

that we have been separated from our land for so many

centuries, but we have not accepted that separation as

final. We never will. Between hope and hopelessness,

between distress and disappointment, we shall never tend

to forget our original roots in our original land. And

whenever we do, the sacred history sends us a reminder,

saying: “In that day shall there be a highway out of Egypt

to Assyria, and the Assyrian shall come into Egypt, and

the Egyptian shall serve with the Assyrians. In that day

shall Israel be the third with Egypt and with Assyria, a

blessing in the midst of the land: Whom the Lord of

46

hosts shall bless saying, Blessed be Egypt my people,

and Assyria the work of my hands, and Israel mine

inheritance.”

There is a divine plan and purpose for every nation. To

have success with a machine, one must know its type, its

purpose, and its operation. Each machine has distinct

characteristics and is made for a purpose. We, too, are

distinct—distinct from all other nations. There is a

definite purpose for our existence. And no soul ever

wants to fail in life’s supreme purpose. It would be the

same as saying, “I want to die.”

Although we have died many times throughout many

cen- tunes, yet death and despair have not been our last

word nor our last act nor our last hope. Ours is an

awesome time. A new situation arises calling for a

tremendous transition, from dream to deed, trom

horrendous imagination to positive action. What has been

so long desired now must be required. Will this people,

crushed, battered, crippled, deciminated, impaled, find

strength to reestablish himself once again on the soil of

his ancestors?

There are no easy roads, no simple solutions. But the

hour calls for the voice of justice from all nations as

well as for concerted and incessant action on our part.

Let the twentieth century not enter the annals of

Assyrian history as the century of physical and spiritual

destruction of more than one million people. And if that

happens, it would not be for the first time in our history.

On many occasions in our tragic memory, we have

offered our share of human sacrifice and martyrdom to

the world. We cannot offer it any more. We cannot

afford it. What is at stake here in our lives is more than

the fate of one generation.

47

Today, more than any other day in our history, there

is no excuse for abstention or evasion. Our house is in

flames and the clock ticks on. We urge everyone to

inform, preach, proclaim, write, stir. We do not want

future generations to spit on our graves saying: “Here

lies a community which living in comfort and

prosperity kept silent while thousands of their brothers

and sisters were exposed to physical and spiritual

extermination.”

When Israel, on May 11, 1949, was admitted to

membership in the United Nations, Trygave Lie, die

Secretary General of the organization wrote: “The

establishment of the state of Israel was one of the epic

events of history, coming at the end not merely of

thirty, but of two thousand years of accumulated

sorrows, bitterness, and conflict, and symbolized

historical forces beside which the present ideological

conflict appears to be a transitory phenomenon.” 17 And a few pages later, the same writer concludes the chapter

with the following words: ‘ ‘The majority of the world’s

population hopes for real peace, understanding, and

cooperation among the nations of the Middle East.” 18

Does it really? Is there peace in the Middle East at this

moment? Has there been peace in that region for the last

forty years? Will someone someday in die United

Nations make a similar statement about the Assyrian

people, not after twenty five years of accumulated

sorrows, conflicts, and bitterness, but after twenty five

hundred years of unparalleled agony?

17Trygave lie, In The Cause Of Peace, (New York: The MacMillan Comapny, 1954), p. 194.

18Ibid., p. 198.

48

In an exchange of correspondence on world peace

between President Harry S. Truman and Pope Pius XII,

President Truman on one occasion wrote: “As a Christian

nation our earnest desire is to work with men of good

will everywhere to banish war and the causes of war

from the world whose Creator desired that men of every

race and in every clime should live together in peace,

good will and mutual trust. I seek to encourage renewed

faith in the dignity and worth of die human person in all

lands.. .to the end that the individual’s sacred rights,

inherent in his relationship to God and his fellows, will

be respected in every land. I believe with heartfelt

conviction that those who do not recognize their

responsibility to Almighty God cannot meet their full

duty toward their fellow men.” 19 May it be so.

America’s task, American President’s task, every

president’s task and every nation’s task will not be done

as long as any injustice exists against a people.

When the Russian tanks and artillery crushed the

Hungarian revolution, the Hungarian Freedom Fighter

Radio Station broad- casr these last words on November

4, 1956: “People of the world, listen to our call. Help us

not with words, but with action... Save us... Our ship is

sinking. The light vanishes. The shadows grow darker

from hour to hour. Listen to our cry. Start moving.

Extend to us your brotherly hands... God be with you and

us.”

This is our cry.

19Thomas J. Quigley, The Christian Citizen—His Challenge, (Chicago: Mentzer, Bush and Company, 1948), p. 523.

49

CHAPTER IV

Meaning Beyond Absurdity

‘“The pursuit of meaning is

meaningless unless there is a

meaning in pursuit of man.*'

A.J. Heschel

“We consider ourselves no longer a nation, but a

religious community.” 20 Thus spoke the Jewish reformers assembled in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, in

1885. The statement was no great innovation. Similar

declaration had already been made by Jews in France,

Poland, Holland, and Germany.

For a long time we Assyrians have been considered

no longer a nation but a religious community, a

minority group, with no national existence and with no

national meaning. For twenty five hundred years we

have led this sort of existence, a meaningless existence,

an absurd existence.

Excluded primarily on the grounds of our faith and

race from the societies upon whom we were

economically dependent, we have every reason to feel

like aliens even in territories where we had taken up

residence long before the populations which were later

to constitute their citizenry. Our frequent expulsions

from one territory to another, our constant massacres

from one country to another only confirm our feelings

of our absurd and meaningless existence.

Every alert Assyrian of this century somehow, on the

basis of his own experience as well as his own

observation of other groups and nations, realizes that

20Jacob J. Petuchowski, Zion Rediscovered (New Yorie: Twayne Publishers, Inc., 1966), p. 14.

54

his meaningless existence is a profound absurdity. No

one has denied our existence, but

we have not been given a meaningful existence. To admit

the existence of a people, yet denying its rights and

privileges is indeed a preposterous procedure. It is like

admitting the existence of sun but denying light. It is like

admitting the existence of water but denying H20. Yet for

twenty five hundred years the Assyrian community has

endured the nightmare of privation of meaningful

existence. No wonder we have lost many things, partly

and essentially our language, our customs, culture, certain

standards, our patterns of life. There is a sense of lostness

among us today because there is a loss of meaning.

Someone has adequately characterized such existence by

remarking:

4 ‘Now there are times when a whole generation is

caught.. .between two ages, two modes of life, with the

consequence that it loses all power to understand itself

and has no standards, no security, no simple

acquiescence.” 21 There it is, “no security.” A medical doctor stated that insecurity breeds anxiety, and most

psychologists and psychiatrists now agree that anxiety

arises from feelings of helplessness, of lostness, from a

21Herman Hesse, quoted by Rallo May, The Meaning of Anxiety (New York: The Ronald Press Co., 1950), p. 3.

55

sense of being unable to control the situation. Dr. Carl

Michaelson has named three basic situations which cause

anxiety and meaninglessness in our lives. The first, he call

the “cosmic situation,” the situation in the world. We

experience feelings of helplessness whenever we believe

that the world is not friendly to us and cannot support us

adequately. Natural disasters, such as earthquakes,

tornadoes, famines, floods, wars, etc. Also, I suppose,

helplessness stemming from feelings about today’s

environmental crises, international relationships with

other persons. We need to feel accepted, and when we do

not feel that acceptance, we feel insecure, helpless,

alienated, and lost. It is reported that Emperor Fredrick of

Germany in the fourteenth century deprived some

prisoners from any relationship, and everyone of those

prisoners died. In this category would be classified

economic and political factors. The third fundamental

cause of anxiety is the ontic (meaning, being) situation.

Here the questions of our very life, of our very being is at

stake. Its meaning, its freedom, its destiny, and its

ultimate continuity. There are two basic prongs in this

situation which cause anxiety; one is what might be called

the “biological.” We become insecure and helpless when

we realize that we cannot really control the truth that we

are going to lead meaningless existence: The second

prong in this ontic situation is that we as individuals and

as a group, community, have a need for fulfillment, for

satisfaction, for abundant life; and when we do not find

that fulfillment, that satisfaction, and that abundant life,

we feel meaningless, hopeless, isolated, and abandoned.

These are some of the basic problems in our lives. Our

national predicament is characterized by continuous

periods of being trapped by hopeless situations and

56

meaningless conditions than can stifle all joy, all freedom,

all adventure, and all fulfillment.

Animals are content when their needs are filled,

satisfied; man, however, insists not only on being satisfied

but also on being able to satisfy, on being a need not

simply on being needed. Happiness, security, in fact, may

be defined as the certainty of being needed. There is no

dignity without ability to stand alone. With us Assyrians

of this generation the issue we face is not the dichotomy of

being and misbeing, of being and non-being, but that of

just and unjust being, of righteous and unrighteous being.

The tension is not between existence and essence but

between existence and performance. Our dilemma is not

mere meaning but meaning beyond absurdity. Existence

without meaning, fulfillment, is a way of living where

things, situations, systems become idols and idols become

fearful monsters. This sort of existence is meaningless. In

the language of mythology, it is called “Sisyphus

existence,” or “Sisyphus Problem.”

In Greek mythology, Sisyphus was a king of Corinth.

He was the most devious of men, and his schemes puzzled

even the gods. Hermes, at last, sent him to Hades. Pluto

ordered Sisyphus to roll a stone to the top of a high hill.

But the stone rolled back down just as he reached the top.

Sisyphus’ task was never finished. We do not call this

work or this sort of existence a progressive work or a

meaningful existence. Yet oddly enough since the fall of

our gigantic empire, our work has been facsimili to that of

Sisyphus in this world. We have been destined to many

hades in mafty quarters of the world rolling many huge

stones up many high mountains with no significant

progress.

57

It is easy to feel affliction, sympathy for another in time

of abandonment, of distress, of tragedy; what is more

difficult is to translate this feeling into affectionate deeds.

For what is to be human but to show mercy, do justice,

comfort the brokenhearted, shelter the unsheltered, and

exalt righteousness? It is this sort of human feeling and

appreciation that gives meaning to a meaningless

existence, to a helpless generation.

To attempt to identify die meaning of a nation or even a

group or even an individual is the indispensable

prerequisite for bringing order into chaotic existence. It

would be unfortunate for a nation to live without a

conventional name; it is disastrous for an ethnic minority

to live without inner identify. A name we simply receive

and cherish, love, and remember; national identity we

must strive for, discover, acquire, enhance, and

58

live by. Yet a name hardly we have maintained, and a

national identity we have not been able to discover.

Mental and psychological anguish is occasioned

more by the experience or fear of absurd existence, or

fear of meaningless being, of meaningless career or

events, than by the mystery of being, by the absence of

being or by the fear of non-being. This may be

illustrated in dealing with die theme of our inquiry. It is

the meaning of a nation that illumines the being of a

nation, and it is the being of a nation that both evokes

and verifies the meaning of a nation.

My quest—my nation’s quest—is not merely for

theoretical knowledge about ourselves. Another

discovery of a universal law in nature or another

spectacular spacial phenomenon will not answer our

problem nor is it simply our intention to strive to

extend the length of our miserable existence on this

earth another twenty five hundred years. What we are

looking for, what we are contending for is primarily

how to lead a life that would deserve and evoke an

eternal song with an eternal amen attached to it. It is not

simply a search for certitude (although that is implied

in it), but for national relevance, international respect,

for a degree of compatability, for a sense of respon-

sibility; not an anchor of being but a direction of being.

It is not enough for us to ask questions; we want to

know how to answer die one fundamental question that

seems to encompass everything we face: What are we

here for?

It is a most significant fact that man is not sufficient

to himself, that life is not meaningful to him unless it is

serving an end beyond itself, unless it is of some value

to someone else. Immanuel Kant, die German moralist

59

philosipher of die past century, formulated a universal

rule of right behavior in which he stated: “Treat

humanity, whether in thine own person or in that of any

other, in every case as an end and never as a

means only.28 What Kant suggests here is, that this is the

concrete content of ethical action. This is what we should

do, and how we should act in dealing with our fellow men,

if our behavior is to have a universal and absolute moral

value and to be truly good. Kant suggest how a person

ought to be treated by other people, not how he ought to

treat himself. For if a person thinks that he is an end to

himself, then he will use others as means. Moreover, if the

idea of man as an end is to be taken as a true estimate of

his worth, he cannot be expected to sacrifice his life or his

interests for the good of someone else or even of a nation.

He must treat himself the way he expects others to treat

him. And Jesus remarkably summarized the whole Old

Testament righteousness in one verse which we

commonly call “The Golden Rule.” “Therefore all things

whatsoever you would that men should so to you, do you

even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets.”

(Matthew 7:12). Why should a group or a whole nation be

worth the sacrifice of one’s life? To a person who regards

himself as an absolute end a thousand lives will not be

worth more than his own life.

Sophisticated thinking may enable man to feign his

being sufficient to himself. Yet the way to insanity is

paved with illusions. The feeling of futility, of absurdity

that comes with the sense of being useless, of not being

needed in the world, is the most common cause of

psychoneurosis. The only way to avoid despair is to be a

need rather than an end.

There is not a soul on this earth which, however

60

vaguely or rarely, has not realized that life is dismal unless

mirrored in something which is lasting. We are all in

search of convic-

^B.A.G. Fuller, A History of Modem Philosophy (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1955), p. 247.

don, of realization that there is something that is worth the

toil of living and the peacefulness of death. There is not a

soul which has not felt a craving to know of something

that outlasts life, strife, and suffering.

The secret of being human is care not only for mere

existence but for meaningful existence. To us Assyrians

the urgent question is not mere being but living. Because

to live means to be at crossroads. There are many forces

and drives from within and from without ourselves. What

direction to take? is a question we face again and again.

Whether we insist and prove that the question is

meaningless, we can never cease to raise it. The question

affirms its own validity. Science cannot permanently

suppress it. Existence implies living, living implies

meaning, and meaning implies direction. All four

crossroads are intertwined, and we are at them.

Ultimate meaning as an idea is no answer to our plight,

to our meaningless existence, to our anxiety. Assyria is

more than an intellectual structure or theoritical

information; it is a personal reality. Our cry for meaning is

a cry for ultimate relationship, for ultimate belonging. It is

a cry in which all pretentions are abandoned. Are we alone

in the wilderness of time, alone in the frightfully

marvelous universe of which we are a part and where we

feel forever like strangers? Is there a meaning to live by?

Is there a worth living for? Is there a direction worth dying

for? Is there a way of living beyond absurdity? Is there

61

manna in our wilderness? I put these permanent basic

questions before all Assyrians.

The sense of requiredness, of demand, and expectation

is as essential to a nation as its capacity for reasoning. A

nation, a people is that of whom demands can be made,

that has the ability to respond to what is required, not only

to satisfy its own needs and desires, but to be responsible

for the needs and desires of other nations as well.

Responsibility is not something a nation imputes to itself;

it is hers by virtue of its capacity for responsibility, and it

would cease to be a nation if it were to be deprived of

responsibility. Real meaning, authentic meaning,

meaningful existence is found in responding to the

demand, is found in sensing the demand. In other words, a

nation must be responsive as well as responsible. It means

having a task, being called to act. It experiences living as

receiving, not only as taking. Failure to attain this

necessary aspect, or failure to understand it is the source

of anxiety and frustration.

Many authorities tell us that frustration is the basic

factor in many human tragedies from personal

incompatibilities to international major wars. Infant

misbehavior, school failures, juvenile delinquency,

unhappy marriages, business difficulties, and group

protest activities, racial unrest, individual wars, are

related to frustration.

We feel frustrated for we do not sense a measure of

responsibility in the foil sense. We are drastically

disappointed because we do not feel having a measure of

demand, we do not sense having a task to perform nor

called upon to act. We desire, we ask, we demand to play

our role in foe realm of duty, obligation, allegiance,

62

responsibility, sacrifice.

It is the gloiy of Plato, the ancient Greek philosopher,

to have realized that the true being of man cannot be

adequately apprehended at all, if he is considered in

isolation from his fellows; it is only in society that man

can both be and express that which he is.29

What Plato means is that man cannot possibly mature

in isolation. As a matter of fact, one of foe founders of

American

^Stephen Neill, A Genuinely Human Existence, (New York: Doubleday and Company, Inc., 1959), p. 22.

sociology made a remark that has since caused much

consternation. He said, “A human being is not bom social;

he is not bom with complete human nature; but he

becomes social and fully human through association.” 30

The remark obviously makes sense in that it focuses our

attention on the neccesity of social experience. A man, a

group, a nation, all mature only when they meet the

challenge of life, by coming into contact with other men,

groups, and nations. Man is not oriented solely by his own

nature, toward maturity in every area of life. Other people

contribute to his own growth emotionally, socially,

intellectually, morally, and spiritually.

The essense of a nation, of a group, of an individual is

found in freedom. This is what Paul Tillich, the German

philosopher means when he emphasizes “Man is man

because he is free,” or what Tolstoy, the Russian writer

implies when he says, “I cannot conceive of a man not

being free unless he is dead.” Cicero, the Roman

philosophere and orator in the first century B.C. wrote,

“Freedom is participation in power.” We Assyrians do no

63

want all power or every kind of power, because then we

may be tempted to deprive others of their freedom.

Freedom does not mean to do what we please or the right

to live as we please. It means the power to live, to rise to a

higher level of existence. On the other hand, we can never

be content without participation in power. We agree with

Lord Acton that power tends to corrupt or absolute power

corrupts absolutely. The words of Alfred the Great are

still timely and true: “Power is never good unless he who

has it is good.” There is nothing wrong with power, but

there is everything wrong with it when it is unequally

distributed or wrongly used.

^John J. Evoy, and Van F. Chrisloph, Maturity in the Religious Life, (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1965), p. 5.

What is freedom? First, it is the ability to deliberate or

to weigh alternatives. Shall I be a physician or an

attorney? Shall I be a minister or a teacher? Shall I be a

Republican or a Democrat? Day by day, hour by hour,

and moment by moment we go through life engaged in

this strange conversation with ourselves. Second,

freedom expresses itself in decision. The word “decision”

like the word “incision” denotes the meaning of cutting.

Both words are defined by Mr. Webster, “to cut, to cut

off.” Incision means to cut in, decisions mean to cut off.

When I make a decision, I cut off alternatives and make

choices. The philosophers of existentialism tell us that we

must choose, that we are choosing animals, and that if we

do not choose we sink into oblivion. We will be led

against our will. The third ground of freedom is

responsibility. It is my obligation to respond if I am

questioned about my decisions. No one else can respond

64

for me. I alone must respond, for my acts are determined

by the totality of my being. And no nation is great unless

or until it realizes how greaat a responsibility it carries on

its shoulders.

Those who think most about individualism and the

worth of it preach freedom. Those who think most about

unity, whether it be unity of a nation or of the entire

world, declare the sacred obligation of duty. The bill of

freedom and the bill of duties are as vital as the Bill of

Rights.

The absence of freedom imposes restraints on my

deliberations,, on my decisions, on my actions, as to what

I shall do, where I shall live or what kind of career I shall

pursue. In the absence of freedom, I am personally

defrauded, deprived of the basic quality of personality.

When I cannot choose what I shall do or where I shall

live or what I shall be, it means in fact that someone or

some system has already made these decisions for me,

and hence I am reduced to a thing or at best to an animal.

In this case, the only resemblance I have to a man is in

my motor responses and functions. I cannot adequately

assume responsibility as a person because I have been

made a victim of a decision in which I played no part.

An outstanding demand in ethical thinking today

devotes itself for the union of freedom and responsibility.

If a moral agent has no freedom, there is no use to talking

about his responsibility.

Man is free to be free: he is not free in choosing to be a

slave; he is free in doing good; he is not free in doing

evil. To choose evil is to forfeit freedom. A major root of

freedom lies in the belief that every man is too good to be

the slave of another man.

65

Since 612 B.C., we Assyrians have not made our own

decisions. Someone else, other people have done that for

us. Other groups, parties have been our representatives

and spokesmen. Since the passing away of our empire,

we have not been free. We have chosen no evil; we have

done good; we have shown malice toward none, yet we

have been denied the preciousness of freedom, the rights

of existence on equal footing with other people, in a day

when freedom is a pressing and urgent issue all over the

world—for the East and especially for the West, for men

and especially for women.

Let it be noted that I am not implying that there are no

limits to freedom. Freedom constantly operates within the

bounds of an already determined structure. For instance,

the mathematician is free to draw a circle but he is not

free to make a circle square. I am free to walk through an

open door, but I am not free to walk through a stone wall.

I am free to go to New York or to Los Angeles, but I am

not free to go to both cities at one and the same time.

Freedom is always within destiny. It is the chosen

accomplishment, desired fulfillment of our destined

nature. We are always free and destined.

Yet freedom, with all its preciousness, is not given, it is

won. Furthermore, freedom is not easily won by a passive

acceptance of suffering. It is won by a strenous struggle

against suffering. When malicious men are oppressing

other men, good men must unite and abolish that

oppression. When evil aie bombing, good men must unite

and build. It is not enough to stop and defeat Hider and

bring about his downfall. We must do something about

the spirit that produces men like Hider, the spirit of

Nazism. We must understand the origin and activity of

66

that spirit and do something to counteract it if we

sincerely desire to bring permanent peace. We must

always distinguish between the historical man and the

principle or philosophy which has been modernized and

named after him. Hitler is dead, but is Hitlerism dead?

Many people believe that Hitler is their leader in the spirit

if not in the flesh. Hitler dead may be almost as

dangerous as Hitler alive.

We all share a supreme appreciation and devotion to

the haid- won freedoms of the American people.

However, to be worthy of sustaining, upholding, and

cherishing our freedom in blessed America, we must not

lose our understanding of the fundamental nature of

freedom. Freedom means more than sheer emancipation.

It is more than cutting off the shackles of a slave.

Freedom consists primarily of conscience attached to

inward honesty, inner allegiance, devoted conscience. To-

day the absence of freedom is largely due to the failure of

conscience than to the failure of power. Freedom is the

liberation from the tyranny of the self-centered ego, from

all prejudices. Freedom is a challenge as well as a burden

against which men often rebel, because it entails

responsibility. It is here that man fails when he fails to

realize the ultimate sense of freedom. This is the climax

of absurdity. Freedom is the possibility of development,

an enhancement of one’s life, of self-realization. Freedom

is participation in essential human affairs. Someone has

stated: “There is solid reason, therefore, for concluding

that freedom is essential to human dignity... Human

dignity is based upon freedom and freedom upon human

dignity. The one presupposes the other.” 31 And as to its

progress, development, freedom can ripen only in the

67

light of the spirit. Without freedom, there is no spirit, and

without spirit, no freedom, and without freedom no self.

Martin Buber, a modem philosopher, made a strong

statement when he said, “Freedom and destiny are

solemnly promised to one another and linked together in

meaning.” 32 Unfortunately, we Assyrians, to a great

extent, have lost our spirit, our self in this barren world,

because we have been denied our political, social, and

religious freedoms. We have not been allowed to decide

and act in agreement with the spirit that goes with these

essential values. But we do believe that if we measure up

to the little responsibility which Providence has placed

upon us, we shall be called on for help by many people

who want to help. When we respond to this cry for

assistance, we shall be not only manifesting spirit of

cooperation, but also obeying fundamental laws of life—

that God helps those who help themselves, that life is

giving and receiving at the same time, and that what a

man sows that he shall also reap.

Too many world leaders, governments, politicians, and

statesmen have not yet absorbed the basic truth

enunciated a hundred years ago by Carl Schurz when he

said: “If you want to be free, there is but one way; it is to

guarantee an equally

31Rollo May, Freedom and Destiny, (New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1981), p. 9.

32Ibid., p. 83.

full measure of freedom to all your neighbors. There is no

other.”

Yet in regard to us Assyrians, this is precisely what has

not been achieved. We can never call a day in our

national life to call it free since the glory of the Assyrian

empire was gone. Every situation, in relation to us, has

68

been twisted and manipulated, and every civil law has

been substantially more dishonored than honored. The

environment has never been particularly favorable to any

attempt we have made to serve our cause. Winston

Churchill once said, “Laws, just or unjust, may govern

men’s actions. Tyrannies may restrain or regulate their

words. The machinery of propaganda may pack their

minds with falsehoods. But the soul of man thus held in

trance or frozen in a long night can be awakened by a

spark coming from God knows where. People in bondage

need not despair.” 22

But the soul of man can be awakened, and people in

bondage need not despair. This is a positive truth, positive

mode of thought that we must absorb into our fabric. It is

psychologically sound and historically plausible that

making a habit of negative thinking, negative attitude, and

negative emotions destroy our self-respect, our power,

our incentive. These disfiguring emotions isolate us from

reality.

We must resort to the courage and self-respect within

us and use them at this present needy hour to prevent

ourselves from displacing ourselves form the goal we

seek. Courage that demands that we faithfully stand up

for our rights and the rights of others, the sort of glorious

courage that may build our nation, courage to live with

compassion not agression, courage to live in belief not

doubt, courage to live in hope not despair, courage to

surmount crises instead of being crushed by them, and

courage to build self-reliance. We must not permit the

unhappy present circumstances to crush us if we are to

22Churchill: His Life, His Death, His Wit and Wisdom. Written and edited by the Staff of the New York Times, 1965, p. 154.

69

live creatively, When we rise above failure—there is

inevitably a definite sign of success. Let us remember the

words of John Dry den:

“Of all the tyrannies of human kind,

The worst is that which persecutes the mind. ’ ’

In this century, and in present situation, we Assyrians

are the most challenged people under the sky. Our

existence is either superfluous or indispensible; it is either

tragic or proud to be an Assyrian. Unfortunately to many

it is tragic and shame. Many Assyrians are ashamed to be

known as Assyrians. How can nationality survive on this

sort of triviality. On the other hand, it is a pride to be

known as such. We are always in danger of forfeiting our

national identity. But we must learn to survive and

maintain our identity, customs, culture, and existence —in

spite of and because of diverse and mordant international,

political, and social conditions. It would be suicidal to live

by the maxim that unless the climate favors our principles,

they will have to be discarded. That climate may never

arrive. That day may never come. We must not wait for

the right and proper time, we must create that proper and

right time. A people is bom to face temptations, make

decisions, and implement actions. It is a challenge as well

as a charge to live in the midst of such circumstances.

Edmund Burke once said, “Never despair, but if you do,

work on in despair.” Mr. Burke knew very well as all of

us know that despair does not comprise a day or a week of

unhappiness, but that it is one dreary journey dragging on

endlessly to another as if there were no hope in sight. And

probably that is why he said, “Work on in despair,”

because at a time of crisis like ours we can call upon our

inner resources, our courage, summon our wits together

70

and move steadily toward the goal we crave so much and

cherish so dearly.

Each day is a new lifetime, and we cannot give up a day

that has not come as yet, we cannot give up a new day

without even trying to find the promise of peace, the sense

of fulfillment, the sentiment of a meaningful existence

that can come at the least expected moment.

We move from weakness to strength whenever we find

something to live for. We do not have to be giants, either

in mind or in body, to live for something great or good.

All we need is a great heart. Every man and every woman

can have a cause and live for it. We ought to have and

love our cause. A man ought to be able to point to his

days with some satisfaction and say, “I do this better than

I did yesterday. I understand more easily; I live more

genuinely.”

Presently, Assyrians are faced with the fact that

tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the passionate

urgency of now. We still have a choice, a chance for

identity, dignity, and freedom.

We must realize that there is no going back to the day

when a nation could live by itself. That day has gone

forever. The world has become too small for that. There

are no walls than can shut-out air approach. Today the

airplane has made this whole wide world a small

neighborhood.

We know that despair is a kind of suffering. But we

shall not give up either to despair or to suffering. Life,

urgency, necessity, earnestness, will not allow us to give

up. It is far easier and far better to give the best that is in

us in a time of crisis than to give up. Remember the words

of George Herbert,

“He begins to die, who quits his desires.” Despair,

71

frustration, should stimulate us, help us solve our

problems and dilemmas, not yield to them. If we yield

to them, if we are crushed under them, the whole

existence becomes a chronic type of negative feeling

that does not raise one brick in the construction of our

national building.

In one of his plays, Twelfth Night, Shakespeare has

Malvolio say, “Some are bom great, some achieve

greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.”

This expresses a universal experience. What

Shakespeare said of greatness, any of us can say of

human suffering. It seems to us that some have suffer-

ing thrust upon them; some achieve it by their own

folly; and some are bom to suffer.

All of us Assyrians have suffering thrust upon us. We

have not invited it. On the contrary, it has swept over us

like a tidal wave with relentless force. But it shall not

have the last word upon us.

The last word belongs to faith. Faith is an adventure;

it is the courage of the soul to face the unknown. But

that courage springs from the hope and confidence of

the soul that its adventure will eventually succeed.

Beyond the unknown, beyond the uncertainties, perils,

and responsibilities of the earthly failure, it sees the

certain, the secure, and the imperishable.

Thomas Carlyle, the British philosopher once said,

“Belief is great, like giving. The history of a nation

become fruitful, soul-elevating, great, as soon as it

believes. A man lives by believing something, not by

debating and arguing abut many things.”

Faith is power. It makes men sturdy, ardent,

persistent, and heroic. Nothing truly great has ever been

done in any department of the world’s work without

72

faith. Think of the faith of the explorers of this land,

and the Pilgrim Fathers who planted

it with life. Think of the faith of men of science, Galilio,

Kepler, Newton. Think of the faith of all the martyrs down

the centuries. These are the potent, the enduring, the

inspiring men of history, men like Washington and

Lincoln. They may fall, they may be defeated, they may

perish; but onward marches their cause, for they are part

of it, they have believed in it.

CHAPTER V

Where To From Here?

We can go further if we go

deeper.

A. TO A SENSE OF DIRECTION

A sense of direction to where and from where? Many

of us have no answer to the question. All that we know

73

is that in the midst of confusion we are ourselves

confused.

On the other hand, when a direction, a landscape is

dotted with obstacles, it is an indication that the hour

has come for sober reflection, for serious evaluation,

for determination, for assessment of our goals and

methods. Stumbling and groping aimlessly in the

barren wilderness of no-man’s-land finally must be

replaced by a planned, cautiously organized, and

orderly march toward a desired destination.

Some years ago a blackout affected the large city of

New York. Some people seized this opportunity and

began to rob stores in the midst of darkness. Others of

good will and intention were directing die traffic by

means of flashlights and helping those who could not

help themselves.

Emotional blackouts crush millions of people

everyday and often for a lifetime. But a blackout we

can control if we remember that we came into this

world to succeed not to fail, to help not only to seek

help, to direct people in the midst of darkness and not

to rob them, to serve not only to be served. We must

resist the emotional blackouts of negative feelings that

prevent us from living creatively. Any determined

people

74

can move out of its emotional darkness into light and hope.

Naturalists inform us with certainty that in every single

drop of water in the ocean there is electricity enough to

generate two thunderstorms. The power is there latent,

nevertheless ready at any moment to leap forth and do

terrible execution. So within the soul of every nation there

is enough moral and spiritual force lying hidden to leap

forth and shatter all darkness and produce eternal destinies.

Montaigne once made this statement: “Man is capable of all

things.” And Thomas Fuller three hundred years ago (1608-

1681), stated a truth, “It is always darkest just before the

day dawneth.”

A sense of direction implies a goal, a planned path, and

end. We must have a goal within our capabilities. In fact, a

sense of direction determines our growth and maturity,

energizes our efforts and courage, and it instills within us a

sense of esteem and self-realization.

It is imperative to have a sense of direction, especially to

us, a people who has no sense of direction and perhaps there

is no one to give it to us. Without it we may survive, but it

is impossible to arrive at our destination.

There is a sense of psychological security when we secure

a sense of direction. On the other hand, the absence of a

sense of direction is a result of uncertainty and fear.

From my observation in our different gatherings, political

or social, or religious, I have to say with regret that I have

not detected a sense of direction or realization of a goal

either in the speakers or in the listeners or in the questions

and answers presented. I have not found it in our journals,

lectures, articles and books. I have not found it in our

common talks, in our common people or among the

intelligentia. We have lost our sense of direction, hence we

have lost our direction. That is why we have been idle

75

bystanders in the drama of life and death

instead of creative individuals.

Goals, directions, destinations, and even cultures do

not decay and pass into oblivion because they become

old and die, but because men and women in them fail to

give their hearts, minds, and souls to the task of

sustaining them. A goal, a sense of direction cannot be

maintained merely by rich resources or by physical

power. A sense of direction will not be achieved without

a generally shared set of convictions that are com-

prehensive, coherent, and positive. These convictions are

concerned with what is both right and possible for us

Assyrians, here or anywhere else, at this point in time

and history. It is not enough to have a dream of some

impractical utopia; what is more practical and more

required is a conception, a way of how to make the

dream to come true. Although it is true that only a

handful of dreams in all history do really fit reality. We

have such a conception, if we have such immovable

convictions, and if we give them our full and undivided

commitment, a dream can be accomplished. No decision

is final except your decision to reach your goal, your

destination.

A sense of direction for us Assyrians is not a choice

but a must, a national demand, a categorical imperative,

because ours is a history of disorganization. This is no

fault of ours that we are disorganized. For centuries we

have had no government, no country, no army, no navy,

no air force. Moreover, modem Assyrians have always

lived in small towns and villages, and are not fully

acquianted with big cities, their problems, computers,

huge industries. A sense of direction implies coping with

all these complicated avenues, if perchance one day we

76

are going to have a homeland in which we are going to

determine our own destiny.

A sense of direction requires directors, who at least

have common sense to direct the affairs of a community.

Obvious-

ly, we do not desire for one moment to put the reins on a na-

tion in the hands of inexperienced individuals. Hence this

call for providing men of vision, insight, and leadership.

Common sense, experience, history past and present indicate

in obvious fashion that it does make all the difference who

happens to lead a nation at a particular moment especially at

a crucial moment like ours. Capable individuals do have a

compelling share in determining goals, directions, and

aspirations, and if one wishes to understand in full depth the

meaning of a nation’s actions at a specific time of history, it

will be profitable to understand the personality and aims of

its major leaders.

A goal, a direction, demands a unique personality, a man

or a group of men of fearless energy and reckless initiative,

skilled in governing the affairs of a nation; men whose deci-

sions can determine the issues of life and death, who can

transform us from the vale of anxiety to the Garden of Eden.

There is no doubt that an individual with a sense of direction

will have an influence in shaping the nation’s aims, plans,

goals, and directions. We shall have to create these leading

men who embody virtue, leadership, and power we can

respect; men who have moral, ethical, and spiritual

principles that we can applaud with an enthusiasm that

enables us to rally support for them based on confidence and

trust. We will have to demand high standard* and give

consistent, loyal support to those who merit it, and who will

prove themselves to be committed spokesmen and warriors

on our behalf.

77

Therefore, it is the highest mission of our community to

find, to train, to raise people who can lead; people who can

trust and be trusted, and to aid them in their gigantic task of

leading us in the right direction. It is the sublime task of the

family, school, church, club, to cany the burdens of this

national sacred mission. This is a fundamental requirement.

We cannot expect the fruit before the root first.

Whatever be the causes (and perhaps there are many) of

our present disorganization, many of us agree that a sense of

direction is an essential ingredient for our reformation,

stabilization, and self-realization in our present existence.

A sense of direction is the one power that can constantly

direct man’s emotions, capabilities and dictate them to noble

and estimable aims such as are capable of achieving perma-

nent national structure. This important aspect was never so

much needed in our life; desperately needed in order to

enable us to act with sincere consecration to reach new

ideals.

There is no force, no system, no ideal, than can restore,

reform, direct, and stabilize us but the awakening, the

resurgence of men and women to an essential vision of the

future of a home, of a nation. I am sure this gospel has been

repeatedly preached to young and old, near and far, but it

needs to be preached and emphasized again and again today.

And if we seriously put our minds to it, seek it deligently,

maybe this dream one day will turn into reality.

We must get rid of the false notion that there is some

miraculous quality, some supernatural formula, some

appealing magic in the stream of time that miraculously will

heal all our wounds and cure all the evil in the world. There

is one thing certain about time and that is that it waits for no

one. If it is not used constructively, it will pass us by.

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Another mode of our direction is to discover how to

organize our strength into compelling power so that others

cannot elude us when we offer our demands. We must

develop from strength a position in which other people find

it reasonable and prudent to collaborate with us. It would be

the height of naivete to wait passively until other

governments and nations had somehow been infused with

divine blessings of good will to direct our programs and

activities, and decide for us. To follow such a course of

existence is childish fantasy.

B. TO A SENSE OF UNDERSTANDING

A sense of understanding implies an understanding of

needs— our needs and the needs of others. We may be an

island within ourselves but at the same time we belong on

the mainland of mankind. Anatole France remarked, “It is

better to understand a little than to misunderstand a lot.”

A sense of understanding requires an understanding, an

evaluation of ourselves as well as of others. Socrates, the

ancient Greek philosopher said, “Know thyself.” And

Shakespeare, the English writer announced, “To thine own

self be true.” The first thing to remember is that no person—

absolutely no one—has final authority over our destiny but

we. Hence it is absolutely imperative to understand

ourselves.

We have a cluster of needs, and we are the only agents to

fulfill those needs. Throughout the past decades we have ex-

pected others, particularly the Western missionaries and

diplomats to show us the way and to supply all our needs.

That is one reason why we have fallen behind in our

national enterprise. It is one tiling to be for a cause and another thing to be in a cause. A spectator may sympathize

79

with you when you are fighting ravening beasts in an arena,

but he will not get into the arena itself and fight by your

side. Only your brother or your father or some close

relatives will venture to do so.

We Assyrians have not yet learned the essential lesson of

self-determination. When we have achieved that necessary

step, we will be capable to deal adequately with our needs

and our problems by ourselves. Mercenaries and hired

agents will not fill the gap. We have to fight our own battles

by ourselves.

We ought to understand one another. In this field too

we have been weighed and found wanting. We have not

yet mastered the art of discussion, the etiquette of

conversation, dialogue, and the propriety of conducting

certain assemblies. In a discussion when someone does

not agree with someone else, it is taken as a direct

personal criticism, insult, and displeasure. Therefore,

some uneasiness always ensues. We do not know yet that

to disagree with someone’s point of view does not mean

dislike or hatred. I may not agree with your viewpoint

but I am still your friend, and we shall work together

where we can agree for common good and interest. We

may disagree, but we must not quarrel or fight over our

disagreement.

And what is more important than understanding our

culture, heritage, history, customs, language, and

tradition? It is pathetic as well as tragic that most of the

books, textbooks, and articles about our history,

language, grammar, and theology are written by

foreigners. These are fundamental groundwork for our

national, social, political, and religious life. They explain

our desire to reveal our identity. These qualities are a part

of our mental, social and spiritual equipment which

80

distinguish us from other people. We thank those

brothers and sisters of American and European stock who

have taken time, toil and trouble to teach us our own

language, culture and history.

But this sort of cultural dependence cannot go on

forever. We must produce our own men and women who

could transmit their own culture and heritage. A culture

cannot be sustained from outside, by outsiders. Rather it

is kept alive by the pen, power, and sweat of its own

people.

This is one reason why the world has forgotten us. And

we wonder why the world has forgotten us. Few people

have heard of us. The reason is obvious. We do not

publicize ourselves;

and a further reason for that is more obvious: We have no

publishers, no writers, no adequate publications. Hence,

there are no books written by us, about us to be handed to

other people in order to know us. We are forgotten,

neglected by our own fate and literally handicapped.

Our forefathers, unlike us, did not leave their literature,

culture, and heritage for others to transmit it to their

children and children’s children. They wrote their own

religion, grammar, history, and conquests. They not only

kept what they wrote, but spread it from Arabia in the west

to India in the east. It is reported of Patriarch Timothy I to

have said, “Take care of the schools, with all your heart.

Remember that the school is the mother and nurse of the

church.” 34 About A.D. 1000, the Assyrian church had

twenty five metropolitans, and fifty four bishops, with

theological centers at Nisibis, Edessa, in modem Turkey and

elsewhere. This is the only proper way to sustain a language

and culture, and keep a nation alive. A modem writer

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writing about our ancestors states, “And the Assyrian thirst

for it (learning) is keener than even his thirst for money.” 35

They wrote on the skins of animals, on papyrus, on clay

with a feather, or stylus, and at the-light of a wick. Yet they

have enriched this world and its museums with their

feather-pen far more than what we have done for the last

nine hundred years. Will there be a day when the modem

Assyrians be able to restore the glory of the ancient

Assyrians? We hope so. Will there be a time when we will

enrich the generations to come? We hope so.

Another important step in our national life is to

understand the means and methods of other ethnic groups.

In a con-

^Fortescue, Lesser Eastern Churches, p. 19. Quoted by Aubrey Vine, p. 109. 33John Stewart, Nestorian Missionary Enterprise (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1928), p. 6.

glomerate community, in a multiracial society like ours,

no group can make it alone. Usually many people refer to

the Irish, to the Jews, to the Germans, and Italians, the

ethnic groups they cite as justification for their views.

These people did not rise to power and influence through

separatism. It is a myth to believe that these people made

it through isolation. No group can. We can achieve

neither political power in isolation nor gain economic

influence in separation.

Certainly these ethnic groups stuck together, but their

group unity, their ethnic solidarity, their togetherness

was always strengthened and enlarged by joining in

alliances with other minority groups receiving all die

help and support they could in all the vicissitudes of life.

To succeed in a pluralistic society, to make it in a

teeming welter of nations, with all its hustling and

bustling, we Assyrians need all the organized strength

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that we can obtain. But that organized strength will not

be delivered to us in neat, wrapped packages, and will

not be effective unless consolidated through constructive

alliance, with the other groups.

Indubitably, there are some elements that we cannot

trust, we cannot use half-hearted associates or those with

no genuine concern for our cause and needs. But there

exists a substantial majority of good will that undeniably

will offer a helping hand and will sympathize with our

plight once they understand our dilemmas. I do not imply

that we should gather crumbs from other people’s tables.

That we should refuse to do. But we must steadfastly

demand a fair share of the loaf. What we should do is

that we ought to have to master the art of political

alliance. We must be prepared to act in unity and throw

our needs and support on those major sections that are as

prepared to take our demands seriously and fight for

them vigorously. This should not be interpreted as a

catalog of defeats or a sign of

weaknesses. This is rather a sign of wisdom and political

maturity, expressing our enthusiastic spirit and

determination to be treated equal in all areas of life. I

stated earlier that we should fight our own battles, but even

in battles it is very necessary as well as wise to get all the

help that one can get.

This spirit of cooperation with others is very essential

and we must know it and master it as well. Do not dream

that .005 percent of the population alone can by tension,

toil, and sweat, force 99.95 percent to change a way of life

or compromise or conform to your viewpoint.

The most plausible method and one that is rewarding is

to work with those who cannot help themselves. This is a

83

program of progress. Let us realize it and utilize it as well.

Let us get all the help we can from all the people who can

give it. An understanding of all this is imperative. If we

cannot live with other people, we can at least work with

them.

C. TO A SENSE OF SELF-CONFIDENCE

A sense of self-confidence is needed by all but especially

by those who have less confidence in themselves and

cannot confide in anyone because they have no way to do

so.

Regretably, I am writing at a crucial moment of national

dormancy. I am writing to a quiescent, indifferent, listless,

minority that only exists but hardly energetically leads an

active meaningful existence either socially, politically,

educationally, religiously, either individually or

collectively, due to no choice of its own. The entirety of

our personal and national existence is at stake at this very

moment, everywhere, in the east as well as in the west.

Hence the topic under discussion.

Without a sense of self-confidence, the Assyrian

community throughout the world will not find, cannot

achieve mass coherence nor can it mount mass actions.

The tragic experiences of past centuries have tom us apart

and held us ifi paralyzed solitude. Nevertheless, the

failures of the past must not impede the successes of the

present and the hopes of the future. With confidence we

must concentrate on success, with confident ability, on

winning like professional athletes competing in athletic

arenas. They forget the failures of the past events and the

times lost in them. They are out to win at all costs. We

must use the techniques, the methods of champions in the

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art of living. We can only rise above our past failures if we

practice confidence in ourselves every day. This is our

choice and we must select it and practice it prudently. Self-

confidence is a sort of philosophy based on a positive,

optimistic view of life. It seems to be a fact of life that no

nation can be reliable without showing forth some

realization to clothe her acts and words in the garment of

self-confidence and self-dependency. When we initiate a

national project, it ought to be boosted by a high sense of

self-confidence that eventually will come to completion.

Many of our objectives, projects, decisions, were a total

Mure because we we were not sure, we were not confident

whether or not they would be consumated.

I am introducing this item in this volume because I think

it is mandatory, and I hope my readers will take it

seriously, since we need it desperately. Unfortunately, it

has not been included in our books, in our journals, and in

our agenda. We need someone to admonish us, to instill in

us a sense of self- confidence, a sense of self-acceptance,

of self-respect, of capability. What is material in this

aspect of life is the presence of an ability to believe that

important events can happen and make them happen.

When Hannibal, the great Carthagenian general was told

that there was not way to cross the Alps, he responded

with the spirit of a hero, “I will find a way or make one.”

And he did. Napoleon believed that he could reach

Moscow and he did. Winston Churchill believed with self-

confidence that the Allies would win the war and they did.

One of the fundamental methods to achieve a national

goal, to pursue a desired end is that of effectiveness. What

is the most effective method to consumate the desired

goal? If a method is not effective no matter how much

85

energy and steam it releases, it is an expression of

weakness and not of strength. Perhaps one reason to

explain its failure is that it is bom out of timidity and not of

confidence, out of hesitation and not of courage.

I believe it is time to stop criticizing ourselves, although

I myself have been guilty of doing this. I think it is time to

quit concentrating on our past failures and gloomy days.

Rather we should see ourselves at our best in spite of our

worst. Our past experiences, good and bad, and perhaps we

have had more bad experiences than good, are our best

teachers. We are our most dangerous enemy when we

torture ourselves with feelings of frustration every day. We

are at our best when we daily practice the secret of self-

confidence every day. We have a choice, let us choose

wisely. Let us forget our failures of unhappy yesterdays

and let us press forward with sound thinking, hard

working, toward a brighter future with all its possibilities.

The more we think of reaching our goal, the less time we

will have for the worries, heartaches, and sufferings of

yesterdays.

Every generation speaks about uncertain times and

events. Bom in uncertainty, living in uncertainty, we pass

on in uncertainty. But by living confidently and creatively,

we bend uncertainty and doubt to our will so that we can

achieve a sense of fulfillment. We live successfully by

rising above our tensions. We can do this effectively if we

absorb the technique

of self-confidence.

Once when Ole Bull, the Norwegian violinist, was

giving a concert in Paris before a huge audience, his A

string snapped. Instead of stopping, Ole Bull

transposed the composition and finished the concert on

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three strings. This is exactly what confronts every

Assyrian man and woman, old and young. Throughout

all these unhappy and unmerited suffering, our A

strings of self-confidence, self-respect, and opportunity

had snapped. But the performance of our existence

must go on without self-pity or excuse or surrender. We

must transpose the composition of our existence and go

on performing our daily national tasks on three strings

if we have to.

This is the challenge facing us today. It is this

determination to keep striving, marching, in spite of the

world’s severe blows, that will transpose darkness into

light, despair into hope, and unmerited suffering into

saving moments of the present and the future. There is

no chance, no destiny, no power, no fate, that can

circumvent or hinder or control the firm resolve of a

determined soul.

What, then, are the challenges that Assyrians face as

a result of their dilemmas? There are always some

explanatory methods, to seek negative avenues, self-

destructive means, and unjustifiable solutions. Some

seek a passive way out by yielding to the sense of

inferiority; or by allowing the floodgates of defeat to

sweep over them in despair; or by dropping out of the

picture of life altogether silently; or turning to the

escape mechanisms of diverse means. Others seek a

defiant way out. They trust no one and do not expect

anyone to trust them. All these approaches are cynical

and nihilistic because they are based on a loss of faith

in the present and a loss of hope in the future.

We have followed none of the above-mentioned means

and

87

methods. Generally, we have rejected them in toto.

However, our scattered dreams and withered hopes have

provided us with the psychological and sociological

explanation for the choice of negative paths. A world that

has treated a people as float- sam and jetsam in the stream

of life cannot expect us all to grow up healthy and well

balanced overnight. Nevertheless, in spite of these

explanations, the Assyrian people cannot constructively

deal with their problems through negative strategies. We

all know this. And no one resorts to the negative avenues

unless all positive channels have been totally blocked. In

spite of the political, social, and religious upheavals of the

moment, and the negative vicissitudes of life, we can

develop the self- confidence, courage, and determination

to confront the odd circumstances with positive inner

assurance.

One positive response to such a course is to devleop a

sense of somebody ness, a sense of self-esteem, a sense of

personal worthiness. We must rio longer allow the outer

chains of a negligent and indifferent world to shackle our

minds, hearts, and souls. With courage and fearlessness

we must set out daringly to stabilize ourselves. This no

doubt will give us a sense of confidence of our roots and

an assertion of our worth and self-determination.

This sense of worthiness, of confidence, of

determination, means the refusal to be ashamed of being

what we are. Our children of now and of coming

generations must be taught to stand tall, physically,

morally, and spiritually with their proudly lifted heads.

Through self-acceptance, self-appreciation, and self-

determination, the Assyrian people may one day, in their

proper time and place, be able to show the nations of this

world that they are no longer a footnote in the almanac of

88

this world, but an important chapter therein. And why not?

In the best possible world, everything is possible.

Here is a thought to live by: Be ashamed to die until

you have achieved some goal for yourself and for your

nation.

D. TO AN UNDERSTANDING

OF CHURCH AND POLITICS

The first confrontation between church and politics, or

between religion and state or church and state, occurred

centuries ago between two unequal leaders in the

ancient world. It happened between Pharaoh, the king

of Egypt, and Moses, the rugged prophet and shepherd.

The king invested with unparalleled royal authority met

this desert shepherd and leader, apparently with no

authority at all, in the royal palace of Egypt.

But Moses, clothed in divine authority declared:

“Thus says the Lord, let my people go that they may

serve me” (Exodus 5:1-2). Pharaoh retorted: “Who is

the Lord, that I should heed his voice and let Israel go? I

do not know the Lord, and moreover I will not let Israel

go.”

The outcome of that ancient summit meeting between

those two participants has not come to an end even in

our so-called civilized world. It occurred between

prophet Elijah and king Ahab of Samaria (II Kings 17-

18), it happened between prophet Nathan and king

David (II Samuel 12), between Jesus Christ and king

Herod, between Jesus and Pontius Pilate, probably

between St. Paul and Emperor Nero in Rome, and in

our time and memory it took place between Agha Petros

and Lady Surma in Iraq. It happens all the times and in

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all places.

The contemporary church has offered very little to the

contemporary man. It is not ready to offer comfort

because it is not equipped spiritually to do so. It has no

courage to challenge the corrupting wordly systems

because it has no dynamic con-

viction to do so. It is not ready to offer edification because

it has not enough educational experience. The church of

today has no strength to break the idols and to shatter

ignorance because it is not armed with proper tools.

Furthermore, the church of today has hardened into cold

formulas; the dead hand of tradition reaches out of the past

and holds everything in the present. The leaders of the

church have ceased to be prophets of a new age and have

become priests of yesterday.

The church declines not because it is refuted, denied,

opposed or abandoned, but because it became irrelevant,

and dull. When faith is entirely replaced by creed, worship

by ritual, and love by custom, then that is the doom of the

church. Someone has adequately said, “When faith is lost,

when honor dies, the man is dead. ” When the crisis of

today is ignored because of the splendor and pomp of the

past; when faith, hope, love and doctrine become tradition

rather than a living fountain of salvation; when the church

speaks only in the name of authority rather than in the

name of love and compassion, then the message of the

church becomes insipid, meaningless, and absurd, no

matter how strong the ritual, how deep the tradition, or

how high the authority.

The church is not for the church’s sake nor for

minister’s sake, but for God’s sake. But how often the

church forsakes its essential task. It often has diverted its

90

efforts into other directions whether consciously or

unconsciously. Nevertheless, it is without excuse. The

church tends to become an end in itself, self-indulgent,

self-seeking. The task of the church is not to enhance the

power and beauty of its institutions but to ennoble the

human nature, to purify, to sanctify. The task of the church

is to be a challenge to the stabilization of values, ethics,

and doctrines.

Many fallacies arise in many institutions including the

church itself because people arrogate to themselves areas

of authority, of leadership that do not fall under their

competence.

Four hundred years before Christ, Plato, the great

ancient Greek philosopher wrote a matchless book for all

times, and he entitled it, The Republic. The thesis, the

argument advanced in the book is, What is it that

constitute a just society? How can a just society function?

And Plato suggests that if every man in the society does

his own work to the best of his ability without interfering

in someone else’s work, we will have a just and stable

society. For instance, if a shoemaker does his work

properly without interfening in a teacher’s work, and if a

doctor performs his work adequately without mingling in

a businessman’s work, and if a priest does his duties

satisfactorily without interferring in a judge’s work, etc.,

we will have a just and true society.

Church and politics should go together but they should

not mix together. The church is not a place of diplomatic

machinery. And politics is not a confessional booth. In the

Middle Ages the church and the Pope decided for

everyone and controlled everything in the church and

outside the church. People disliked it and became tired of

91

it. Later, finally, the state restricted the Pope to one-mile

area called, Vatican.

On the other hand, Hitler made a grave mistake by

interferring absolutely in church affairs when he ordered

all parents in Munich to. send their children to nationalist

schools in Germany whether they liked it or not. The

Church protested and rightly so.

Civil authority, politics belong to the state, religious

authority belongs to the church, and the two should be

kept apart and not mix. Each belongs to different domain,

and each must fulfill its duty and obligations toward the

other. Even Jesus had to

pay tax and be tried by civil authority.

The church should not have absolute authority over

politics, it should not demand supreme authority in civil

affairs. Only when the state, the civil authority comes in

conflict with God’s authority, then the church must take a

stand as did the early church. “We must obey God more

than man.” Both the church and the state must make their

choice between Jesus is Lord and Caesar is lord. The state

must necessarily acknowledge the law of God, the truth of

God, and the justice of God. It must not use the church as

its instrument.

The New Testament teaches that there must be political

authority and that the church should take a positive

attitude toward it, for it is a divine instrument through

which the providence of God is incessantly at work to

preserve essential conditions and situations for human life.

At the same time, the political authority should know its

territories and not be allowed to usurp the authority of

God. This is a way of saying that God is the Lord of

political authority and that the rulers are responsible to

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Him whether they know it or not. The righteousness of

God is above the interest of the state.

The words of Jesus, “Render unto Caesar the things that

are Caesar’s and unto God the things that are God’s,”

clearly summarize the church’s view toward the state.

They allow for the positive role of political authority, but

they make clear that there are things which belong not to

the state but to God. In fact, in one sense even the state

belongs to God. The Bible says, “The earth is the Lord’s

and the fullness thereof.”

We do not want, we do not expect a politician, a

statesman to run the affairs of the church, nor do we want

or expect a churchman to administer the affairs of the

state. The church must assist the state by its moral support

and spiritual boost. The church must pray for the

prosperity of the state and encourage it in making the right

decisions and taking the right actions. The state, on the

other hand, must protect the church, and seek its guidance.

Church and politics must not be considered antithetical

but synthetical. Both, a minister and a politician, church

and politics are concerned about pollution, inflation,

abortion, nuclear confrontation, arms race, economy, and

various social phenomena. But the roles should not be

mixed.

There are some who contend that although the church is

in secular society, it should not be identified with it.

Others argue that the church is in the society and it should

not detach itself from it so that it loses all contact with it.

However, the true church sees the need for balance, and

insists that while the church is not part of society and

secular culture surrounding it, it has its message and

mission to that society and culture. Its work is to bring the

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supernatural love of God straight into the midst of relative

justice. Among the changes and chances of this mortal

life, men and women are literally without hope if in this

world only they have hope. It is the work of the church to

awaken in them the beauty of the eternal world. In this

way the work of the church is irreplaceable.

Any attempt to amalgamate religion and politics will

end in a system like that of Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran.

And who wants to live under such a regime? Religion and

politics, in a sense, seem to be remote from each other as

is Cape Canaveral from the moon. In another sense, they

seem closely related if only we had enough sense to

distinguish between them.

With us Assyrians, the old sense of mixing church and

politics ought to be abandoned forever. Much mischief

has resulted out of this mixture. I think it is now time that

we should abandon it. To expect the church to meddle

completely in political affairs, or to run our political

system is to expect such a profound change in its inner

structure as would alter it completely. It will lose its

objectives, it will miss its mission, it will not maintain its

loyalty, it will cease to be the church. The same thing will

be true with politics. The idea that the church should

dominate all avenues of our national life must be given

up. Because of this mixture, for centuries we have not

been able to produce either competent religious leaders or

capable national leaders. For many years our ecclesiastical

head has been the temporal head as well. We have

believed that he could do a splendid job in both fields, a

task too big for any man. We have taken it for granted that

he could sit with both parties, religious and political and

solve all our problems involved in these fields. No wonder

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our problems are so enormous in both areas.

It is the job of the church to feed the flock; it is the task

of the state to protect the flock. It is the priest’s task to

teach the law of God; it is the politician’s job to pass the

law of the land. Each has his own role and task to perform

for the good of all. But let the minister stick to his

ministry and the politician to his politics.

Both religion and politics should not dominate the

affairs of man. They both should be his servants and must

protect him in his free individual expansion and be

worthy of him. When church and politics seek to

substitute their interests to the pursuit of individual

development, then they really threaten human dignity,

and progress is inconceivable.

The positive worth of the church is that it values the

qualities of life so highly, perhaps more than any other

institution on the face of this earth. The church must not

compromise with a type of state which would attempt to

make loyalty to it superior to loyalty to God. Moreover,

the church cannot tolerate any glorification of the state, or

the community, which fails to recognize and respect the

worth and dignity of the individual man.

The church must not be an impersonal affair, an

institutional loyalty, but a citadel of morality, a bulwark of

faith, not a system of fanaticism, but an organ of salvation.

The church is not merely a location of social affiliation but

a channel of personal conviction, a means of redemption.

The church without a message is as viable as a man

without a heart, or a house with dead bodies. The church’s

role is to stir the hearts and minds of its adherents with

divine enthusiasm here on earth. Its message shoulcTfiot

be confined only to the next life. The church, true

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sanctuary knows no walls.

Unfortunately the church of twentieth century has been

reduced to outward institution, to rituals, and symbols. It

has lost its salt; it does not affect the inner condition of

man; it does not touch the depths of his existence; it does

not satisfy his deep yearnings. The church of today does

not stress personal faith, inwardness, the direction of the

heart. How often we miss this inner component! That is

the reason why the human soul is silent and the heart of

man is dry instead of being aflame.

It seems to be an appropriate idea, a needful thought to

improve, to reform, to democratize the church in order to

meet the demands, the needs, and the challenges of the

twentieth century society. This requires first and foremost

the education of the clergy. I regret to say that Assyrian

clergy are the least educated of all. You cannot expect a

farmer to run the affairs of a huge and complicated firm, or

a carpenter diagnose a cancer-stricken individual. Why

should it be different in church offices, or perhaps in high

church° offices? A poor carpenter working with poor tools

will eventually produce poor work. A poorly educated

minister will ultimately produce a poor if not a dead

church.

The church can exert its influence in a host of

movements by its educational endeavor. Deep, permanent,

and constructive changes in attitude, spirit, form, and

essence can only be wrought through the channels of a

good education. The church must undertake this enterprise

at once, cost what it may. The whole church must

mobilize itself in this direction. We hope that one day

someone will do something about this thorny problem.

A major task of philosophy of religion is to rediscover

the consciousness of man, the truth of religion by delving

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into the teaching and doctrines of the church. Religion

does not shine in a vacuum. Man can belong to any church

as well as clubs without being shaken, moved, challenged,

and confronted. False confessors simulate true faith. The

wheat and the tares cannot always be easily separated.

Church officials are die servants of die church not their

rulers and masters. The Bible tells us that ministers are not

to be “lords over God’s heritage but being examples to the

flock’’ (I Peter 5:3). Ministers of the church are

admonished not to be greedy of filthy lucre, contentious,

crafty, pleasers of men, not entangled by cares, nor given

to wine (I Timothy 3:3). They are enjoined, on the

contrary, to preach the gospel, feed the sheep, build God’s

church, teach, exhort, strengthen the weak, warn the

doubters, comfort the broken-hearted, watch over souls,

endure hardship, and war a good warfare of faith like a

good soldier of Jesus Christ. This is a task big enough to

any minister and to any church.

Now an admonition is in order. Every Christian should

be convinced that the visible church is God’s own creation

for the benefit of believers and for die extension of God’s

kingdom and die Gospel. He should identify himself with

some visible church, engage in its activities, and lead his

influence to, and throw his support behind its work

praying, always that eveiy member of the visible church

here on earth might be in very truth a member of the

church invisible.

E. TO A COMPELLING SENSE OF UNITY

Another necessary step that Assyrians must necessarily

secure is to work passionately for group unity and group

identity. This does not imply group isolation or group

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separation or group exclusiveness, although we Assyrians

are prone to be exclusive. It rather means the kind of

group consciousness that modem Assyrians, in different

quarters of the world need in order to participate more

effectively and meaningfully at all stages of the life of our

nation.

Unfortunately, not much has been accomplished in this

field. There are various attitudes taken toward the question

today. Some ignore the problem altogether by taking no

attitude at all, perhaps not recognizing the seriousness of

the problem. Others, presumably intelligent persons, do

not appear even to have given die subject a passing

thought. Only a few seriously- minded individuals believe

that we have to face the problem and do something about

it if we are to get anywhere in fashioning a national unity.

Obviously, group unity involves group trust and

recognition. One of die most serious effects of the

Assyrian’s damaged ego has been his frequent loss of

respect for himself, the minimizing of his talents and of

other Assyrians. Therefore, he ends up with a prejudice,

with an ambivalence toward his own group. To overcome

this tragic attitude, this unhappy conflict, it will be

necessary for us to find a new self-image, a healthy

positive attitude toward oneself and toward others. By

being reconciled, to ourselves and to others, we will be

able to build upon the resources we already have at our

disposal. Too many Assyrians are jealous of other

Assyrians’ success and progress, a disease, a vice, that can

be remedied only by reconciliation and unity. And if I am

not mistaken at all, there are many Assyrian organizations

warring against each other with a claim to absolute truth.

This warring spirit, this attitude of jealousy ought to be

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destroyed before it destroys us, and a loving and recon-

ciling attitude must indispensably rise on its ruins.

This plea for unity is not a call for uniformity or

compromise. There must always be healthy debates. Most

assuredly there will be inevitable differences of opinion.

The problems the Assyrians confront are so complex and

monumental that their solution will of necessity involve a

diversified approach. But Assyrians, like all other groups,

can differ in opinions and still unite around common

national objectives.

There are already some forces in the Assyrian

community that can serve as the basis for building a

powerful united front, provided these forces find a sound,

capable and united leadership. For instance, there are

Assyrian churches. They can, if they will, initiate a step

toward unity. There are Assyrian publications, Assyrian

clubs, and a number of other organizations. We must

admit, with regret, that so far these forces have not given

their entire support and resources to the cause of the

Assyrian unity. We believe now it is time they should do

so. When they do, it will be a proof that we have

outgrown our stupidity, timidity, and have attained some

level of maturity.

There is a tremendous chance for liberty, equality,

dignity, and maturity, when solidarity, unity, is felt, and

this solidarity or unity emerges from a real sense that all

individuals and groups are ready to rally around a

common goal or even risk their lives for a national cause.

Very few of us realize that the magic word which will

make us to perform miracles is unity. What a powerful

force it is! Yet most of us do not realize it and few of us,

indeed, make the most effective use of it.

Without this power of some kind, for something,

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somewhere, sometime, I doubt that if we could continue to

exist. Certainly, we would not progress.

Through this form of group unity we can begin a

constructive program which will efficiently seek to

improve our status quo in many important respects. It will

enable us to be better acquainted with one another. It will

teach us how to deal with our doubts, confusions, and

distortions. All prejudices will be dismantled It means deep

self-examination, both of the incidents that unite us and

unfortunate events that divide us, silly trivialities that

separate us and make us almost enemies to one another.

We can be able to give and receive criticism in the spirit of

love and good will in spite of evil circumstances. Criticism

is not an enemy nor are the critics. In fact, they are our

unpaid teachers. If the criticism is surrounded by elements

of mutual national concern and personal love, it need not

be destructive but can actually be creative. When we have

attained this point of maturity in our relationships with one

another, we have actually taken a significant step toward

our national unity. Moreover, when such acquaintance or

discourse or relationship deepens, it will be more possible

and plausible to discuss differences as well as similarities,

and to do so without antagonism and hatred. Common

sense tells us that the more united we are, foe more free

and unrestrained and unprejudiced are our conversations,

the more honesty develops, good will prevails, and

awesome barriers that stand in our way can be

substantially reduced.

Many years ago, the Chinese Christians were in their

matter- of-fact-way, discussing some kind of unity among

themselves.

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They came to the conclusion and issued this significant

statement, “Agreed to differ, but resolved to love and unite

to serve.”

Another necessary step toward a united national front is

to engage around a powerful active program, not merely

annual conventions for the sake of conventions only,

annual gatherings for the sake of dancing, drinking, hand-

clapping, finger- snapping, and passing fun. Something

constructive and far more profitable ought to be done by

those concerned, and I am sure there are some who are

concerned. Involvement is mandatory, especially by those

who are equipped to play significant roles. We will be

gready deceived if we naively believe that this problem

will work itself out. Problems are not solved and the

citadels of evil do not crumble by passive waiting. If

history teaches anything, it is that evil forces do not

relinquish their mighty grip and that time does not wait for

anyone. If time is not used constructively by good men, it

will be used destructively by evil men.

It is amazing to note that even in this generation the

children of darkness are still shrewder and more influential

than the children of light. Perhaps that reason for this fact

is because the former are more zealous, more determined,

more equipped, and certainly more committed to their

cause than the latter. If they want to advance their cause,

they do not wait for time to do it for them, nor wait for

other people to approve of what they do; they make time

their ally, and exploit and manipulate people to serve their

cause. But good men patiently and cautiously wait and

pray and timidly act. Hence, we are faced with a double

destruction: the destruction of the evil people from without

and the destruction of the silent, passive people from

within.

Connected with this thesis and one that is perhaps even

more difficult is the attempt to engage in a process of

purification. External influences must be eliminated, paid

agents and disloyal individuals and groups ought to be

converted, won, trusted, taught, and trained. Obviously,

this requires discretion and technique. Our task is to work

to remove the faults so secretly present in the system in

which the individual or groups are operating. The process

must be through persuasion, not coercion. It demands a

dynamic magnitude of redeeming power, in which every

effort is justified morally and legally, Our task is not to

satisfy dishonesty, but to shatter it. Our duty is courageous

confrontation rather than evasion.

Before we can take any efficient steps toward a national

unity, we must be quite clear about the nature of the unity

we are talking about—the words, phrases, intentions,

methods, and terminologies we are using. Nothing but

frustration and fantasy will come of a naive hope that

unity can be achieved by just a little more talking, and a

few more meetings. The differences that remain when all

the talking has been done may still be astronomical

differences. However, this is one possible method that

still divides the children of the same household against

one another.

We come to the final step. A national unity will not

come if each group or party passively and reluctantly

waits for the other to move toward it. Unity will come

only as all groups move out toward one another with

peaceful stretched hands; neither will be quite the same as

it was before the confrontation took place. The process

involves some rules. They are:

1. Each group, each party must wholeheartedly believe

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that the other group is speaking in good faith, with sincere

convictions, and well-meant intentions. Individual groups

working secretly behind each other not only cannot

contribute to the national unity but they are a hindrance

thereto.

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We all know very well that there is a great power in

unity. And the secret of this power is no secret at all. It

simply is a uniting power—joining together with a

singleness of thought, feeling and purpose. The more

people who can unite, the more groups which can be

joined together, the more nations which can collaborate—

the greater will be their combined power.

2. Each group must have a clear understanding of its

programs, plans, intentions, goals, means, and methods.

Halfknowledge of important issues will leave the job half

done. Dr. Herbert Hawkes of Columbia University used to

advise, “Half the worry in the world is caused by people

trying to make decisions before they have sufficient

knowledge on which to base a decision. Get the facts. And

be sure that the facts are exact, clear, and objective.”

3. Each party must accept responsibility in humility,

good faith, and serving spirit for what its group has done

and is doing to foster and perpetuate unity.

4. Each party must forthrightiy face the issues that

cause separation, as well as those which create unity, and

sincerely discuss them with other groups.

5. Each party must recognize that all that can be done

with the discussions and dialogues is to offer them to God

in sincere prayers who willingly and gladly consumates

every well- intended unity.

I acknowledge with gratitude the sincere desire and firm

belief of all those who strive to accomplish a lasting unity

among our disunited people. When in God’s good time

that great work is accomplished, it will be a gift and a fruit

of many tearful prayers and many hard efforts of many

people. But at the same time it is an urgent and an

essential goal toward which must be directed all our

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endeavor and will, cleansed of egotism, and illuminated

by the discoveries of intellectual minds subject to the

demands of faith. And finally, it would be well for us

Assyrians to remember that our first and last hopes in our

inventory must be the hope that unity is going to have the

last word. If that hope is lost, we are lost indeed.

Many years ago, before improvements were made in

mental hospitals, a visitor was escorted through a mental

hospital by the superintendent. He finally was taken to a

balcony overlooking a ward where the most dangerous

“lunatics” were kept. One hundred violently dangerous

lunatics, watched over by only three guards. The visitor

was astonished. He turned to the superintendent and asked,

“Aren’t you afraid those dangerous lunatics will kill the

guards?” The superintendent calmly replied, “No, lunatics

never unite.”

There is a lesson in the statement of this superintendent

for all persons, groups, and nations. Evidently many of us

have not been sufficiently impressed by the wisdom which

has come ringing down through the ages: “United we

stand; divided we fall.” Perhaps we will be more

impressed by these dramatic words: “LUNATICS NEVER

UNITE.”

CHAPTER VI

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Concluding Remarks

We have come to the end of our survey in dealing with

the Assyrian nation in the modem world. The problems,

dilemmas, and destiny of that nation is our chief

concern.

In this small work, we have attempted to portray a

few things of great significance as far as that nation is

concerned. We have earnestly made an effort to search

for a national identity so important to a nation that has

lost its own identity for many centuries. It is a universal

mode of thought to consider ourselves as important

elements of humanity as a whole. But during all these

centuries, nothing important has happened to change

the attitude of humanity toward this minority. During

the course of the discussion, many attempts were made

to arouse some consciousness, both in ourselves and in

other groups. We have shown, throughout the first

pages how we lost our identity from the very beginning

of our decline in the seventh century B.C., through

successive centuries under different rulers in different

climes.

In connection with our search for identity, it became

necessary to assure ourselves of our continuing

existence by a more powerful Scriptural argument—an

echo of eternity. The purpose of this assertion was to

give assurance that this nation blessed and promised to

play a necessary role with other na-

tions of the world cannot possibly evaporate into

nothingness. God will not retreat, He will not pass us by.

He will fulfill His prophetic words in us in His own

appropriate time. Assyria is the work of His hands. And

one day the descendants of this nation will play their part

in building a highway of friendship with other nations,

although it is the conviction of the present writer and

many others that we do not have a guide for an

understanding of this conception. Yet we believe that it

will come to pass somehow, sometime.

Furthermore, since this nation cannot perish, since we

are involved in God’s providence and His program, and

since we are an echo of eternity, then we are entided to a

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better existence than the one we are leading now.

To accomplish certain national ideals, it is important to

achieve certain ends or remove certain obstacles. A sense

of understanding among many of our groups is

mandatory, and any sense of misunderstanding ought to

be removed. A sense of direction is imperative to any

nation. It is a compass by which a nation proceeds in the

right path. A nation must never lose its sense of direction,

otherwise it will lose itself in the process. By the same

token a sense of self-confidence is as important as any. I

have included this item in our discussion because I want

it to be absorbed in our psychological fabric. Today die

world suffers mainly from distrust, and it seems that

nobody worries about it at all.

In another discussion under Church and Politics, I have

attempted to keep them separated but not isolated. I have

made my effort to show that they have different domains,

that each has its own sphere, and that the two should not

mix together. Both are necessary to a society and both

must support each other.

However, all these above suggestions and

recommendations

can only be achieved and implemented as a result of a

national galvanized unity. This is the first and foremost

requirement to our dilemmas and destiny.

These are some of the problems which some of our

thoughtful men and women are asking and for which

they are trying to find a solution. These problems are

more urgent in a crisis such as the one that the Assyrian

nation is passing through at the present time.

To conclude the whole treaties, I have throughout the

foregoing pages, shown that perhaps the time has come

to this nation to know what it needs. If it needs an

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identity or a better existence, then we must understand

that the problem must be approached basically.

Superficial foundations, meaningless conventions, and

silly discussions will falter on every side. National

freedom, security and destiny of a nation cannot be

consolidated by makeshifts, by bits of strings, by old

patches, by pots of glue. They can be established by

transforming ourselves from the interior and not by

erecting exterior structures. Only on such bases can we

arise to a kind of breathless expectation of tomorrow’s

miracle.

Many important things in the world of ours have to

be done by people who are convinced that they can

work together, or they will not, and cannot, be done at

all.

New men of vision, of insight, of good will are

needed for a new society. Without these new men, the

plans, the efforts of a new society are paper toys only—

perhaps, beautiful toys, models, well built, but they will

remain toys, unreal, illusions if we stay indifferent,

inadequate to the new social and national obligations of

our future. These men and women are a mighty force

and a bright hope to lead us. We have to follow them.

Throughout human history every large nation has

been given an opportunity to help itself by helping the

other nations of

the world. If such an opportunity is seized and

implemented with a broad and generous spirit, an infinite

of practical possibilities may open up. Our great need

today is to have these possibilities brought under control

as will make them a blessing to a few rather than a curse

to many.

Many people among the Assyrian community entertain

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optimistic notions that we are on the verge of our greatest

trial. The little forces that we possess, social, moral, and

spiritual, and the deepest motivations and strongest

convictions of life are tested for success or failure. Is this

really important? Yes. Very important. Successful

counselors tell us that it is not what happens that matters,

but how you feel about what happens. Mental capacities

are not merely so beneficial as mental attitudes. You

become what you think you are.

But first be motivated by zeal, with strong conviction

that we can and will succeed. This is the ignition that

ignites the fuel in the rocket to propel our guided missile

to success. No ignition—and you stay on the ground.

There are thousands of people among us who are always

grounded because nobody provided the ignition of

inspiration.

Next we must be motivated to find out what we need to

know and do in order to assure our success. Motivation

transforms inspiration into activity.

Whatever we want in this life or from this world has a

price tag. Not necessarily in money. This price tag is more

important than money. It includes personal sacrifice in

time, effort, study, toil, planning, and doing. Are we

willing to pay the price? The door to the future awaits us.

Let us not linger behind, looking at a door from the past

which has been closed for many centuries. It is a law of

life that when one door closes, another opens. We spend

too much time looking with regret at the closed doors

when we should seek the open doors of opportunity and

move on with confidence that they will lead to a better

tomorrow.

There is much inner strength and hope in realizing

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that the darkest hour will surely pass. There is, power

too, in knowing that we never are given a burden which

we are unable to bear. It is only when we cling to old

burdens, so that we still carry the weight of the past

when we add the burdens of each new day, that we

falter and break. Dorothy Dix once wrote: “I stood

yesterday; I can stand today; I will not permit myself to

think about what might happen tomorrow.” Another has

said, “Do the thing and you have the power.” This

statement can make you do two things, namely, to make

you try to do things, and second, it will make you

actually accomplish things. Henry Ford, who must have

made some sort of record for doing things, put it

simply, “Whatever you believe you can do a thing or

not—you are right.”

Perhaps that is an oversimplication of a very

profound fact of life. Nevertheless, there is a great

resource of power ready to be used by anyone who

begins to do something. Do the thing and you will have

the power to accomplish it. Start now— with the sure

knowledge that whatever man can conceive and

believe, man can achieve. Start now without hesitation

or fear.

Thank you my patient reader.

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Document Outline

Foreword

Introduction

In Search of Identity

An Echo of Eternity

Meaning Beyond Absurdity

Where To From Here?

A. TO A SENSE OF DIRECTION

B. TO A SENSE OF UNDERSTANDING

C. TO A SENSE OF SELF-CONFIDENCE

D. TO AN UNDERSTANDING OF CHURCH AND POLITICS

E. TO A COMPELLING SENSE OF UNITY