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AINA: Middle Eastern Christian
Conference: Safeguard
the Assyrians of the Nineveh
Plains
By: AINA <info@aina.org>
Thursday, 7 October 2004,
(AINA) -- The Middle Eastern American
Convention for Freedom and Democracy in the Middle East (MEAC)
convened in Washington DC on October 1, 2004 under the sponsorship
of the Lebanese Christian, Coptic, and
Assyrian (also known as Chaldean, and Syriac) communities including
organizations such as the AmericanLebanese Coalition, US Copts,
and the Assyrian American National Federation (AANF). The organizers
of the convention explained the two fundamental reasons for bringing
together the indigenous Christians of the Middle East together.
First, the grouping of Assyrians, Copts, and Lebanese Christians
was designed to highlight the common pressures, persecutions,
and crises commonly shared by the indigenous communities of the
Middle East and to underscore the widespread, regional basis
of their circumstances. Secondly, the convention sought to demonstrate
that because of the disproportional persecution suffered by the
indigenous peoples of the Middle East, over three-quarters of
Middle Eastern Americans are indigenous Christians and are neither
Arab nor Muslim.
The common misperception that most,
if not all, Middle Eastern Americans are Arabs has been propagated
by a clever media scheme orchestrated by the Arab American Institute
(AAI). Despite a previous grievance filed by Assyrians and Maronites
(AINA, 10-27-2001), the AAI website continues to list Assyrians
(tabulated as Assyrians/Chaldeans/Syriacs), Maronites, and Copts
in the US as Arab Americans. As one organizer noted, "The
issue of identity is not simply a matter of semantics. Rather,
the AAI has amassed considerable political capital and respect
by claiming to represent the 3.5-4 million Middle Eastern Americans
in the US." Another participant noted
"Not only do we (indigenous Christians) reject the Arab
identity, but the AAI's political agenda is antagonistic and
foreign to our groups' as well." Common complaints include
the Arab group's insensitivity to massacres against Copts by
Islamic fundamentalists in Egypt, silence on the occupation of
Lebanon by its Arab neighbor Syria, and apathy towards continued
attacks against Assyrians by Kurds and Arabs in Syria and Iraq.
As one observer
summarized, "the AAI has cynically capitalized on our numbers
while at the same time pursuing a totally alien agenda."
For other participants, the "Arabization" policy of
the AAI is an enraging reminder of the same sort of policy executed
by the likes of Saddam Hussein and Haffez Assad. One elderly
man lamented, "just when we thought we had safely escaped
Arabization in the Middle East, we find that the AAI is trying
to impose the very same policy here in the US."
The convention highlighted that 77-78
% of Middle Easterners are Christian. How a minority in the Middle
East becomes an overwhelming majority in diaspora was summarily
explained by one Assyrian leader as "simply put,
overwhelming persecution leads to overwhelming flight."
The keynote speech on behalf of the
Assyrian community was presented by Mr. Robert Dekelaita, a self-described
ChaldoAssyrian. Mr. Dekelaita is a prominent human rights attorney
in Chicago and on the executive committee of the Assyrian Academic
Society (AAS). Mr. Dekelaita described the growing crisis facing
ChaldoAssyrians in Iraq and the need for the safeguarding of
the Nineveh Plains in northern Iraq as an administrative region
for ChaldoAssyrians. In the context of the convention's theme
of advocating freedom, democracy, and pluralism in the Middle
East, Mr. Dekelaita emphasized that preserving the ChaldoAssyrian
presence in the Nineveh Plains as a vibrant part of the Iraqi
mosaic was the "litmus test" for safeguarding minority
rights in general throughout the Middle East. Echoing the same
sentiment, Ms. Nina Shea of Freedom House likened the ChaldoAssyrians
in Iraq to "canaries in a coal mine," and urged all
to support the community in their struggle for survival. Mr.
Michael Meunier, one of the organizers of the convention from
US Copts also appealed that all organizations present should
concentrate their efforts on the ChaldoAssyrian community in
Iraq that wa currently most at risk.
Some smaller Islamic organizations were
also allowed to participate in the conference in order to show
their commitment to freedom and democracy. Participation by a
lesser known Kurdish group, the Kurdish Patriotic
Union (KPU), however, caused rancor amongst the Assyrian delegation.
The KPU pressed for Kurdish autonomy without similar guarantees
for Assyrians in the Nineveh Plains and threatened secession
if their demands were not met. The Kurdish position was presented
in a pre-banquet forum entitled "Threatened Minorities."
With recent Kurdish attacks against Assyrians in northern Iraq
still fresh in their minds, some Assyrians noted that "Kurds
are threatening -- not threatened -- minorities such as Assyrians,
Yezidis, and Turkman." Pointing to recent forceful land
grabs, and attacks against Assyrian villages as well as targeted
assassinations of leaders and
random killings of civilians, the observer added "inviting
brutal occupiers of Assyrian lands to this convention is as totally
inappropriate as inviting the Syrian regime to pledge rights
to Lebanese Christians. A brutal occupier is a
brutal occupier."
The much heralded Syrian Reform Party
(SRP) was similarly seen as an affront to the Assyrian cause.
In their final resolution, the SRP representative called for
a change in the Syrian regime, withdrawal of Syrian troops from
Lebanon, and recognition of Arabic and Kurdish as official languages.
There was no mention of the Assyrian community in Syria as the
only indigenous people of Syria or of the Syriac language, the
indigenous language of Syria that predates the Arabization --
let alone the even more recent Kurdish infiltration -- of the
region. One Assyrian participant noted, "We have seen the
same tacit agreement between Arabs and Kurds to deny our existence
in Iraq where we were referred to as Christian Arabs or Christian
Kurds. We don't see this as reform, but rather the continuation
of cultural hegemony and the policy of denying our existence."
By ignoring Assyrian Christians in Syria, the SRP seems inclined
only to exchange the tyranny of Bashar Assad with their own --
a tyranny that carves up Syria into Arab and Kurdish spheres
at the expense of the indigenous Assyrian Christians."
Even Ms. Zainab al-Suwaij, an Iraqi
Shiite moderate, a celebrated champion of tolerance and moderation,
refused to acknowledge the Assyrian Christian presence in Iraq
by name. The omission of Christians in Iraq during this
period when Assyrian Christians are purposely targeted and forced
to flee en masse was angrily described by one attendee as "deliberate,
malicious, and egregious and calls her sincerity into serious
question."
In the final analysis, the convention
was successful in underscoring the general deteriorating circumstances
confronting the indigenous Christians of the Middle East and
in denying an Arab identity for these groups. Mr.
James Rayis, a prominent Assyrian attorney from Atlanta, reiterated
Mr. Dekelaita's points in the final convention resolution. Still
more, for Assyrians, the convention program proved a valuable
vehicle for spotlighting the crisis facing Assyrians and the
need to guarantee their safety in the Nineveh Plains. The anti-Assyrian
positions of groups such as the KPU and the SRP highlighted the
impossibility of adding groups who do not share a commitment
to democracy and pluralism to any future convention of Assyrians,
Copts, and Lebanese Christians.
http://www.aina.org/bbs/index.cgi?read=26610
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