Bet-Nahrain Forum

Proud to be called Assyrian

Posted By: Nimrud (c-24-12-209-247.hsd1.il.comcast.net)
Date: Sunday, 9 April 2006, at 10:11 p.m.

Dear Friends

A while ago, I read a gentleman post in this forum, who has indicated that Assyrians glorify their history and ancestry. Further more I read few others, who are so frustrated with the current events.

History is an important integral to safeguard our culture our heritage, and our traditions and most important our name and our god given rights. Unfortunately one thing Our recollection of our history, always lead us to our conquests, and wars, and expansions, and enslavement of others, or the destructions of other kingdoms. Our history is more than wars, and conquests, our History reflects our accomplishments in the fields of Math, physics, Astronomy, Law, Architecture, Literature. Most of us remember Ashur Banibal with his invasions and conquering of his enemies, yet hardly anyone recognize his achievement of establishing the first library in the world. Or the palaces that were built during King Sanharib were engineering and architecture magnificence, or the epics of Gilgamesh, or the Hamurabi code of law. I don’t need to remind anyone our deeds in the field of agriculture, when modern Iraq or the entire middle east haven’t achieved with the assistance of new technologies what we had accomplished over 6000 years ago.
I read a book by Patricia Crone, and Michael Cook (Hagarism), in regard to Islam and what struck me was how their research had led them to our church and its impact on our people and the region. By the way they did call our church Nestorian. Their finding was that when the Assyrians had converted to Christianity it was the royalty and the educated classes of Assyria who adopted the religion, and not the commoners (farmers, and laborers).

Those elitist (Educated) classes who ran our church for the last 2000 years have preserved not only the church but our nationality and culture. We owe them a great debt of gratitude because if it wasn’t for them As crone and Cook had wrote we would have dissolved among the Arab, Kurds Turks and whom ever had conquered our nation. But with their outstanding work and teaching, and the institution they had built in our church had preserved us time and again. We still see today at this moment while everyone is trying to dissolve our entity into #####, Arab, and Kurds the only institute that stood against them and did a remarkable job in resisting the melting of our nation into another pot was the Assyrian Church of the East. We might not have a country and we might not have a nation, but there is nothing wrong with taking pride of who we are and what we were. We were Astronomers, Engineers scientist, men who established the first law of the land. And not only warriors.

God bless