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Assyrian nationalism is a movement of theAssyrian people that advocates forindependence or autonomy within the regions they inhabit in northernIraq, northeasternSyria, northwesternIran, and southeasternTurkey.
The Assyrian people claim descent from those who established theMesopotamian Assyriancivilization andempire which was centered inAshur, modern dayIraq, which at its height, covered theLevant and Egypt, as well as portions ofAnatolia,Arabia and modern-day Iran, Armenia, and Azerbaijan. The empire lasted from perhaps as early as the 25th century BC until its collapse around 7th century BC.[2][3]
The movement emerged in the late 19th century in a climate of increasing ethnic and religious persecution of the Assyrians in theOttoman Empire, and is today commonly espoused by Assyrians in theAssyrian diaspora andAssyrian homeland.
TheUnrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization (UNPO) recognizes Assyrians as anindigenous people of northern Iraq, southeastern Turkey, northeastern Syria and the fringes of northwestern Iran,[4] as does the Political Dictionary of the Modern Middle East.[5]
The ideology of Assyrian nationalism is based on the political and national unification ofethnic Assyrian followers of a number ofSyriac Christian churches (mainly those originating in, or based in and aroundUpper Mesopotamia) with classical,Akkadian influencedSyriac as its cultural language andEastern Aramaic dialects as spoken tongues. Its main proponents in the late 19th century and early 20th century wereNaum Faiq,Freydun Atturaya,Ashur Yousif,Malik Khoshaba andFarid Nazha.
Within theSyriac Christian population in the near east as a whole, Assyrianism is confined specifically by certain geographic, ethnic, linguistic and confessional boundaries.
Geographically and linguistically, an Assyrianist position is held by those who speakEastern Aramaic dialects who live or descend from those who once lived in northern Iraq, northeastern Syria, southeastern Turkey and northwestern Iran.
Theologically, the position is a little more complex. Followers of theAssyrian Church of the East,Ancient Church of the East,Chaldean Catholic Church,Assyrian Pentecostal Church andAssyrian Evangelical Church usually adhere to an Assyrianist position, although sometimes the term Chaldo-Assyrian is used to avoid theological conflict between Assyrian followers of the originalChurch of the East and those who broke away between the late 17th and early 19th centuries and entered communion with the Roman Catholic Church, which named this new church the Chaldean Catholic Church in 1830.Chaldean Catholics should not be confused with ancientChaldeans, a long extinct people with whom they share no links.
Eastern Aramaic-speaking populations who follow theSyriac Orthodox Church andSyriac Catholic Church who live or descend from those who lived in northern Iraq, northeastern Syria, southeastern Turkey, northwestern Iran and the southern Caucasus tend to regard themselves as Assyrian, whereas formerlyWestern Aramaic-speaking and now almost exclusivelyArabic-speakingLevantine members of these churches from the rest of Syria,Lebanon and south-central Turkey often espouse anAramean,Phoenician (more common amongMaronite Christians) or evenGreek heritage (seeArameanism andPhoenicianism).
This is in part due to the termSyriac being generally accepted by the majority of scholars to be a 9th-century BC derivation ofAssyrian which for many centuries was used in specific and sole relation to the Assyrians and Assyria, and in part because the majority of the Christian population of these areas are not geographically from what was Assyria or Mesopotamia, and thus do not identify with an Assyrian heritage in the way that thepre-Arab,pre-Islamic Mesopotamian Assyrians from Iraq, Syria, Turkey, Iran and the Caucus naturally do.
According to Raif Toma, Assyrianism goes beyond mere Syriac patriotism, and ultimately aims at the unification of all "Mesopotamians", properly qualifying as "Pan-Mesopotamianism". This variant of Assyrianism is independent of Christian, ethno-religious identity and qualifies as a purelyethnic nationalism, in that it identifies theAssyrian people as the heirs of theAssyrian Empire, and as the indigenous population ofMesopotamia, as opposed toArabism, which is identified as a chronologically later, non-indigenous, and foreign intrusive element. This is expressed for example in theAssyrian calendar introduced in the 1950s, which has as itsera 4750 BC; then thought to be the approximate date of construction of the first (pre-historical, pre-Semitic) temple toAshur.
Organizations advocating Assyrianism are theAssyrian Democratic Organization,Bet-Nahrain Democratic Party,Assyrian Universal Alliance (since 1968) andShuraya (since 1978). TheAssyrian flag was designed by the Assyrian Universal Alliance in 1968.[6]
Mordechai Nisan, the Israeli Orientalist, also supports the view that Assyrians should be named specifically as such in an ethnic and national sense, are the descendants of their ancient namesakes, and denied self-expression for political, ethnic and religious reasons.[7]
Dr. Arian Ishaya, a historian andanthropologist ofUCLA, states that the confusion of names applied to the Assyrians, and a denial of Assyrian identity and continuity, is on one hand borne out of 19th- and early 20th-centuryimperialism andcondescension on the part of the west, rather than by historical fact, and on the other hand by long-heldIslamic,Arab,Kurdish,Turkish andIranian policies, whose purpose is to divide the Assyrian people along false lines and deny their singular identity, with the aim of preventing the Assyrians having any chance of unity, self-expression and potential statehood.[8]
Naum Elias Yaqub Palakh (better known asNaum Faiq), a 19th-century advocate of Assyrian nationalism from theSyriac Orthodox Church community inDiyarbakır, encouraged Assyrians to unite regardless of tribal and theological differences.[9]
Ashur Yousif, an Assyrian Protestant from the same region of southeastern Turkey as Faiq, also espoused Assyrian unity during the early 20th century, stating that the Church of the East, Chaldean Catholic and Syriac Orthodox Assyrians were one people, divided purely upon religious lines.[10]
Freydun Atturaya (Freydon Bet-Abram Atoraya) also advocated Assyrian unity and was a staunch supporter of Assyrian identity and nationalism and the formation of an ancestralAssyrian homeland in the wake of theAssyrian genocide.[11]
Farid Nazha, an influential Syrian-born Assyrian nationalist, was deeply critical of the leaders of the various churches adhered to by Assyrians, accusing theSyriac Orthodox Church,Assyrian Church of the East,Chaldean Catholic Church andSyriac Catholic Church of creating divisions among them, when their joint ethnic and national identity should be paramount.[12][13]
Theideology of Assyrian independence is apolitical movement that supports the re-creation ofAssyria as anation state corresponding to part of the originalAssyrian homeland, in theNineveh Plains of northernIraq and other areas in the Assyrian homeland. The issue of Assyrian independence has been brought up many times throughout the course of history from beforeWorld War I to the present-dayIraq War. The Assyrian-inhabited area of Iraq is located primarily but not exclusively in theNineveh Governorate region in northern Iraq where the ancient Assyrian capital ofNineveh was located.[14] This area is known as the "Assyrian Triangle."[15] Assyrians are generally found all over northern Iraq, including in and around the cities ofMosul,Erbil,Kirkuk,Dohuk,Amedi andRawandiz, and there are a fair number of exclusively Assyrian towns, villages, hamlets and agricultural communities in the north, together with others that have significant Assyrian populations. Other communities exist over the borders in southeastern Turkey (Mardin,Diyarbakır,Harran,Bohtan,Kültepe,Hakkari), northeastern Syria (Al-Hasakah,QamlishiKhabur delta) region and northwestern Iran (Urmia).
In post-Ba'thist Iraq, theAssyrian Democratic Movement (or ADM) was one of the smaller political parties that emerged in the social chaos of the occupation.[16]
The continuity of Assyrian identity is endorsed and well supported by many non-Assyrian modernAssyriologists,Iranologists,orientalists,linguists,geneticists and historians, while others see the connection between ancient Assyria and the modern Assyrians as more complex. There was Assyrian resistance to Persian rule inAchaemenid Assyria.H. W. F. Saggs in hisThe Might That Was Assyria clearly supports cultural and historical continuity,[17] as doRichard Nelson Frye,Simo Parpola,Robert D. Biggs andPatricia Crone among others.
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![Initially depicted as a goddess in Sumerian times, when it was called Lamma, it was later depicted from Assyrian times as hybrid of a human, bird, and either a bull or lion under the name Lamassu. It appears frequently in Mesopotamian art.[18]](/mt/?noimg=&dark=on&url=https%3a%2f%2fwikipedia.org%2fwiki%2fFile%3aLammasu.jpg)
