The Inside Assyria Discussion Forum #5

=> Interview With Aboona....

Interview With Aboona....
Posted by pancho (Moderator) - Sunday, February 22 2009, 22:52:12 (CET)
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Interview with Dr. Hermis Aboona

By: Mariam Georgis, Allena Slavyo, Lema Yousif, Sandy Shlemon
Translated from Assyrian to English by Sandy Shlemon and Allena Slavyo

Mariam: Good evening ladies and gentleman, my name is Mariam Georgis, speaking on behalf of the Assyrian Chaldean Syriac Student Union of Canada. Today I am accompanied by an Assyrian scholar from our community, Dr. Hermis Aboona. Good evening Dr. Aboona

Dr. Aboona: Good Evening

Mariam: We would like to know more about you your accomplishments, and what you would like today's youth to know. Let us start with a brief biography about yourself.

Dr. Aboona: First off, I would like to start by welcoming you and it’s my pleasure to have met with ACSSU. It brings great happiness to me to see students in our community that have a passion to learn not only for themselves but also for their nation.
I was born in the year 1940 in the town by the name of Alqosh, a town in old Assyria.
After finishing elementary school in Alqosh, I decided to continue my education by moving to the capital Baghdad during the year of 1952. In the year 1964 I completed my university degree with an honors in law. After my university education, I started working and traveled to multiple countries. I was motivated to travel to all the cities in Bet-Nahrain in order to come across the remains of our ancestors.

In 1982, I left Iraq with my wife and my three sons to England to obtain a PhD. At the same time my wife established her career as a secondary school teacher in Iraq.
In 1982, I entered the University of Exeter in Devon Southwest England. I studied modern Assyrian history specifically The Independent Assyrian Tribe of Tyari and Hakari and the relation with Turks and Ottoman. In 1988 I was forced to leave England and immigrate to Canada. From 1988 to the present time I have been living in Canada. That’s a short story of my life.

Now with my education, I started writing books, I was motivated to start a chain of series of books entitled “Assyrians after the fall of Ninveh” some writers began criticizing that the Assyrian Nation disappeared after the fall of Ninveh. Rather, this is not a fact. To prove this incorrect- the series of books I wrote were entitled “Assyrians after the Fall of Ninveh.” These books I wrote were divided into different volumes aaccdoring to the different time periods in Assyrian history after the fall of Ninveh in 612 BC.
The first volume specifically covers the fall of Ninveh up to the coming of Jesus Christ. Volume 2 covers the coming of Jesus Christ up to the Islamic religion. Volume 3 includes the Islamic religion and so on.

...***as mentioned often enough, no Assyriologist has ever said the Assyrian people disappeared off the face of the earth with the fall of empire...neither did the Babylonians, Greeks or anybody else...what they HAVE said about the Assyrians in particular, is that they lost the sense of themselves when they lost their language...and then their history and culture...as proof we know that modern Assyrians had to learn their history from European scholars and archeologists...and still can't speak Assyrian, not Aramaic, but Assyrian.

I continued writing the series of these volumes, in between I wrote the Folded Pages from the History of the Chaldean Church. Volume 7 covers the history of the Assyrian Church of the East and the Ancient Church of the East. Volume 6 includes the massacres by Badr Khan Bey. In this volume I describe the struggled way of living of the Assyrian nation. From 1943-1946, a confederation of Kurdish people from both Iran and Turkey attacked the Assyrian tribes- Tyari and Hakari under the command of Badr Khan Bey.

...??? ***I thought Badr Khan attacked in the late 1800s.

Their main goal was to kill the Assyrian men and take the Assyrian women. Thousands of Assyrians were killed during this time. Thousands of Assyrian women were taken as hostages. Not only were the Kurds killing the Assyrian people, but they also destroyed the land. The ancient churches, which dated back to the formation of Christianity, were demolished from the land. The Kurds proved to be extremely heartless and inhumane to the point where they destroyed all trees including the old and dry ones in order to prevent the Assyrians from forming shelters. Ultimately these acts lead the new Assyrian generation to start form scratch.

...***THis is pure propaganda...and the reason why Aboona has to use a print-for-hire whore. None of this is vouched for in history....certainly not without giving all sides and making a better and more dispassionate appraisal....this is merely hatred towards Islam and Arabs, Turks and Kurds all over again.

Dr. William Ainsworth was sent by the Archbishop of Canterbury, in order to establish an official relation between the Assyrians and the Church of England. In June of 1840, Dr. William Ainsworth arrived to Tyari and Hakari. He remembers specifically in the city of Lizan, he describes Lizan as beautiful as paradise and is in comparable to any city in Europe.

...***Yes...and according to other missionaries it was the Archbishop who tacked on "Assyrian" to the name of his mission....this is all spelled out, with documents, in Dr Joseph's book.

The massacres of the Assyrian nation during Badr Khan Bey and the destruction of the beautiful Assyrian land, motivated me to write my books. Not only did Badr Khan Bey kill Assyrians and ruin the land, but also thousands of Assyrians immigrated to Ninveh as refugees. During the 4th ,5th , and 6th centuries there was not a single Assyrian woman who was unable to read and write. The Assyrian Nation was extremely educated. In 1295 AD, Assyrian Nation started experiencing a decline. During the massacres of Badr Khan Bey, the Assyrian community was isolated and deprived from education. Ultimately leaving only 4% of Assyrians with the ability to read and write.

...****about the same number read and write today...even less understand anything. Therre was no Assyrian "nation" in 1295 AD and hadn't been any such nation for a thousand years before that. If this is what Aboona learned by "studying history", he's worse off than those illiterate Assyrian women. At least he can blame that on Muslims...what is his excuse for being so ignorant?

“The Nation that was the Founder of Human Civilization”
- Hermis Aboona

30% of the Assyrians living in the lands of Ninveh- Alqosh, Telkeph, Karemlesh, and so on- were the original refugees that emigrated from Tyari and Hakari during the time of Badr Khan Bek.

During my research on Tyari and Hakari, I came across official documents stating the massacres of the Assyrian people. The Assyrian women whom were held hostages by the Kurds, were given as gifts to honored and respected men in the cities. This was one of the reasons why the Assyrian community has immigrated into 42+ countries.

...bullshit. I'm surprised he hasn't mentioned that old chestnut about babies being tossed in the air and caught on swords/rapiers/kitchen knives and bayonets.

Volume 5 included the lifestyles of Tyari and Hakkari, including Urmi from the East, the Syriacs from Tur-Abdin, and the Ninveh plains from the South.

In the Metropolitan of Ninveh, the people occupying this land before Christianity were the Assyrians. With the emergence of Christianity; division came about questioning Jesus Christ and Mother Mary (Nestorians). This division was a disadvantage to the Assyrian nation because some Assyrians followed the idea that Jesus Christ was of “two bodies’ two souls”. The other half of the Assyrians that can be identified as Jacobites believed that Jesus Christ was of “two souls, one body”, and that Mother Mary was the mother of Jesus and not God.

...***They were not Assyrians...they never called themselves Assyrians...no one did until the 19th century.....they were Nestorians and Jacobites with two heads and one arse.

During the 16th century in the area of the Metropolitan of Ninveh, a new group derived from the Assyrians called Chaldeans. In one of my books I clarify that Assyrians, Chaldeans and Syriac’s are one nation under three names. Although the community was divided by name, all three worked as one during the formation of Ninveh, which is mentioned in the Bible as “Ninveh the Great City”.

...*** yes, a "new group" derived in the 16 th century....but there were no Assyrians at that time...in fact the Nestorians who refused to return to the Catholic fold insisted on calling themselves Nestorian Chaldeans...they didn't know or care about being Assyrians....this Chaldean name was an invention of the pope...in the 19th century other Euros invented Assyrians.

It is our responsibility as Assyrians to write out cultural history as it was. If our heritage is to be written by philosophers from the Western societies that may describe the Assyrian people as killers and barbarians. There has been no mention to the amount of knowledge the Assyrians have provided the worlds today. The Assyrians were an advanced nation in every possible aspect of human civilization. From the invention of the wheel to the alphabet. Due to the massacres of our nation, our knowledge and creations have been erased.

...***whoa there. You're mixing two things. It's true, as you say, that ancient Assyrians have been villified by the West...and it's something I'm trying to reverse, a little, but trying to bring some actual cause for pride in the ancient heritage...by placing representations of it in major modern cities...which is all the more reason that I resent efforts by Christians such as yourself to tie your Christian fantasy to the ancient Assyrian name and heritage. You bring shame on the ancients..and you don't help the modern Nestorians any either.

I strongly suggest that if we want our nation to survive, we must motivate the people in our community to pursue an education because education is the best tool an individual can have. A nation with education will never die. University students must encourage high schools students to continue their education; PhD students must encourage Bachelor’s students to also continue their education. Our nation is in the hands of the today’s generations.

...***if what you gained from your education is any indication...you deserve a refund. What you are spouting is the antithesis of education..it is propaganda with an underbelly of bigotry and racism.

Mariam: on behalf of ACSSU I would like to thank you Mr. Hermis Aboona for your time and hospitality and hopefully your thoughts and words will reach out to our nation today.

Dr. Aboona: It was my pleasure to have met with ACSSU. You are heading in the right direction, keep up the good work.

....***and when you hit that brick wall directly in your path....give Aboona the credit. There's nothing good that can come from fooling people, especially ourselves....if we only knew what a laughing stock we make of ourselves with this ridiculous claim.



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