The Inside Assyria Discussion Forum #5

=> the Assyrian Cult of Death,,,,,

the Assyrian Cult of Death,,,,,
Posted by pancho (Moderator) - Saturday, November 19 2016, 20:48:11 (UTC)
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...following is an exchange I recently had with an Assyrian regarding...well, you can read.



Dear Mr. Parhad,

I'm reaching out to you on behalf of the Assyrian American Cultural
Organization of____________. Our organization is working in conjunction with
the Seyfo Center to erect a monument in __________ in commemoration of the
Assyrian genocide of 1915. We have an ____________ senator that is sponsoring
a bill that will recognize the statute as an official state monument.
Several other state senators and congressmen are supporting the bill as
will.

We are reaching out to you because we have seen some of the great work
you have done in our community. We are very interested in retaining your
services for the monument. When you have chance, please contact me to
discuss whether something like this would be possible for you. You can
reach me on my mobile phone at ____________________. Thank you.





______________________________________



Hello Mr.________________,



This is a very serious subject for me, both as sculptor and as an Assyrian. I hope you will allow me to expand on it a little.



We are no longer in the Middle East in great numbers. Given the most recent and tragic events regarding not only the safety of our people and what possible future there can be in our homelands, there is the hitherto unprecedented attack and destruction of our ancient art and cultural sites.



The West is now home and refuge for our people for the foreseeable future. This is a great advantage but also fraught with challenges for maintaining what we can of our heritage. We can either retreat and hide in our ethnic ghettos or add our heritage to the multi-cultured tapestry of American art and culture. Are we to remain guest-workers or actually join the full stream of civic life? And how do we do that without losing the essence of what being Assyrian has meant and what it can mean.



There are two words, two concepts I believe we misuse. One is martyr and the other is genocide. I understand why we do it but people who know the meanings of English words know the difference, know what is meant in the West by them. In the first place definitions such as genocide should be left to historians and scholars and definitely not politicians, who have their own reasons for being inaccurate.



What the Nazis did to the Jews was a genocide…what Genghis Khan did was not, even though it is estimated he killed over 40 million people. An indiscriminate slaughter is not a genocide, it is a massacre. Genocide has a distinct meaning which needs to be kept true or else it loses all meaning. When a government, not a mob or horde, sets up institutions and offices and builds facilities to murder the members of one group, wherever they can be found and however little they are actually a part of that group, that is a genocide. That was not the case for us in Turkey…. Assyrians in other parts of the country survived just fine, which was not the case with the Nazis who actively went hunting out every Jew and partial Jew they could.



To my mind we hurt our cause if we use this inflammatory term, and inaccurately, to describe what happened to us. As pleasing as it sounds to us, it will be seen for what it really is by the people we place this monument among. We are not in Urmia or Hakarri now…we are living among people, many of them well-educated, who know what words, in their own language, mean.



If, on your proposed monument, you make any mention of the Turks as the ones who caused a genocide among Assyrians, you will do great harm to our community, in the eyes of everyone else. This country is filled with Muslims who have a much greater presence and profile than we do…. To call what happened to us a genocide will also beg the question of who did it…and if you mention Turks or Arabs or Islam, you place us firmly on the wrong side of history, of the future. Such accusations or allusions will be met with disfavor and cause us bad press.



And when you consider what a gang of Christian nations has done and continues to do to Islamic countries and people, including to us, well, it will be a contest to see who has suffered more. You will unnecessarily inflame passions and cause resentment and counter-demonstrations by the Arab American community and their supporters.



Now to the notion of “martyr” which, I am afraid, gets swept up into this as well. While that word and concept has positive overtones for us and others of the Middle East, it is a very different thing in the West. To be martyred implies passivity, acquiescence, inability or, worse, lack of interest in surviving. In this new culture we live in, that Assyrian mother who held each of her seven sons, exposing their throats to the butcher, rather than deny Jesus is not a role-model, not a heroine, not someone to emulate or honor. She would be if she had made a lunge for the sword and taken one of the killers with her and then was killed herself along with those seven sons.



In the West, which is where we now live, the soldier who throws himself onto a grenade to save his comrades will never be called a martyr. He will be a hero for having sacrificed his own life to save others, but never a martyr. Jews in the West do not call the millions of Jews killed in the Holocaust martyrs...it is a concept unwelcome to the ears and minds of a pro-active people and nation.



The 3000 people who were killed on 9/11 have never been, and will never be, called martyrs. For one thing, it would be inaccurate for another, there is no need...it doesn't change the tragedy and horror to seek to “elevate” it. It is horror enough as it stands.



The English definition of martyr, not ours, has at its core the offer of a choice...a choice to take the dangerous path or not. The person who is killed just because he or she is despised, is not a martyr but a victim, and that is bad enough. The one who is given a choice; who has a gun put to his head and told to do X “or else” and chooses “or else” and suffers the consequences knowing he had the choice to avoid them, meets the definition, among the people and culture we now live with, as a true martyr. But, even so, will not be called one. It is simply repugnant to the Western mind.



My grandfather was murdered in Urmia for his gold watch. No one asked him to choose anything, they just wanted to rob him and kill him too. He was a victim, not a martyr. We may like to define every Assyrian victim as a martyr, as a way of elevating a killing, but to the Western mind that is a calculated(because inaccurate) effort to gain pity, to raise our losses to epic significance in order to “gain” something...and it is not appreciated or respected.



The monument of Ashurbanipal and the one of Shamiram (soon to be installed on the campus at California State University at Stanislaus), as well as one I am currently making for the city of Los Altos, California are all intended to reach non-Assyrians; to tell our story to those who know little to nothing of us. To be effective I have to speak in words and images which have meaning to them. We know our own story, pretty much. What we are sorely missing is an awareness of that story among the people we share our new lives with. To that end, the definition of English words and concepts is important. As much as we strive to maintain our native tongue, we need English, at least in America, to convey an accurate picture of who we are and where we come from. This is the reason I feel the use of the word “martyr” on any statue or monument will not be in our best interests or further the cause I have set myself.



So much for the word, now for the concept. The idea of “celebrating” martyrs or even victims is counter-productive if what we want is to inspire our young people in ages to come and show ourselves in a positive light among our non-Assyrian citizens. If we had a fully balanced and fleshed out cultural outreach then it would not matter as much. But, aside from the monuments I've created every other one I know of celebrates martydom/victimhood/loss/death/destruction and just plain losing. I can't see the good in that...I can't see what there is to inspire our young, especially, as we leave out all the success we've had, against tremendous odds...and not only at surviving but thriving as well. These are indeed causes to celebrate and they would win us much more positive press and therefore pride among our young, than a continuous, dismal, recitation, and now in monument form, of loss and suffering.



Monuments were conceived, and by Assyrians too, as heroic statements...symbols of success and achievement. In a twisted and odd way it does seem that many in our community actually see a long list of martyrs as some sort of achievement, something to be weirdly proud of, something to share with others when we share little else or place equal emphasis on more positive symbols.



There is nothing heroic, to the Western mind, in a monument to death and destruction...and your monument, after all, is intended for a Western setting. There is nothing uplifting in that and monuments should inspire, should reflect the best, the victories rather than the losses.



I think I've said enough and maybe too much. But, as I said, this is an important topic for me as is the manner in which we present ourselves here in America and elsewhere in the West. I've worked at this for 40 years and as you can imagine it's been a long, hard slog to first of all get our people interested in public art let alone get them to fund the projects....so, you'll forgive me for going on so. I want your project to succeed but feel I have to tell you that in order to be truly successful, in every way, it needs rethinking.



What is it, exactly, you aim to achieve, and why, with this monument, both for us and for those whose culture we now live in and whom we should join ours to? American culture is a tapestry made up of many elements; a quilt of many ethnicities and I would like ours to be a part of it...but I want it to be a harmonious addition, with meaning for others as well, while at the same time celebrating what is positive and best in our community. Our resilience, our survival, our hard work, our success, is what is best about us and is the better story to tell.



I don't see how another rehashing of our murdered ones can begin to compare.


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Dear Mr. Parhad,

Thank you for your consideration. In the interest of our time, I will not provide you with a lengthy response as to why I disagree with you. It seems nothing I say will change your mind, nor will you change mine.

However, we do share a consensus. We can agree that we are proud to be Assyrian and we want what is best for our people. You are a great artist and I wish you the best of luck on your endeavors.

________________________________________________________



You will not honor this heritage you say you love by promoting, yet again, a history of loss and death....you give nothing for our young people to be inspired by.

Jews certainly remember and honor their dead as do Armenians...but both Jews and Armenians have built universities and research centers and world-class museums and ballet companies and orchestras and hospitals and brought the world first-rate intellectuals and reknown authors and philosophers and artists and the list goes on and on...they also have countries to call their own.

Our situation is quite different....our base has been destroyed under us and we have been sent into the world to make the best of it. I say, in the absence of all the rest of the cultural achievements which Jews and Armenians have attained, while also honoring their dead...we only manage to honor our dead...and that is our problem. For as far as culture goes, this is ALL we do.

If we want to change that we need to inspire generations of Assyrians not yet born, and tales of loss and murder and pleas for pity will not do it. As it is we are losing our young to the far more sophisticated cultures we live among, and you can´t blame them.

In the Ashurbanipal and Shamiram and now the Shlama monument, I and the Assyrians who understand the need to celebrate life and progress have created monuments which insprire, which invoke pride while teaching us, and everyone around us, our ancient history.

The monument to genocide, on top of being inaccurate and ahistorical, will do none of that. It is a pity that with your obvious learning and motivation we could not work together to give us something pointing to our future and not our dismal past.

Best of luck.



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