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Plead for the
Unification of Aramaeans - Letter to US and French Presidents, UK
Premier
Dr.
Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis
September 26, 2007
A while back, the Arameans of the Aram Naharaim Foundation sent a Letter
to the Presidents of the United States and France, and the Premier of
the United Kingdom with the respect to the critical issue of the
Aramaeans of Iraq. The letter focuses on the false identities projected
by Western missionaries among the Aramaean Eastern Christians, who have
subsequently been partly divided into ‘Assyrians’ and ‘Chaldaeans’,
although their real identity is Aramaean. This criminal act of Spiritual
Genocide is at the epicenter of all problems pertaining to Iraq, Syria,
Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, as it generates the riparian environment on
which flows the river of Islamic Extremism.
In fact, all the Muslim populations of the aforementioned countries, as
well as the Arabic speaking populations of Turkey and Iran, plus the
totality of the populations of Kuwait, Qatar, Emirates and the northern
edges of Arabia are not Arabs, but Aramaeans of the Late Antiquity and
the Early Christian times who got linguistically arabized because they
accepted gradually Islam.
Contrarily, the Ancient Chaldaeans (Kaldu), who lived in Southern
Mesopotamia, were just one of the various Aramaean tribes who had
settled in Mesopotamia in the beginning of the Neo-Assyrian times ((12th
– 11th centuries BCE). Naming some Aramaeans today after a name that
refers to a subdivision of the Ancient Aramaeans is an act of absurdity
or anti-Aramaean hatred.
Absolutely paranoid is the effort to name other modern Aramaeans as
‘Assyrians’, despite the fact that the Ancient Assyrians left no trace
in Mesopotamia, following the extinction of the Assyrian Empire (614 –
604 BCE). This effort is undertaken through vast misinterpretation of
sources from the Late Antiquity, and in order to distinguish the
Aramaeans, who contrarily to pro-Catholic ‘Chaldaeans’, accepted
Protestant missionaries’ preaching and distorted versions of
bogus-History.
The shocking fact that linguistically and culturally the modern
pseudo-Assyrians have no relations with the Ancient Assyrians makes no
sense to these extremists, who by sharing the same area (Northern
Mesopotamia, and North-Western Iran) with the Kurds are definitely
exposed to Kurdish expansionism.
Adding to this is the incredible paranoia to claim the same past as the
Kurds (Assyrian Mesopotamia); only a perverse plan that wants to push
these Aramaeans to frontal clash with the Kurds would stipulate such a
controversial national name for the Aramaeans.
With the balance of power between Kurds and pseudo-Assyrians so
detrimental against the latter, one has just to wait the moment a
semi-independent Kurdish state will eliminate these populations through
forced islamization. The tragic dimension will be that the forgers of
the false name for this part of Aramaeans will be safe in Western
Europe, and will not deploy the least effort to save them.
We publish here integrally the letter sent to the American and French
Presidents and the British Premier by Gabriel Sengo, President of the
Arameans of Aram-Naharaim Organization, as we believe it consists in a
key document with respect to several issues pertaining to present and
forthcoming events in Mesopotamia and the wider Middle East. In
forthcoming articles, we will focus on the issue that was highlighted in
the interview we had a few months ago with the Great Aramaean
Intellectual Gabriel Sengo.
The moral obligation of the West: Unifying the Aramean nation, repairing
and healing of the wounds caused by the West
By Gabriel Sengo
Nr.: 2007-08-22/16
Netherlands, 22nd of August 2007
Subject: The moral obligation of the West: Unifying the Aramean nation,
repairing and healing of the wounds caused by the West
To the Most Honorable:
President George Bush, United States of America
President Nicolas Sarkozy, Republic of France
Prime Minister Gordon Brown, United Kingdom
Your Excellencies,
The Arameans of Aram-Naharaim Organisation is an international cultural
and human rights organization to defend worldwide interests of the
indigenous Christian Aramean (not to be confused with Armenians) people
of Mesopotamia who have been present in the Cradle of Civilization for
thousands of years. They have made a great contribution to world
civilizations, in particular through their Aramaic language, spoken by
Abraham, Moses and Jesus Christ. This ancient Semitic people, now
divided into several denominations and spread throughout the Middle
East, amount to approximately 8 million people worldwide.
We are writing you to ask for your help in unifying the spiritually as
well as politically multi-divided Aramean indigenous nation of
Mesopotamia, in the ancient times called Aram-Nahrin in Aramaic and
Aram-Naharaim in Hebrew.
Both the political and the spiritual division were created through the
intervention of the colonial practices of the Western spiritual and
political powers. This intervention, carried out by inciting son against
father, daughter against mother, family against family, village against
village, has caused unprecedented hatred and sorrow within our nation
resulting in their decline in the Middle-East. Furthermore, through this
division they have been made vulnerable to the hostile environment of
the Middle-East where they are threatened with extinction and ethnic
cleansing.
A divided nation is obviously a weak nation. And this division prevents
not only attaining of their minimal fundamental human rights, but also
gaining their social, cultural and political development and rights in
both the Middle-East and the rest of the world.
There are, for example, around 600.000 Arameans of different
denominations in Iraq. The Western intervention in the 16th and 19th
centuries, which brought fanaticism and nationalism to the Middle-East,
unfortunately resulted in a part of our nation identifying itself as
“Chaldeans” (since the 16th century) and another part as “Assyrians”
(since the 19th century). Roughly speaking, this division was due to the
spiritual war between the Western Catholics and Protestants, which was
battled out at the cost of the Aramean nation, thereby planting doubts
regarding their ethnic origin.
As it is known to you, the Iraqi people are suffering terribly under the
daily insurgence, which creates many innocent victims and causes
heartrending tears and unprecedented sorrow. The situation for the
Arameans is even worse, for they have no means to defend themselves and
are at the mercy of those whose dictionary lacks words like “peace” and
“brotherhood”. However if the Arameans were not divided and were not
stuck to the unprecedented hatred implemented by the West, their chances
to survive in Iraq would be much greater.
Thus: Not only the fanatics of the Middle-East are to be blamed for the
decline of the Aramean Christian Indigenous Nation, but also those who
came from outside and presented themselves as the children of “light”,
“peace” and “brotherhood”- acting in the name of the powerful Jesus of
the West, who is of course different than Jesus Christ of the Bible-
have damaged our nation severely.
Your Excellencies;
The West wishes to present itself as a civilized and shinning example to
other nations and as a beacon of democracy, Human Rights standards and
values, mutual respect and dignity. We believe that first and foremost,
the West itself should implement and apply the standards and values,
which it claims to stand for, before asking other nations to share and
implement these very values. What do we want to say by this?
Since the unprecedented hatred, division and identity distortion (a form
of genocide) within our nation was promoted, implemented and diffused on
an academic, cultural and social level by the West, we believe that it
is the moral obligation of the same West to start with the healing,
repairing and unifying of the fragmented Aramean nation; at least if the
West takes its own standards and values seriously.
We believe that you have the power, the ability and are in the position
to make a start with the unification of the Aramean Indigenous Nation -
which has given so much to mankind throughout history - on the political
level. The same efforts that have been exhausted in the 16th and 19th
centuries to cause division and hatred within our nation in the past,
should be exerted in our times to unify, heal and repair the deep wounds
of the past. After a time of separation, fragmentation and mutual
hatred, we believe now it is time for amelioration, restoration and
rehabilitation. And your involvement in this unification process is of
utmost importance!
Regarding the contribution of the Aramean Nation to world-civilizations,
an eminent scholar of Oxford University, Sebastian Brock says, “…it is
undeniable that the simple Aramaic alphabet of 22 letters has had the
most extraordinary impact on the development of alphabetic writing
systems throughout the world. Indeed, it is very hard to imagine how
human culture and scientific learning could have progressed without
it…...“It is thus without doubt one of the greatest gifts of the
Aramaean peoples to world culture”
Unification of the Aramean Nation should not be restricted to the
various Aramean Christian denominations, but should also include the
non-Christian Arameans who currently identify themselves with strange
names. When the Christian Arameans and non-Christian Arameans would
become aware of their glorious Aramean identity, this would cause a
dramatic change in the mentality of millions of people in the
Middle-East and elsewhere who blindly and fanatically follow and glorify
identities which are not theirs. This change in mentality would not only
help outmaneuver fanaticism and terrorism, but would also make the door
open for peace and prosperity in the entire region of the Middle-East.
And we believe the key to make this door open is in your hands!
Respectfully yours,
Gabriel Sengo
(President)
Arameans of Aram-Naharaim Organization
P.O. Box 178
7550 AD
Hengelo (Ov.)
Netherlands
Note
Aramaic was diffused throughout Asia and contributed to the
establishment of many writing systems, like Uighur in Central Asia.
http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/viewArticle.asp?articleID=38675 |
