Damascus – Assyrians are Semitic peoples indigenous to Mesopotamia. Their ethnic origin is known to be linked to the Mediterranean Caucasoids, who are distinct from the Arabs and Jews. The majority of Assyrians live in their ancestral homelands that are located in Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Turkey. They continue to live within their traditions, customs, and beliefs. Assyrians are religious but are ethnically persecuted in the Middle East.
Even after years of this ethnic group fighting for their rights and living quietly among their communities, recent events show that the Assyrians remain highly threatened. They may represent a single nation and heritage, but their doctrines divide them into five principal religious sects. Many are now familiar with the Church of the East, Chaldean, Syriac Catholic, Maronite, and Syriac Orthodox. Do these divisions keep the ethnic group a target for persecution? The answer is a resounding yes.
A Look Back in History
The growing tension in the Middle East and neighboring regions is gradually being considered as a dark and haunting reflection of the past. Present-day Assyrian communities, specifically the Iraqi Assyrians, experience dangers under the prying eyes of the Islamic State (IS). When people refer to history, the current situation is similar to that of the 1914 Ottoman genocide against the Assyrians: sad, brutal, violating.
Throughout the years, the efforts to create and open up the region for a more multiethnic and multiconfessional state are now fading away. Even with the complex identity of the Assyrians and their division, the creation of a common Assyrian, Aramean, or Syriac identity based on their common traits have been seen as having limited progress.
Current Struggles
With the stronger and often disastrous movements of the IS, the militant group has trouble distinguishing among Syriacs, Christian Assyrians, and Chaldeans in violating each division’s rights. Many of the assaults made throughout the activities of the militants are centered in the Nineveh Plains. However, with the recent continuous growth of the IS, they are not only targeting Assyrian Christians but also the traditional Yazidis of the region.
Eerily similar to the mass killings that took place in both the Ottoman and British Iraq, these incidents are leaving many families devastated, lands forgotten, and refugees scattered. People are fearful of the days ahead. The IS remains persistent in their eradication of those of who speak Christ’s language and in promoting their own ideals and interpretations of the traditions as well as religious beliefs.
The problem of the Assyrians being only marked as Christian people is at the expense of their ethnic specificity and safety. The people remain connected to their history as well as their future through their land, culture, and language. With the divisions as a growing complex ground for the militant movements to search, assault, and continue providing danger to people, there is still a long fight ahead. Many innocents still wander, refugees still walk and seek shelter, and generations of ethnic practices will be destroyed.
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