Church and Nation

April 2018

Church and Nation By Max J. Joseph “From you, Nineveh, has one come forth who plots evil against the Lord and devises wicked  plans.” –  Nahum  Nahum 1:11.

INTRODUCTION Given the extremely delicate nature of this subject and a modern dialogue fraught with smearing and needless confrontation, it took me longer to think about how to write this than it did actually writing it—a process alien to me. I want to be as sincere and positive as I can be without being negative, euphemistic or apologetic. The theme is just too important to ignore with respect to our future: I want to discuss the relationship between Church and Nation for Assyrians. After the assault of ISIS into the Assyrian heartland of the Nineveh Plain in Iraq, the ongoing neglect of the Federal Government, and betrayal and surrender of the land with no resistance from our self-declared Kurdish protectors, we saw another exodus of Assyrians out and away from the only part of our homeland left where we had any demographic concentration. This last chapter of genocide has resulted in the Assyrian population being situated more in diaspora than in the homeland for the first time in our venerable history. The shift in demographics must coincide with the asking of ambitious, far-ranging questions about what we must do now and how we must organize ourselves to resist annihilation. It is my opinion that the asking of these questions cannot be the responsibility of organisations, Church groups or political parties —  they are responsible for mobilisation, social visibility, the  — they creation of Assyrian public space —these questions must be asked by individuals, regardless of their religious affiliation, in order to come to some kind of inclusive consensus from which to move forward together as one interconnected, living Assyrian nation. This is an intellectual task that gives birth to real and effective work. Contemplating the Assyrian Question for the last one hundred years since our genocide has produced failure after failure as our battered and traumatized people try and navigate new and hostile states moulded out of the wreckage of our homeland. Many of us have been periodically forced en masse to live life on the run, settling in foreign lands and reminiscing about a past we never truly lived. The diaspora Assyrian—this New Assyrian—carries an incredible sadness which lies hidden. As Assyrian poet Sargon Boulos writes: “he tells and he tells and he tells,  because he has arrived but does not taste arrival.” Many of us hunger for that sense of arrival, for that sense of being and belonging we have  been chronically chronicall y deprived of. Many of us ultimately ulti mately find comfort within all of o f our Churches — our our traditional sanctuaries during the brittle times of empire and alienation from mainstream society we are so familiar with. The following discussion is not one in which I angrily critique the role of our religious leaders in our political affairs (too much energy on this has already been wasted within our community centres and internet forums) it is one which starts with a simple premise: I am going to accept the primacy of religious leadership,  but I am going to critique it on its own terms  in reference to history, without throwing my support behind any single rival or group — as as a predisposition or  in  in conclusion. 1|Page

Church and Nation

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THE MAR AWA ROYEL INTERVIEW A recent interview with Church of the East bishop of California, Mar Awa Royel, was conducted by Steve Netniss on The Assyrian Podcast. Podcast. I found the substance of Mar Awa Royel’s answers unsurprising and in sync with the general attit udes among all of our religious institutions, especially the leadership. For the benefit of everyone, I have transcribed some of it below followed by commentary — this this will serve as the springboard into an expansive discussion on the relationship between Church and Nation in the following sections: satisf ied as a people? Are we fulfilled MAR: “Are we really whole as a  people? Are we really satisfied as a nation? I would say no because we’re still s till on that road to get to where we need to be. Until we get there—and [statehood] is on the minds and hearts of eve ry Assyrian person, I daresay—but that’s a process that takes many man y years and much sacrifice. And we may not even see that in our lifetimes. So what’s to guarantee that process? What will help us advance in that process? Now that’s where the Church comes i n…” MAR: “You have this early m issionary work among the remnants of the Assyrian empire. They had lost the Assyrian empire in 612 BC but now there is a new “empire” being formed which is the Church, which is the kingdom of God—the Assyrians forming this empire, which is spiritual in nature…” Steve Netniss: “So you’re saying the Church has always been the one that’s always created a land, whether it was inside the land or outside the land, it’s created a place for Assyrians to be Assyrians?” MAR: “It’s created a place pla ce and it’s created an identity for us […] So through the modern age through to present—not that the name was not beginning to be used—but how was that highlighted? It was through the Church.” Steve: “So you’re saying the Church has been the place where the name Assyrian has been  preserved?” MAR: “Of course.” MAR: “The Eastern Churches are all ethnic Churches by b y nature. When you say the Russian Orthodox Church, obviously the predominant makeup of the people is Russian. The Greek Orthodox Church. The Armenian Apostolic Chur ch. ch. The Syriac Orthodox Church… You’re not simply saying something about the theology of the Church but you’re saying: who are these people? At one point, the Church of the East was not exclusively among the Assyrian  people, but because of centuries ce nturies of per secution, secution, today it is.” Steve: “Isn’t it in India as well?” MAR: “Yes, that’s correct. The original Church in India was that of the Church of the East […]” Steve: “So if there is an Assyrian out there who doesn’t feel connected to the Church, they ought to feel connected just by virtue of their ethnicity? MAR: “Yes. Because it is the t he ethnic Church of our nation […] If you look at our Armenian  brothers and sisters, they the y have the same phenomenon. The Church is i s not simply where they ealise as a people that does not have its own land, its own go to pray […] we have to r ealise territory, its own country; the Church is that land—the Church is our Country.” Steve: “The world has changed and there isn’t very many nations that a re led by their religious figures. Or is there?

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MAR: “Of course there are. You have the Tibetans who are led by the Dalai Lama. You have other ethnic groups that are out there… We fall in that same category.” MAR: “The Church of the East has been the soul of t his nation. It’s a historical fact. I don’t need to make a plug for the Church. The Church doesn’t need a plug.”

THEMATIC CONTEXT To understand where these answers are coming from, it is important to first understand our own history and that of our neighbours. Assyrians have lived mostly under successive Muslim empires or emirates since the Arab conquests. We often cite the 20th C Sykes-Picot agreement as being responsible for the partitioning of our homeland among its four disparate  parts but our isolation isolati on and estrangement from each eac h other happened much earlier: e arlier: ever since Assyria was toppled as the chief political power, it has been divided between the rise and fall of Eastern and Western kingdoms and their corresponding spheres of influence. In the east, you had the aforementioned Islamic empires, and in the west, you had the Greco-RomanByzantine cultural and political continuum as well as the ascent of Catholicism. Assyrians have been trying to navigate these fault lines since the loss of our sovereignty. We have often paid the heaviest price for wars not of our making whilst feeling no benefit with any settlement or victory —   just the losses. As Mar Awa Royel said, Assyrians lost control of their territorial sovereignty and focused on building a spiritual empire which could traverse  borders easier than regiments re giments of infantry infantr y or cavalry. This impressively impressivel y ranged as far as the Americas all the way to Japan. It was a means for us to survive as we adapted to volatile  power struggles which we could coul d not hope to influence with brute br ute force. We also lost control c ontrol of writing our own national history — a fact we crucially neglect —  and one which has  — and contributed to our religiously inspired identity crisis. This state of affairs persisted up to the formation of the Ottoman Empire. During these fivehundred or so years, we proceeded to live out our lives much in the same way as we did in other territories hostile to us as a people such as modern day Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Turkey: either by disproportionately excelling in urban centres far and beyond what would normally  be required for a Muslim constituent con stituent (recalling the th e famous words of an Armenian doctor do ctor th early in the 20  C: “if I can heal them, they won’t kill me”) or in the administrative limbo and wilderness of hard but honest village life in far-flung provinces. The state organised genocide of the Ottoman Empire’s native Christian co mponents brought an end to the last period of our classical history, ushering in a new, bloody modern one. The last one-hundred years can be characterised by the most terrible trauma and insecurity we have ever faced  and that will be the main subject of this paper. We are firmly in an  — and existential crisis and this hastens the need to ask existential questions.

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HISTORY OF AN ERROR

 Mar Eshai Shimun inspecting Assyrian soldiers before his exile and the Simele Massacre, Massacr e, Iraq 1932.

 EASTERN CHURCHES, CHURCHES, EASTERN NATIONS NATIONS Understanding the Armenian and Greek ‘ethnic Churches’—of which we are believed to be closely related to at least in terms of circumstance—and their relationship with their respective national movements will serve as a solid foundation before moving onto discussion of our own situation.

We would all ideally desire a harmonious relationship between our clerical and lay power  bases, but this was far from being b eing the norm for Armenians and Greeks. Mar Awa Royel’s referencing of these ethnic groups without any elaboration of the turmoil between the nationalist and religious components within them is providing only a convenient part of a story. For example, the current [standing] Patriarch of the Armenian Church in Istanbul is a handpicked loyal supporter of Turkish President Erdogan and the Islamist AK Party. This support entails the denial of the genocide against his own people and the support of Turkish  politics more broadly, broadl y, even going so far as condemning the German parliament in 2016 for recognizing the genocide. Is this religious leader representative of Armenians, regardless of the difficult circumstances in Turkey? Of course not. In 1933, Armenian Archbishop Leon Tourian was assassinated in New York by members of the nationalist Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF). This killing was done with the intention of punishing a traitor for collaborating with the enemy and endorsing policies which heavily undermined Armenian national interests. In the case of Tourian, living fully under the Soviet yoke was something nationalists wanted to resist, yet he embraced. Even the modern nations we look to as models of progress and democracy reserve their harshest punishments for crimes of treason, and the Armenians absent a judicial court guaranteed and enforced by state power were very much behaving with this principle in mind. 4|Page

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Going back further to the Ottoman genocide, the patriarchate was the only official representative institution for Ottoman Armenians, much like all Christian groups in the millet  system. The context Armenians found themselves in during these terrible years was established by a series of events during the 19th C, especially with regards to the RussoTurkish war in 1877. Here, the Armenian experience served as precedent for how dealings with Assyrians some decades later would transpire. Citing an important text on the Destruction of the Armenian Church during the genocide:

On the one hand, despite the deepening crisis, the church in general remained a conservative conservative institution and rejected association with the opposition. Only a small minority among the clergy participated in political activities. On the other hand, the Patriarchate in Constantinople was also compelled to serve as a conduit for the expression expression of Armenian grievances before the Sublime Porte, as well as in international diplomatic relations. Patriarch Nerses Varzhabedian (1874 – 1884) 1884) and the higher clergy generally encouraged encouraged loyalty to the sultan, and during the RussoTurkish war the patriarch issued an encyclical urging Armenians to support the Ottoman army. And when Russia was getting the upper hand, the Patriarch suddenly courted the Russians:

Growing protests by Armenians in the eastern provinces demanding protection from their Turkish, Kurdish, and Circassian attackers, coupled with the Russian military victories during the war, emboldened Patriarch Nerses to travel to San Stefano to  petition the czarist czarist government government to include in the post-war post-war peace treaty treaty a provision granting administrative autonomy and protection for the physical security of his fl ock in the Armenian provinces. After a series of meetings in which the Armenians came to an arrangement with Russia, only to have it reneged on and renegotiated by major European powers wary of growing Russian influence on their Eastern flank, something started to happen: ordinary Armenians were getting frustrated with the ineffective political bargaining monopolized by the Patriarchate and began to independently mobilize along radical nationalist lines, breaking out of the millet   paradigm. This in turn reinvigorated the Patriarch’s loyalty to the Sultan— the the status quo and insurer of its authority which was now waning among his own people:

Growing disillusionment with the European powers and the inability of the Armenian Church to effect changes led to the radicalization of Armenian nationalist movements and the emergence of loosely structured groups such as the Union of Salvation (founded in Van in 1872), the Black Cross Society (Van, 1878), and the Protectors of the Fatherland (Erzurum, 1881). This was followed during the same decade by the  founding of the three three major political parties: parties: the Armenagan Armenagan Party (Van, (Van, 1885), the  Hnchagian Party Party (Geneva, 1887), 1887), and the Armenian Armenian Revolutionary Revolutionary Federation, or Tashnagtsutiun (Tiflis, 1890). While Armenians in general, albeit with great trepidation, welcomed the party activists to their communities for the physical security they promised, the socialist and revolutionary ideologies these parties espoused nevertheless nevertheless alarmed the more conservative institutions and classes. The Armenian Church and members of the wealthier classes, who worked as bankers, merchants, and civil servants in the capital and other major urban centers, viewed the emerging nationalist movement among their compatriots as a nuisance and radical 5|Page

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revolutionary activities as a direct threat to their t heir status in official circles and society at large. Alarmed by the growing Armenian militancy and determined to maintain the status quo, Patriarch Nerses Varzhabedian, Varzhabedian, in a message to the Armenian National  Assembly, pledged pledged loyalty to the sultan, with the expectation expectation that the Sublime Sublime Porte would implement the promised reforms. The patriarchate, for its part, would continue to direct all efforts to ameliorate the Armenian situation with allegiance to the Ottoman government government in mind. When new Patriarch Izmirlian began to throw his support behind these incendiary nationalist movements, he was simply removed by the Sultan two years into his post, illustrating how risky this position was to take. In Archbishop’s Ormanian’s words, there was “ wide chasm  between Izmirlian’s expectations and political realities.” The leader of the millet  was  was expected to demonstrate allegiance first to the Sultan, and only then to his followers:

Patriarch Mateos Izmirlian (1894 – 1896) 1896) sought to reinvigorate the patriarchate after a decade of decline, but his open support for the Armenian nationalist movement movement undermined his own authority in relations with the Sublime Porte. The fact that t hat Patriarch Izmirlian had, in the eyes of the government, maintained close ties with nationalists only exacerbated the situation and marginalized him. Ormanian, who served after Izmirlian, once again shifted the political compass back towards the Sultan and there it remained throughout the decades to come:

 Archbishop Ormanian, Ormanian, who served served until 1908, 1908, brought to the patriarchate patriarchate enormous enormous energy in matters of cultural and educational affairs, as attested by such publications as The Church of Armenia and, more significantly, by his Azkabadum (‘‘History of ently loyal to the t he sultanate, but his ultra-conservative stance the Nation’’). He was ard ently on matters of reforms and socialist ideology rendered rendered him unpopular among  Armenian activists. activists. One of the most crucial intellectual struggles Armenians were grappling with throughout all of this was a mental as well as a physical liberation from the Ottoman millet  system  system through the brutal First World War period. With the ascent of the Young Turks — a group who  privately scorned the th e authority commanded by b y Islamic clerics, yet recognised recognise d the value of mobilising for jihad  the nature of the oppression had evolved from one of simply Muslim  — the vs Christian to Turk vs Armenian. As Walker notes: “The Armenians failed to grasp the n ature of Turkism. They continued to see themselves as Christians … Religion was an integral part of being an Ottoman  Armenian, so a nonreligious ideology ideology was hard hard to comprehend. comprehend. They found found it almost impossible to see what it meant to be up against a nonreligious, race-based ideology.”

Sound familiar? Responses to this evolution were confused, and even involved intermittent agitation by religious leaders to briefly create another Armenian millet in the Ottoman system owing to political differences. Schisms and division of power among the religious leadership was not often down to ecclesiastical matters, but involved the very real pursuit of power and  position afforded by b y the millet  system.  system. Assyrians were subject to the same pressures and we are still enduring its effects today.

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Similarly, tension between Greek nationalists and their religious authorities reached its zenith under Ottoman rule in 1821 during the Greek War of Independence. Patriarch Gregory V of Constantinople and the Synod had anathematised and excommunicated both Ypsilantis, a  prominent Pontian Greek general, gen eral, and Soutzos, a Greek prince, who were organising and spearheading the rebellion. The Church had issued many encyclicals (authoritative religious decrees) and an explicit condemnation of the Greek Revolution in line with the Church’s Ottoman appeasement policy. The Greeks revolted despite their own religious leadership’s categorical opposition. What was Patriarch Gregory’s reward for being a loyal lo yal subject? After Easter services in 1821, he was hanged in full Patriarch’s vestments for two days at the order of the Sultan who blamed him for not being able to suppress the Greek rebellion despite his best efforts.

These are but some examples of struggling neighbouring ethnic groups in open conflict with their conservative religious establishments. In the first scenario, treason was punished directly by the Armenians who were undergoing a national awakening in order to adequately confront threats to their existence from both internal and external sources. Clergy who were sympathetic to growing nationalism did not last and were quickly removed by the status quo who could normally rely on their loyalty. In the second, we can see that no matter how much the policies of oppression are appeased, the reward for doing so is ultimately determined by the success and fortune of the oppressor. These conflicts still somewhat persist today, even long after the establishment of Greece and Armenia as sovereign states.

 HOW DOES THIS RELATE RELATE TO US? The modern Assyrian Church of East positions itself as the owners of the Assyrian nation by using language such as “created an identit y” and “ethnic Church” when referencing our identity and origins. I stipulate modern , since the addition of “Assyrian” “Ass yrian” into the official name of the Church was implemented in 1976 despite the Church’s formation well over onethousand years ago as the non-ethnically bound “Church of the East” . The Church of the East was a multi-ethnic Church par excellence. So in a sense, the Church certainly has created an identity for itself , but its claim that it has created an identity for the entire Assyrian nation is difficult to accept when consulting history. The mutation in title is a significant article to address in order to understand how the Church of the East has responded and adapted to needs and pressures. This is further revealed by Mar Awa Royel’s drawing parallels  to the other Eastern Churches; he views all of these Churches as products of individual ethnic groups and constructed in accordance to their own needs. What is difficult to accept is the reference-making itself: all of these Churches have long, incredibly complex histories. Equalising them to Church of the East, which has in real terms had an altogether different history along with different priorities, is a simplistic way to explain a very much voluntary decision to change the name of the Church. The Assyrian name is almost primordial, it captures the core of who we are and the land we are tied to. Assyrian has been the name which has united us past all denominational and modern geographical differences and upheavals in our homelands. What happened in the 1970’s was a sectarian shift: the Assyrian  name (in the form of Atoraya) suddenly became the  property of one of our Churches Ch urches (with huge emphasis emphasi s on one of our ) by a few strokes of a  pen. Suddenly, the Assyrian name n ame became associated with a single sin gle Church confined in

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influence to certain sections of our homeland and diaspora, rather than a diverse body of  people of which it rightfully rightfu lly belongs to. Beyond failing to confine religious identify to a religious nomenclature; the imbuing a religious identity with a sense of authenticity, truth, and superiority is the definition of sectarianism, and we are not exempt from partaking in it. It is also not surprising that this sectarianism coincided with the pronounced intellectual development (or more accurately, regression) of the Chaldean and Syrian Churches, the latter of which is investigated by Augin Haninke in his book, “Heirs of Patriarch Shaker”, which Mardean  Isaac has reviewed . Haninke describes the 20th Century descent of the Syrian Church into anti-Assyrianism, which having been most pointedly expressed in the political posturing of Patriarch Elias Shaker during the Ottoman genocide, continued and intensified ideologically with his successor, Afrem I Barsom, and each successive Patriarch up until the present day. Declassified Ottoman documents detail a monthly payment of 5,000 schillings made to Elias Afendi (Shaker) starting from 1920 in order to secure his loyalty and ensure his silence, much in the same way Patriarch Gregory was secured by then Sultan Mahmud II to exercise ecclesiastical authority among the empire’s rebellious Greek constituents. After the ascent of Kemal Ataturk, Shaker went as far as even declaring that the adherents of his Church were “Turks”, renouncing not on ly any resistance to the political tyranny of Kemalism, but also surrendering his own parishioners to Turkification. Patriarch Shaker was however spared the noose after his usefulness had expired and the state’s programs were reaching completion—  he instead was exiled to India in 1930 where he died shortly afterwards in 1932. The situation in India speaks of an even greater preoccupation with Church affairs. The Syrian Orthodox Church could have boasted over three million adherents in India, but schisms owing to interference from rival Christian sects and geopolitical events reduced this number to a little over a million. Even with this number today, there are more ethnic Indians who recognise Mar Aphrem II, the current Syrian Orthodox Patriarch, as the head of their Church than ethnic Assyrians who do. This naturally influences the priorities of the Church. What has continued since this turbulent time is a coy, isolationist approach from the Syrian Orthodox Church towards the greater Assyrian community, even tacitly allowing the fraudulent and parasitical Aramean movement to ride its coattails and shadow its leadership without any definitive disassociation made. Not only do Arameanists find a space from which to operate, but also the Dawronoye (“revolutionaries”) group: a creation and instrument of the PKK to enlist, at first, Western Assyrians in their struggle against the Turkish state to secure their rights within a Greater Kurdistan, and later, in Syria for “Rojava” . These are not causal relationships, but complementary ones indicative of the disarray and confusion endemic within Assyrian communities who are caught between the manufactured identity  politics of separatists and the political subterfuge sub terfuge of cowardly cowardl y and treasonous individuals. ind ividuals. Yet despite all of this, many Assyrians who attend this Church or have been raised within it know the truth and what is at stake: that they are Assyrian, and believe in Assyria. Many were excommunicated by the Syrian Orthodox Church for identifying as such, even in the safety of Europe. Thus, it’s incredibly sad to hear Mar Awa Royel refer to the “Syriac Orthodox Church” in his discussion of foreign ethnic Churches. The implication here seems to be that its adherents are not ethnic Assyrians, which is nothing short of sectarian — why why mention them in this context? Only two reasons exist: first, to validate the Syrian Orthodox

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separatist agenda, and second, to strengthen the exclusive bond his own Church has forged to the Assyrian identity. The Chaldean Church has undergone an extensive and rapid ideological transformation in the last few years under the leadership of Mar Louis Sako. Sako was once a rising star and  believer in the oneness of o f our nation. nation. In his recent addresses to his flock after the failed plan of unity among our Churches under Rome, he has since abandoned his previous position in favour of crafting a Chaldean national identity reminiscent of his predecessor, Mar Delly, who reportedly exclaimed in 2006, “every Chaldean who says he is Assyrian is a traitor, and so is every Assyrian who says he is a Chaldean” . From 2015 onwards, Sako now pursues this strain of separatism in tandem with similarly transformed bishops such as Sarhad Jammo and with all of the venom and single-mindedness associated with the very worst people we have ever produced. In December 2016, Sako personally intervened to intervened to forbid Assyrians in Belgium hosting Efrem Yildiz, a respected scholar and adherent of the Chaldean Church, who was giving a lecture on the Assyrian identity which challenged the ideology of separatism espoused by Sako. Sako’s intervention severely limited the attendance of the lecture which was to be held on the  property of the Chaldean Church, but the lecture went wen t ahead anyway given the respect resp ect Dr Yildiz commands among the community. Ideologically, the threat was certainly felt by Sako who was compelled into action. In another effort to sabotage the convergence of Assyrians towards ends he has hasn’t personally endorsed: at the height of ISIS’ power in 2016, Sako explicitly called for coalition forces to withhold support to the Nineveh Plain Protection Units (NPU) in their struggle to liberate their towns from ISIS despite the force being  predominantly composed of Chaldean Catholic Assyrians native n ative to the Nineveh Plain. Plain . These are men who go to his own Church. Here, Sako only recognised the legitimacy of Iraqi and Peshmerga forces and called on the coalition to support them, and not his own people. Sako was even willing to whitewash the crimes of the Ottoman Empire. In a trip to Amid (Diyarbakir) Turkey earlier in April 2015, he urged his flock to “move away from the mind set of war and struggle” and bowing to pressures within his own Church hierarchy and to Turkish policy. Pope Francis called the Armenian genocide “the firs t genocide of the 20th century” earlier that month (without recognising our own) provoking outrage from the Turkish Government, to which Sako clarified whilst in Turkey:

"The pope did not want to blame the current Turkish government any more than the Church today blames the Jews for killing Christ 2,000 years ago. We need to understand the facts in the right perspective and not politicise them." On matters concerning the assertion of Assyrian identity and suffering, the Catholic Church is guilty of neglect steeped in self-interest at the best of times, and wilful undermining of it at the worst of times. Historically, Catholic as well as Protestant missionaries were known to keep diaries documenting their conversion of “Nestorian” Christians, bestowing onto them new identities and forbidding them to mix with their “Nestorian” heretical kin. These conversions often took place at times of great material lack and political turmoil facing their Assyrian targets. All Sako achieved here with his clarification was the further  politicisation  politicisation of an already  political issue — if if genocide recognition and recovery from genocide are not political matters,  is? And how often do the perpetrators of a genocide become the ones to regret, what  is? 9|Page

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recognize and offer reparations for it? In any case, his posturing here serves the interests of Rome, not his own people — a consistent pattern of behaviour among leadership figures within the modern Chaldean Church. Chaldean Archbishop Mar Toma Audo of Urmia described his love for his country and his “ millat suryayta ” in educational material created for Assyrian schools in 1908 — what what we are seeing today is a total reversal of this sentiment. In a way, Sako is doing the work of missionaries from hundreds of years ago. This work is however not limited to his own functions: Bashar Warda, the Archbishop or Erbil, is regularly seen rubbing shoulders with senior Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) officials, as well as foreign officials such as Mike Pence, the current Vice President of the United States. Considering these activities together  the commentary on militias; the  — the discourse on genocide; the diplomatic trips —  it was a matter of when and not if  Sako  Sako would  — it formally join the political arena as a fully-fledged actor. And so the “Chaldean League” was created as a list to contest the next Iraqi Elections in May 2018. This assortment of Sako approved Chaldeanists, Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) members such as Lara Yousif  the KDP appointed mayor of Alqosh — and and various other ageing  — the failures represents a sort of motley crew bound together by reasons so self-absorbed and short-term they might quarrel and split at any given moment. One of the key positions which define this group is rejecting even the modern Assyrian-Chaldean-Syriac tri-name favoured  by people far too desperate desper ate for unity, however superficial su perficial it may be. Sako and an d followers have  proven that anything anythin g and everything can be compromised compr omised if one allows their political pol itical agenda to be determined by oppressive foreign actors.

 Lara Yousif speaking at the opening of a Chaldean League office in Alqosh, May 2017.

Mar Awa Royel’s claim that religious leaders can indeed still be leaders of nations is lamentable considering the depressing terrain in which Syrian Orthodox and Chaldean leaders have driven their congregations into in modern times. The Church of the East has its 10 | P a g e

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own litany of problems too. In line with the discussions above, conveying a political station to a clergyman also conveys political standards, responses and criticisms to positions they take regarding national matters important to all Assyrians they must claim to represent. Many religious actors understandably do not do this, and typically only dare speak for their own Church denomination and its adherents. Confining the political aspect of a clergyman’s duties to a particular Church is simply not good enough. We are trying to move as one and not leave anyone behind  it is important the discourse and politics reflects that objective. By excluding  — it groups outside of their denomination, Churches transfers religious sectarianism into the  political realm, entrenching entrenchi ng divisions within the Assyrian body politic which whic h permeate across the lay spheres of each respective Church. Putting aside the tea parties, photo opportunities and scheduled visits among leadership figures, the last place Assyrians will find by definition — is manifestations of meaningful unity on the ground  is within our churches.  — by Swiftly moving past the farcical and lone conjuring of Tibetans as a nation led by a religious figure (as if to suggest some kind of aspiration — some some kind of model to follow), one convenient example omitted by Mar Awa Royel was Iran, a nation run by religious mullahs who rebrand policies as fatwas and demand every aspect of Iranian society conform to their edicts. We all know deep down this line of argument is not sensible: “successful” nations —  used loosely, but meaning a group of people who in some noticeable way transform struggle into prosperity and whose citizens aren’t periodically in open revolt against the authorities—  are governed by inclusive political movements or parties. The Syrian and Chaldean Churches have grown more isolated and anti-Assyrian in their identity, rhetoric and actions since the Ottoman genocide, but this is not the case with the Church of the East —  at least from a lofty vantage point. Thus, it is imperative that a more  — at thorough examination of the Church of the East’s leadership is conducted in the post empire era. Among Assyrians, this is the Church which has openly sought to take up the mantle and responsibilities of a national Church  and the institutional representative of the Assyrian  people, increasingly increasingl y depicted as synonymous synon ymous with members of the Assyrian Church of the East. Like the Syrian and Chaldean Churches, the majority of its adherents believe it to be ‘true’ and ‘original’ in ecclesiastical and doctrinal terms, and a legitimate institution in terms of guiding its adherents morally and socially. But unlike those churches, the Assyrian Church of the East has successfully put itself forward (and has been embraced by its followers) as the most legitimate and effective body of national organisation within the Assyrian nation. The Church of the East occupies a prominent position in the affairs and imagination of Assyrian nationalists — many many of whom are associated with the Assyrian diaspora of today. Certain demographics need to be charted to realise why. Firstly, the Church of the East currently has little influence in the affairs of Iraq, having relocated the seat of the Patriarchate from Tehran to Chicago, IL in 1980 after war had broken out between Iraq and Iran, keeping it there for 35 years until 2015. Migration out of Iraq during this period enabled a burgeoning Assyrian diaspora population to be, think and live  as Assyrians away from oppressive forces who punished them for doing so — and and all within close proximity to the Church. Many adherents of the Church of the East blossomed into Assyrian nationalists and married the two aspects of their identity together in the safety of the West. The two aspects grew in definition together. It is worth noting that the experience and intermingling of heightened religiousness and nationalism among persecuted diaspora populations is similarly mirrored in Greek and Armenian communities.

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Secondly, the Church of the East is commonly known as the ‘Martyr’s Church’ for mostly good reasons: the historically significant martyrdom of Patriarch Mar Shimon Benjamin and others during the genocide inflicted on Assyrians by Ottoman Turks and Kurds left a lasting wound in our psyche from a time where our religious and political leadership were not of a separate nature. Observing the immense suffering endured by their kin for their political manoeuvrings, the leadership of the Chaldean Church adopted a policy of submissiveness from the time of Mar Emmanuel II (Patriarch from 1900 through to his death in 1947) through to Mar Raphael II Bidawid (2003), relinquishing any political aspirations towards autonomy over territory at the cost of greater assimilation into Arab and Kurdish Islamic society. This kept its demographic presence in the country relatively stable. In contrast, adherents to the Church of the East under Mar Eshai Shimon experienced profound  persecution for maintaining maintain ing these political ambitions, a mbitions, which culminated in Mar Eshai Shimon’s exile from the country in 1933, the year of the brutal and unrecognized Simele Massacre against Assyrians wrought by newly independent Iraqi Army forces. The efforts (and failures) of both our religious and political actors in petitioning sovereign  powers and the League of Nations Nation s after both World Wars as well as those of Agha Petros, an early proponent of the separation of Church and State power (rejected by Mar Shimun Benjamin) did nothing to improve the defeated and miserable condition of all Assyrians today. The world informed us it didn’t care then, as it doesn’t care now. The following section outlines how the leadership of the only remaining Church which  professes an Assyrian identity ide ntity addressed the Assyrian question over ov er the last century —   — a question they have designated themselves as the primary guardian of. As mentioned  previously with the change chan ge of name, the Assyrian Church Chu rch of the East has declared itself itsel f as the “ethnic Church”; the “guarantor”; the way to “advance the process” towards liberation that we all long for despite this litany of failures. We must now ask: how has the Church of the East advanced  us in this process since Mar Shimon Benjamin’s assassination in 1918 and the exile and eventual murder of Mar Eshai Shimon in 1975?

THE ASSYRIAN CHURCH OF THE EAST AND NATIONAL LIBERATION The Church itself entered a period muted political activity after the Paris Peace Conference and catastrophe at Simele. International attention was acquired briefly with the same strategies but these efforts again failed to yield any support from foreign governments to fulfil our demands; first at the United Nation’s San Francisco Conference in 1945 and then at the United Nations in 1947. It is interesting that Mar Awa recalls the Dalai Lama of Tibet in his interview, who still appeals in vain to sovereign governments for justice, when Mar Eshai Shimon abandoned this policy altogether by declaring his loyalty to the Shah of Iran and in 1948 further decreeing all Assyrians must remain loyal to the governments in each part of their homeland  recognizing even the authority of the Ba’ath government of Al -Bakr in  — recognizi 1970. This represented the Church of the East abandoning the Assyrian Question as foreign determination after being made to realise (repeatedly) that it had been fruitless. They did this all the way back in 1948 — way way ahead of its time considering many Assyrians today still naively believe in the arrival of this long-awaited justice as the primary mover in our liberation; that if only we ask the right people in the right way , we will achieve salvation.  Notwithstanding the tilt towards t owards Rome in 1964 with the adoption ado ption of the Gregorian calendar cal endar resulting in the tragic schism which birthed the Ancient Church of the East, the direction of the Church changed after Mar Eshai Shimon’s murder by Assyrian David Malik Ismael. 12 | P a g e

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Speculation surfaced that it was a politically motivated act by rivals eager to reenergise and  politicise the Church vis-à-vis v is-à-vis relations with Iraq. With the consecration of Mar Dinkha IV, the ‘Assyrian Church of the East’ was born soon after and a period of increased political activity commenced  all under the facade of continued observance and respect for sovereign  — all governments. Mar Awa claimed in his interview that he “did not want to politicize” anything he was saying, yet the many claims made regarding the leadership of nations and mechanisms needed to advance national objectives are inherently political. The continued disparity  between political statements statemen ts and acts and a self-defined self-de fined rejection of their political p olitical nature is necessary in order to maintain authority free from the criticism associated with politics, and levelled so heavily by Assyrians towards their political leaders. It is the partaking in and a  promotion of a politics of no accountability accountability .

In a conversation with author Christoph Baumer in 2001, Mar Dinkha stated: “We [the Church] want neither to become a museum of religious archaeology nor to serve politics, but rather we want to remain open to the revelation of the Holy Spirit.

Two paths are open to the Church. Either it defines itself according to the ethnic component, the Assyrian identity and its history. Then it will become the instrument of worldly objectives. Or it perceives its task as religious. Then its purpose consists in spreading the Good News, whether in Syriac, English or any other language.  Although the old Syriac Syriac language language is an important factor factor in our solidarity, it is only an instrument, not the religion itself. We want to avoid the fate that our religion suffered in China. Then it refused to integrate itself into Chinese culture, insisting on the use of the Syriac language.” Do the views of Mar Awa and Mar Dinkha align? They do not seem to. Examining actions however take us further into the mire. For Mar Dinkha, maintaining the Mar Eshai Shimun policy of rapprochement and compliance with governments certainly continued to be on the agenda (noticeably sidestepping political affairs in Iraq during the Ba’ath years), however, clandestine attitudes were beginning to ferment among a section of Assyrians who viewed the invasion of Iraq in 2003 as an opportunity to reassert some level of political agency. Note: see Andy Darmoo —  Praidoon Darmoo’s brother, then second in command of the Assyrian Universal Alliance (AUA) —  and his alleged business dealings with the Saddam regime during the 1990’s  — and through to the lobbying of the UK government in 2002 to invade Iraq. These moves were made by people close to the Church: Andy Darmoo was chairperson to the Assyrian Church of the East committee in the UK and Praidoon Darmoo often accompanied Mar Dinkha on official visits, most notably to meet Pope John Paul II and Iraqi Kurdish President Massoud Barzani in October 2005. This meeting between Barzani and Mar Dinkha was not missing preceding overtures: earlier on, Mar Dinkha reportedly penned a warm letter in 2005 to Barzani congratulating him on his election as President. This letter was a precursor to formal relationship-building between the KDP and the Assyrian Church of the East. The usual policy of accommodating and submitting to sovereign governments was being extended to a regional authority and former  partner during the revolt revo lt against Saddam’s regime. The meeting which took place in 13 | P a g e

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Washington D.C. later in the year was concluded after Barzani refused to meet with or engage any other Assyrian figure other than Mar Dinkha and several closely attached AUA representatives. Barzani reportedly agreed to grant the Church $30m, along with offices and other complexes, in an effort to attract the Patriarchate to relocate from Chicago to Arbil. Following this very selective diplomacy on the part of Barzani and the receptiveness of Mar Dinkha and associated AUA figures, Barzani and the KDP explicitly declared in 2006 that the Nineveh Plain and other Assyrian land was part of Kurdistan, rejecting any administrative autonomy there unless it was under Kurdish authority. The same actors were responsible for rebuffing the plan submitted to Rep. Anna Eshoo in 2008 to designate the Nineveh Plain as an administrative province tied to the Federal Government. This rendered the Nineveh Plain contested territory in a meaningful sense and ushered in a decade of destabilization by the KDP which culminated in the emergence and success of ISIS as a genocidal, territorial actor. 2006 was also the year the Wikileaks scandal broke, where government intelligence records were leaked in their thousands to the public. The scope of these leaks was so large that they included the politicking the politicking of Assyrian Ass yrian actors in the New Iraq . Contrary to the 2001 rhetoric of ed the Church into political “not serving politics” we see that Mar Dinkha actively steer ed terrain with his enthusiastic and emphatic endorsement of Sargis Aghajan (Sarkesi) to the US authorities, a high ranking Assyrian finance minister belonging to the KDP. He made a point of doing this at the expense of any other Assyrian political actor in Iraq including the democratically elected Yonadam Kanna and the Assyrian Democratic Movement (ADM), whom he described as a “vanity party” who did not speak for Assyrians . His praise of the KRG comes after the brutal, unpunished murders of Francis Shabo MP in 1992 and several other Assyrian dissidents who participated in the KRG democratic experiment —  one which ultimately failed and never began in the first place, with the Kurds  — one continuing to embrace the feudal and tribal patronage structures they are familiar with, except now with billions of dollars and full armouries. Mar Dinkha’s delegation of political opinion to Sargis Aghajan was itself a political opinion . Complementing endless propaganda at the time of newly and poorly built housing for Assyrians promulgated by KDP-funded Ishtar TV, came the celebration of Aghajan as a mysterious and noble hero among Assyrians. This all inspired confidence in the policies of the KDP in an age where information was far less scrutinized and did not appear in real-time as it does today. Aghajan organised a conference in Ankawa financed by the KDP in 2007 with the purpose of  bringing together all Assyrian Ass yrian religious and political po litical leaders and animating an imating them towards a KDP agenda. This conference was responsible for birthing the virulent and prevailing triname, “Assyrian-Chaldean-Syriac” more formally in Iraqi politics, thereby reducing ‘Assyrian’ to a mere denominational component of a hyphenated mess— a prototype of reductive unity. No doubt, this bonded Assyrians together (and acted as a political counterweight to the ADM’s controversial 2003 relic “ChaldoAssyrian”), but the plane in which this bond was formed was sectarian by definition — with with the KDP designing the lock. It legitimised a century of failed isolationist, self-sustaining and submissive policy by our Churches and guaranteed the integrity of the odious triumvirate that they had established. It is a neo-millet  system  system with Barzani as Sultan.

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 Massoud Barzani posing with Church leaders in Ar bil, April bil,  April 2017.

Interestingly as a side note, it was exactly ten years later in 2017 where a similar conference was organised in Brussels by the KDP enthusiasts of the day, and with the same intentions: to demonstrate a desire among Assyrian-Chaldean-Syriac clergy and ventriloquized political  parties for the so far elusive elus ive annexation of the Nineveh Plain to the Kurdistan Region. Region . This is still on the agenda —the KDP didn’t suddenly give up. up. The conference was boycotted most notably by the ADM, who rejected the policies promoted by the organisers, as well as the Chaldean Church, who under Sako is now so extremely anti-Assyrian that they even reject the tri-name — declaring declaring also that they wanted no part in this effort to undermine the unity of Iraq, despite supporting KDP policy in all material aspects on the ground. The arguments which ensued in 2007 and throughout the 00’ s more generally were ferocious: Assyrians who were persuaded by this positive rhetoric and endorsement would defend the honour of Aghajan to the end given the glowing reviews bestowed on him by all sections of the Church leadership. Despite everybody knowing very little about him or his background, he was somehow finding millions of dollars to spend and do the work our own politicians seemed incapable of doing, thereby creating the illusion of success which magnified the failures of non-KDP agents operating in incredibly difficult circumstances. But where was this humble man finding these millions? This question even baffled US officials; from an important Newsmax piece from May 2008: “We have no official biography of Mr Aghajan as far as I know,” a senior U.S. official in the Kurdish capital, Erbil, told Newsmax. “How did he make his money –  if indeed, he is personally wealthy? I haven’t a clue.”

Mar Dinkha was directing American officials towards a man who, by their own accounts, was engaged in a “very conscious attempt at myth - building”.  building”. Even Kurdish Kurdish Muslim Brotherhood affiliate and Secretary-General of the Kurdistan Islamic Union Salaheddine Bahaaeddin was well aware of Aghajan’s emerging role as the KDP -selected agha for Christians in Kurdistan:

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“Sarkis is being used against the Assyrian nationalist movement, which is seeking to get the Nineveh Plain region recognized as a self-governing self- governing province of Iraq, reporting directly to Baghdad.

 His role is to decorate decorate the Kurdish Kurdish Regional Government, Government, to counter counter accusations of  persecution against Christians by the KDP. He should should be called the the Minister of window-dressing.” Mayor of Bartela at the time, time , Jamal Dinha, said that they had asked Aghajan to “build schools, not churches.” After buying more land for a cemetery, he claimed Aghajan “pays more attention to the dead than to the living.”  Chaldean clergy in Ankawa were also aware of the strategy to assuage fears and accusations of KDP-orchestrated abuses. The KDP did this  by overzealously overzealousl y embracing Christianity and Christian Chri stian symbolism with one on e eye on their Western audiences, whilst positioning Assyrians loyal to them and their policies as apologist mouthpieces representative of our political will. “They are using us for propaganda for themselves,” claimed Father Sabri al Maqdessy in reference to the huge cross the KDP had installed at Arbil International airport. Continuing, he said: “That is the first thing Westerners see at the airport. It’s a symbol for them. A lot of the [Kurdish government] politicians were educated in the West. They know the strength of that message, to see a cross in a Muslim country. They think it will send a message that they treat the Christians better. “They do treat us better –  while  while they take everything we have […] in another ten  years, we will have nothing. Christians Christians will not own a centimetre of property. property. They will take it all.”

These observations and predictions are from 2008. Ten years later, Assyrians —  having once  — having again withstood another genocide — find find themselves in an existential fight to retain whatever land they have left in the Nineveh Plain, much of which is currently a bed of rubble, patrolled in parts as it is by Kurdish and Arab militias where once thousands of homes stood. Aghajan was responsible for enhancing the power of our Churches by utilising the millions in US aid gifted directly to his ministry as well as KDP money to prioritise the building of Churches over schools and cultural centres —  the first pursuit did not obstruct the Kurdification policies  — the of the KDP, whereas the latter most certainly would have. US officials attested to lack of a transparent budget —   — a reliable entry in the playbook of KRG governance:

 A U.S. official in Erbil acknowledged acknowledged that the U.S. Agency Agency for International  Development  Development (USAID) has spent approximately approximately $31 million in the Nineveh Plain, but complained that the Kurdish regional government “lacked a transparent budget  process” and had provided little or no accounting for how its funds  were spent. Aid workers on the ground suggest that vulnerable Assyrians in Nineveh only saw 10% of this allocated money, with the rest being swallowed up in corruption. Despite this, the Churches leant Aghajan all of their support, and thus the actors empowered and aided each other in very real terms — all all at the expense of the Assyrian people. The significance of these letters, private meetings, conferences, promises, actions and relationships all firmly indicate heightened political activity within the Assyrian Church of the East as it emerged out of its post-war stupor. What was once conspiracy and hearsay at 16 | P a g e

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the time has now crystalized into a depressing reality. Mar Dinkha definitively recommended US officials liaise with Aghajan, a man known to be working to further KDP policies which included the annexation of the Nineveh Plain into the Kurdistan Region. Aghajan later even confiding privately that he merely “signed the papers put in front of him” of  him”. With the revelations in Wikileaks, Aghajan seemingly vanished. The KDP, who undoubtedly were angry at some of his correspondences, took decisive action by removing him from public life, in the same way disappointing Patriarchs were dismissed during the Ottoman era. With the benefit of hindsight, we can observe that these activities, along with the relationship with Aghajan, were being conducted to benefit the Assyrian Church of the East as an institution in the short-term and to the detriment of the Assyrian people as a whole in the long-term. Given the definitions offered by the Church however, they would argue that any  benefit to the Church would be felt among its constituents constit uents —  the two being inseparable, now,  — the in this modern sense. However, again with hindsight and visions of the charred and broken remains of the Nineveh Plain, it is absurd to suggest the two are synonymous. A very narrow range of interests were being prioritised in these dealings with the KDP, and all point more concretely to a network of aligned interests between senior individuals within the Assyrian Church of the East, the AUA and other opportunistic fringe groups.

Church leaders attend a mourning  service for Dilovan Barzani, Nechirvan Barzani’s brother, April 2018 .

It is also important to register that this activity was not limited to Mar Dinkha, and that similar attitudes and activities were fostered among other high-ranking, influential leaders within the Church. Mar Meelis, the Metropolitan of Australia and Lebanon, openly declared  that any individual or organisation who dared criticize the Church on any of its positions should be boycotted. This decree extended to political parties, civic and community organisations and other groups who challenged challen ged the Church’s authority.  Even singers. Many will undoubtedly cite the good works he has sponsored among the Assyrian community in Australia, notably St Narsai College, but he has simultaneously assured his own personal  power and legacy through throug h land rights, contracts and a nd several unscrupulous unscrupu lous lawsuits —  entering  — entering into a bitter conflict with both his own parishioners and the Ancient Church of the East over reputation, land and wealth. 17 | P a g e

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Further afield in the Assyrian homeland: after a decade of subjugation, deprivation and destabilisation in the Nineveh Plain, Peshmerga loyal to the KDP disarmed Assyrians prior to their own sudden retreat as ISIS moved into Nineveh in June 2014. Kurdish authorities went as far as issuing notices which promised severe punishment to Nineveh Plain residents who did not voluntarily give up their means of self-defence. Genocide commenced, with the famous words of an anonymous KRG official immortalised in that month: “everyone is worried, but this is a big chance for us […] ISIL gave us in two weeks what Maliki has not given us in eight years.” Later in  September that year, Mar Meelis met with Nechirvan Barzani. An excerpt from the official page of the Kurdistan Regional Government claimed: "The Archbishop also reiterated his community’s gratitude and appreciation for the role of the Peshmerga forces and their sacrifices, adding that everyone everyone is proud of them and that their actions will not be forgotten." f orgotten."

 Mar Meelis meeting with Nechirvan Nec hirvan Barzani in Erbil, September 2014 .

If this positive review of Peshmerga forces who facilitated the latest genocide of Assyrians was not enough, Mar Meelis also engages with Chaldean League separatists who are under the tutelage of Sako from January 2017 onwards. These are a band of individuals who  positively deny their national n ational identity and are running in the Iraqi elections ele ctions on a separate, entirely Chaldeanist list, sundering even the sectarian alliance forged by Aghajan. Association with them seems baffling at first, but the reasons become evidently clear with some reflection: there is very little concern about who actually wins in the Iraqi political arena from an Assyrian perspective anymore — it it matters little since the positions of each Church have transcended Assyrian politics . In our homeland, their measure of influence is solely determined and enabled by the patronage offered by the KDP, not the layperson whose devotion has been trialled and assured whatever their severity.

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 Mar Meelis meeting with Chaldean League affiliates , January 2017.

Looking past the strange investment ventures in the early 2000’s; the lawsuit s; the setting up of ACERO — an an aid organisation controlled by the Church, remedying the problem of Church members donating to the already established Assyrian Aid Society, an organisation that isn’t controlled by his Church — the the squabbling between youth groups tied to the Church and those that are not and the ultimate disbanding of organisations that are not (faced with the daunting  proposition that “they would be going going against the Assyrian Church”); the purchasing of  property and changing changin g of organisational bylaws b ylaws in its favour and ultimately ultimatel y hollowing out of independent Assyrian organisations through a network of personal relationships; the Assyrian Church of the East under Mar Meelis has grown into a small kingdom where one particular Church is central to the Assyrian identity at the expense of all else.

CONCLUDING POINTS  Whilst taking different routes towards their destination, the evolving policies adopted by each Church during the 20th C and early 21st C all terminate with capitulation to the authorities of Turkey, Syria, Iran, Iraq and finally various iterations of Kurdistan. The latter features far more prominently in reference to the Assyrian Question given our only remaining demographic concentration which has survived genocide and erasure lies in the north of Iraq  our most ancestral homeland, and the most tangible imagining of Kurdistan. This  — our capitulation by the Churches occurred (at whatever national cost) since the entrenchment of their own power and authority was assured by the KDP locally and also in the space Western states had afforded them in diaspora. The analysis of transcendence  offered earlier is informed by the dual allocations of power from both consistently oppressive authorities such as the KDP as well as cocooned Western “safe spaces” with which their congregations are continuously replenished by Assyrians leaving their homelands. If “the Church is our  system, why even bother entertaining the notion of an actual country” in this neo-millet  system, homeland at all? Assyrians must similarly transcend the mundane and political huckstering partaken in discreetly at our expense. Is this existing formula of leadership the one we desire? Have these institutions demonstrated that they are capable of handling the most crucial matters we 19 | P a g e

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delegate to them? Do the millions of dollars hoarded in diaspora bank accounts whilst Assyrians live in a state of destitution, paying rents to the same land-owning Churches in the  Nineveh Plain and elsewhere rest res t easy on our consciences conscien ces? It’s difficult to fathom f athom how any kind of liberation can be executed under these conditions which normalize centres of power away from our own homelands, and ingrain them within us vertically  through homogenous  but limited religious institutions. in stitutions. The experiences experien ces of our neighbours also reflects these uncomfortable political realities. And reality is uncomfortable. In context: with this compliance also came the abandonment of any form of national liberation. Whichever way you address these incidents across our Church institutions, they are harmful to us as Assyrians since they either revise history to our collective detriment, endorse systemic oppression by foreign groups or dignify an opportunistic strain of separatism ultimately encouraged and funded by nefarious sponsorship sources. These are ways we should define failure and don’t because  of our conditioning under Ottomanism, but how do our Churches define success? For them, as seen here in an interview with Mar Meelis,, there is cause to celebrate an ethnic Chinese boy learning Syriac Aramaic in a school Meelis in Sydney operationally under the Assyrian Church of the East’s control. This small remark captures how success is defined from a Church perspective: learn the language the Church uses and believe in its doctrine. This has nothing to do with Assyrian national liberation and everything to do with expanding the influence of the Church regardless of ethnic background. So we can see here, even by these few examples, that the fragility of these Churches in respect to Assyrian liberation very much corresponds to both their nature as Churches (and what Churches are preoccupied with doing) and to the conservative political spheres with which they attempt to operate. Focusing on the politics: when religious leaders seek to cross over into the political realm, it must be assumed that criticism comes with the territory. However in the case of our Churches, the loyalty commanded is so strong that any amount of  political activity activit y on their part has no effect on either their image or their ability abi lity to continue their policies. Mar Awa Royel’s claim that Assyrians desire statehood and that it’s a long process, and that the Church “guarantees” and “advances” this process, is one that must be thoroughly inspected. Putting aside the Chaldean and Syrian Churches, which as institutions purposefully distance themselves from the Assyrian identity as a matter of principle, what evidence is there that the Assyrian Church of the East has advanced this cause? The experiences of other nations outlined here illustrate that their religious authorities repeatedly proved to be an obstacle to their liberation and not a vehicle. This matches up with our own Churches devolving into institutions of appeasement and sometimes even outright collaboration. The Armenian Church had the benefit of being incubated in the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic with powerful political parties for a time. Only after the victories scored by the Armenian nationalist movement, often in spite of the positions held by their own religious authorities, did the Church began offering its support more consistently to this centre of  power. This support has since sinc e ebbed and flowed in accordance accord ance with ensuing power dynamics d ynamics  between Armenia and its neighbours. neighbo urs.

And so I repeat —  where is the evidence for Mar Awa Royel’s  claim here or elsewhere in  — where history? All evidence suggests the opposite: Churches, as naturally conservative institutions, are far more predisposed to existing power structures and not national liberation movements which aim to reformulate them.

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BUILDING OUR OWN POWER

Before we build power, we have to understand power. We need to do this so that we can understand what has been surrendered and how it can be recovered. Power has been consistently centred away from us as a people, and our conservative religious institutions naturally gravitate towards it to ensure their survival and authority. Continuing the old millet  system  system paradigm installed over the five-hundred years of Ottoman rule is something our Churches are expressly keen to do, even well past the birth of nation states and secular politics in the 20th C. This old paradigm, where power is allocated to the religious figureheads of non-Muslim groups, is the lifeblood of all of our Churches and the Churches of neighbouring peoples in the Middle East. Survival comes with a price, and the price is paid differently in the form of concessions made to dominant Muslim cultures and empires. The Copts in Egypt surrendered their language; the Maronites romanised their liturgy. Assyrians — through through their different Churches —  all defined their contracts of submission  — all independently. Since its split from the Church of the East in 1552, the anachronistically named Chaldeans had a powerful lever in Rome during its early centuries —  offering as it did, material aid and  — offering  political protection to those ‘Nestorian’ heretics who converted into the Catholic faith. These newly converted Catholics were forbidden to associate or mix with their Church of the East kin. Rome contributed to the general passivity of Chaldean leadership, who knew that all they had to do was obey their superiors and a political extension of Christian solidarity would sustain them in the harsh terrain of their homelands. However, with the alliance of Christian Germany and the Muslim Ottomans during the First World War and the subsequent genocide enabling and cover-ups, it was clear that this solidarity had been ruptured and a precedence was set (see: modern US policies in Iraq and Syria). All of our Churches once relied on this solidarity — and and many Assyrian activists ignorant of history bizarrely continue to do so. The underlying motivation driving our Churches has always been the survival and  preservation of themselves as institutions  first and foremost. Adaption to shifting power structures was and remains the best strategy to conserve their own religious authority. None of them had an especially intimate link with the Assyrian ethnic identity — unlike unlike Armenian, Greek and Russian Orthodox Churches —  and all presided over a nation whose fundamental  — and unity was attested to in numerous key material and historical facts existing outside of their  jurisdiction. These facts include i nclude the usage of Assyrian Ass yrian and self-identification self-ident ification as Assyrians within that language and irrespective of church identification: cultural markers that distinguished the Assyrian ethnic group from its neighbours, both Christian and Muslim. Our identity is older than all of our Churches, and thus, they cannot claim to contain the entire truth of our people, much less create our identity as Mar Awa claims —   — a fiction which manifests as separatism in Chaldean and Syrian Churches. This claim is one of historical significance and future precedent all at once —  it is a claim to power , rather than an organic  — it embodiment of it. Assyrians must confront this claim and reflect on whether they truly accept it or not, for if they do, they utterly surrender the Assyrian identity to the consistently selfinterested machinations of the Churches and their volatile behaviours outlined in preceding sections. For Assyrians to liberate themselves, they must first liberate and focus their minds. Only by doing this and unlearning intergenerational behaviours which compel uncritical respect and value-making by rote can we create a space from which an inclusive movement 21 | P a g e

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of cross-denominational Free Assyrians can emerge and co-operate together. It is critical to understand that neither belief in Christianity nor being nor  being a member of any of these Churches is the problem; it is the paralysis which ensues by delegating to them all of the responsibilities of worldly leadership and liberation which we should aspire to grasp hold of ourselves. True  power is unburdened  — we we need to unburden ourselves of religiously defined solipsism, guilt, and sectarianism in order to build sustainable inter-communal power bases our Churches would be forced to conform to. Each of the Churches and their adherents, once understanding neighbours, find themselves largely administering followers free from any immediate threats in Western urban centres. In this environment, any pretence of genuine solidarity and co-operation is unnecessary. For example, when Sako proposed that all of our Churches should unite (and enter full communion with Rome) it was rejected, giving him the impetus to strengthen his own authority among his flock. Each Church operates with similar principles in this zero-sum game: the Churches are strengthened precisely because because of their distance distance from each each other as distinct groups , whereas the Assyrian people are strengthened by their proximity . All trends among the leadership of each Church indicate that this distancing will continue and amplify in the future. Where each community identifies a strengthening within their own denominational community, Assyrians experience a collective weakening. How much more can Assyrians disassociate from each other until future generations are irretrievably lost? We need to move past celebrating these communal silos in diaspora in order to realise our full  potential. The extraordinary attachment to each Church persists. For many people, it is a positive force in their lives. Some of the most energetic and articulate Assyrians are active members of their Church. Many of them are already doers through their youth groups, cultural and language classes. Many of the clergy encourage this too. All of this demonstrates the very important capacity to work, in contrast to apathetic Assyrians not engaged or involved any Assyrian-led organisation or activity. It is much easier to accomplish things with people who are used to working and sacrifice than it is to activate those who are not. The task which remains elusive is the crossing of wires — each each Church incubates and nourishes its own youth, self-contained and directed towards its own purpose, doctrine and idiosyncrasies. We need to abandon achieving unity on a stratospheric Church leadership level and instead work towards a meaningful convergence  among the Assyrian people built on love and understanding of what is at stake. This is the horizontal power we need to build. Systems of patronage can be partaken in by anyone. Chest-thumping “Assyrian only” nationalists as seen with the AUA at their formation in 1968 devolved into full submission to the Kurdistani project. Our identity is not immune to being co-opted and instrumentalised towards anti-Assyrian purposes, as evidenced with their actions. The proliferation of traitors, each with their own motivations ranging from basic self-hatred to status and wealth, is not unusual either. Just like any other marketplace where one can buy and sell, if competition is introduced, deliverables are strengthened in quality and the very best traitors will emerge. It is crucial to be open and honest about these things amongst ourselves, because we only learn  by asking questions question s and consulting history. histo ry. Power is achieved in part through the ability to think about and question anything and everything, and be confronted by pain and betrayal in the process. Before we build houses like Aghajan, we must assure ourselves that the foundations they rest on are sturdy and able to withstand even the most tremendous blows. Aghajan’s houses were not built for these 22 | P a g e

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 purposes, and many are now no w are crumbling or occupied by b y Kurds. This is the fate which awaits us if we do not conduct a meaningful dialogue with each other and enact original  political solutions solutio ns which generations before us have h ave repeatedly failed to t o do. Mar Awa claims that persecution was the determining factor for changing the name of the Church. I will assert that it has nothing to do with persecution per se, but the acquisition of  power within a space which presented presen ted its own opportunities. opportuni ties. The Church has been persecuted pers ecuted  periodically since its inception i nception given that it never n ever once was institutionalised institution alised within an imperial power, like Catholicism or Islam. It has always been a second, or perhaps even third or fourth religion in shifting polities. This precariousness and lack of state automation was countered by spreading the Church far and wide, but never really growing roots anywhere. This explains its staggered and momentous collapse with each turnover in political power. In the 1970’s, the Church tormented by endless failure saw an opportunity to seize the Assyrian name and did so without any resistance. The Chaldean and Syrian Churches were indifferent —  one cannot surrender anything if one has already abandoned it. This act was not  — one inspired by persecution, but served as a prelude to another round of political activity by the Church of the East: all of which emerged in the decades to follow. The issue is, dominant oppressive forces reliably offer status, wealth and security to an even greater degree to out-group collaborators than in-group volunteers. When power becomes concentrated in an Assyrian political movement with material and territorial success, it will elicit a pivot towards it by all subsidiary institutions, much like the Armenian experience in their Republic. The Assyrians of the Nineveh Plain were kept dependent on security and sustenance by the KDP from 2003 to 2014 in the New Iraq. The corresponding Churches reacted to ISIS by offering shelter and provisions for fleeing IDPs, betrayed by forces their own leadership endorse. However, this care is not infinite, and many Assyrians left Iraq altogether having had what little they had taken from them. The few who have returned to their ruined towns and villages end up slowly rebuilding, often depending on the Church for even the basics: sundries, fuel, heating, and permits. The Churches also double as landowners, leasing  properties to returning returnin g Assyrians. These are all arrangements arran gements enshrined and safeguarded by a legacy of submissive behaviour on the part of the Churches towards Kurdish authorities and the corresponding allocation of power as reward   system.  — a reimagining of the millet  system.

CAN ASSYRIANS BUILD AN INCLUSIVE MOVEMENT? Assyrians are always forced to make a choice, on an individual or organisation level, of who to lend their support to. Do I support the ADM? Do I support my Church? How about the other political parties? What does this support mean in terms of action on our part? These are often the first questions which arise when engaging with our political issues and they only serve to submerge the thrust of enquiry in a stifling and cynical discourse based on the identity of groups and the personalities within them. It is better that we first carefully reflect on what we would like more, what is common to us, and most importantly, what ideas,  policies and positions positions we support  support  before  before identifying groups to support. Inclusive movements are built not only on identities but ideas. What do you believe in? Challenge the aspiring gatekeepers among us who petition us for support and loyalty in exchange for their advancing of national objectives —  make them present a position that is  — make historically grounded, coherent and reasserts Assyrian agency. Making the conversation one 23 | P a g e

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about ideas and policies is exactly how we replenish our derelict armouries. Assyrians from all denominations are consistently torn apart by sectarian agendas, but always come together when the well-being of each other and their families is confidently put first. Building an inclusive movement will mean confronting the elephant(s) in the room. Discussions which aim to explicitly marginalise the Churches also foolishly marginalise their adherents — a huge segment of the Assyrian population. This will also not advance our national interests. The bitter pill that must be swallowed is offered with love. We must engage our people sincerely and openly, with equal measures of respect and  expectation   expectation conveying the following message: embracing the positive things nurtured within the spaces our Churches provide is vital, but understanding their limitations and the need to transcend them in order to survive and flourish as a nation is equally vital. FINAL THOUGHTS

Through the centuries, the Church of the East’s “spiritual empire” shrank from seven to eight million adherents to as little as 400,000 (for perspective, peaking at 2-3% of the entire world  population during durin g the Middle Ages). The other Churches Church es have had a similar experience. exp erience. We th have yet to emerge from the wreckage of the 20  C and have persisted by swinging from the lowest branches available to us since. Oppressive forces have garnered almost unbreakable support from key actors within our community, and this support will remain in place indefinitely —   part of the solution soluti on is at least acknowledging it. The tests t ests which await us are set  by ourselves as well as outside o utside groups. In order to pass them, New Assyrians need new ideas id eas for a new world.

Malfono Ninos Aho once remarked from an interview in 2012: “How can you make five Patriarchs sitting in one room agree on our issues today? That is if you can bring them under one roof! If they can do that, I believe they can bring unity in seven months instead of the seventy years that we have been trying to to no avail. The one million dollar question is why they do not want to do it?

If we wait on reconciliation between our churches, we will wait into our graves—that is why it is imperative that we must work within them and alongside them but also despite them. We must, in the words of the late Malfono, “start with trying to know ourselves better, and see what is there that we can do to help ourselves. ” Any dependency on them and any other group must be severed if it is uncritical and overlooks accountability. Things are only fixed when people are accountable for their words and actions. If they are not, our national story is a miserable broken record of submission and begging. We need imagination in order to move forward and heal the trauma and intellectual damage we have been subjected to for centuries. It is not good enough to grow up in diaspora in the  perfect mould of any one Church Chu rch’s ideological and communal curriculum, since this curriculum will not contain or accommodate the full extent of our national identity, much less equip Assyrians with the tools needed to renovate the house of our nation. It is not good enough to be a successful Assyrian in diaspora who “understands their language, their job, and their faith ” in order to “raise the profile of Assyrians” (Mar Meelis, 2017) since this excludes Assyrians who are of not the correct faith  (or none) —   — a demographic that will always grow in the modern world.

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And anyway — raise raise our profile to what end? What is the task before a respected Assyrian lawyer, political scientist or academic? Would it not be document this history; to demand accountability; to discuss these kinds of ideas —  the very ideas that harm the agendas of those  — the who are encouraging us to excel? But no, it is only to excel under conditions they set — ones ones that take us further away from each other instead of bringing us closer together. It is the nature of those who are self-interested to eventually consume themselves. An intellectual rejuvenation, or liberation, would shield us and future generations from this tragic feast. The New Assyrian must be the Free Assyrian, not only as free as possible from oppressive outside forces, but free from engendered bigotry and malice. There is no-get-richquick national liberation strategy, it is the hardest thing we can undertake in a world dictated  by foreign powers and governments, go vernments, but we have to begin by b y talking and learning from fro m each other. Liberating the Assyrian mind must be the preoccupation of every aspiring Free Assyrian; this inspires us into a condition where we rediscover agency, abandon victimhood and submissiveness, and ultimately begin the long march towards freedom.

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