I recently read Joyce
Wiswell's piece entitled "Will - and should -
Chaldeans and
Assyrians unite?" and I firmly believe that the identity designation of "
Chaldean" should not be used interchangeably with "
Assyrian.ā
Many Assyrians argue that the designation of the Chaldean name is religious, and not cultural. At first, when the Catholic Church gave the Assyrian Catholics the name āChaldeanā in 1553,
we shared nearly identical traits in our culture with the other Assyrians. But we are currently living half a millennium after the fact. In those 500 years, Chaldeans have developed their own dialect, traditions, and ways. Our culture is directly
correlated to our religion,
Catholicism. This doesnāt mean that we cannot have a culture to supplement our strong religious values.
In Michigan alone, there are 120,000 Chaldeans. I would venture to guess that 80% refuse to denote themselves as Assyrians. Thereās a reason for this choice; we are no longer the same people. Our parents didnāt just decide that we arenāt Assyrians out of thin air. Weāve acknowledged ourselves as Chaldeans for centuries, and weāve embraced our culture. Itās ours, and we shouldnāt be willing to compromise it by assimilating into an Assyrian identity. In my 18th year as a Chaldean, Iāve been criticized for not calling myself Assyrian, which isnāt only an identity I donāt associate with, but also a name that will become the end to our culture.
Examine the consequences of Chaldeans accepting ancient relations and identifying themselves as Assyrians. Already, the forced
assimilation has occurred in media. A prime example is of the recently
martyred Father
Ragheed Ganni of Iraq, who was mentioned as an Assyrian priest killed in an Assyrian Church, with no mention of his ties to the Chaldean Catholic Church. Our Chaldean villages, like Telkeppe and
Alqosh, are designated as Assyrian villages on the user-edited Wikipedia, which millions of users use as a source of reliable information. Our name is being
erased, and this systematic and carefully planned Assyrianization (as I call it), will prove to be the end of the Chaldeans. We'll be remembered historically as the Ancient Chaldeans, and that's if the
history books of the future donāt decide to call us Catholic Assyrians.
Assyrianization is very similar to the Arabization process. The Arab name was forced on us in Iraq. We were forced to speak Arabic, and punished when we spoke our
mother tongue. Indeed, history repeats itself, and this time, itās more subtle. This approach is proving an end to our rich culture, just by simply identifying as an Assyrian. As Iāve already illustrated, thereās so much to a name; it is not just a name.
Hopefully, Assyrian groups will not insist an identity change from the Chaldeans. It is my hope that we can work together, without forcing an identity on anyone else, in order to help our suffering people of Iraq. Weāre related to the Assyrians historically, but weāre no longer the same people. Weāre simply Modern Assyrians and Modern Chaldeans. Weāre different. And everyone should
assess the consequences of this very important issue before a culture is erased.
-Hadeer
ashur (
assyrian): i love
assyria!
yousif (chaldean): bro, assyria doesn't exist anymore