My people are on the brink of extinction. It’s time America understands why.
The blood of the Assyrian people will be forever stained on the hands of the western world.
I was born in Lansing, Michigan to two Iraqi-Assyrian immigrants. I am Assyrian; however, my people go by many names. You may know us as Chaldeans, Syriacs, or Arameans — we have a history filled with rifts in our identity. Growing up, I was faced with the reality that I was born far away from my people’s home, that I am disconnected from my culture and people as a result of persecution against the Assyrian people that may never end. Living in Lansing, I was only exposed to people that shared that history at family gatherings. From an early age, I feared that I would become too American, and that I would lose the centuries of culture that I carried in my blood. During my teenage years, I became intensely focused on our history, the language, the culture, its people to preserve that part of myself, to pay homage to my family back home, who never got the same chance my parents did. As an Assyrian American, it sickens me to think of the oppression that was caused for centuries to my people, and now after American involvement and the lack of acknowledgement from those in power, we are on the brink of extinction.
The Assyrian people are an ethnic group indigenous to the Middle East, most notably northern Iraq. Dating back to around 2500 BC, we are one of the oldest civilizations in the world. The Assyrian people have watched their empires rise and fall, populations grow and shrink, and eventually become one of the first ethnic groups to convert to Christianity.
Our persecution began early and is almost always related to our devotion to Christianity. Because of this, we’ve become one of the most marginalized groups in the Middle East. From 1914 to 1918, the Ottomans carried out a brutal genocide of our people, known as the Assyrian Genocide or Sayfo. In 1933, the Simele Massacre by the Kingdom of Iraq wiped out a significant percentage of our population. Under the Ba’ath Party from the 1960s to the early 2000s, we were forced to become more “Arab,” also known as our forced Arabization. These brutal acts of persecution against my people are just a fraction of what we’ve faced while inhabiting our ancestral homelands.
Saddam Hussein and the Ba’ath Party advocated for Pan-Arabism, an ideology that aimed to promote Arab unity in the Middle East and believed Iraq should be the center of that conquest. He forcefully imposed Arab culture, rituals, and language onto minorities, including Assyrians, Kurds, Yazidis, and Turkmen, in Iraq to create his ideal Pan-Arab state. Assyrians were forced to give up large portions of their culture for the sake of protection. The Hussein regime forbade the use of traditional Assyrian first and last names in favor of more Arab names and repressed the use of the historical Aramaic language. At this time, my father was born, and my grandparents named him Wisam, a traditional Arabic name, in order to appease the state. Many young Assyrians today do not know their native language of Aramaic and are forced to become more proficient in Arabic. They have been given non-Assyrian names and have lost many of their traditions because of the forced cultural abolition by the Ba’ath Party in Iraq.
During the reign of Saddam Hussein, the Assyrian people lived poor but peaceful lives. While the Assyrian culture and identity were being erased, the regime of Saddam Hussein did grant them religious protections. The army guarded our places of worship and we were even represented in the government. After the United States’ invasion of Iraq in 2003, however, these protections vanished, and the Assyrian people were once again persecuted. Because of the U.S. invasion, Iraq faced multiple insurgencies that put the country into a proto-civil war, the removal of Saddam Hussein led to a floodgate of radical groups seizing territory and wreaking havoc on the local population. The invasion of Iraq was an imperialistic event that only occurred to spread American hegemony and develop more wealth for those in power. The American government and allies did not care for the external consequences of the war, and as a result, the local population suffered the most. The region was left defenseless after the United States eradicated the remaining Ba’ath Party forces. Once Ba’ath party forces began to diminish, Islamic radicals gained control and led the insurgency against the United States occupation. Six Islamic insurgent groups banded together to form the Mujahideen Shura Council of Iraq, an organization and alliance aimed to repel the United States and reclaim the region for their next Islamic caliphate. This power transition created extreme consequences for the local population of Iraq, specifically the predominantly Christian-practicing Assyrian minority.
Violence against Assyrians started to increase as the Mujahideen launched coordinated attacks on Assyrian churches and cultural sites. In 2004, a series of planned bombings took place across a handful of churches in the ancient Assyrian city of Mosul and the capital of Iraq, Baghdad. Five churches were targeted with car bombings that took place a few minutes apart from each other during the Sunday evening Mass. These events were proclaimed as the first major attack against the Assyrian community since the start of the 2003 invasion of Iraq by the United States. These attacks were followed by an increase in violence against the Assyrian population, including a rise in abductions, rape, and murder that were being reported and carried out by Mujahideen groups and supporters. Assyrian churches were forced to close and shut down operations or face execution. Many churches remained open which resulted in additional bombings, abductions, and murders across Iraq. I cannot imagine the pain and agony that my people went through — each morning they feared waking up to another lost relative, child, friend or even themselves. With each dark, passing day, any hope for a better future for my Assyrian people dwindled.
Bloodshed did not end there. The United States officially exited the nation in 2011, and while the U.S. claimed that the newly established republic was well prepared and equipped to defend its borders and care for its people, this sentiment did not last for long. On December 22, 2011, a series of car bombings took place all over Baghdad, targeting Assyrian churches. It is estimated that around 70 people died while over 200 were injured. This was the first attack in Iraq after the exit of the United States and marked the beginning of the second insurgency and the lead-up to the 2013 War in Iraq. These bombings were carried out and claimed by the relatively new Islamic State of Iraq, now commonly known as ISIL. The emergence of the Islamic State of Iraq created devastating circumstances for the Assyrian population, almost bringing them to the point of extinction.
December 30, 2013, signaled the first day of the 2013 War in Iraq. A conflict broke out between the Republic of Iraq and the surging Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). By 2014, ISIL captured and annexed a majority of northern Iraq under their newly declared Islamic caliphate. Most of the Islamic State’s newly annexed territory fell under the historic lands of the Assyrian people, who still inhabited the region and called it home. ISIL troops began marking Assyrian homes with the letter (Nun), which stood for “Nunssarah,” meaning Christian. Homes with this marking were not allowed to leave without permission from ISIL soldiers. All churches, religious buildings, and cultural sites were seized by ISIL, most of them deliberately destroyed or repurposed. Early in the occupation, Assyrians were given the choice to convert to Islam, pay jizya (religious tax for non-Muslims), or die. Their ultimatum quickly changed, though, when ISIL leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, insisted that Assyrians must either convert to Islam or die to be worthy of living in the Islamic State. This resulted in a mass evacuation from the region, with most Assyrians leaving their ancestral homes and fleeing the country. Alternatively, many believed it was weak to leave and decided to stay in their ancestral homelands and rebel against the Islamic State’s occupation. Their bravery cost them their lives, and unfortunately many that read this may have witnessed the horrors of these slaughters and beheadings of my people, most being recorded and broadcasted online by ISIL for propaganda and fear-mongering. The Archbishop of Mosul from the Chaldean Catholic Church reported that for the first time in two millennia, there was no Mass held in Mosul on Sunday, June 15, 2014. This massive persecution against the Assyrian people marked for the first time, the end of an 1,800-year-old presence of Christians in the region. It is estimated today that only 20 or so families have returned to Mosul since the occupation by ISIL. It can never be certain how many Assyrians were murdered by the hands of the Islamic State, but estimates indicate it to be over 10,000 people, with over 135,000 Assyrians becoming refugees as a result of the occupation.
By 2017, the war between the Republic of Iraq and the Islamic State was over, with most of the occupied lands reclaimed by Iraq and its allies. As of today, the Assyrian population in Iraq is on the brink of extinction and will soon cease to exist. From 2003 to 2021, the Assyrian minority has either fled en masse or been slaughtered by radical Islamic groups during the Iraq insurgencies. A population project put together by the Shlama Foundation, a non-profit organization that aims to help the suffering Assyrian population, estimates that as of July 2020 there were around 150,000 Assyrians remaining in Iraq. Compared to population statistics pre-2003, the 2003 Iraq War and post-war insurgencies resulted in an 85% decrease in the Assyrian population. Most Assyrians fled to nearby Kurdistan for protection, and many others fled to Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, and other western nations who accepted them as refugees. The Assyrian people are now an ethnic group without a homeland. The European Union and the United States in an unanimous decision both formally recognized the genocide and diaspora of Assyrian-Christians by the hands of the Islamic State. While their declarations are important, they allowed this to happen and contributed to Assyrian persecution. Assyrians died in vain. The removal of Saddam Hussein was built upon lies and greed by the United States government and allies which resulted in a power vacuum that they could not control, nor did they care to prevent. While a handful of people profited from this conflict, the local Assyrian people paid the biggest price. Based on the current outlook, the Assyrian people will never be returning to our former numbers, we will forever be a wandering ethnic group that has lost their ancestral homelands and will soon see the end of the Aramaic language, traditions, and culture. The blood of the Assyrian people will be forever stained on the hands of the western world.
Despite the harm, America has harbored and allowed Assyrians to immigrate to America in large numbers, providing safety as a means of amendment. My hope, though, is for the younger, more active generation to take notice of us. I want real action and acknowledgement of our people and the issues we are still facing in our homeland today. I know we will not go back home; it is not possible for Assyrians. However, a movement for recognition could help save more Assyrians and preserve the culture we have left. This can be prevented in the future, and with more recognition I think young people can hold our government accountable for the meddling in the Middle East. We may never be able to return home, but I believe the reach of our generation can spread immense awareness, and the enlightenment of America’s manipulation of the Middle East may prove that we will not allow it to go on without consequence.
