Chaldeans and self-determination between the past and the present

Chaldeans and self-determination between the past and the present

Father Paul Sati of the Holy Redeemer

Everyone is eager to divide the Mosul cake and the Nineveh Plain, and liberation has not yet taken place. The Kurds announce that they will keep the liberated sites, and the central government also makes its contribution with caution and shame. As for the Christians and their politicians, the conversation here takes another direction without shame and shame. The Assyrians want to revive ancient Assyria under the pretext that the Assyrian empire was established there. Although there is no historical evidence to prove that today's Assyrians are descendants of those who remained from the last Assyrians before 2600.

Now the Syriacs voices loudly naming the Syriac villages specifically in any media talk because they were separated from the rest of the villages, and they were the ones who entered the land between the two rivers, fleeing the persecution of the Christian Romans after the Council of Chalcedon in 451, and even the Syriac name that appeared after Alexander the Macedonian when the region west of the Euphrates was called Aram. It is a modern designation, not an old one. And if we left the sectarian affiliation of the Syriac villages in the Nineveh Plain, i.e. Qaraqosh and Bartala, they are Chaldeans with distinction, as no dialect or culture ever separated us from them, since all the villages are linked by one linguistic fabric and they speak Chaldean and not Turanian, i.e. West Syriac.

Yes, we are Chaldeans. We have many indications that these regions belong to us:

Historically: We are able to prove before Christianity the existence of Chaldeans in the region from Assyrian evidence, through the obelisk of the last powerful Assyrian king, Sennacherib (701-681) BC, where he persisted in his predecessors' imperial policy of capturing all peoples who occupied before them and distributing them to other kingdoms thus until They wiped out their kingdom. Sennacherib this without in a small obelisk preserved in the Oriental Institute in Chicago under the number A2793 in which he mentions his occupation of Babylon, its plunder and its destruction, and not only that, but he mentions that he destroyed 75 Chaldean cities with impregnable walls and besieged 420 small Chaldean cities. Then he exiled the Chaldeans, Arameans, Arabs and others, whose number reached 208,000 at that time, and settled them in Assyria.

What is noteworthy here is that it differentiates between the Chaldeans, Arameans and Arabs!

Linguistically: the debate continues about the language and has not been resolved, but scientifically and historically, our language has Akkadian origin, which Aramaic entered into, and we still keep many words of Akkadian origins. Today our language should be called “Aramaic” Chaldean and I categorically reject the Syriac term. The change of dialects between East and West among the Chaldeans and Syriacs is a matter that needs a deep study to determine the name and not content itself with naming an Eastern and Western Syriac language. So why are the letters different? Why do Maronites pray in Syriac “Western”, for example, while many of the famous regions in Lebanon still preserve their old name by raising the thousand and not the waw: Bainata, Chtoura and others.

Here, I ask the question, where do we, the Chaldeans, stay from Mosul and the Nineveh Plains, where we were the majority before ISIS and we are still?

Let's go back to history and see who contributed to the establishment of the modern Iraqi state and the saving of the Mosul Province, and here I mean the Mosul Province according to the Ottoman division, which used to include all of northern Iraq with its cities of Dohuk, Erbil, Sulaymaniyah and Kirkuk !, The Chaldeans have made an effective contribution to saving all of northern Iraq and Mosul (almost Current Kurdistan) Otherwise, it would have been swallowed up by Turkey and its Christians would have been displaced, after the First World War and until today.

At that time, the Patriarch Mar Yosef Emmanuel II Touma (1900-1947) who was seated on the throne of Babylon, the Triangle of Mercy, was the Catholic Patriarch, who, along with the sons of his Chaldean nation, contributed to the establishment of the Iraqi kingdom and the preservation of the mandate of Mosul and all of northern Iraq from it. And in honor of these distinguished efforts, this Catholicos became a member of the Iraqi Senate, as well as his predecessors. Among his great positions was his stopping the Royal Iraqi Army from attacking Alqosh during the events of Sumail and ending the crisis with his intervention. These events need a topical and historical explanation to understand them in their proper context.

The positions of the Chaldeans are many, and in order to choose this particular position, I will first mention what His Beatitude the Catholic Patriarch Mar Louis Sako, who sits happy about the issue of Mosul and the Nineveh Plain, said that we must wait and wait until our sons and daughters return to their villages and homes and then work to rehabilitate them and rehabilitate themselves psychologically. Determines his fate. This is the word of reason and logic.

But let me go back to the beginning of my article and my question:

Where do we, the Chaldeans, stay from Mosul and the Nineveh Plain, where we were in the majority before ISIS and we are still?

The central government did not help the displaced Christians and the Kurdistan Regional Government opened the doors, but without real financial aid. Western governments in Europe and the United States dispensed with the presence of Christians, so we see the immigration bleeding continuing.

Our strength is in building our Chaldean home first, and this is what we need at the present time. We are a nation with capabilities, but we do not take advantage of them because we are preoccupied with self-criticism. We build our house and raise our walls.

The Chaldean League was established as a start to be the home of all Chaldeans and their tent to bind them together, hold them together and protect them.

The Chaldean League is a source of inspiration for everyone who has real jealousy to work to uphold the status of his Chaldean nation, so come together, all of you, Chaldeans, the lions of Ishtar.

They are our regions and we have lived in them since ancient times, and now strangers come and decide who to follow and to which region to join, and this we will never accept.

God bless all and long live our Chaldean nation