A Neutral Objective Opinion! Recently we have been hearing the word treason used very lightly to describe certain people or Assyrian parties. I think that those people should weigh their words and understand the meaning of Treason before loosely throwing the word here and there. Below is a post in which I responded to Ashur Giwargis, and it explains the situation, please note that I am not defending the actions of Mr. Kanna the head of ZAWAA and a member in the Iraqi Parliament, but rather objectively analyzing the situation: Ashur, you are treating it as a thin line between mistake and treason. I agree with you on certain things, but I dont think it can be called treason; hence you are using the term lightly! Lets look at Mr. Kannas own situation objectively: Initially ZAWAA had an Assyrian agenda. Then after 2003 they were faced with the name issue, The Church of the East, and Syriacs, as well as many Chaldeans, were going along with the Assyrian name, but all of a sudden the Chaldean Church (who are the majority of Christians in Iraq) wanted to use their name too as Assyria-Chaldean (or Chaldo-Assyrian), and this created a new problem, because then the Syriacs looked at it and said: if Church names are to be used, why are you using the names of two churches and ignoring the third church? and eventually Kanna and Zawa agreed to the compound name Assyrian, Chaldean, Syriac. and consequently since all those are Christians, then the name Christian started to represent all of them as a single unifying name! This is the summary of what happened in a nutshell! The mistake was then at that time, and is being carried till now. Kanna had two options: 1. Accept the compound name Assyrian, Chaldean, Syriac, or 2. Insist on the Assyrian name only, and with that he risks the chance of losing the Chaldean support who are the majority. I think that he calculated his risks and chose option #1. and the rest is history. Our problem with the name is that some of our people think of Assyrian as a national name, while the vast majority consider it as a religious name meaning the Church of the East of Nestorian. Ironically it is similar to ISIS calling every Christian Nasara, but the Christians dont consider themselves as Nasara! Yes the mistake took place in 2003, he should have stuck to the Assyrian name, and let the Chaldeans go their own way. We can say this as theoretically now, but we dont know what its consequences would have been, since he never took it! In other words if Kanna stuck to the Assyrian name then, we might be in a better situation now, or in a worst situation now! It is all a guess! And we cant change history. A mistake was done, lets fix it and move on, and not dwell on it. Maybe the best solution would be that Mr. Kanna resigns from his post and let new people take his position. But again he was elected democratically by voting! In other words he was the choice of a certain group of people who agree with his leadership. In conclusion, If Assyrians had something (let’s say a homeland), and the decision of Mr. Kanna cause the Assyrian to lose that something (or homeland), then people could label the actions resulting from his decisions as TREEASON. But if Assyrians had nothing to start with in 2003, and Mr. Kanna’s decisions didn’t improve their situation since 2003, then his decisions are merely considered as MISTAKES, or at least USELESS. Noting that no one has the right to label something as treason based on a hypothetical choice 10 years ago, simply because that choice was not put to the test, and maybe if Mr. Kanna had made that choice, (i.e. stuck to using Assyrian only), the situation of Assyrians would have been much worse now. Finally, at this moment in our history with ISIS attacking everyone and not sparing anyone irrespective if he is Assyrian, Chaldean, Syriac, or Yazidi. We need unity and not division, since we are all in the same boat together, and notice that even the Chaldean Church had softened their tone! So let’s build bridges and communicate for the survival of everyone. One last comment: If someone doesn’t share your opinion, that doesn’t mean that he is a traitor, or his actions are labeled as treason! Because labeling others as traitors is no different than what ISIS is doing by labeling everyone that doesn’t agree with them as infidel! A human is entitled for his opinion, and having a different point of view is not a crime!
Posted on: Sat, 09 Aug 2014 22:56:58 +0000
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