J'ai le plaisir de donner une conférence ayant pour thème " La langue Araméenne : passé, présent et futur " le samedi 16 avril 2011 à Gonesse. salle des Tulipes, rue Maurice Ravel

Ephrem Isa YOUSIF 

Voici le texte:

L’araméen

Parmi les langues prestigieuses que l’humanité développa au cours de son histoire, figure la langue araméenne.

       

Première période : Araméen classique

     Les Araméens, nomades sémites du nord du désert de Syrie, s’étaient répandus dans tout le Proche-Orient au début du premier millénaire avant notre ère, formant de petits royaumes, comme en Syrie.  Dans une inscription royale du roi d’Assyrie Téglath-Phalasar I, datée de 1110 av.J.-C., les Aklamu qualifiés d’araméens sont mentionnés.

     Les Araméens adoptèrent au XI° siècle les 22 signes de l’alphabet phénicien pour noter leur langue qui se propagea en Orient Ancien et prédomina grâce aussi aux marchands babyloniens.  Cette langue des échanges, de la diplomatie et de la culture devint Lingua franca. Elle se répandit à l’intérieur des empires néo-babylonien et néo-assyrien. Au huitième siècle, les petits royaumes araméens furent soumis par le roi assyrien Téglath-Phalasar III (745-727 av. J.-C.) et déportés en masse, ce qui concourut à la diffusion de leur langue. 

     Durant la dernière période de l’empire assyrien, l’araméen fut accepté par les Assyriens comme seconde langue à côté de l’akkadien, qu’elle supplanta en partie.  L’on a trouvé des papyrus et des tablettes d’argile rédigés en araméen.

     Les plus anciens documents en écriture araméenne, provenant du nord de la Syrie, datent du neuvième siècle avant l’ère chrétienne : Inscriptions royales, traités diplomatiques, comme sur la statue de Hadad-yis’i à tell Fekheriye, légendes de sceaux, textes religieux à Neirab, en Syrie du nord. Après les conquêtes de Cyrus, la langue araméenne devint la langue officielle de l’empire achéménide (539-330 avant J.-C.), et se répandit fortement en Mésopotamie, en Anatolie, en Égypte, en Syrie-Palestine.

     En Palestine, au premier siècle de notre ère, elle constitua la langue du peuple, l’hébreu restant la langue liturgique et celle des hautes classes.  Jésus et ses apôtres s’exprimaient en araméen. Dans l’Ancien Testament, certaines parties des Livres d’Esdras, de Daniel, et le livre de Tobie, le livre d’Enoch, le Testament de Lévi, trois textes apocryphes, furent écrits en araméen. Le Talmud de Babylone fut rédigé aussi en araméen. 

Deuxième période : Araméen syriaque

    

     Au tournant de l’ère chrétienne, au nord de la Syrie, la langue araméenne  évolua en une série de dialectes.  Elle prit un nouvel élan, avec le dialecte syriaque.  L’écriture syriaque apparut pour la première fois dans des inscriptions rupestres, dans la ville d’Édesse (l’actuelle Urfa, au sud-est de la Turquie) et sa région.  L’écriture syriaque était alphabétique, elle comprenait 22 signes représentant des consonnes, elle s’écrivait de droite à gauche. Elle se développa à partir du troisième siècle, elle acquit les formes de l’écriture dite « Estranghelo », du grec stroggulê, ( rond ).

     A cause des disputes théologiques, la communauté syriaque se divisa durant le cinquième siècle en Nestoriens ou Syriaques de l’Est, vivant dans l’Empire perse, et en Jacobites (qui étaient monophysites) ou Syriaques de l’Ouest, établis dans l’Empire byzantin.

Avec la conquête arabe, au septième siècle, et l’arabisation du Proche-orient, le syriaque perdit du terrain et de l’influence.

     Les Syriaques produisirent une grande littérature, commentaires de la Bible, théologie, philosophie, sciences, médecine.  Citons parmi les grands philosophes Bardessane (153-222), Sergius de Rashaïna (+536), Sévère Sebokht (+667), Honayn Ibn Ishaq (808-873), Matta Ibn Yunis (+940), Yahya Ibn Adi (+974) et Ibn al-Tayyeb (+1043) . Parmi les historiens, Michel le Grand (1126-1199), Elie de Nisibe (975-1046) et Bar Hébraéus (1226-1286) s’illustrèrent particulièrement Du troisième siècle au treizième siècle, l’influence des Syriaques, de leur langue, de leur religion, s’étendit vers l’Asie centrale et la Chine.

Troisième période : Araméen moderne (soureth)  

     Aujourd’hui la langue araméenne est parlée par 2 millions de personnes environ, qui sont les Assyro-Chaldéens et les Syriaques orthodoxes et catholiques.

     Ils utilisent toujours l’alphabet syriaque.

     Ils sont un demi-million dans la Diaspora, établis aux États-Unis, au Canada, en Australie, en Europe. Le foyer de leur langue demeure la Haute Mésopotamie, où plusieurs villes et villages s’expriment en araméen, répartis autour du lac d’Ourmia en Iran, dans la région du Tour’ Abdîn  au sud-ouest de la Turquie, et en Syrie, dans la région du fleuve Khabour.

     Depuis 1992, au  Kurdistan irakien,  dans le Département de l’Éducation Nationale fut créée une Section spéciale pour l’enseignement de la langue syriaque. Une soixantaine d’écoles et quatre lycées suivent ce programme, officiellement enseigné par des professeurs laïcs.

     Une trentaine de revues et de magazines paraissent régulièrement au Kurdistan irakien autonome. Quatre chaines  de télévision diffusent en langue syriaque des programmes intéressants, Ishtar TV, Ashur TV, Suroyo  TV, suryoyo Sat.

La lumière de la langue araméenne continue à briller.

16 avril 2011 Paris

Ephrem Isa YOUSIF

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Conférence internationale : Le sort des chrétiens en Irak

 Au Senat 26 févier 2011

1ère Table ronde : 14h40-16h30 - État des lieux

Modérateur : Ephrem Isa YOUSIF : Cette première table sera surtout une explication, une présentation :

Rappel historique de la présence chrétienne en Irak

Naissance 

        Je vais donc commencer mon exposé sur l'histoire de la chrétienté en haute Mésopotamie et en Irak. Elle a connu un passé très glorieux, mais vit un présent tragique.

      

       Le christianisme est né en Palestine, et puis s'est répandu rapidement vers Antioche ;  d'Antioche, il est passé en haute Mésopotamie, spécialement à Édesse (auj. Urfa), qui était une principauté d'Osrhoène, à cheval entre deux empires, l'Empire parthe et l'Empire romain d'Orient. De là, le christianisme a pu s'épanouir, aller vers Nusaybin, vers Amida-Diyarbekir, Mardin, Mayyafercat (auj. Silvan). Mais on reste toujours en haute Mésopotamie, et on se trouve toujours dans l'Empire romain d'Orient.

         Petit à petit, on va voir le christianisme  passer de l'autre côté, dans l’Empire parthe.

 Les chrétiens sous les Perses sassanides

       Pourquoi le christianisme se propage-t-il si rapidement dans cet Empire parthe et, plus tard, dans l'Empire sassanide ? Il y a plusieurs raisons : D'abord, parce qu’Édesse, Nisibe, se trouvent près de la frontière. La tradition nous rapporte que deux disciples, Addaï et Mari, ont été les premiers évangélisateurs de la Mésopotamie.

       Deuxième élément : les commerçants qui allaient et venaient entre les deux empires ont joué un grand rôle. Ils transportaient, non seulement les marchandises, mais aussi les idées.

       Troisième élément : la présence des Juifs. Il y a des Juifs en Mésopotamie, et plus spécialement à Adiabène (auj. Erbil-Hewler) où il y a une présence juive, et même un prince juif. Or on sait très bien que les premiers chrétiens étaient des Juifs !

       Un quatrième élément qui a aussi facilité l’envol du christianisme en haute Mésopotamie et au-delà du Tigre et de l'Euphrate, c'est la persécution. Au début, la religion chrétienne a été malmenée dans l'Empire romain, et beaucoup de gens persécutés sont passés de l'autre côté de la frontière, où on ne leur prêtait pas attention.

        Le cinquième élément est la guerre avec l'arrivée des Perses sassanides qui vont régner de 226 jusqu'en 638. Shapor Ier conduit une guerre terrible contre l'Empire romain. Il conquiert Antioche, en 242, et  emmène en captivité dans son empire le patriarche d'Antioche, Démétrius, avec beaucoup de chrétiens, de commerçants, d'artisans, qui vont construire la ville de Gondishapor.

       Les Sassanides choisissent et développent une capitale, Ctésiphon, en face de Séleucie, capitale créée par les Grecs séleucides. C'est là, autour d'une colline, Kokhé, qui est collée à la ville de Ctésiphon (Séleucie-Ctésiphon auj. Madâ'in, à 30 km de Bagdad), que l'on voit émerger, à partir du III ^eme siècle, une communauté, et un chef qui devient de plus en plus le chef de ce christianisme de Mésopotamie.

       Un sixième élément, qui a facilité la présence et le développement du christianisme en Mésopotamie, est la langue. On sait très bien que Jésus parlait la langue araméenne, et cette langue araméenne était la langue de l'Orient. Quand les apôtres vont communiquer leur message, ils n'ont pas à recourir à la langue latine, ni à la langue grecque. Ils disposent d’une langue commune et, de l'autre côté de l'Euphrate ou du Tigre, la population parle la langue araméenne. Tout cela facilite beaucoup le développement du christianisme.

        Vous voyez donc par quel biais est entré le christianisme dans cet Empire, rapidement, et par plusieurs canaux.

       Au IV^eme siècle, un autre événement bouleverse la vie des chrétiens de Mésopotamie : l'Empire romain d'Orient, avec Constantin, devient chrétien et le christianisme sera bientôt la religion officielle de l'Empire romain. Du coup les Perses sassanides se disent : "Tiens ? Il y a des chrétiens chez nous ? Est-ce que ces chrétiens ne sont pas des agents de Rome ? " Les chrétiens, à cause de cela, sont rapidement mal vus et persécutés. La première persécution, redoutable, qui nous rappelle ce qui se passe aujourd'hui, est celle de Shapor II, et dure près de quarante ans, de 339 à 379, année de la mort du roi. Cette période voit de très nombreux massacres. Le primat de l'Église d'Orient, Shemoun, est exécuté, ainsi que son successeur.

       Cela constitue une épreuve considérable pour ces chrétiens d'Orient, à peine organisés. Voilà que les autorités sassanides sont en train d'éradiquer pratiquement le christianisme ! Heureusement, Yazdegerd I^er, en 399, accède au trône et l'on parvient à une réconciliation entre les deux empires, sassanide et romain, Les chrétiens de cette région, la Mésopotamie, peuvent vivre en paix.

       Un personnage très connu dans l'histoire de l'église d'Orient, l’évêque Maroutha, est envoyé par l'empereur de Byzance chez les Sassanides, pour négocier la paix. Celui-ci se rend deux fois à Séleucie-Ctésiphon et en 410, tente de réaliser le premier synode de l'Église d'Orient, sous la houlette du Roi des Rois, Yazdegerd I^er. Lors de ce synode, le catholicos de l'Église d'Orient et les évêques acceptent de proclamer les canons du premier concile de Nicée, qui s’était tenu en 325 ; ils réorganisent l’institution de l'Église.

       Cet équilibre dure quelques décennies. Puis, de nouveau, la guerre éclate entre les deux empires. Les empereurs Kosrau I^er et  Kosrau II la reprennent avec ardeur. Kosrau II combat l’empereur Héraclius, prend Jérusalem, Damas, Antioche, et surtout récupère la Sainte Croix. Imaginez cela : Le roi perse emporte la Sainte Croix ! Il l'apporte à Séleucie-Ctésiphon et à qui va-t-il la donner ? À sa femme, Chirin, qui a des sympathies chrétiennes. Bien sûr, l'empereur Héraclius poursuit la guerre, qui sévit pendant trente ans. Il pourra récupérer la Vraie Croix. Mais les deux empires se retrouvent totalement épuisés, quand arrive l'islam.

 Les chrétiens sous les Arabes

       L’ Église d'Orient, malgré ces aléas, ces guerres, ces problèmes, a réussi à créer des institutions. En 642, elle est bien organisée, dynamique et  dispose de nombreux diocèses, dirigés par les métropolites. Il y a aussi des dizaines de couvents et de monastères. La montagne Djebel Maqrub, reçoit le nom de montagne d'Alpa, qui veut dire la montagne des Milliers, ou des milliers de moines qui y vivent.

      L’Église d'Orient fonde de grandes écoles comme l'École d'Édesse, l'École de Nisibe, l'École d'Erbil. L'École de Nisibe formera l'ensemble du clergé et des cadres de cette Église.

Grâce aux missionnaires, l’Église d'Orient s'étend rapidement vers l'Iran, vers l'Afghanistan, vers l'Asie centrale, et va jusqu'en Chine, au VII^eme  siècle. 

L’islam, à son arrivée, profite de cette riche présence chrétienne en Mésopotamie. Au début,  le calife Omar pose des conditions plutôt dures, exigeant que les chrétiens, très nombreux, soient des dhimmi, soumis à la dhimma, qu'ils portent certains vêtements, qu'ils ne construisent pas d'églises sans autorisation.

        Mais, petit à petit, les chrétiens s'adaptent à ces conditions, et, à l'arrivée du deuxième pouvoir, vraiment important, celui des Abbassides, en 750 qui vont rester jusqu'en 1258, date de la prise de Bagdad par les Mongols – on va voir naître une entente, une amitié, une coopération réelle, entre les Abbassides et les chrétiens de Mésopotamie. Le premier calife Al-Mansour, demande d'ailleurs  au patriarche de l'Église d'Orient, Timothée Ier, qui était à Séleucie-Ctésiphon, de venir s'installer à Bagdad. Il y fréquentera cinq califes, et les accompagnera parfois dans leurs combats ou leurs conquêtes.

       Il s’établit donc une très forte relation humaine entre Arabes et chrétiens. Pourquoi ? Parce que les chrétiens qui vivent là, à l'époque abbasside, sont des cadres cultivés. Tous les grands médecins, la plupart des secrétaires sont chrétiens et jouent un rôle très important. Le calife Al-Mansour fait venir de Gondishapor le grand médecin Georges Bokhticho, et toute sa dynastie demeurera à Bagdad comme médecins des califes. Les grands philosophes, comme  Honayn, Matta b. Yunis, 'Ishaq b. Honayn, Ibn Al-Tayyib, se mettent à traduire pratiquement toute la culture, la philosophie grecques dans leur langue, et de leur langue, ils  les traduisent en langue arabe.

       Quand le calife Al-Muqtadi nomme le catholicos Makkikha Ier, il y a, dans la Chronique syriaque de Suleyman, une charte où il proclame les droits accordés au patriarche comme chef et primat de l'Église et aux chrétiens. Voilà ce qu'il dit :

         "Il a été établi sur l'ordre d'Abu al Qâsim Abd-Allah al Qa'im al Muqtadi, le Commandeur des Croyants pour Makkikha, catholicos-patriarche : Le Commandeur des Croyants a répondu à la demande qui lui a été faite d'accorder ses grâces et de montrer sa grande bienveillance. Il a ordonné que tu sois le catholicos des chrétiens nestoriens habitant la Ville de la Paix (Bagdad) et de toutes les contrées de l'Islam. Je t'accorde la protection de ta vie et de celle de tes coreligionnaires, la protection des biens, des églises, des couvents qui sont aujourd'hui debout et aussi la protection des morts selon les prescriptions officielles vous accordant d'établir entre nous, entre le califat et le catholicos…"

        Il s'agit ici d'un acte officiel qui reconnaît  l'autorité et les droits des chrétiens, de leurs biens, de leurs couvents, de leurs institutions. Quand on voit aujourd'hui que cinquante-trois églises, couvents, monastères ont été détruits à Bagdad, à Mossoul et ailleurs, cela laisse à réfléchir …

      

 Les chrétiens sous les Mongols

      Ensuite, avec les Mongols, arrive un changement de dynastie. Un nouveau monde advient. Cependant, la femme de Hulagu, Doguz Khatoun, est chrétienne, de la tribu des Kereït, et le commandant de son armée, Kitbuga, est aussi chrétien, Naiman. Pendant cette période où vont régner les Mongols, chamanistes ou bouddhistes, il s’établit une entente, une compréhension entre ces chrétiens de Mésopotamie et les Tatars. Ceux-ci prendront  Bagdad en 1258, mais épargneront les chrétiens. Et l’on voit Bar Hebræus, Maphrien de l'Église d'Orient, grand médecin, grand chroniqueur, s’installer à Maragha, capitale de Hulagu. Quand le besoin se fera sentir d'élire un patriarche, on choisira Yaballaha III, qui est d'origine turco-mongole.

     Un des événements les plus importants est l'arrivée en Occident,  en 1287, de Rabban Sauma, d'origine ouighour, compagnon de Yaballaha III et ambassadeur de l’Il-khan Argoun.  Ce dernier envoie cette délégation au pape et aux rois d’Occident pour  établir une alliance contre les Mamelouks. Il arrive d'abord à Rome mais le pape vient de mourir. Que va-t-il faire ? Il se rend à Paris et y rencontre le roi Philippe le Bel. Rabban Sauma et les membres de sa délégation mongole, en riches costumes orientaux, sont reçus avec éclat. Il visite la Sainte-Chapelle, il  a beaucoup d'entretiens avec le roi. La chronique – parce qu'on a publié une chronique de son voyage – dit que les Parisiens étaient sortis en masse pour voir ce beau spectacle. Puis Rabban Sauma descend à Bordeaux, région qui dépend du roi d'Angleterre. Il retrouve là-bas Édouard Ier, il célèbre la messe, et Édouard Ier communie de sa main. Il remet au roi les cadeaux qu'il a apportés pour lui et retourne à Paris. De là, il  revient à Rome, où un nouveau pape a été élu. Celui-ci le reçoit avec beaucoup d'amitié et lui fait remettre des lettres pour le Grand Khan, le Grand Mongol.

Avec Gazan, à la fin du treizième siècle, les Mongols se convertissent à l’islam, et la communauté chrétienne endure tracasseries et persécutions. Un siècle plus tard, réduite après les conquêtes de Tamerlan, elle vit dans les montagnes du Hakkâri.

 Les chrétiens sous les Ottomans

       Une autre étape de l'histoire du christianisme de l'Orient, c'est l'arrivée des Ottomans, au XVIeme siècle. Ce sont des Turcs, qui vont conquérir la Mésopotamie, une partie de l'Anatolie. Ils  livrent bataille aux Perses en 1514-15, la fameuse bataille de Tchaldiran où les Perses sont défaits. Et comme les Kurdes jouent un rôle important, les Ottomans reconnaissent les émirats kurdes. C'est pour cela qu'on voit, au Kurdistan irakien, dès le XVIeme siècle, l’émirat de Baban qui a son centre parfois à Baqrawa, ou à Qaratcholan, à Suleymaniya. Ensuite l’émirat de Soran, qui choisit pour capitale Erbil, ou parfois Khalife, ou Koy et plus particulièrement Rawanduz.

       Il va y avoir un troisième émirat, celui de Badinan, qui vont gouverner de Amadia à Zakho, Sheikhan. Le cinquième émirat est celui de Hakkâri, avec sa capitale Djolamerg.

        Les chrétiens vivent, à cette période, dans ces émirats gouvernés par les Kurdes, avec lesquels ils entretiennent des relations plutôt amicales et qui leur assurent une certaine protection. En 1899, l'armée turque  attaque de manière féroce ces émirats kurdes et crée un immense vilayet, le vilayet de Mossoul, qui va comprendre Suleymaniya, Amadia, Dohouk, Erbil.

        Et ces chrétiens, qui étaient habitués à leurs émirs sont soumis à présent au wali ottoman, qui fait la pluie et le beau temps.

       Dès le début de la période ottomane, les sultans délivrent des chartes, les Capitulations qui reconnaissent aux Français, aux Anglais, aux Hollandais des droits dans cet empire. C'est aussi une période faste pour les missionnaires dans cette région : Les Augustiniens arrivent en 1623, les Capucins en 1628, et les Pères dominicains en 1750. Ces Dominicains créent une  base à Mossoul, à Mar Yaqoub, à Van, à Séert, à Gezireh…

L’église devient chaldéenne

       Entre-temps, une partie de cette église nestorienne, en 1553, devient chaldéenne et, en 1830, une autre partie, avec le patriarche de Mossoul, se convertit au catholicisme et ainsi se constitue l'Église chaldéenne. Il y aura donc deux patriarches, en Mésopotamie : celui des Chaldéens et celui des Assyriens, qui sera, lui, à Djolamerg (auj. Hakkâri).

       

En conclusion, les chrétiens de Mésopotamie ont subi les assauts de plusieurs vagues d’envahisseurs : les Sassanides, les Arabes, les Mongols, les Turcs, au début du vingtième siècle, les Anglais et, en 2003 les Américains. Leur équilibre a donc été rompu plusieurs fois. Le christianisme a survécu miraculeusement. Comment, avec tant d'événements, tant de cataclysmes, tant de souffrances, est-il  encore là ? Puisse-t-il rester encore longtemps au Moyen-Orient ! 

       Merci de votre écoute.

 Ephrem Isa YOUSIF

My visit to the cultural centres in Iraqi Kurdistan

I went on a trip to Iraq, to take part in an international Congress of Kurdology, organised in Erbil by the Kurdish Institute of Paris and the Government of Federal Kurdistan of Iraq. The Congress was held at Salahadin University from Tuesday 4 September 2006 to Friday, 8 November 2006.

I spoke about two brilliant and tolerant Kurdish Dynasties, that of the Marwanides (983-1085), established in Mayafarkin, and that of the ‘Ayubides of Jezira with the great Malik al-Asraf (+1237).

The Syriac chroniclers often wrote about these princes who kept in cordial touch with Syriac Christians living in that region.

Permanence of the Syriac culture, a culture of the world

Heirs of the old Mesopotamians, proud of their traditions, Syriac had an original vision of the world and of the man. During centuries, prelates, clerks, doctors, philosophers, and translators celebrated the flame of knowledge. They showed exceptional enthusiasm to be educated, to study theology, philosophy, astronomy, mathematics, and Syriac language.

They founded many famous schools. Their culture, enriched with many documents, manuscripts, archaeological vestiges, inscriptions, took part in the cultures of the world, like Greek, Egyptian and Roman cultures.

Alas, since the creation of the State of Iraq in 1921, for lack of means and freedom, Syriac culture could not spread out and was enfeebled.

The beginning of revival

At the time of the revolt of the great Kurdish leader Mustafa Barzani in 1961, who asserted autonomy, many Christian and Kurdish villages in the North of Iraq were destroyed by the governments of Baghdad and the populations were deported.

In 1991, during the Gulf’s war, the Kurds were agitated. The army of Saddam Hussein pursued them to the Turkish borders. Then the Americans and the Allied nations created a zone of protection in Kurdistan, which covered the governorates of Dohuk, Erbil and Soulemanya. The Iraqi Kurds began, since 1992, to manage their own affairs, to form a government and to create ministries and political institutions.

A new climate of liberty started to take place little by little for the Syriac people. Their culture sprang and developed in the form of courses of language, cultural centres, newspapers, reviews, radios and televisions.

Under the Direction of the Education Department of the Kurdistan Regional Government, there were new programs and text-books for the year 1993/1994. Several schools in Erbil welcomed Assyrian-Chaldean-Syriac people. In Dohuk, teaching in the Arabic and Kurdish languages started to take shape and there was a special section for teaching the Syriac language.

Seventeen primary schools taught all their subjects in Syriac. Six Highs schools provided a teaching in all academic topics, but the Syriac language remained compulsory.

Specialist linguists wrote Arabic-Syriac, and Syriac-Arabic dictionaries specialised in the vocabulary of modern sciences.

Since the fall of Saddam Hussein, in 2003, the movement of revival sprang and kept on flourishing till the present day. In the towns and villages of the Nineveh’s plains, where there is a sizable community of Assyrians, Chaldeans and other Syriac speaking communities. Some of these towns include Bagdeda, (Qaraqoche), Bartella, Alqoche, Tell-Kaif, Karamless, Tell-Esqof, Batnaya and others towns and villages. Many cultural centres and primary schools that taught in Syriac were created and began to work in order to promote the Syriac studies, culture and traditions.

The new Ishtar television had started to broadcast and was very important for the culture.

It was only in 2005 that the name of the Assyrian-Chaldean people, one of the oldest in the Mesopotamian Fertile Crescent was inscribed in the Iraqi Constitution and recognised.

Today, the Assyrian-Chaldean-Syriac people of the North of Iraq realise the richness of their culture and history. They wish to awaken in their children an interest in scientific subjects, such as chemistry, physics, mathematics, biology, but also for history, philosophy, literature and arts. They want to keep their language, the modern Syriac (Soureth) alive and flourishing as it has been for hundreds of years. On the other hand, the liturgical language remains the traditional Syriac, used since the very early centuries of Christianity.

Some values of the modern world, competition, money cult, and poor politics cannot totally fulfil the hearts and minds of the young generations, who are in need of morality ideals and traditional culture and meanings in their lives. Knowledge, intellectual research, literary and artistic creation lead the way of progress in people’ minds and open horizons of liberty, tolerance and fraternity.

The visit

The congress of Kurdlogy having come to an end, I left Erbil and I returned by car to the Chaldean city of Ankawa, populated by nearly 20 000 inhabitants. I had visited Ankawa, 45 years ago. It had been a greatly modest village at the time, but now, I was pleasantly surprised to see its great development and expansion. Hundreds of beautiful, residential houses have grown there like mushrooms in open extensive fields.

Mentioned several times in an account reporting the siege of Qala by the Mongols, in 1310, the citadel of Erbil and the old village of Ankawa had become a bastion of Nestorian Christianity. But in the XVIII century, it was made Catholic. At the end of the century, a priest, Yussif Ibrahim al-Rawanduz (1832) came to live in Ankawa and greeted his small land of adoption like “the mother of Chaldean science.” He wrote several poems in the Turkish language, hymns in Chaldean (Soureth) and he carried out translations of Arabic into Syriac, a lexicon in Syriac language and in Soureth and a grammar into Syriac.

Today still, the bishop resides at Ankawa. He exerts his influence and his jurisdiction on the entire province. A very old church was dedicated to Saint Georges.

I went to visit the new Arts Centre in Ankawa. It was in a beautiful three-storey building. There was a large room at the entry of the building, open to the public, where the newspapers and the magazines published in Iraq and in Kurdistan were on display. A young man welcomed me and offered me his services.

I was shown round the Centre. I went into a vast reception room, on the right, furnished with gold velvet armchairs. There was a portrait of the Kurdish chief Mustafa Barzani mounting on the wall.

There were several administrative staff offices and also the manager’s office on the left side of the ground floor. We went up to the first floor and entered a room equipped with computers. There were many boys and the girls looking at the screens; they stopped and waved to me. I moved towards the library. A Chaldean woman, with black hair and eyes, was sitting behind her desk. She welcomed me, showing me around the library, which was full of shelves filled with a lot of beautiful books in English, Arabic, Kurdish and Syriac. She told me proudly that the library had 1788 books and that they had just acquired several new books. She was responsible for cataloguing and organising them.

I congratulated the librarian, and then passed quickly into the next room, which was used for training actors and actresses and it was also used for Eastern and Western music.

On the second floor there were other offices for files and management issues.

The Adiabene Room

Always escorted by my young companion, I visited another building by the ground floor, called the Adiabene room, which was used for lectures and receptions. It was a really large room of 600 square metres, with a splendid ceiling. It was a beautiful room, decorated with velvet curtains. It could receive 700 people and had modern conveniences and fully air-conditioned.

This room was also used as a grand theatre. I was told that many plays in Syriac were shown there, testifying to a true birth of the Syriac theatre activities.

I went upstairs and arrived in a vast kitchen and an elegant dining room, opened to the staff of the Centre and to the guests.

At the house corner, I saw workmen who finished the construction of six flats, intended to receive writers, painters, artists and journalists, invited by the Centre.

The talk with Jalal Marcos

I could not keep Jalal Marcos, the vice-president of the Centre waiting longer in his office, which was situated in the first building. He was a nice man with average size and grey-hair, about fifty years old. He invited me to sit down on the sofa. I told him that I was really impressed with the beauty and the order of the Centre in Ankawa. He smiled with gratitude. He had prepared some documents to show me and also to give me details about this Centre.

In answer to my queries, Jalal Marcos told me that the Centre was founded in 1998. It is currently financed by the Minister of Economy and Finance of Iraqi Kurdistan, Sarkgis Agajan, but managed by the Religious Chaldean Organisation. It is has now ten officials and many other office workers.

We had a long discussion about the numerous activities of the cultural Centre. I was told that the Centre had a magazine publication of 128 pages, written in Arabic, Kurdish and Syriac languages, and another magazine entitled Radya Caldaya. Another monthly newspaper published is the Beth Ankawa, written in Arabic and Syriac languages. The centre has a small publishing firm dedicated to the great Chaldean scholar Addaï Scher (1867- 1915), who wrote “The history of Chaldea and Assur”. The firm had published about fifteen books already, in order to promote the culture of the Assyian-Chaldean-Syriac people.

Jalal Marcos was responsible for the publication of printed work and also for increasing publications.

I thought of the printing works of the Dominican Fathers of the Ottoman Vilayet of Mosul, opened in 1859, and then closed by the Turks in 1914. It had published 350 books in Arabic and Syriac languages and had placed them at the disposal of the population. I had the feeling that a new age had started for the Assyrian-Chaldean-Syriac researchers, writers and journalists. They could give a new impulse to their original culture.

I thanked Jalal Marcos for his hospitality and we separated. The team went down and greeted me with cordiality. I promised them a lecture on the history of our culture and people the next time I visited them.

My visit in Ankawa came to an end; I had the impression that the city was going to become the cultural capital of our people.

A Stop at the Assyrian cultural Centre of Dohuk

I went up in the car and returned to Dohuk, a city located between the mountainous chains (Bekher and Shndokha), which border Turkey, and Syria in North and West. Today, it is populated by more than 800 000 inhabitants, Moslems, Christians and Yazidis.

I thought of the famous Syriac writer Narsaï (399-503), who had been born in a village close to Ma’altâye and who had founded the famous School of Nisibe (a kind of university), which had given Mesopotamia many famous philosophers, doctors, and theologians. Today, Ma’althâye was a new district of Dohuk.

I arrived in the town mid afternoon. I went straight to the Assyrian cultural Centre, which I had been told many things about in the past. It was a large, blue-mauve building, crenulated, decorated with a Syriac inscription.

The Director, Nissam Mirza, who had been informed of my visit, came up with his team of supporters and workers to welcome me. He was a tall, slim, dark-haired man, who had been a graduate in Management and Economy. He took me to his office and ordered coffee which was served in little cups. While sipping his coffee, he spoke to me about the history of the cultural office.

He told me that the Assyrian Arts Centre, the first in the area of Dohuk, was first established on 15 March 1992. The main objective was to start a new renewal phase to the culture and language, the inheritance of the Assyrian-Chaldean-Syriac people. Another objective was to make known the writers of the Chaldo/Assyrian culture. A third one was to establish a link and respectful dialogue with the Kurds. Since the opening of the Centre, the Syriac language started to be taught at the primary and secondary schools.

It is also a training centre for Information Technology, in order to familiarise all students with the computer and to Internet.

Each year, several exhibitions of books, works of art and publications are organisned. Hundreds of visitors, especially those who have interest in the Syriac culture, attend and admire the exhibits. Some personalities come to give lectures and seminars.

I asked Nissam Mirza about the financial resources and support for these important cultural activities and exhibitions. He told me that they were all gifts from the Assyrian community of Dohuk and also from the various charitable organisations from America.

The Director took me on a tour of the Centre building and offices. He showed me the large room of lectures, exhibitions and festivals, which was often rented for marriages and constituted a source of useful income for the Centre.

I was then led to the library which contained 1600 books in Arabic, Kurdish and Syriac. The young readers were sitting in front of tables and were lost in their books, in spite of the semi-darkness. The Director told me that the readers there would damage their eyesight, because the lamps gave a poor light. In addition, it seemed to me that the blue plastic armchairs were too modest and rather uncomfortable.

He told me that he agreed and that they were aware of the problems. He added that they were going to undertake a construction of a new, more spacious library, with large windows.

Then I was led to the Editorial Office of the quarterly journal entitled Kukhwa Beth Nahrain, The Star of Mesopotamia. Created in December first 1992, it is published in Syriac and Arabic and comes in 132 pages. It is financed by some Assyrian benefactors. I attentively studied an issue, and congratulated Farid Yacoub, in charge of it, for it was a really good and well presented magazine, cover of glazed paper, decorated with coloured photographs and beautiful Syriac (Soureth) characters.

I told Mr Yacoub that I was really impressed with that brilliant work. He told me that his people are well experienced with the art of creating newspapers, reviews and magazines. The Assyrians of Ourmia in Iran had created the magazine Zahira of Behrea, the Ray of light as early as 1846.

After completing the visit to the Centre, Nissam Mirza, showed me the Printing house and told me that about fifteen books had been printed and published there. They have now a great freedom and a lot of projects are planned ahead. They have great ambitions to print and publish the writings of our fathers and scholars. He hoped that one day they would be pleased to translate into Syriac one of my own books, “The Epic of the Tiger and Euphrates”. They had already read it in Arabic translation and they liked it tremendously. I was really pleased to offer my acceptance and admiration for their activities.

When I was about to leave I was given a gift of a bag with ten books in it. I took that as a great privilege.

The International School of Dohuk

I could not pass to Dohuk without going to visit the International School of Dohuk. A few years ago, the dynamic bishop of Amadia, his Grace Bishop Raban had been entrusted with the project, which matured little by little. That led to the creation of an International School. The authorities of Kurdistan, with the assistance of the Town of Dohuk, granted a ground and the construction started.

The International School, under the auspices of the Education Department of the Kurdistan Regional Government, was opened on 15 September 2004. The Chaldean Community ensured the presidency of it, but the direction was Kurdish.

Nowadays, the school has 170 students, 30 teachers and 28 staff members.

I met the director, Wahid Atrushi, a Moslem Kurd, a cultured, humanistic open-minded man. He told me that the school uses the English language to teach Years 4, 5 and 6 respectively, mainly scientific subjects such as chemistry, physics, mathematics and biology.

The students are also taught Social Sciences, Human rights, Democracy, History of the Kurds and English, French, Arabic, Kurdish, Aramaic languages. Aramaic was taught one hour weekly and was compulsory for Christians but optional for followers of other religions. The school wished to help Iraqi Youth to study English and French languages, so as to open their minds to the world and to “occidental” culture.

The pupils write a magazine and they have sports teams. The education there is free of charge.

I asked who could study there. The answer was that there was a great selection. The students who are usually accepted in the school must have obtained a minimum of 75% in the Baccalaureate of the 3 rd Year and have 15 years of age and more. The European and American students must pass an interview.

Then, I visited the school which was very modern, occupying a five-storey building, already equipped with all modern conveniences and computers. All the students were wearing a uniform, a model of white shirt, a blue dress or trousers.

I also learnt that the students were full board. The building had a large canteen and a vast room for lectures.

The weather was hot and Wahid Atrushi took me along to his office, where I rested. The phone rang. It was His Grace, the Bishop Raban of Amadia. He gave his apologies for not being aware of my visit and for not coming to meet with me. He had not been informed of my visit in Dohuk. He thanked me for the hundreds of books which our delegation of Kurdlogy had brought from Paris for the library of the school.

Hîzil, the social and cultural Centre of Zakho

I had a keen desire to stay a few days in Zakho, now a large city which is about 120 kilometres of Mosul, not far from the Turkish / Iraqi borders. It is today a significant trading centre, populated by some 250000 Kurds, Chaldeans, and Armenians. It is the sub-prefecture, which belongs to Dohuk Governorate. I had been born in Sanat, which was affiliated to Zakho.

I thought of the father R.P. Guiseppe Campanile, O.P., who has appointed apostolic Prefect for Mesopotamia and Kurdistan in 1809. He visited and liked Zahko. He wrote:

“Zakho is the most gracious and pleasant city amongst the miserable cities of Bahdinan. It is located on a soft slope and forms an island surrounded by the Khabour River which joined together with some ramifications of Hîzil River at a little distance from Zakho. Zakho is located in the middle of a very beautiful cutting of green grass hills, which form picturesque and delicious perspectives. The small gardens which surround it contribute to make it merrier and pleasant.

It is a rich and commercial city. The traders come there, from almost all Kurdistan and Mesopotamia. There, they buy and sell a lot of good : Walnuts, who are estimated to be the best of all the Kurdistan, rice, wax, honey, oil, sumac (soummâk in Arabic), raisins, lentils and a lot of fruits. There are also very famous sulfatemines.”1

Two centuries had passed, but Zakho had preserved its charm and attraction and also its dynamism. I could have re-written the text of Guiseppe Campanile !

When I arrived, I wanted to see the old, famous Dalal Bridge which spans the Khabour River, probably dating from the Roman time, or from a late epoch. I saw that the stones were falling over; the bridge urgently needs to be restored. Anxious, I called on my mobile phone Kana’an Mufti, the Director General of Antiquities, a courteous and pleasant man. I warned him of the danger of the bridge breaking down due to decay. He promised me to take action for a restoration of the bridge.

After a few days, at home, with my kinship and relations, I went to visit the cultural and social Centre, close to the Chaldean See. I asked to meet the director. Much to my surprise, I saw Amir Goga, a friend of childhood, lost of sight for a long time. He looked older; of course, partly white-haired, but had kept his enthusiasm, his dynamism, his wittedness.

He told me he was so happy to see me back in my home country after all these years I spent abroad. Then, we exchanged memories. We told some jokes in our Soureth language.

I asked him about their cultural and social activities, as I had heard that it was a very good Centre.

Amir Goga told me that eighty-three employees work at the Centre. Many people come to the dispensary every day, requesting assistances of all kinds which are free of charge. They are given drugs.

The Centre offers a monthly allowance to 912 Christian families emigrated of Mosul, Baghdad, and also to 570 other needy families of the area. As for the culture, the Centre publishes in Arabic and in Kurdish a review entitled Hîzil. The writers, the artists of the province of Zakho can promote their inheritance.

Then the director showed me the back of a magazine which he took from over his desk. To my great surprise and pride, there was a picture of my own village, Sanat. What an emotion!

I was told by Amir Goga that a small team was charged to animate a radio which diffused its programs in Kurdish, Arabic, Syriac and Armenian from 8.30 a.m. to 8.30 p.m . The audience can listen to radio news, music, and songs.

Another team in charge of Information Technology for the young people and had in the area 5 centres equipped with computers offering the access to the Internet.

Then I was informed by Amir Goga with much liveliness and sensibility of a great project: the rebuilding of the Christian villages destroyed by the Baathist regime of Iraq, like Peshkabour, Deraboun, Bajida, Karaoula, Charanes, Deschtatar and many others.

Six hundred and fifty houses had been already rebuilt, with running water, electricity, and two hundred are awaiting the end of the public works. Eight primary schools had opened their doors.

The Diocese of Zakho had taken charge of rebuilding the churches.

I told my friend that I had been to Deschtatar the day before, where the Sanati are coming to live on the lands of their ancestors. I saw the new buildings, and then I had a picnic with residents on the bank river Nhera. I felt a true feeling of joy! I reminded a proverb of the area:

“Bird, tell me, where are you the most happy? –It is where I was born,

answered the bird.”

Indeed, I was in communion with this little bird !

I was impressed by the extensiveness of the task, and I asked the director if he was not cramped for room.

He told me that the buildings were too exigent then now, but they were about to buy a greater Centre for all their social and cultural activities. Fortunately, the Kurdish Federal Government, directed by the Prime Minister, Nejirvan Barzani, and the minister for Economy Sarkgis Agajan, agreed to finance all their projects.

I felt that my friend was doing a great job and I conveyed my feelings to him as I was leaving him, praising his dynamism and devoutness.

On my return home in Paris, I think of all things I had seen in Iraq. I reconsidered with my visits in the various cultural Centres of Iraqi Kurdistan and with the people who I had the opportunity to meet. I had the feeling of a beginning of renewal of the Assyro-Chaldean-Syriac culture and language. I had seen the signs of them. The Federal Government of Kurdistan and the President Masoud Barzani backed up this cause, this renewal.

I hope that one day, a Syriac University will be born for the greatest joy of all young and old Chaldo Assyrian people youth. They do say dreams sometimes come true. We will pray for that dream.

The Fate of Assyrian-Chaldeans

Assyrians-Chaldeans in the 19th century

Historical and political frame

In the XIXth century, Assyrians-Chaldeans, poor and humble, lived within the Ottoman empire, as Sultan of Constantinople’s subjetcs.

In 1839, Sultan Abdul-Medjid I, who reigned until 1861, promulgated an imperial chart, the Hatt-i-Chérîf, which opened an era of administrative, financial, judiciary reforms, the Tanzimat. All the subjects within the empire became equals All the subjects of the empire became equal, without distinction of nationality or religion. But things changed slowly in Northern mountains. Within Kurdish masses, Christian « Nestorian » population, were divided into seven independent tribes the ashiret. Beside the people of these tribes which paid few (or not) taxes to the sultan of Constantinople, lived the rayas, a population submitted to the Turkish or Kurdish chiefs. They were sometimes obliged to heavy work, overpowered by royalties, and reduced to a serfdom condition.

On the political field, Assyro-Chaldéens did not have the right to have political parties. No public schools nor universities, only reigned ignorance. Let us stress the ambiguous game played by the Western States, which created like strongholds “to protect Eastern Christians”… but they did not protect anything. They obtained rights of capitation.



Jacobit and Nestorian churches divided in two parts


The union of the Jacobit church with Rome became effective in 1783, thanks to the election of Michel Garoué. Thus was created the catholic Syrian church, which took a final form at the XIXème century.

The orthodoxe Jacobit church persisted, because a bishop refused to link himself in Rome. The Chaldean patriarch of Babylon, Jean Hormez joined in Rome in 1830, thus creating the branch of the contemporary Chaldean church.

Syriacs are coveted by various missionaries

Dominicans worked in Mesopotamia and in Mosul since 1750, two preaching friars arrived in Mosul in 1759, Dominicans founded the house of Amadia in 1840; the mission set out again, and at the end of the century, there were six houses of missionaries, in Mosul, Mar Yacoub, Amadia, Van, Seert, Jezireh.

Lazarists worked in Persia, since 1840, and opened a house in the village of Khosrawa (district of Salamas), then in Urmiah in 1870. Catholicism spred in about sixty villages.

Orthodox Russians contacted the Assyrians of ' Azerbaidjan and Hakkâri in 1859. A mission was installed in Urmiah and developed, especially since 1898 and met a sharp success. The Nestorian bishop converted with orthodoxy in 1898, followed by thousands of followers.

Anglicans: the first contacts were made in 1835. In 1842 Doctor Percy G Badger arrived at Kotchanès to help the Nestorian patriarch. In 1881, the mission was established in Hakkâri. Later, they created schools, as in Urmiah.

The American Protestants arrived in 1834, they founded a mission in Urmiah. In 1855, people saw the first Protestants Assyrian-Chaldeans. The mission developed since 1870 thanks to the Presbyterians. They founded a hundred of schools, printed books, trained pastors. They published a newspaper, Zahrira d' Bara (ray of light)



Exactions and massacres



Assyro-Chaldéens underwent exactions, massacres, in 1826, in 1843, in 1895.

Mohammed Pasha, of Soran, known as Mîr Kôr, the one-eyed prince, reigned in 1826, proclaimed his independence facing the Othoman Empire. He wanted to conquer Kurdistan, seized the area, the plains of Mosul, the regions of Akra, Amadia.

On March 15, 1832, the cruel sultan launched a raid, devastated the village of Alqosh where 367 people were killed, went to the monastery of Rabban Hormuz, burned the convent. Gabriel Dambo, and two monks perished. The villages of Tell-Kaif, Tell-Esqof, were also devastated.

The plague prevails in Alqoche in 1828, there were 700 died.

In 1833, Mohammed Pasha returned in the area of Akra and of Amadia, he made pass the Christian villages of Erbil and Aînkawa by many vicissitudes. At the end of May 1833, its army had established its authority on the whole of Kurdistan located at the north of Iraq until Jazira ibn ` Omar. The one-eyed pasha conquered Iranian Kurdistan, still devastated the Tur ` Abdin, but he had to go to the Turkish authorities. He was assassinated in Trebizond by Sultan’s men in 1837.

In 1843-1847, Bedir Khan, the Kurdish fanatic emir of Bothan, invaded the territory of Tiyari, massacred more than 10 000 inhabitants, reduced in slavery a great number of women and children, set fire to their villages. The emir crossed the Tiyari mounts later, walked on the district of Tkhoma, and organized a general carnage there.

The Armenian movement, which developed since 1890, caused the hostility of the Moslems. The rebellion of Sassoun, badly prepared, showed dreadful massacres. In 1895-96, in the vilayet of Bitlis, in the south of Sassoun, Diyarbakir, there were three days of slaughters, the 1, 2 November 3, 1895. A lot of Syriac, were killed.
In Urfa, the next year, 6000 people perished.

Syriac villages were devastated in the area of Tur' Abdin.


Assyrian-Chaldeans at the beginning of the XXth century:


On November 1st 1914, Turkey engaged in the First World War at the sides of Germany and Austria-Hungary. It was decided to fight the Franco-English Agreement and its allies. Assyrian-Chaldeans lived in the Othoman Empire, and more particularly in the vilayet of Diyarbakir, in the vilayet of Mosul, Sandjak de Hakkâri which depended on the vilayet of Van.


The Kurds were established in the same areas. Assyrian-Chaldeans (Nestorians) of Hakkâri were let allure by the vague promises of the Allies, they left their villages to take part in the world war in May 1915.


From Diyarbakir, Bitlis, Van, Harpout

The Othomans occupied Urmia in January 1915. Thereafter, thousand Assyrians-Chaldeans were assassinated in the surrounding plain, and their villages plundered. The city was not released before May 24th by the Russians.

The latter had driven out the Turks of Van, five days before. Jeudet Bey, the military governor of Van, was constrained by the Russians to leave the city, and fled towards Seert, in the south. He penetrated in the city with 8000 soldiers and ordered the massacre of many Christians


The Chaldean archbishop Addai Scher, a great erudite and orientalist, had a friend who was Osman, the agha of Tanzé, a village located at a few hours of Séert. He was the chief of the Hadide and Atamissa tribe. Osman suggested that the archbishop disguised in Kurdish and fled, led by some of his men. Addai Scher hid several days in the Kurdish chief’s house. Turkish gendarmes launched out to his track, burnt Osman’s house, threatening it to kill him and his family. Osman fled with his people. The gendarmes discovered the archbishop in his hiding place and killed him, on June 15, 1915.


In July, more than thousand womn and chikldren were displaced. Les villages alentour connurent un sort dramatique.

From spring to autumn 1915, the Othoman troops, supported by the governor of Mosul’s soldiers, pursued the Assyrian tribes of Hakkâri, which fled through valleys and mountains.

Assyrians-Chaldeans and Western Syriacs of the vilayet of Diyarbakir knew the deportations or the horror of massacres. In Diyarbakir, as in August 1914, 1687 shops of Christians were plundered and burned. On September 6, the whole city was attacked by Othoman soldiers and Hamidiyés regiments. Christians were arrested, assigned to the construction of the roads then massacred by Turkish gendarmes.

Since April 16, 1915, Armenian notables were under arrest, then Orthodox Syriacs, the Catholic Syrians and Chaldeans. Some of them were burnt alive. There were attempts to force people to convert. Convents, churches, goods of Christians were confiscated.

In the vilayet of Diyarbakir, there was, according to the Father Rhétoré, a French Dominican ho was witness of the events, 144 185 killed, disappeared, and among them, 10 010 Chaldeans. According to another Dominican witness, Father Simon, 157 200 Christians were killed.

Repression extended on the Christians from Mardin. At the beginning of May, notables were executed at the gates of the city. A few days later, Christians of all confessions were arrested. The Christian villages of the surroundings of Mardin were also attacked, plundered by troops of soldiers and Kurds. In the sanjak of Mardin, 74 675 were killed and disappeared, with 6800 catholic Chaldeans.


Tour' Abdin had its share of massacres. It was persecuted at the beginning of the summer 1915 then during the year 1917.


In the city of Jazireh, in May 1915, they arrested notable also. The catholic Syrian bishop, the Chaldeans’ one, Mar Yacoub was imprisonned with his priests, then sent out of the city. The women were dishonoured and sold like slaves. Two hundred and fifty Chaldeans and hundred Syriacs perished. In the surroundings, Jacobit villages and 15 Chaldean villages were destroyed.
In Nisibe, since on June 14, 1915, the Christian district was attacked by troops which massacred men. On 28, the women perished in the Saint-Jacob church. More than thousand Christians were killed and their villages destroyed.

At spring 1915, convoys of women, children, old men deportees, arrived at Urfa, the men having been already massacred. According to the same scenario, the notables of the city were arrested, thrown in prison, beaten and their houses searched. When an Armenian district revolted, twenty thousand people perished.

It is true also that in Bohtan, some Kurdish muslims, tried with courage to save their Christian neighbors, threatened by Turkish soldiers.


Assyrians-Chaldeans and Western Syriacs of Mosul vilayet


Fortunately, the vilayet of Mosul was relatively saved, thanks to the intervention of the Chaldean patriarch Joseph Emmanuel II Thomas (1900-1947) near the vali Heyder Pasha which did not support really the anti-Christian movement. The majority of the Kurdish aghas of this province refused to displace the men and to plunder the houses.



The end of the war


The Assyrians constituted in 1916, an army of twenty-five thousand soldiers who illustrated themselves at the sides of Russians, on the Caucasus front. In 1917, after the Bolshevik revolution, like the Assyrians felt abandoned, they joined the British lines. Some engaged like auxiliaries in the battalions under, to help the English on the Persian Front.

From February to July 1918, in Urmia and Salmas, there were riots and massacres. The Assyrians knew a tragic exodus. They were tracked, harassed by Turkish soldiers and irregular Kurdish fighters, decimated by diseases, typhus, cholera, variola. Fifty thousand of them died on the burned sun roads. Fifty thousand arrived in Hamadan at 480 kilometers. The English directed them towards the camp of Bakouba, in the north of Baghdad.



Assyrians-Chaldeans under Britton Mandate


Brittons took from Othoman empires the vilayets of Bassora and Baghdad. On March 11, 1917, General Stanley Maud seized Baghdad and on October 10, 1918, the Marshall General entered in Mosul, and took the control of the city.

On April 25, 1920, the conference of San Remo gave to Great Britain the mandates on Palestine, Transjordanie and Iraq. The vilayet of Mosul was under French influence since the agreements concluded in May 1916 by Sykes, the British Minister for the Foreign Affairs and Picot, a French diplomat. It had to remain within the borders of Iraq, placed under British domination. France, on the other hand, intended to receive 25% of the oil rights of the area of Mosul, which contained rich person layers.

On August 10, 1920, the Treaty of Sevres devoted the dismemberment of the Othoman Empire. It envisaged the creation of an independent Kurdish State, placed under the mandate of the League of Nations. It granted to Assyrians-Chaldeans a protection, within the framework of an autonomous Kurdistan, without speaking about a creation of a State.


Iraq, made up of two provinces, Baghdad and Bassora, became in 1921 a kingdom given to Emir Fayçal, Husein Hashemi ‘son, the sherif of Mecca.

The events precipitated. In Turkey, Mustafa Kemal abolished the caliphate, created a laic Republic, and contested the Treaty of Sevres.

On July 24, 1923, a new treaty, the Treaty of Lausanne, recognized to Turkey the right of being free nation with stable borders. It was unjust for the Kurds, the Armenians, Assyrians-Chaldeans, considered as simple minorities to be protected, which did not obtain any autonomy and wondered about their future.

The question of the borders with Iraq was not solved.

On December 16, 1925, the League of Nations decided that the vilayet of Mosul would be joined to Iraq, and mounts of Hakkâri, attached to Turkey. The Assyrians, which had engaged in the war on the side of the Allies, could not return any more in their villages. They had asked their own territory. Allies had forgotten their promise.

Sanate

I came from Irak. My origins are of a village in Northern Irak, Sanate, a Christian village in Bahdinan, very close to the Turkish border. I belong to a Christian family, that is member of a national and ethnical minority, the Assyrian-Chaldeans. This people live in Irak since the dawn of History. At the IIIrd century, some texts in Syriac attest their presence in this province.

I borned in Sanate in 1944, and I made my first studies there, like my father. When the border between Turkey and Irak was fixed in 1926, one year after that the vilayet of Mosul was attached to Irak, the village was in the Irakian side, but less far of seven kilometers from the border. But my family had small holdings in the Turkish side. Then, the first thing that had done the Iraqi governement was the creation of a primary school in 1926 in Sanate. Of course in that school teaching was made in Arabic, which few people spoke then. My mother tongue is the sureth[1] . Because of our environment we knew the Kurdish too and we spoke it fluently. At school, I learnt Arabic. The teachers were mostly Christian from Mosul, some Assyrian-Chaldeans who had been arabized. So I made all my primary studies in my village.

Sanate is a beautiful village that included 150 families at 1900 meters of altitude, situated at the equal distance of two monasteries, Mar Atqayn, where is Mar Yûsef Hazzâya's tomb, a great Syriac mystic of the VIIIth century, and an else monastery called Mar Sawr ’Ishô.


My father was mostly a caravaneer and, with fifteen other caravaneers, he imported from Zâkho, at nine hours of walks from Sanate, all that people need in the region. He furnished Christian villages as Muslim Kurdish villages, in the Iraqi side as the Turkish one. At this time the border was permeable and it was easy to pass it. My mother's village was in the Turkish side (a village called Harbol, of which Turks has turkized the name now). Then, by accident, because of the layout of the border, I had an Iraqi grand-father and a Turkish one. But I had had any problem for having the iraqi nationality.


Northern Iraq

The province of Mosul was formerly an ottoman province, it was easy for it to become Iraqi. We have to say that the Christian villagers were mostly relieved to be saved from Turkey. They were all haunted by the memories of massacres against Armenians and Assyrian-Chaldeans. For that reason, most of Christians chose Irak. The presence of Englishmen in Irak and their mandate reassured them, too. Much Assyrian-Chaldeans chose then to migrate more to the South for being in Iraq, as did the inhabitants of Bellôn who chose to come to Iraq : the current Chaldean patriarch, Bidawî, came from this village.

At this time, the troubles in Kurdistan did happen more to the South, in the region of Sulaymâniyye controlled by Shiekh Mahmûd, and we had a feeling of quite safety in Bahdinan. [2] The primary school of Sanate had given tens of civil servants, teachers and journalists to the Iraqi state. But in Harbol, my mother's village that remained in the Turkish state, there was no school before 1980. My mother was illiterate and didn't speak Arabic. In short, Sanate had its own school, its church and its gendarmerie.

In 1956, at the end of my primary studies in Sanate, my father sent me to Mosul in a Christian secondary school, managed by Dominicans. It was a French mission where courses were given in Arabic and French. From Sanate to Mosul, there were four days of walks. At twelve years old, I saw for the first time a great city, and that was a shock for me : the first cars and women with modern clothes, electricity and a comfort that astounded me. Whereas I thought that everybody spoke sureth, I was discovering a new world. But I had too an exalted relation with my native culture : next to Mosul stood the capitale of Ancient Assyria, Ninive, and the programs of Arabic and Ancient history confirmed me the continuity of this culture since the ancient times until now. I stayed in that school of Mosul until I was 23 years old.

My community, the Assyrian-Chaldeans' one, is shared between Nestorians or « Assyrians », and Catholics who call Chaldeans ».

At the Ottoman period, for Chaldeans, Assyrians were rustic but courageaous mountain dwellers. While we, Chaldeans, were Râya-s [3], they, Assyrians, with their ‘Ashîra –s and their Mellek-s [4] , had respected leaders. Moreover, the Chaldean millet only dated of the end of the empire ottoman. [5] the real re-attachement to Roma of the Chaldean church happened just in 1832. Marriages between Assyrians and Chaldeans could be difficult.

In 1962, war started again in Kurdistan, but this time our region was directly concerned. Bârzanî had taken the following of Sheikh Mahmûd as a Kurdish leader.

A part of Assyrian-Chaldeans supported Bârzanî and antother part the government. People in the villages were not much concerned by the policy and wished above all their own safety. Since and after Bârzanî's rebellion, Sanate became famous. From 1961 to 1975, peshmergas gathered there their prisonners. Our school was used as a center of detention. Iraqi soldiers and officers were grateful to the inhabitants of Sanate for the good treatment that was reserved to them. Wehave to remind that during the war between Bârzanî and the Iraqi government, Bârzanî actually protected the Assyrian-Chaldeans from Kurdish exactions. The Assyrian-Chaldeans did want nothing but peace. There was a region of small properties, we hadn't social problems as in South-Iraq. But there were regular migrations to the cities of Zâkho and Mosul that welcomed those which, because of their crowded number, couldn't live on their lands. But these departures from the villages were caused by necessity. No one leaved Sanate of its own free will nor happily. We remind that King Ghâzi, who had visited Sanate, had found that its site was exceptionnal. He would have wanted to buiId a palace for himself, a little before to be killed in an accident with his car in 1939.

In 1974, I had to come in France because of health. As I was studying in Nice, serious news reached me from my country. I received upsetting letters from my relatives : Iraqi government moved to the south villagers for making a safety line along the border with Turkey. Sanate was in the included area. My village was emptied in 1976. Its inhabitants went away without any great compensation to Zâkho, later to Bagdad. My family was in that case and settled in ‘Aqd al-Nasâra, the Christian quarter in the center of the capital. Then mu relatives make build a house in the suburbs of Dôra.

After 1976 and the setting of the safety line, the exodus of the inhabitants of Sanate increased. Much people went to Bagdad where, after having lived in their mountains, they etilated in the over-populated districts of the capital. Since 1980, they massively migrated to foreign countries as USA, Canada, Brazil, Australia. So more than one hundred families had left the town for reaching the Assyrian-Chaldean diaspora through all the world. The epic aspect of the recent history of my own village explains the success of my book on Sanate in 1993.

Since the First Gulf War, I never came back in Irak, for I shall never accept a policy which aims to the parcelling out of Irak. Let the Kurds have their autonomy, it is their own right. But according to myself, Irak have found, since the Babylonians, the Assyrians, and later the ‘Abbassids, its own territory and its history. The Irakian modern state is the heir of Ancient Mesopotamia. This variety of people had given to it its valueness. What is happened today is a disguised project to divide Irak and to put definitively what was been Mesopotamia to death. The Arabs and the Kurds are our friends, but they haven't the right to cross into two this historical country, that culture, history and geographia had united. This unity is drawn by its two rivers which, comen from the mountains, flow in the plain. Irakians are, from the north to the south, all united by its antique culture. As far as I am concerned, I hope that the Arabs, the Kurds and the others, could be deserved this inheritage and that they will be wised enough to preserve our Mesopotamian identity. Today, people use often the word Kurdistâni [6] I was not in Irak when this word has been created. But I wonder what does it mean. I have the feeling that some Kurds would like to make us some Christian Kurds, as such as some Arabs rather to consider us as Christian Arabs. In 1972, the Syriac had been recognized as a language, with the right to teach it and to organize some associations to defend it. But the failure of the experimentation of the Kurdish autonomy, with the war again, didn't allow that this recognition develop.


Today there are towns of 10 or 15 000 inhabitants that are entirely Assyrian-Chaldeans where Sureth is the current language : ‘Ankawa , Tell Kayf, Bartellî, Karaqôsh, Al-Qôsh. ’Ankawa is now situated in the area ruled by Bârzanî and its PDK, while the else towns, next to Mosul, are still in the Arabic area controlled by the Iraqi governement. But in the civil war between Kurds, and in the conflict that oppose Bârzanî to Tâlabâni since 1993, the Assyrian-Chaldeans are neutral and their milices, especially of the Assyrian Democratic Movement, had even helped to separate belligerents, as in Dehôk.

The Iraqi intellectuals have never been asked about embargo.

Embargo is a shame. It revolted me from the very start. Who had givent the right to Americans and their allies to starve a people and to destroy a state ? The maintenance of the embargo is now the greatest threatening for the Iraqi people. It generates misery, illiteracy and ignorance, for a country that had staked in its own history on knowledge and education and its aims to the regression of Irak. In my next book, L’Epopée du Tigre et de l’Euphrate, I attest that our country had been the cradle of writing, civilisations, and the most inventive country in History, but today it is a land that cow-boys try to destroy. The United-States are liable for the regression of Irak. For ignorance and illiteracy generates in their turn fanatism and extremism.

In our villages in mountain, we knew only the difference between sunnits and shiits. Because the Kurds were sunnit, we believed that all Muslims were sunnit. I have visited Sâmarrâ after 1980, and I was indeed captivated by the beauty of the mosque Al-Hâdî, that shelters al-Hâdî and Hasan ‘Askari's tombs. I was rarely been such astonished by a so perfect unity of architecture and temporal.


Notes


[1] An Eastern dialect of the Syriac, the sureth

[2] the epicentre of the Kurdish movement in Irak has moved from the South - in the region of Sulaymâniyye, where which Sheik Mahmûd Barzinjî led the revolts since the end of 1910s until 1930s -, to the North, that is a region ruled by the Bârzanîs ,and that includes Badinan and most of christians.

[3] Râya, the « subdued », those who pay taxes, or the non-muslims. In Kurdistan, the word is opposite to ‘ashîra, those who have the right to have weapons, the « free men » ; it was used for the peasantry out of tribes, that had to pay taxes to the state as to the local agha, who was often a Kurdish muslim.

[4] The Assyrians in mountains were, like their Kurdish neibourghs, socially organised as clans, or ‘ashîra-s, ruled by chiefs of war, or Mellek-s , similar to the Kurdish agha-s. Let's remind that the ottoman system recognized only cults (millet-s) but refused to recognize ethnies. ‘Ashîra-s' autonomy was an anawoved way, under cover of a tribal recognition, to admit an else identity, that was not only religious. Nestorians profited from this recognition since the very beginning of the Ottoman domination.

[5] Millet meaned at the Ottoman period the religious communities in empire to which was given a certain autonomy in administration and internal affairs. The Assyrians were the first to profit from their millet, and it had strenghened their image of free men for Chaldean râya-s. The Chaldean millet dated of the second half of the XIXth century.

[6] Kurdistânî : the Kurdish modern policy is liable to the neologism kurdistânî. This word refers to a territory, Kurdistan, included all its communities (Kurd, Arab, Turkmen, Syriac, Christian, Yezîdîs and else). Kurdî means Kurds as an ethny.