Aramean Organisations sent a letter to President-elect Barack Obama: Help the persecuted Aramean people of the Middle-East, focusing on Iraq

Jacob Augin Manna

Aramean people: Aramean people (not to be confused with ‘Armenians’) speak Aramaic, the language spoken by Abraham, Moses and Jesus. They are the indigenous people of what was called in ancient times Aram- Nahrin, in our days it is called ‘Mesopotamia’.

Some Arameans today identify themselves with “Assyrians”, because of the spiritual colonial hate generating activities of the Western missionaries and diplomats in the Middle-East in 16th and 19th centuries. Other Arameans became known as “Chaldeans”. However all of them are Arameans.In Turkey, the Arameans are called: Süryani. In Arabic they are called Al- Suryan.

Aramean Organisations sent a letter to President-elect Barack Obama: Help the persecuted Aramean people of the Middle-East, focusing on Iraq.

Dutch Version

Nr.: 2008-11-26/6

Netherlands, 26^th of November 2008

Subject: Re: Your overwhelming election as 44^th president of the United States of America

The Most Honourable President-elect of the United States of America

His Excellency Barack Obama

The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

United States

Dear Mr. President-elect,

We, the undersigned, the Arameans of Aram-Nahrin Organization, the Aramean Democratic Organization and Platform Aram want to congratulate you with your impressive and overwhelming election as the 44^th president of United States of America.

We wish you much success and wisdom and we hope that under your leadership the United States of America will become a beacon of prosperity, stability, equality and justice for everyone.

Your Excellency, we would like to take this opportunity to draw your attention to the fragile situation of the Indigenous Aramean people of Mesopotamia, in ancient times called Aram-Nahrin in Aramaic and Aram-Naharaim in Hebrew.

The Aramean people (not to be confused with ‘Armenians’) have been present for thousands of years in this part of the world, also known as the Cradle of Civilization. The Aramean people speak Aramaic, the language spoken by Abraham, Moses and Jesus, through which they have made a very important contribution to world civilizations. ^[1] This ancient Semitic people, now divided into several denominations and spread throughout the Middle East, amount to approximately 8 million people worldwide.

History testifies that the Aramean people are peaceful minded, living according to the ten commandments, showing respect, dignity and love to their neighbours and always respecting the law of the countries in which they reside. They show others the example of love and brotherhood. In contrast to other peoples they never resorted to the path of intolerance, fanaticism and violent uprising. On the contrary their motto has always been: loving and respecting your neighbour like yourself!

Unfortunately, the Aramean concept of peaceful cooperation based on equality and mutual understanding is not cheered by everybody in the complex and turbulent area of the Middle-East; which has been the scene of battles and conflicts for hundreds of years between various groups and peoples whose dictionary seems to lack words like peace, brotherhood and respect. Our terrible experience is that many of these groups seem rather to resort to the path of intolerance and fanaticism.

This very path of fanaticism and intolerance has been the cause of discrimination against our nation, exclusion, extortion, ethnic cleansing, genocides^[2] and continuous persecutions for hundreds of years right up until today.

Our nation is facing difficulties in many areas of the Middle-East, however their situation in Iraq is most severe, in particular in the Mosul area where a mass exodus took place in late September; after killings and threats by the forces of intolerance and fanaticism. In several letters to the government of Iraq and the United Nations we have tried to ask for their attention for the dire situation of our people^[2]. In spite of measures taken by the central government, the situation of the Aramean indigenous nation of the Middle-East remains very precarious in the Mosul area.

The marginalization, persecution and exclusion of our nation for hundred of years and their fragile situation in our days, where they are threatened with ethnic cleansing from the land of their forefathers, is not exclusively due to the forces of fanaticism and intolerance, but it has its roots in the spiritual colonial practices of the Western missionaries and diplomats in the 16^th and 19^th centuries whereby nationalism and fanaticism was brought to the Middle-East. ^[2] In addition to this, we believe that the genocide of 1915 ^[4] which claimed the lives of around 600.000 Arameans of different denominations, would have been less severe if the Arameans were united and were not stuck with the hatred that was implemented by the outsiders in the name of “assistance”, “education” and “faith”.

Your Excellency;

The motto of your election campaign was ‘change’, a term heard and understood very well by people from all walks of life. This not only attracted the attention of young people, of those living on the fringes of society, and of those who have been marginalized and ignored, but this also gave hope to many throughout the world.

From our side, we hope that this change, under your leadership, not only will be implemented in the United States but will also have its effects on other peoples and nations, who are living in a very weak and fragile situations throughout the world, including the Aramean indigenous nation of Aram-Nahrin, also made known as “Assyrians” or Chaldeans in some media; who at this moment face terror and destruction in Iraq, in particular in the Mosul area.

We hope that the situation of many weak, excluded and ignored nations, including Arameans, throughout the world will became a part of the spearhead of US foreign policy in order to facilitate more justice, equality, peace and brotherhood for many all over the world.

We are looking forward to working with your administration and we would be honored to provide you, where needed, with genuine information regarding the Aramean Indigenous Nation of Aram-Nahrin who has been continuously present for thousands of years in this part of the world. Again we want to underscore our best wishes to achieve the noble goals you have so clearly expressed during the election campaign.

Respectfully Yours,

Gabriel Sengo

Chairman

Arameans of Aram-Naharaim Organization

Gabi Gallo

Chairman

Aramaic Democratic Organization

Aboud Gouriye

Chairman

Platform Aram

Footnotes:

[1] The contribution of the Aramean nation to world civilizations is well-summarized by a world- renowned Eminent Oxford University Scholar Professor Sebastian Brock, a specialist on Aramaic (Syriac) and Hebrew, who said “Almost all societies are dependent upon the use of writing, but very few peoples realise that the great majority of the world’s scripts can be traced back to a common ancestor, an alphabet invented in the Middle East four thousands years ago, which was subsequently refined by the Phoenicians and the Aramaeans who spread it throughout the known world. It is thus without doubt one of the greatest gifts of the Aramean peoples to world culture.” (Hidden Pearl volume I: Page 27)

“…Nevertheless it is undeniable that the simple Aramaic alphabet of 22 letters has had the most extraordinary impact on the development of alphabetic writing systems throughout the world. Indeed, it is very hard to imagine how human culture and scientific learning could have progressed without (the Aramaic language).” (Hidden Pearl volume I: Page 58)

(Hidden Pearl: http://www.aramnaharaim.org/English/film_arameans.htm)

[2] 29-8-2007: Letter to the Iraqi Government: http://www.iraqichristians.org/English/Letter_Iraqi_Government_29_8_2007.htm

22-4-2008: Letter to the Iraqi Government:

http://www.iraqichristians.org/English/ArameanOrganisations_Protection_leaders_Iraq_25_4_2008.htm

10-5-2008: Letter to the United Nations:

http://www.iraqichristians.org/English/ArameansOrganisations_UN_Iraq_Help_10_5_2008.htm

31-10-2008: Letter to the United Nations:

http://www.iraqichristians.org/English/Aramean_Organisations_Letter_UN_31_10_2008.htm

[3] The result of this was that a part of our nation started identifying itself as “Chaldeans” (since the 16^th century) and another part as “Assyrians” (since the 19^th century). Roughly speaking, this division was due to the spiritual war between the Western political and spiritual colonial powers, that is to say the war between Catholics and Protestants, which was battled out at the cost of the Aramen nation, thereby planting doubts regarding their ethnic origin; with the result that a kind of spiritual genocide was committed against our nation.

A divided nation is obviously a weak nation. Through this division we have been made vulnerable to the hostile environment of the Middle-East where we are threatened with extinction and ethnic cleansing. The events which took place in Mosul, Baghdad and other areas in Iraq, where our nation was forced to leave their homes and heart, are vivid proof of our assertions.

[4] Aramean Genocide: Aramean Physical and Spiritual Genocide

http://www.aramnahrin.org/English/ArameanGenocide.htm

The discussion around the genocide of 1915 is for an important part concentrated on the Armenian question and is called ‘Armenian genocide’. This is not fair, for not only the Armenians have suffered, but also the Aramean Indigenous Christian nation of Mesopotamia as well as the Greeks have suffered under these horrible acts, which cannot be described by pen and paper.

Contrary to the Greek and Armenian Genocide, the Aramean genocide consists of both Physical and Spiritual genocide.

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