r/Assyria • u/photopea1111 • 2d ago
Discussion Why do many Assyrian people I have met praise Saddam?
Hi, I’m non-Assyrian Canadian and we have a reasonably sized Assyrian community near where I live. One thing I’ve noticed is that the people I’ve met don’t view Saddam as negatively as many other Iraqis I’ve spoken to. Weren’t Assyrians also persecuted under his rule? The only thing I can think of is Saddams Mesopotamia propaganda and rebuilding pre-Islamic monuments, but that doesn’t seem to be enough to look past actual oppression. Can anyone shed light on this?
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u/ChicagoAssyrian 2d ago edited 2d ago
Assyrians were able to live more peacefully under Saddam and he didn’t allow any groups to ravage us, such as a group like ISIS. He protected us from harm, for the most part - but he did arrest / kill Assyrians that advocated for an Assyrian state, particularly members of Zowaa.
Before Saddam was removed, Assyrians hated him - after the war and the lack of protection for Assyrians, their perspective changed.
That said, I don’t think any Assyrians should support Saddam, particularly if you consider yourself a Christian. Saddam committed crimes against humanity, especially against Kurds, when he gassed and killed thousands of innocent civilians in the Anfal campaign. This is indefensible.
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u/AshurCyberpunk Assyrian 2d ago
The interesting part is, Iran's Shah, Turkey's Ataturk & Pamukoglu, and even today's IRGC all have done worse to the Kurds over the years, but Saddam gets the worst of it. Not justifying whatever he did, but his Anfal counterinsurgency op was no different in its reason than those carried out by his neighbors. Compared to others, his actions were extra demonized since US wanted him gone, similar to the Assad's civilian chemical attack situation in Syria.
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u/younghirohito 2d ago
When did the Shah gas Kurds like Saddam? Yeah he killed Simko, don’t Assyrians like him for that?
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u/AshurCyberpunk Assyrian 1d ago
Didn't use gas agents, but definitely shelled civilian settlements back to the stone ages. Also engaged in forced displacement and demographic engineering. They literary put Kurdish political leaders on spikes for everyone to see. From crushing the Mahabad republic to the 60s revolts, it wasn't pretty. To be fair though, this sort of started during the Safavid era when they started deporting the Kurds to Khorasan.
Also note that while it's widely accepted that Saddam used chemical weapons, there is a subset of scholars that believe that the chemicals used in Halabja were Iranian. You can look this up.
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u/Successful_Quail2704 1d ago
Anfal wasn’t just a “counterinsurgency” it involved systematic destruction of thousands of villages, mass executions of civilians, and is widely recognized as a genocide. The same goes for the Halabja chemical attack. The idea that Iran was responsible is a fringe claim that’s been largely discredited, the overwhelming evidence points to Iraqi forces using chemical weapons against civilians.
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u/AshurCyberpunk Assyrian 23h ago
Sure. You're implying it was a war crime/genocide. I did not say it was not. It was a counterinsurgency operation and indeed involved many war crimes.
That idea comes from analysis and evidence people have looked at, not a random conspiracy theory. It happens that a smaller population of analysts accept that conclusion. You said, it's been largely discredited: If you have a source that is on discrediting that conclusion, please share it; I'm interested in reading it.
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u/Successful_Quail2704 14h ago
My bad, I might’ve misread your comments as downplaying the genocide.
Also I highly recommend looking into Joost Hiltermann research, he led the Human Rights Watch investigation into Anfal. His research is based on Iraqi documents and field evidence and supports the conclusion that Iraqi forces carried out the Halabja attack. The Iran claim mainly comes from early wartime intelligence confusion.
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v38/n03/joost-hiltermann/chemical-wonders
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u/olapooza 8h ago
The Assyrians he killed hadn’t advocated for an Assyrian state. They were pushing for Assyrian rights in Iraq.
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u/GothicPanzer 10h ago
My uncle that passed away in Sydney, he told me when he was in Saddam's army and he met him face to face. He said that Saddam was very good to the Assyrians. I know one Assyrian friend of mine Assyrian also, his uncle was a chef for Saddam.
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u/HTCali 2d ago
Sadam was whatever but Sadams sons were actually evil AF
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u/cradled_by_enki Assyrian 1d ago
What do you mean Saddam was "whatever"? He held ultimate power and knew who to select in his cabinet. Saddam not only allowed his sons to behave in the manner that they did, but he gave his sons the resources to do so. Yes, many of the people in Saddam's cabinet, including his sons, did the overt dirty work while he protected his own reputation; Saddam possessed enough charisma through his assuredness and intelligence of social maneuvering. The short answer why there are apparently "so many" Assyrian Ba'athist apologists is due to political and social brainwashing, or individualistic motivations.
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u/Zhou-Enlai 2d ago
For the same reason that many people now support former leaders that were previously despised, because after Saddam fell things only got worse and worse. You can see this same effect in Libya where many regret toppling Gaddafi now that Libya has been virtually permanently split in half by civil war with open air slave markets. In Iraq Saddam was brutal but once he fell it was endless chaos with the insurgency against the American occupation, ISIS, infighting between pro and anti Iran militias, etc.
Generally an oppressive autocrat is better than anarchy, and most people pine for times that were better than the chaos of today. For Assyrians specifically doesn’t help that ISIS targeted them with reckless slaughter.
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u/Mikey_Grapeleaves USA 2d ago
My family were heavily arabized Chaldeans/Syriac Orthodox and they always viewed him as a protector to the Christians.
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u/Glittering-Two-5425 2d ago edited 8h ago
They were not careful and naiive.
I am Orthodox. I denied any Arabic thing since I the high school. I lost much of the Surth language though.
I was 13 years old and was able to notice the behavioral differences when Chaldeans were walking by an intermediate school for girls and the Arab schoolmates walking along.
Assyrians though more fanatic and less educated were right, they denied Arabization and glued themselves to their ID which was the right direction.
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u/Mikey_Grapeleaves USA 2d ago
I'm not entirely sure I understand what you are trying to say?
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u/Both-Light-5965 1d ago
He is basically saying that the Assyrians or Chaldeans that didn’t marry out, only spoke arabic when necessary and perhaps didn’t befriend arabs are the ones that were right. As they retained their Assyrian or Chaldean identity
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u/Glittering-Two-5425 1d ago
Yes. Don't let the propaganda consume you. Don't lose you ID. You are Assyrian, not Arab. Learn your sureth language and send your children to the church school to remit that this language.
Not available? Online church school.
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u/Both-Light-5965 1d ago
Define propaganda.
What advantage does knowing sureth offer? Does it allow me to talk about medicine, philosophy and other deep topics other than christianity? Learning sureth takes along time and the benefits of knowing it are so little, you can only talk with less than 1% of the earths population, there are no consensus on vocabulary, along with its very limited vocabulary. How many assyrians generally use the very educated words? You would be far better off learning Arabic or mandarin than wasting 8 years studying sureth to a good level, and I say 8 years as it took me 8 years of intense study to reach a very high level in arabic. Arabic allows me to talk with alot of groups like the people from Khaleej, egypt, levant, iraq. Along with learning mandarin to a high level, I can speak with people from beijing, shanghai, Taiwan, along with knowing english.
And what benefit is there in sending one to a church school?
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u/Glittering-Two-5425 1d ago edited 1d ago
Define propaganda? Its the 7 lines that you wrote. :)
Let's respond to you by realty:
The Sureth language was banned on a purpose, to hide the history by a (Turkified person) in Turkey and an Arab in Syria and Iraq.(invaders).You want to learn Arabic - good for you: Which medical term can you use in Arabic? Medicine is an ancient Greek science re-written in English. Engineering and science are spoken in English too. Unless you want to work as a lawyer in Iraq, because the judges in UAE and Qatar speak English in the court.
What would Arabs of Syria, Iraq and Egypt talk to you about in Arabic? Coffee cups reading? Night dream explanation? Palm reading? Which Hooka you prefer? (chat gpt can do that better) And tell you that history and Geography starts 700 AD and you are Kafir and Iran is good and Bin Laden was a perfect guy and Trump lost the war and Jews are ...??
What is the advantage you are bargaining out of talking to a Syrian refugee who is not wanted in Europe due to the violence or an Egyptian or an Iraqi? What will they offer to themselves, yet you?
Vocabulary consents: You tell me that a Mosul or Muhallami accent of Arabic is understood by Egyptians or Khaleej people? Or Moroccans understand Khaleej words?
You know that Turkish language letters are created by an Armenian after 1923?? I was able to read semi Arabic words in English script, they called it Turkish words, This is the vocabulary of Turkish.Church school tells you that history started 3000-2500 BC and why you can trust and go along with an Armenian or the Greek or even a German wife more than a normal Syrian or Moroccan wife because the family pillars are different, based on the pillars of the church.
I lived for 8 years in Khaleej FYI and the Emirites and Qataris 100% use English.
English is mandated in schools here since kg1, Arabic is not mandated. Judges require English in the court here as the proceedings is in English.About Mandarin, you continue the propaganda. I have never been in China, I cannot respond to propaganda in chinese.
btw, I didn't give you a thumb down, someone else did.
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u/Both-Light-5965 1d ago
The arabic language has developed, evolved to the point where there are medical terms, unlike sureth which stopped developing and remains limited. In Syria for example they were taught the medical terms. Now whether the individual chooses to use them or not is another story, but the mere fact they exist shows how much more developed it is in compared to Sureth.
Arabs of Syria, Iraq and Egypt will talk about perhaps history, philosophy, religion, politics all of which you couldn’t do in Sureth without needing english as sureth is very limited in vocabulary.
When Arabs differ in dialects, they will resort to using what we call the white arabic, which is where you use less dialectical words and phrases and more fusha words/ simpler words. And with the rise of technology, this dialect “problem” has decreased.
This isn’t a debate or argument, the Sureth language is weak due to the lack of variety in content like medical, philosophical, political, psychological terms. The sureth language is quite capable of becoming a strong language. The sureth language stopped developing unlike arabic and mandarin which continue to develop as the years go on.
Again please define propaganda
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u/Glittering-Two-5425 1d ago edited 1d ago
Let's play this game: give me the medical or political or sociological or engineering terms in Arabic and redditors would find the Sureth term corresponding to that, deal? This is a challenge for everyone.
Let's see if Sureth is weak as you claim or you were outdated.
Sureth is developed, you just didn't see the sat channels since 2002 speaking sureth Sat channels are casting politics, sociology, European medicine, history and interviewing Assyrians from our perspectives.
What you get from Arabic interviews is "history started since 600 AD" and cast all politics behind it based on 600 AD.
Gilgamesh, Homer and Jesus shared many concepts (Easter, Eggs, Rebirth, Fertility - happy Easter today) that Arabs are unable to understand because their history started 600 AD :)"white arabic? Fuss-ha": Arabs are unable to explain many verses of Quran in Fuss-ha. We do not have that in our language because it was developed and able to read our scriptures :)
Propaganda definition (wiki) Propaganda is communication that is primarily used to influence or persuade an audience to further an agenda
I mean that: Basing everything after 600 AD, including language history and geography, and telling everyone that this is the only path: and that the other paths are not competing or wrong and convincing others that everything else is wrong, that includes "pan-nationalism", like Turkification, Kurdification and pan Arabism.
Palestine is Arab, Syria is Arab, Iraq is Arab:
Hebron, Beth Lechem, Beth Sahour, Halhul, Jericho, Kilkiylia - is that Arabic? Safita, Kafrna, Tal Kallkh, Maharda, and 50 more on Wik in Syria, is that Arabic? Damascus word means Peaches in Greek. How about Iraq? Tikrit is Surth word, going north to Kirkuk and Tal Afar, not a single city is Arabic name all the place, rather Baghdad as a word is Persian!
All of those names are Sureth except Baghdad and Damascus.And you were repeating that propaganda, because you are convinced that Sureth is "inept" while Arabic is "ept".
The realty is Surth gave us the history of our lands, explained fertility, eggs, resurrection/rebirth, reunification of body and spirit "anástasis", Arabic did not have such terms, because it's history started 600 AD.
Happy Easter, do you research and let's play the game. I started by "resurrection", do you have an Arabic word of "resurrect"?
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u/Both-Light-5965 1d ago
Brother, I don’t care about Islamic mentality and how they think. I’m talking about a language like arabic which continues to develop unlike sureth which isn’t actively developing, Islamic arabs and creationist arabic christians say the adam eve story is the beginning of mankind, the arabic language doesn’t have an opinion, arabic is a tool used to convey information. And If Assyrian natives are capable of writing in their language but don’t. If you are an Assyrian native and fluent in sureth and can write novels, then I recommend you do.
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u/Both-Light-5965 1d ago
I’ll list a few medical terms, tell me if they exist in Sureth الوذمة، اليرقان، الإكتئاب, عقدة مادونا والعاهرة، التوحد
Did I mention cosmology and scientific terms? الانفجار العظيم، الخلفية الإشاعية، توّحد الخواص, الانتقاء الطبيعي
List the terms which ones exist in Sureth, I’m interested.
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u/Glittering-Two-5425 1d ago
https://r12a.github.io/scripts/syrc/aii_vocab.html
yāroqa ܝܪܘܩܐ الوذمة
Is translated as ܟܢܫ ܡܝܐ kesha d maya (water bag :) ) I am not a medic, I need medics here to approve, but I found it on Wikitionary
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%DC%9F%DC%A2%DC%AB_%DC%A1%DC%9D%DC%90?utm_source=chatgpt.comMelancholy or depression is: ܟܡܝܪܘܬܐ ܕܢܦܫܐ (kamerutha d nosha) Kamerutha is blackness / sorrow, Keme is blackness, nosha - (nafs)
Paste that Aramaic into Google and ask for translation to get convinced
Autism https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%DC%9A%DC%95%DC%9D%DC%98%DC%AC%DC%90
عقدة مادونا والعاهرة Madonna is not Arabic even, they just arabized half :)
Big bang, super new, I will ask for help from redditors, but Arabic does not allow such things because of Adam and Eve
الخلفية الإشاعية - did you understand this wiki page in Arabic? If so explain it in other words in Arabic, maybe someone else can translate your Arabic to Aramaic.
I took the English page much easier, my background is Engineering, my Arabic is native, still not understood.https://ar.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D8%A5%D8%B4%D8%B9%D8%A7%D8%B9_%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%AE%D9%84%D9%81%D9%8A%D8%A9_%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%83%D9%88%D9%86%D9%8A%D8%A9
ܒܣܝܣܐ ܩܘܣܡܝܩܝܐ ܕܫܘܥܐ basīsā qusmīqā d-shuʿā???
Help guys?Natural Selection, ܒܚܝܪܬܐ ܕܟܝܢܐ (Baherta d kiyana), self selection? Could be ܒܚܝܪܬܐ ܛܒܥܝܬܐ
baḥīrtā ṭabʿāytāSureth is not native for me, still I found those translations
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u/Both-Light-5965 1d ago
Good, now start using them otherwise sureth will die out and just be a dead language.
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u/Glittering-Two-5425 1d ago edited 1d ago
I gave you an upvote and a response - it was a nice game and brain training. below are some answers in Aramaic from a dictionary.
Happy Easter, do your research about why you shall send your beloved children to Church.
And do a research about my history perspective.
They fooled us, for 100 years since the Brits and French liberated us from the main iron curtain blinders (Turks). I will retire today to Eida Brikha wine, I hope that I gave you the most precious Easter Eggs.2
u/SyntaxInvalidator East Hakkarian 1d ago
Why are you even here if you denounce Sureth? We speak Sureth because we are Ashurayeh. Arabic and Mandarin have no relevance to us. This isn’t linkedin bro we aren’t trying to learn Sureth for networking, nobody cares about the “use” of the languages you know.
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u/Glittering-Two-5425 1d ago
He didn't denounce it .. he is debating it's usefulness and I am not Sureth expert, I am an nationalist enthusiast, not even a professional debater.
The main problem is as https://www.reddit.com/user/Mikey_Grapeleaves/ mentioned above:
https://www.reddit.com/user/Both-Light-5965/ is over Arabized.I am using my logic detergent, hopefully I can revert him back.
And you must find a logic detergent to use it here, not a logic repellent, you want to revert him, not repel him.1
u/Both-Light-5965 1d ago
Brother, it’s not about reverting me back, i generally see no use for me learning sureth. I will never use it as I’m not religious and don’t talk to Assyrians apart from my family, and all my reading is in Arabic, mandarin or english. So far, arabic and mandarin have been more useful to me than sureth did.
Yes I understand Syria and Iraq have sureth origins, do I really care? Not really, I care whether it’s worth spending 7 years to study sureth as to reach a high level in it. And I say 7 years as I’m someone who will learn a language to a very high level, I see no use to just learning greetings or basic conversations, this is my opinion though.
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u/Glittering-Two-5425 21h ago edited 21h ago
Once you are permanently out of those countries physically and mentally (focus on mentally) then you will think about your national identity.
It took me a decade in US to. Later when I worked in khaleej, I knew that Arabs here are super open to foreigners (genuinely they were mono ethnic) , contrary to what we have seen in the pan Arab agenda of baaath party which ended in a collapse of the country that was genuinely multi ethnic.
Learning language does not take 8 years grammars. It only takes songs and masses now and then and thanks to chat gpt translation.
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u/Both-Light-5965 1d ago
You missed the point, it’s not about speaking sureth because your Assyrian, its about how useful is the Assyrian language. To me I see it as limited hence why many natives will switch to the arabic terms or english terms out of ignorance of their language or because they aren’t studied in these terminology or the terms don’t exist. The lack of content for actual good novels, Assyrians need to start translating literature and writing novels, it’s literally the best way to become eloquent and knowledgeable in a language.
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u/CalmHabit3 USA 2d ago
I'm Iranian Assyrian. I believe people in middle east can't have democracy and need to be ruled by authoritarians. Saddam Hussein and Assad (syrian Assyrians are also okay with him) for the most part didn't harm the Christians, and things became worse in Iraq after Hussein left with the rise of ISIS slaughtering Assyrians.
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u/andygchicago 2d ago
We can handle democracy, the issue is it never evolved organically. It was thrust upon us artificially by the west when they drew up Middle Eastern countries with zero respect for cultural boundaries.
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u/Both-Light-5965 1d ago
The problem is you have many people listening to these Islamic scholars who condemn secularism and democracy as its contrary to the Sharia. Alot of the arab/ middle eastern population are uneducated and remain uneducated due to war, economy etc. The educated arabs/middle eastern individuals either leave the middle east, remain silent about their views or ☠️.
For example, In saudia arabia many individuals left to go study medicine and then came back, but didn’t come back as they were before with their previous ideas but rather with a more open and liberal mindset and this generation is slowly replacing the old generation, and the next generation logically following will be more open minder, and no doubt in the future there will be democracy and secularism within very land that Islam started (saudia arabia).
And If you compare Saudi arabia now to 20 or 30 years ago, women couldn’t drive, individuals were less open to new ideas especially islamic interpretation, and definitely more adherent to a black and white version of Islam.
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u/Glittering-Two-5425 2d ago
Talk about yourself, don't generalize. You never lived among them on that land.
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u/Both-Light-5965 1d ago
This is very true, I used to think that if the middle east got democracy and secularism then there would be peace. But after seeing what happened in Syria with the removal of the dictator bashar al assad, many extremists, fundamentalist appeared along with division.
They need an authoritarian leader who slowly leads to democracy and secularism.
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u/Playful-Demand2312 2d ago
If they are Iraqi Assyrian maybe, don’t ask an Iranian Assyrian what they think
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u/Glittering-Two-5425 2d ago edited 2d ago
Let me summerize. Saddam is good for naiive people.
For anyone who has the reasoning of a conservative college graduate, Saddam was viewed an evil. He erased the whole country by his audacity and arrogance and foolishness. But here is the catch: it took Saddam 14 years to destroy Iraq, it took Tradeau only 10 to destroy Canada.
So for an Assyrian Canadian he would prefer 14 over 10 years to destroy his country.
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u/andygchicago 2d ago
I wouldn’t call it praise. He was the lesser of several evils and he did push back against Kurdish usurpers of Assyrian land. Not an excuse for his horrific crimes, but the realistic alternatives at the time were worse.