Arameanism (Oromoyutho) as the Key to our Future Survival?
Shlomo Bnay Orom [Greetings Children of Aram],
Whenever mention is made of diaspora communities, the first nations that come to mind are the classic diasporas of the Jews, Greeks and Armenians. Each of them has a most inspiring and rich history from which we, Arameans, can learn valuable lessons on our journey to the future.
By Johny Messo, WCA President
Berlin, 12 May 2010
KIFÅ Symposium (click here for photos)
I myself consider the long diaspora experience of the Jewish people and their success stories as a major source of inspiration. Also because of our historical affiliation and similarities with them. According to the Old Testament, their ancestors were originally Arameans from Southeast-Turkey. A large part of their literature, such as the Old Testament, was originally written in Aramaic. But unlike us, our fellow Semites managed to liberate themselves from the centuries-old second class citizenship under Muslim rule and take control again over their ancestral homeland. The Jews lost their original Hebrew speech many centuries ago, but were yet able to revive it. Indeed, one can draw a lot of inspiration from the Jewish people, the apple of God’s eye and the chosen people who were selected to bring light to all the other nations.
1. The Birth of the Jewish People
Before I will focus on the actual topic of my lecture, let me briefly summarize the Jewish story – it is the story of a group of people who were called ‘Jews’, while having no idea of a collective Jewishness or a national will until the second half of the 19th century, but being able in 1948 to successfully establish the independent State of Israel.
Less than 150 years ago, the Jews looked back at a diaspora history of more than 2,400 years old. But suddenly, in the West, and especially in Eastern Europe, they found their future existence seriously endangered by two main threats:
- Anti-Semitism and persecutions threatened their physical or social existence;
- Assimilation in different societies threatened the cultural continuation of the Jews.
The solution to these two problems was summed up as Zionism. Inspired by their rich traditions and national literature, this term was first coined in 1890. Originally it referred to Mount Zion, one of the mountains of Jerusalem, but it soon came to symbolize all of Jerusalem and even the entire Land of Israel. Ancient Jewish writings show that many of the diaspora Jews nostalgically looked back and eagerly longed for the restoration of the golden age of Zion.
Against this background, Zionism emerged as a Jewish political movement and ideology seeking to build a home for the Jewish people and for Judaism on the soil of Biblical Israel and Judea.
Theodor Herzl, an Austro-Hungarian journalist and the father of modern political Zionism, asserted at the first Zionist Congress that was held in Basel, Switzerland, in 1897: “We want to lay the cornerstone of the edifice which is one day to house the Jewish nation.” The Basel Congress adopted the following means to achieve this objective:"
- The promotion by appropriate means of the settlement in Palestine of Jewish farmers, artisans, and manufacturers.
- The organization and uniting of the whole of Jewry by means of appropriate institutions, both local and international, in accordance with the laws of each country.
- The strengthening and fostering of Jewish national sentiment and national consciousness.
- Preparatory steps toward obtaining the consent of governments, where necessary, in order to reach the goals of Zionism.”
In the next years, Jewish nationalists from all persuasions -- religious and secular, right and left –worked day and night to pursue the goals of Zionism. Only after 20 years of hard labor, the Zionists finally obtained an official declaration in 1917 by the British Government, stating: “His Majesty’s government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object.”
Eventually, this statement led to the foundation of the Jewish State in 1948. But already in 1897, Herzl, who died in 1904, wrote prophetically in his diary: “Were I to sum up the Basle Congress in a word...it would be this: ‘At Basle, I founded the Jewish State. If I said this out loud today, I would be answered by universal laughter. If not in five years, certainly in fifty, everyone will know it.’” And so his words became a reality!
From this very brief story about the birth of the Jewish nation, the Arameans can learn important lessons like:
- The Jews identified their contemporary threats and reacted with an effective solution;
- The Jews knew what they wanted to achieve and how they wanted to pursue their goals;
- Despite existing disagreements among the Jews, they all focused on their common goals;
- Guided by a political ideology, many secular and religious Jews worked hand in hand, tirelessly and patiently on something which the next generations could benefit from.
Two things should be made sufficiently clear at this point though. First, I am not promoting Zionism today. I am only summing up some general historical developments and sharing an interesting historical process which, I believe, we all can draw lessons and inspiration from.
Secondly, although the Arameans originate from Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Lebanon, it is not my intention to inspire or mobilize Arameans against these states. For the Syriac Universal Alliance recognizes their sovereignty. We are no separatist movement propagating militant ideas. Yet we must protect our homeland, continue to live in it, make it thrive again and never give it up.
For your information, the Syriac Universal Alliance is a socio-political and cultural organization that works independently, transparently and on a democratic basis. Among others, we seek close cooperation with national governments, the United Nations, the European Union and the Council of Europe, including all their relevant agencies and departments. We have always sought solutions to the Aramean Question through dialogue with the Governments of our homelands and the diaspora countries, based on mutual understanding, recognition and respect in order to secure a positive future for the Arameans. Via Suryoyo Sat you may have followed our activities.
2. The Present Situation of the Arameans
Let us go back now to the present situation of the Arameans. Some 100 years ago, before 1914, the Christian Arameans and their Aramaic cultural heritage were still far removed from the danger zone. All Arameans lived relatively peacefully and harmoniously together in one large Ottoman Empire. During the First World War, however, many tens of thousands of Arameans were systematically murdered, villages were completely eradicated, the entire landscape of the Aramaic dialects was damaged and a heavy blow was dealt to the Aramaic cultural heritage – the tangible as well as the intangible heritage.
After 1918, the Ottoman Empire would soon be divided among newly established states such as Turkey, Iraq, Lebanon and Syria. And this impacted the Arameans too, since they were now dispersed over four so-called ‘home countries’. Until the 1960s, then, the Arameans suffered in many ways and in different ways in these nation-states from state sponsored assimilation programs. After the mid-1960s and especially after the late 1970s, most Arameans and in particular those from Turkey fled from their home countries mainly to Europe.
The national move or mass exodus of our people from their homeland to various host countries was the most significant incident after the genocidal years. The present situation, therefore, is completely different from 100 years ago. Unlike a few decades ago, for instance, today:
- The heart and soul of our national life has changed from the homeland to Western countries or to internal/domestic diasporas, such as Istanbul in Turkey, Qamishlo (Syria) and Beirut (Lebanon) in the Middle East.
- The traditionally organized backbone of our people is no longer the church only, although it still plays a crucial role and will continue to do so in the future, but the secular organizations have also strongly positioned and rooted themselves within our community.
- The traditional way of life of our people is no longer the evident option for the new generations of Arameans living in diaspora who are adapting themselves rapidly in the host countries they live in.
In these countries, we ask ourselves every day almost the same questions and we struggle with them. I will come back to this later. But what is important to stress at this point is that we basically struggle against the same threats as the Jews did some 150 years ago:
- Instead of anti-Semitism, we suffer from anti-Christian and anti-Aramean attacks.
We are subjects of ethnic cleansing and planned assimilation policies in our homeland. - Assimilation in the diaspora is irreversible. Again, one can raise key questions here.
For example, can we possibly stop, delay or at least manage and control this process?
If you recall the title of my paper, I hope to have a potential solution to these two problems. But I will come back to this later. Let us now first reflect on the Arameans as a diaspora people.
3. The Arameans as a Diaspora People
We might ask ourselves: how do experts of diaspora communities define and characterize diasporas and how do the Arameans themselves conceive of their group identity? I will start with the last issue, the question of self-perception. In this respect, the following two terms are often used by our Aramaic-speaking people:
- ‘amo = people, nation
- umtho = race, nation, people
Viewing ourselves as a people or nation, we call our present situation, that is, our being removed many, many hundreds of kilometers from our traditional homeland:
- golutho = captivity, exile, diaspora
- nukhroyutho = estrangement, alienation, separation
It is the first term that is usually translated with diaspora. This recalls the way the Jewish people have described their diasporic situation for many centuries as, in fact, galuth.
What about diaspora scholars, how do they characterize and define a diaspora community? With respect to the term diaspora, Professor Rogers Brubaker (2005) selected three core elements:
- Dispersion: the Arameans are clearly scattered all over the world.
- Homeland Orientation: we live in a diaspora, but we are still oriented towards our homeland, as shown by the lyrics of many of our songs, the news and developments in our homeland which we try to follow and the material investments in our homeland.
- Boundary-Maintenance: we must integrate but not assimilate by keeping boundaries such as our language and religion. The danger for us is boundary-erosion, which is the loss of boundaries. As a diaspora people, we must ask ourselves “to what extent and in what forms boundaries are maintained by second, third and subsequent generations.”
With these three central elements in mind, then, we can have a look at a definition of diaspora by Professor Gabi Sheffer (2008) who wrote:
“An ethno-national diaspora is a cultural-social-political[-religious] formation of people who actually are, or who are regarded, as united by the same ethno-national origin, and who permanently reside as minorities in one hostland or in a number of hostlands. Such diasporas emerge out of voluntary or forced migration, or out of both types of migration, from one ethno-national state or homeland to one or more host countries…Such diasporas seek to create communal solidarity, or to maintain it, if it already exists. This solidarity is the main basis for diasporas’ cultural, social, [religious,] political and economic cohesion and activities.”
4. We have challenges and questions
Now that we have established that the Arameans perceive themselves as a people or even a nation living in a diaspora, and after having clarified how scholars view and delineate diasporas, let us briefly review a few of the main questions that daily recur in the Aramean diaspora.
1. (How) can we maintain our communal solidarity and cohesion?
2. (How) can we preserve our identity?
3. Which name(s) can unite our people?
4. How important is the self-definition of our church fathers for us today?
5. How should we translate our self-appellation ‘Suryoyo’, or what self-identifying name should
we use in the Western languages?
6. What role does our language have in our self-identification and in the process of our national
unification? (Cf. European nations and earlier debates today.)
7. What significance, if at all, does our ancient and indigenous name “Aramean; Aramaic” have
today and what role can or should it play?
These are all crucial questions which cannot be ignored, but we cannot deal with all of them. Allow me to focus on just two issues: our national name and a political ideology.
5. What about our identity and our name?
Our Aramean identity is based on our national literature and on a prevailing academic consensus.
A) Our National Literature
If we want to understand ourselves as Suryoye, we simply have to see how our holy church fathers and our intellectuals identified this term. Our national literature teaches us, e.g., that
• we are the sons of Aram who lived all over Mesopotamia and Lebanon since antiquity.
• we are holders of the Aramaic language and script in different varieties.
• our different churches belong to the first Christian nations of the world.
B) Academic Consensus
Many scholars have written that the Arameans adopted the originally Greek term Syrians. For instance, Professor Theodor Nöldeke (1880) stated in his grammar of Edessan Aramaic: “From the time the Greeks came to have a more intimate acquaintance with Asia, they designated by the name of ‘Syrians’ the people who called themselves ‘Aramaeans’.”
The Syriac Universal Alliance employs the names Syrian/-c and Aramean/-aic interchangeably and without discrimination. However, at the same time we realize very well that our people are presently in need of an international press name. Again, SUA wishes to preserve both names, but for the Western languages we believe the name ‘Aramaic’ for our language and ‘Aramean’ for our people is the best choice available, since it is firstly historically justifiable. Secondly, Aramean/-aic is our old indigenous self-designation, unlike the originally Greek name Syrian/-c. Thirdly, this archaic and Biblical name ‘Aramean’ can help us avoid the recurrent confusion with the largely Arab Muslim citizens of the “Syrian Arab Republic.”
6. Arameanism as the solution of our diasporic situation
Let me return to the major two problems of our people – (1) anti-Christian and anti-Aramean attitude & (2) assimilation in the diaspora countries – and provide a possible solution to them. I believe the concept of Arameanism has the potency to answer to these two threats and can also be used as a key to our future survival. Before I will define it, let me first show that this concept is not a new one. It is directly borrowed from our centuries-old literary heritage.
A) The History and Origin of the term Arameanism
One can trace the term Oromoyutho back to as early as Mor Ya‘qub da-Srugh (451-521) and up to as late as 20th century writers like the Syriac Orthodox Archbishop Mor Philoxenos Yuhanon Dolabani (1885-1969) or the Syrian Catholic Priest Ishak bar Armalto (1879-1954), and many more writers. But let me say that if one carefully reads and studies the writings of our intellectual ancestors, one will discover two closely related meanings of Oromoyutho:
1. Aramaicism, denoting all the Aramaic pre-Christian and Christian literature together.
2. Arameandom, in the sense of “the Aramean nation” (umtho Suryeyto aw Oromoyto), all the Aramean people who carry with them the language and literature.
As always, we must try our best to find inspiration and answers from our wealthy Aramaic literary heritage. We must not only safeguard and appreciate it. We must also update, further develop and modernize it. And that is what I have tried to do. With the earlier two meanings of Oromoyutho in mind, I should like to add a third translation and meaning which can be called:
3. Arameanism, signifying the modernization of an ancient concept used as a survival mechanism, as a national idea which safeguards, develops and promotes both Aramaicism and Arameandom at once.
B) A provisional definition of Arameanism
Now, with everything that has been said before I have come to the end of my paper and will now try to define and briefly explain the political concept of Arameanism. In accordance with the sound teachings transmitted to us by our intellectual ancestors and the academic truth, Arameanism (Oromoyutho) thus aims to
- to safeguard, develop and promote the cultural heritage and identity,
- to protect the communal solidarity and cohesion of the Aramean people,
- to secure their fundamental collective and individual human rights in the homeland and the diaspora (e.g., social, cultural, religious, economic, civil and political),
- and to struggle for their self-determination and international recognition.
My friends, I believe that Arameanism should become the banner of a political movement that defends and promotes the interests of our people worldwide.
This Arameanism does not require to be killed for or to die for. On the contrary, this Arameanism gives our people a national ideal for which to live!
As you may have noticed in the last year through the Syriac Universal Alliance, this kind of Arameanism seeks dialogue with governments and operates through diplomacy. We have held many meetings with ministers, parliamentarians of our home countries, the EU and the Council of Europe, government officials, and representatives of the United Nations. We are constantly expanding our work and continue to fight the good cause of our people. And I invite all of you to step forward and join us in our common mission to work for our people and the next generation.
With respect to assimilation, I can tell you that, from a historical point of view, this is against the nature of us Arameans. The ancient Arameans, wherever they went, instead of being absorbed by the surrounding nations, ethnicities, cultures and languages, they usually borrowed a lot from others while never giving up their core identity, their Aramean nucleus always remained the same throughout the centuries until the present day.
Concerning our people in the homeland and the diaspora, we must weld them together. The link between them is their common love for their Aramean identity, their passion for Arameanism.
At this Suryoye United Event, then, I could appropriately say that we need the united effort of all those Arameans – be they clergymen or laymen, young or old, male or female, rich or poor – who are the proud heirs of the Aramean tradition and of having the responsibility for its preservation, progress and advancement ... of which I gave one example today, namely Arameanism, which I believe can be the key to our future socio-cultural survival.
Again, in short, Arameanism (Oromoyutho) aims to
- safeguard, develop and promote the fundamental human rights
- of the Aramean People and their cultural heritage
- both in the homeland and the diaspora.
And that, my dear friends, is the ultimate aim of Arameanism.
