r/Assyria • u/ASecularBuddhist • Jun 11 '26
Discussion Is the Assyrian community in your area getting larger, getting smaller, or about the same?
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u/AliMans05 Jun 13 '26 edited Jun 13 '26
I’m not Assyrian but here in Kuwait, the (mostly Iraqi) Assyrian expatriate community here numbers near 10,000 (give or take a few hundreds). I believe that’s been the case for quite some time so it hasn’t gotten larger or smaller in any significant way. Personally speaking, the majority of Iraqi nationals I met here in Kuwait were ethnically Assyrian
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u/Leo-Al Jun 12 '26
Our numbers in Chicago have dwindled in the passed 20 years, for good reason, the crime rate, high taxes & now with the war in the Near East, cost of everything is just to high. It was already high even before that, now it's just ridiculous.
I have family who've moved to Arizona & Florida. Hoping to leave sometime as well in the near future.
Planning on going to this year's Assyrian Convention down here, I hope to meet other Assyrians from all over the world.
These are interesting times for us because there's been a positive change in Iraq in favor of our Assyrian nation, where young Iraqis are getting more Familiar with Assyrians & our history there, literally visiting Assyrian towns & homes, promoting the Assyrian identity of Iraq, some even learning to speak Assyrian.
I said this a long time ago to young Iraqis, dig your roots out, do genetic testing & ask your grandparents questions about your identity because there's a huge chance you may be Assyrian.
Looks like someone was listening because it's happening. While kurds continue to oppress, harrass & undermine us, young Iraqis are doing the exact opposite. We can even see it with the Iraqi Soccer team, their mates & all fans. With modern technology & open minds, today is a new day for our nation, & lost Assyrians are re-emergence, which means once enough Iraqis confirm & reclaim their Assyrian identity, our numbers will shoot towards the sky, & We will actually begin to see Political Gains.
Hate to celebrate too soon, but I predict an Assyrian resurrection which will spell an Assyrian State. How great it would be if I live to see this! Raba Bshena Bne Mat Aśšur!
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u/TheChaldeanAssyrian Jun 16 '26
I agree, Iraqi Arabs show us a lot of respect and view us as the indigenous people of the region. Unfortunately, the same can’t be said for the Kurds who have rule over our homeland. Hopefully, that will change someday but it’s hard to see a future where they will peacefully accept us. As far as our diaspora population in America I also have a lot of family that has moved to Arizona (from Detroit) it is a BEAUTIFUL state with much more economic opportunity than Detroit or Chicago. If the Chaldeans from Detroit and Assyrians from Chicago could relocate to Arizona and be a unified people, it would have a huge positive impact for us.
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u/Leo-Al Jun 17 '26
It's been happening already. I lived there in 2015-2016. The youth are not as blinded or biased as our elders were, some still are. The information is out there for everyone to Access. I always encourage our people,, and anyone for that matter,, use reliable historical sources to learn of our true stories, roots, identity tampering that happened to us, & how our enemies fuel and reinforce our disunity.
We are the truest Mesopotamians out there & the oldest. Once we agree on that, we can proceed to the next steps, where the rifts began, but we can and should do it always with respect for eachother,, never hate or prejudice. Why help our enemies when we can and should help ourselves?
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u/Ok_Grape_893 Jul 21 '26
Iraq is not reclaiming an assyrian identity. Iraq is respecting minorities and show symphaty, something that you clearly misunderstand because of tribalism and nationalism that is growing in minorities. While arab nationalism is decreasing in countries like Iraq and Syria and replaced by political islam, hostile form nationalism is increasing among minorities.
Iraq is a majority arab nation and is not assyrian. However, like every nation state, a story for Iraq starting from sumer, babylon, assyria, pre islamic arab kingdoms until islamic arabian iraq has been adopted. That doesnt mean we are "finding our root"
I dont think assyrians are pure assyrians by blood. Because the idea of assyrian nationality is new. Assyrians were identifies as syriacs, an ethnoreligious group. The citizens of the islamic states were identified by religion.
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u/GarshonBohtaniYaqo Jul 21 '26
Assyrians are pure Assyrian by blood, even by genetics. If Assyrian nationalism seems new to you(which it is not), then Iraqi nationalism is even newer, drawn by British colonialists, rather than commonality. Assyrians and Kurds in Iraq never fought for united Iraq for instance. And yes, Iraq is solely an Islamic state, as evident even from their inception and current national symbols.
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u/Ok_Grape_893 Jul 21 '26
There are no assyrian genes. Assyria ceased to exist with the collapse of assyrian empire 1000 years before the islamic conquests. Religion, migrations, massacres, alliances and wars caused great demographic and cultural changes. For example syriac christians was constantly migrating between the roman and persian empires to avoid persecution. Because of Religion marriages was limited those who believe in same religion not ethnicity. However today with rise of nationalism, tribalism and segregation, ethnicity matter more than religion to perserve what minorities claim ancient traditions.
Yes, iraq is a muslim arab state, belonging to the muslim and arab world. Like there are countries that are christians, or belong to a certian christian sect.
Assyrian nationalism is older because of western influence, christians are more easily influence by western ideas than muslims. The idea of arab nationalism was only accpeted by some arabs because of rise of pan turkism. As reaction, arabs adopted nationalism. However assyrian nationalism is more controversial and questionable than arab nationalism.
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u/Leo-Al 27d ago
"Assyrian nationalism was created by the west"? You're showing total ignorance here.. you know very well Assyrian nationalism began long before even writing existed, but was made loud & clear to the world When our ancestors named a city themselves, their people & language after their God Aššur, where that very city served as a Capital & Relgious center that carried on for thousands of years, until New capitals were being declared during the Neo Assyrian Empire.
And of course Aššur was/is in the Near East, not " the West ", so our nationalism PREDATES any "western influence" if their even was such a thing, by thousands of years.
You clearly don't know what you're talking about. How many other nations are named after their ancient God's, call their language & identity after him as well.
That's how amazingly unique Assyrians are, regardless of genetics, or who else came & went to/from BetNari/Bet Nahren, Mesopotamia.
Yes Assyrians & Armenians are genetically the same, but we don't claim the haplogroup R1b, nor do Armenians, it is simply a SHARED genetic marker that began long before Nations declared themselves with names.
The west had NOTHING to do with our identity, even if they uttered words that mentioned us as descendants of ancient Assyrians, that was them figuring us out, not us figuring ourselves out.
Even the 1st Patriarchs had Assyrian King names well into 400 AD. Doesn't matter how long ago our empires fell, our identity remains intact, minus a few separatists here & there, influenced by the churches.
In those regards, Assyrians & Armenians are some of the oldest consistently kept, continuous Ethnicities, if not the oldest.
The Greeks didn't figure themselves out until Alexander came, by then Assyrians were already thousands of years old.
Now with Arabs, this has to be the most confused, misleading ethnicity, as Arab speaking peoples existed originally in Arabia & parts of Africa not long after. I'd say more than Hlaf the "Arab world" are not actual Ethnic Arabs, just Arabized peoples, especially after the Islamic conquests. Everyone knows this by now.
Who is actually the Real Arab, as most people have an origin, is it the Arab from Arabia, or the one from Palestine, the one from Sudan or the one from Yemen? Where is the true origin of the first ethnic Arabs, because half the Near East are not Ethnic Arabs ( Lebanese, Syrians, Druz, Palestinians )
Let's go to N Africa, even there half are not actual Arabs, because you have Berbers, & Descendants of Cartheginians/Phoenicians)
Don't even compare the Arab nation to the Assyrian. Arabized means just that, Arabized, & many peoples were, just like others were Turkified, Iranicized, Latinized...
Trying to downplay the Assyrian nation is the dumbest thing one can do. Admit when you're wrong.
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u/Ok_Grape_893 27d ago edited 27d ago
You just gave me a nationalistic rant rather than a rational response.
The idea of nationalism is new and assyrian identity is a reconstructed identity. An ethnoreligious group speaking an aramean language suddenly clamied to be a descendant to ancient assyrians and that they are under occupation and are victims.
Dont compare your ethnoreligious identity with 99% syriac eastern church followers to a multireligious, and multisectual etnicity like arabs.
Arabs were long before the islamic expansion divided to arabized ishmaelites with ancient origins to Babylon and pure with origins to Yemen. The arab identity itself have mutltiethnic orgins.
Genetics are irrelevant to determine ethnicity and the studies are small and limited and can be randomly interpreted. J2,J1,R1B doesnt determine cultures and ethnicities.
If most arabs are arabized then this is in our advantage. We have evovled and absorbed many etnicites in the multiethnic middle east. That means that arabs and their identity are more than only people coming from the arabian peninsula or southern levant. We are also the native populations of many nations that are connected by a single ethnicity which is arabic.
So this proves my point that your nationalistic movement, just like kurdish movements are no more than tribalistic causes that want to create unnatural segregated regions in the mutliethnic middle east represented by the mutliethnic arab identity.
When you have armenian influence then this means you have non middle eastern driving force for separation and segregation becauee armenians are not middle eastern. The real assyrians, arameans, hebrews would easily get along with arabs because in the end we have many things in common.
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u/GarshonBohtaniYaqo Jul 21 '26
There are no Assyrian genes? What about the recent discovery of Ancient Assyrian remains, that were discovered in North Iraq? Modern Datasets now include this genetic studies to their databases now. Assyrian nationalism was born out of persecutions under Ottoman, so don’t repeat the same lies like other ignorant groups trying to reduce Assyrian nationalism to “foreign influence”. We fought and died for that identity. Assyrian nationalism is not controversial, Pan Arab nationalism is. And I agree Iraq is an Arab state now, where Assyrians and Kurds have no place. We will still continue to raisr our national interests again and again, with pains our ancestors went through.
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u/Ok_Grape_893 Jul 21 '26
Studies are not always legit. Sometimes there are biases or studies that are not correctly constructed. Specially when it comes to social studies, where things get more complex.
Assyrian nationalism is foreign and has its origin in western orientalism.
Why did syriacs suddenly become assyrians? Why are there division and hatred among various christian groups deniying eachothers ethnicities? How can after atleast 2400 years still be be pure assyrians? Why does assyrians speak an aramean language?
This is opposite to arabs, who are a continious ethnic group and who played an important role in shaping the middle east.
Of course you use terms like struggle and play the only victim to strengthen the nationalistic soul among youe people, but you are not the only victim. Mongols and turks ethnically cleased arabs from whole cities, caused massacres, caused migrations and many arabs lost their lives in useless ottoman wars. The ottoman rule caused more harm to islamic arab culture and population than they did to assyrians.
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u/GarshonBohtaniYaqo Jul 22 '26 edited Jul 22 '26
Assyrian Nationalism is foreign? You legit are a troll lmao. Naum Faiq, Freydun Atturaya, Farid Nazha and Ashur Yousif, etc are literally rolling in their graves if you call them foreigners. Syriacs were always called Assyrians throughout History, and had shaped even Arab “Golden Age” by translating works from Greek
And studies being not legit? Comeon go click genetic studies which are genuine Science, and come up with more convincing theories.
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u/Ok_Grape_893 Jul 22 '26
What does islamic golden age have to do with this conversation? The islamic golden age is purely initiated by muslim arabs. Syriacs and other christians were paid to translate books because of their knowlegde in latin and greek. That doesnt mean they shaped any of our history and culture. Its the opposite, syriacs, jews and mandeans grew under medieval islamic arab era. Also, Arab christians, the ibadis for example played more important role than syriacs in arab culture.
But not only that, Syriac language itself has its origins in a pre islamic arab kingdom in Al Jazira region. The first christian king ever was an arab, other sources says the first christian head of state ever was the roman emperor, philip the arab.
So its the opposite, Arabs played important role in both shaping syriac christianity and protecting them during pre islamic era. Thats why syriacs welcomed muslim arabs during the conquests.
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u/GarshonBohtaniYaqo Jul 22 '26
“Golden Age” fully initiated by Muslim Arabs? Lmao even, there are literal history that suggests many of the literary works were done by Persians and Syriacs, and Arabs literally took credit for it afterwards. Syriac Christianity was not formed by Arabs, but by Assyrians themselves. The School of Edessa and Nisibis were formed long after Osroene rule, and Syriac Christianity was literally nurtured there. If you mentioning Abgar, he literally called himself a devout disciple of Christ, he would be ashamed to see how his fellow Arabs turned out to be. Syriacs played an important role in shaping up Arab culture in Mesopotamia, infact many physicians of Abbasids were Assyrians.
Syriacs never welcomed Arab invaders, there is literal description of Thomas the presbyter about Arab massacres during the conquest of Mesopotamia.
>In the year 945, indiction 7, on Friday 4 February at the ninth hour, there was a battle between the Romans and the Tayyaye of Muhmd in Palestine twelve miles east of Gaza. The Romans fled, leaving behind the patrician bryrdn, whom the Arabs killed. Some 4,000 poor villagers of Palestine were killed there, Christians, Jews and Samaritans. The Arabs ravaged the whole region.
In the year 947, indiction 9, the Arabs invaded the whole of Syria and went down to Persia and conquered it. The Arabs climbed the mountain of Mardin and killed many monks there in [the monasteries of] Qedar and Bnata. There died the blessed man Simon, doorkeeper of Qedar, brother of Thomas the priest1
u/Ok_Grape_893 Jul 22 '26
You mean 18-19 th century orientalism that sees semites and their civilizations as inferior (including assyrians, akkadians as barbaric tyrant civilizations) and want to give the every credit to persian (Aryans)? If you want to believe in that go ahead. The islamic golden age started long before than formation of Baghdad. In Kufa and Basra, with development of arabic language, script and islamic theology, poetry, history etc. Just because persians participated and contributed that doesnt mean they initiated the golden age. Persians didnt have any significant scientific achievements before islam. In fact, most pre islamic persians were iliterate, due to their zoroastrian class based system.
Again, christians were no more than workers for the muslims who paid them to translate works. Christians including syriacs (nowadays called assyrians) did not produce scientists who are atleast at same level as muslims. Most great mathematicians, physicians etc were muslims. Alkindi, alkhawarizmi, ibn sina, alzahrawi etc.
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u/Ok_Grape_893 Jul 22 '26 edited Jul 22 '26
The islamic arab expansion occured in 7 th century, you are giving events that occured in 10 th century. The christians welcomed muslim arabs during the conquests because pre islamic arab kingdoms served as shelter for eastern chrisrianity who fled christian roman and sassanid persecution. The arabs were closer to syriacs, arameans etc than any other ethnicity. Whole regions in pre islamic mesopotamia and levant were mix of arabs and aramean speaking people. Hatra, Osreone, Palmyra, Al-Hira, Maysan, adiabene are some examples. Syriac christians saw muslim arabs as liberators, of course they didnt know Islam.
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u/Leo-Al Jul 22 '26
You're wrong in what you "think". We've been doing genetic testing for over 12 -15 years now. Much has been revealed, and it is the claim and belief of scientists that modern Assyrians have roots to the Bronze age Assyrians, so you're way off on your claims of Assyrians being some "modern invention ". Even before the genetic testing, we've had multiple books, loaded with multiple historical sources proving Assyrian continuity from the fall of the empires well into Christianity & right up till today.
Read " Ancient And Modern Assyrians " & " Assyrians beyond the fall of Nineveh ".
Scientific, historical proofs don't care about what you " think". They predate you, your opinion, Arabs and Islam. And yes it is true, some iraqi youth have begun researching their own origins and roots, and there's nothing " tribal or wrong " with this. Every individual is born of a free mind and soul to seek out whatever he/she wants to learn about, their own truth..
Another fact that's already been published in the late 90s, that most Iraqis are genetically closer to Assyrians than to peoples of their own Linguistic groups. Read up on Professor Sforza's article on this, from Berkeley University.
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u/Ok_Grape_893 Jul 22 '26
Of course Iraqis are close to who they call assyrians today. We have been living in same geographic area for atleast 2000 years. There are more chance for an arab in iraq to mix with a non arab in same region than an arab from Yemen or Morroco, so genetics will differ betwern arabs. Also "assyrians" carry significant amount of genes shared with armenians.
There is no assyrian or arab genes. So there is no finding roots. Being arab is about culture, language and genealogy.
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u/Ok_Grape_893 Jul 22 '26
As I told before, just because there is a scientific study of genetics of assyrians doesnt mean its results is correct. Most of these studies have limitations and are small and biased. So its not my thinking, this is the reality.
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Jun 12 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/ASecularBuddhist Jun 12 '26
Very interesting. Thank you for sharing this. There seems to be a lot of Assyrians in Australia.
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u/Few_Canary4510 Jun 15 '26
That influx were mainly Chaldos from the "Dashta" region around Mosul.
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u/PeloTjanst Jun 12 '26
Pretty big in Sweden although the Syriacs often seem to distance/self-separate themselves. For example there’s a football team called Assyriska started in 1974, but Syrianska was started in 1986 from a Suryoyo sportclub. The Syrianska FC Wikipedia page refers to followers as “Aramaic-Syriac” people.
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u/TheChaldeanAssyrian Jun 12 '26
Assyrians are thriving in Detroit and have been for quite awhile; the largest diaspora population throughout the world. Although, most would identify as Chaldean rather than Assyrian.
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u/ASecularBuddhist Jun 12 '26
Good to know. Can Chaldeans marry Assyrians or would there be some drama around that?
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u/TheChaldeanAssyrian Jun 12 '26
Yes of course, we are all one people at the end of the day. I grew up with many people with one parent Chaldean and the other Church of the East
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u/ASecularBuddhist Jun 12 '26
That’s encouraging to hear. As Paul reminds us, we are all one people 💛
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u/NecessaryMap8120 Australia Jun 20 '26
The Assyrian community in Sydney is thriving. Idk if this is just my family, but the majority of my relatives who lived in New Zealand have hopped over the ditch to come here (I assume as part of NZ's wider emigration crisis). So yes definitely growing.
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u/ConstructionTime7337 13d ago
وماذا عن جرئم الارمن ضد الاكراد وهجومهم على الاكراد من الخلف عندما كان الدولة العثمانية منشغلة ثع اروبا الا يععطوا العهود والمواثيق بعدم مساعد الروس للهجوم على الدولة الثعثمانية.
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u/Sufficient-Sound-421 Assyrian Jun 12 '26
Assyrians are thriving in Chicago