Christians in Iraq
Assyrians and Chaldeans are considered by many to be distinct ethnic groups, as well as the descendants of some of the earliest Christian communities. The communities speak a distinct language (Syriac). Although they do not define themselves as Arabs, the Baath Government defines Assyrians and Chaldeans as such, evidently to encourage them to identify with the Sunni-Arab dominated regime. Christians are concentrated in the north and in Baghdad.
Most Assyrians live in the northern governorates, and the Baath Government often has suspected them of "collaborating" with Iraqi Kurds. In the north, Kurdish groups often refer to Assyrians as Kurdish Christians. Military forces destroyed numerous Assyrian churches during the 1988 Anfal Campaign and reportedly executed and tortured many Assyrians. Both major Kurdish political parties have indicated that the Baath Government occasionally targeted Assyrians as well as ethnic Kurds and Turkomen as a part of its Arabization campaign of ethnic cleansing designed to harass and expel non-Arabs from government-controlled areas in the north.
Assyrians are a Syriac-speaking people of Christian faith and of mixed Semitic, Aramaean, Assyrian, Persian, and Kurdish descent. Contemporary Assyrians, influenced in the 19th century by Western nationalism, now identify themselves as a single ethnic group, united by the Syriac language, the Christian Church of the East, and a common cultural heritage of the ancient Assyrian civilization.
There are about 200,000 Assyrians in Iraq who constitute approximately one-sixth of Iraqi Christians. Assyrians are located mostly in the large cities of Baghdad, Mosul, Arbil, Kirkuk, and Basra. Rural Assyrians are located primarily in towns on the Mosul plain in northern Iraq.
Assyrians share the Syriac language and much of a common history with Chaldeans. The two groups were divided over the last 500 years by the Chaldeans' reunification with the Roman Catholic Church in 1552.
Both contemporary Assyrians and Chaldeans claim to be heirs of the ancient civilizations of Mesopotamia, including the ancient Babylonian, Assyrian, and Chaldean empires.
Contemporary Assyrians often refer to Assyrians and Chaldeans as belonging to the same ethno-national group, while Chaldeans often include Assyrians in their ethnic group. Assyrians sometimes identify themselves interchangeably as "Assyrian" or "Chaldean."
Assyrians resist attempts by the Iraqi government to deny them their language and culture by giving them labels such as "ancient Iraqis" and "Iraqi Christians." They also oppose government policies that attempt to force Arabic and Arab culture upon them. Likewise, Assyrians in northern Iraq resist attempts by Kurds to assimilate them into Kurdish culture, language, and political parties.
Assyrians did not fare well under Saddam Hussein, who destroyed Assyrian churches. Saddam Hussein's emphasis on tribal identity alienated contemporary Assyrians, who are excluded from Arab tribes and tribal customs.
Assyrians have been in close proximity to political power in a number of empires of which they have been a part, despite their small numbers. As leaders of the Church of the East traditionally emphasized learning, their political success was often due to their high degree of education.
Although the Ottoman Empire, which ruled Iraq, was allied with Germany during World War I, the Assyrians sided with Britain and were later protected by the British during the British Mandate that ruled Iraq after the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire. Assyrians joined the British imperial troops, known as Levies. The Levies were notoriously used as an instrument of internal security, particularly to suppress Kurdish revolts in northern Iraq. Considered haughty by other Iraqis, the Assyrians earned bitter resentment among Iraqi Kurds and Arabs during this period.
In 1933, as several hundred Assyrians attempted to cross the Tigris River into the French mandate of Syria, fighting erupted with Iraqi border troops. Within a few days, thousands of unarmed Assyrians were summarily executed in their villages while the Iraqi government stood aside. The Assyrian patriarch fled to exile in Cyprus and Britain, eventually reestablishing his seat in Chicago in 1939 along with approximately 15,000 Assyrians.
Christianity is an important facet of identity among contemporary Assyrians. Assyrians and Chaldeans both trace their religious identities to the beginning of the Christian era.
Syriac is a language closely-related to the Aramaic spoken by ancient Mesopotamian peoples, including Jesus. These historical facts strengthen the Assyrian identification with the ancient Assyrian and Chaldean civilizations, and with the early Christian church.
The Assyrians emerged as a distinct Christian group in 431 A.D. when their religious leader, the Patriarch Nestorius of Constantinople, broke away from the Byzantine Orthodox Church during the Third Ecumenical Council when his teachings were declared heretical. The Assyrians became pejoratively known as followers of the Nestorian Church, although Assyrians traditionally referred to themselves as "Suraya," or as followers of the "Church of the East." Assyrians do not believe that the teachings of Nestorius are in violation of Christian teachings.
