Many Assyrians today would consider themselves Assyrians without Assyria. In my view, if we continue on the path we are on now in terms of activism, lobbying, organisational practices, media etc, we will have to consider an Assyria without Assyrians. If you accept that this catastrophic outcome might come to pass, we need open and frank criticism of our internal workings to change this trajectory. I plan to at least provide several signposts to that effect here. This is a piece on what we lack and do not do well with a view to putting self-reliance into practice.

Addressing Dysfunction

Institutions

By ‘institutions’ I mean our large, historic organisations that most of us are familiar with. I could get into a long-winded anatomical discussion on our Churches, political parties and community associations but this is not my objective in this post. I just want to elaborate slightly on a common observation not unique to me: these institutions are all grossly dysfunctional. And why? Where institutions should have healthy collaboration, they interfere with each other, and where they are meant to specialize, they become generalists.

This creates distrust and cynicism among members of our community, since each institution we have, in part, tries to serve every section of our community. This chaotic environment creates cults of personality — after all, if everyone is doing similar things, you simply gravitate towards people you like for whatever reason, regardless of their work ethic, agenda, or in many cases, even if they’re good at what they do. Healthy criticism dies when people are pushed into this kind of arrangement. It encourages a transformation of support from being calculated and rational to emotional and dogmatic. This benefits the worst kind of people who take advantage of it by pushing their supporters into even smaller boxes, alienating them from any alternatives, other sections of the community, and other institutions altogether.

Healthy institutions exist in harmony with each other whereas unhealthy, dysfunctional institutions are oppositional. This is most expressly witnessed with the conflict between our political and religious institutions — each group is moving further away from each other because, for some reason, they have a bizarre rivalry in the minds of many (but thankfully, not all) Assyrians. And here we have the foundations of a new tribalism. We should be better than that and instigate change from within. A Church is nothing without its parishioners and a political party is nothing without its membership. No excuse is good enough. We are these institutions.

Small-Medium Organisations

In this category, I include organisations which have been created for a defined purpose and are not all-encompassing: arts associations, lobbyist groups, advocacy groups, any support networks, academic communities— the list is endless. In time, some of these can become successful enough to eventually be considered institutions in their own right, meaning, they encourage a reflexive association made by Assyrians and non-Assyrians alike concerning their purpose.

I am far more optimistic here because these organisations, from the offset, are usually focused and somewhat more transparent in what they do than our large, historic institutions— they can’t depend on uncritical personality cult structure or steady streams of funding just yet. They are often projects created by passionate and ambitious Assyrians in their free time. This is normal. It must be said however: to take some of these organisations to the next level, whether that means enhancing the quality of their work or expanding their operational capabilities, they will need what every organisation needs: funding and participation. Without this, potential can never really be explored and we will struggle to escape our current unnecessary constraints.

Fortunately, many talented Assyrians do not let these constraints stop them at the beginning. What we need is a professional, functional, autonomous and busy funding organisation that can support activity which contributes to the well-being of our nation. No ifs and buts. There are millions of dollars underutilized and available in private and shared coffers. All of this while Assyrian diaspora communities become increasingly fragmented and demotivated and Assyrians in our homelands see little sustainable development around them to give them any reason to stay.

Media

Our media channels are incredibly important — I can’t emphasize this enough. I said in a previous piece that Assyrians have lost the information war, and here is why: nearly all of our existing media is utterly inward facing; from those independently hosted via websites, radio channels, TV etc to those that have a social media presence. They are media channels for Assyrians and they are almost entirely in our language. No doubt this kind of media is important, but it is not enough. We should not be surprised when people are ignorant or unconcerned with our plight because we simply do not produce substantial content appropriate for audiences in our adoptive countries.

If we want people to learn about the complexities of our plight, we need to tell them before they come to their own conclusions. We talk constantly about Assyrian interests but only to each other and this isn’t sufficient. Personally, I have spent a lot of time on a one-man crusade on Twitter, independently investigating things and sharing any relevant historical or modern information I find interesting or original. I understand that, as with with our other organisations, limitations arise due to funding and time. With something so important as the documentation of current events, of crimes, of illegal appropriations — work of real importance that has the possibility of influencing academics, funding bodies, charities or other journalists — I am absolutely dumbfounded as to how this activity is not treated with utmost priority. We don’t need anybody else to do it.

Some perspective: it has been nearly three years since ISIS descended onto Nineveh— if you ask ordinary people in the West about our experience, their primary sources (if any) will still be independent Western journalists who often make glaring errors or omissions in their work on us — and we of course destroy them for it after the fact. But its understandable, isn’t it? These journalists are usually doing their best and naturally have a limited contextual understanding of our history, the region and our neighbours. The only way to stop this cycle of unsatisfactory, ineffectual media coverage and angry follow up is to produce the content that informs these people. We need to be proactive and help them. We cannot effectively correct whatever it is after publishing, it is almost always too late by then and history will not remember our footnote. We need to be more outward facing: this involves creating content specifically for Western audiences and/or including subtitles in recordings and interviews. It is up to us. We are the experts. Yet, what do we do about it? In the grand scheme of things, almost nothing.

For a people with so much to say, we have very little to share.

Questions we should ask ourselves before we do anything:

If we are going to support existing organisations or create new ones, we should ask ourselves hard questions and be ruthless with the answers. I no longer have time for nonsense and appeasement, I simply withdraw when I feel uninspired or unconvinced about the value of something, regardless of hurt feelings or friendships. Contemplating what we currently have and how adequate it will be to secure ourselves some kind of future as a people is a terrifying thought. Here are some considerations:

Is accountability easily mapped and reconfigurable? Not only do we need to understand the objectives of whatever the project or organisation is aiming to achieve and instinctively see the value, we need to be able to a) hold people accountable for both successes and failures, b) continue the work undertaken by others as seamlessly as possible if there are any transitions into or out of the organisation. The value of good work is that it renders itself necessary. Also, too often, we start from scratch when we should be continuing a relay race. For over one hundred years, we have collectively made a lot of mistakes as Assyrians, its high time we put our knowledge of these mistakes to use and share them with each other. This requires a cold but fair assessment of our modern history somewhere where it is easily accessible.

Not only do we need to understand the objectives of whatever the project or organisation is aiming to achieve and instinctively see the value, we need to be able to a) hold people accountable for both successes and failures, b) continue the work undertaken by others as seamlessly as possible if there are any transitions into or out of the organisation. The value of good work is that it renders itself necessary. Also, too often, we start from scratch when we should be continuing a relay race. For over one hundred years, we have collectively made a lot of mistakes as Assyrians, its high time we put our knowledge of these mistakes to use and share them with each other. This requires a cold but fair assessment of our modern history somewhere where it is easily accessible. What are the possible outcomes if I do support this? What happens if I don’t support it? This is self-explanatory but surprisingly few people consciously think about it in this fashion. If you are directly faced with the prospect of supporting an institution, organisation, or individual, and we come to the conclusion that yes, they deserve support, then support them. Thinking about the fact that you support whatever it is is not enough. We need to all individually take some responsibility for who we support and who we don’t. Its very easy to passively support anything; what we need to do is to turn this passive support into active support. If you keep passing this responsibility along to others for whatever reason, there will eventually be nothing left to pass on — or support.

And for me, the most important:

Are we thinking about sustainability? Is there a model in place to ensure this work can continue? Of course, not everything we do is meant to be sustainable, but we already do those kinds of things fairly well (e.g. isolated protests and events, targeted canvassing of political representatives on specific issues etc). What I am referring to is constructive and sustainable channels from which people who are working can keep working and maybe even grow. We simply do not create conditions for sustainability or embed this ethic into the work undertaken by our institutions or organisations. Reasonable and talented people who produce good work will inevitably walk away and produce this work somewhere else where it is sustainable.

Take this example to illustrate the psychology: you walk into a small cafe with two friends and learn that the owner is Assyrian. Immediately, your two friends have completely different instincts. One of them is excited by this new discovery and intends to come back and support the business, maybe even overpaying sometimes. The other however, purely out of reflex, cheerfully thinks this means you all might get that coffee for free now. Don’t be the second person. If everyone behaved like the second person, and the owner is compliant, the cafe will go out of business. Unless the owner draws a line. Don’t leave it to the owner to draw the line — draw it yourself.

Capacity Building

In order to really explore potential and encourage people to participate in national work, we need to address the problems that have either battered their patience and resolve or kept them away entirely. We have many professionals in the community who either provide their services for free or at heavily discounted rates. This is great, but not all the time — especially for those who are not commanding high salaries. What we definitely do not do well is recognize the value of other professionals outside of the archetypal Assyrian lawyer, doctor, or dentist. We have an absolute wealth of educated, working talent in more niche professions who do not contribute anything to our future as a nation because there is no will to enable them. Building their capacity means we need to recognize value and nurture it, otherwise…

The Tyranny of ‘Free’

This realm of ‘free’ can be fantastic in certain circumstances, but not when it comes to the building of a nation’s future.

‘Free’ means I will unilaterally do this work according to my schedule and you better not complain.

‘Free’ means if you have a problem with it, why don’t you do it?.

‘Free’ means only the people who can afford to do it can do it.

‘Free’ means a succession of family members and dynasty.

‘Free’ means impenetrable cliques who are suspicious of outsiders.

‘Free’ means people who do poor quality work, or very good work for a very short length of time.

‘Free’ means no real opportunity to criticize (its free? Stop complaining, remember).

‘Free’ means total and limitless access for unsavoury agendas and enemy patronage.

‘Free’ means like many things in life, you get what you pay for.

This is not the standard with which we should approach our vast array of national problems. If we are not willing to invest in each other, all we are doing is pretending to be a nation. Every nation has an economy. It is not embarrassing or a matter of contention. It should not be taboo. We should speak about money far more openly.

Case Study: Me

I have spent the last 10 years involved in Assyrian issues in one way or another. Since 2014 and the catastrophe that befell us in Iraq and Syria, I have been spending 90% of my time on Assyrian issues and 10% on everything else (even when I was gainfully employed at a corporation). When I use these percentages, I am not talking about a working week, I am talking about every waking moment of my day. The balance was not always skewed like this, but it gradually became so — and very easily too. One thing always leads to another and the nagging feeling of never doing enough (because we are shockingly behind on where we could be and what we could be doing as a people) was enough to test my sanity and strain all of my dearest relationships.

People may associate me with Twitter, posts on Facebook, attending relevant events, protests, or with writing blogs like this. All of this content creation takes a considerable amount of time. What people don’t see is the amount of time I spend learning about our issues in order to create this content in the first place. Most of my time is actually spent there— probably double. I cannot share any content if I don’t feel confident in its veracity or if it adds any value.

That said, working on our issues is not the sum total of what I want to do with my life. It never has been. I am an artist. I only write because what I want to read and share with others has not been written yet — and I’m impatient in that respect. I have worked several different types of jobs already with this goal in mind: to eventually make a reasonable living through only producing art in whatever capacity. The more I found myself involved in Assyrian issues, the more I was being torn away from fulfilling this personal and professional goal.

I had to take a detached view of my life and reflect on my situation. I concluded that this 90/10 arrangement was not in line with my goals and it certainly was not sustainable. As a result, I have largely ceased all work I am undertaking on Assyrian issues. I have massively scaled back any purposeful use I made of social media. I have stopped learning and keeping up to date with news relevant to us. I have stopped going to events, and I don’t indulge in long conversations about our issues. This 90/10 arrangement is now 10/90 in favour of art, and I am in a much better situation for it. Not because I don’t care anymore — because it isn’t sustainable. I was creating too many unhealthy expectations within the community and I did not want to normalize any of them for myself or others. If the capacity was there to enable me to turn this shrunken 10 into a 20 or 30, I would take it. But it isn’t, and I must change according to my needs.

Self-Reliance as Enablement

Many of the people who commit to this kind of work already have their own careers and families and do this in their free time (‘free’ in both senses). However, it should be accepted that much of the best work produced comes from people who are consumed by this work and naturally do it full time. People who do commit their free time to contributing to our larger community are the huge majority and that’s totally normal, but people (usually students, recent graduates) who give it everything are exceptional. Yet we do not nurture them in any way. Giving everything over as I have said above is not sustainable, nor is giving small amounts of my time as I have outlined earlier in this piece. Both conclude with zero remuneration or support, only higher expectations. This lack of sustainability is not by definition, but rather, a complete organisational failure on behalf of Assyrians to support work contributing to our national future.

The central idea is not to create incentives to do specific work, but to reward the commitment and ability of those who are already working or those who want to but cannot afford to do it for free. There is nothing heroic about repeatedly doing any work for free — we live in societies which aren’t sympathetic to noble intentions, but concrete deeds. The frequency as to when we pay anyone Assyrian to do anything is shockingly low, but when it comes to work involving non-Assyrians, its unquestionably viewed as the professional thing to do. And that is because it is. Isn’t this ludicrous? Before we can really claim to support Assyrians, we should confront both that fact and its consequences head on. The frequency of supporting Assyrians in this way is so low that when Assyrians are remunerated to do anything, small or large, our first reaction is intense cynicism. Something must not be right — they are getting paid ( — and by other Assyrians?!) But this remuneration should be normalized. It is work. Most of this work, especially on-going projects or wide ranging roles, are (or should be) very taxing. Assyrians who live and breathe our issues are operating underwater — give them a wet suit and an air tank.

Many of the wealthy individuals within our community seem to be more concerned with using their wealth to celebrate and indulge themselves—for me, this is the behaviour of people who will always be poor, but we cannot really control that. Institutionally however, we totally misuse wealth and it is here where we can make a difference. I can’t help but think non-action is born from people who think everything is going to be OK — after all, it is OK for them in their diaspora bubbles. But bubbles always burst.

I come back to the horrible vision put forward at the beginning of this piece: an Assyria without Assyrians. If we do not introduce a functional economy into our national work, we will not be equipping ourselves to do everything we can to help Assyrians remain and prosper in our homelands, and they will continue to leave and join us. Our diaspora communities will cease being replenished with Assyrians from our homelands since they will all be settling away from lands which cannot sustain them. When this happens, we begin the long and fatal process of complete assimilation into our adoptive countries. We do not feel the effects now because our diaspora communities are always being replenished. Assyrians will stop working as their numbers shrink — what will be left to work for? This must be prevented by strengthening existing institutions, organizations, media outlets and our academic presence through better funding and participation, but enabling new ones in the same manner.

Conclusion

Professionally, I have consoled myself with this simple fact regarding my art: if I am focused and create lots of good quality art, people will eventually pay me for it. Unless you’re truly terrible and don’t research your industry, this principle is true for nearly all work.

I spent a large part of the last decade working on Assyrian issues more or less full time, trying to become a reliable source of information for Assyrians and non-Assyrians alike. I did not receive anything from anyone for this, bar brief time spent with the Assyria Council of Europe many years ago. In recent years, I do not even know who or how to ask — the organisational accommodation for individuals such as myself simply does not exist, and if it does, it is never offered or made clear. If this matter isn’t taken seriously in the long term, professionals who want to contribute to our national work, to whatever extent, will not do anything beyond turning up to events and have very light involvement.

We should want the very best people doing work appropriate to their skills whilst building their capacity to at least maintain what they are doing in some way. This is done by alleviating the ugly decision of stepping away completely because of serious concerns around sustainability. Doing this will stiffen the revolving door of disaffected and disillusioned activists and professionals who grow tired of the tribalism and finally prove to ourselves that the best people are doing the best work — work we desperately need to produce.

I don’t consider there to be any other option but to undertake a focused transformation of all our current activities into ones rooted firmly in self-reliance and enablement. To make our institutions specialized and harmonious, our organizations sustainable, and our media effective — for me, this is the essence of the task at hand. If people agree that this is the only way forward instead of petitioning foreign governments for our salvation — something which has been proven ineffectual and even detrimental to our case for generations — we need to begin to support each other and enable each other. If we don’t, we will lose everything.