Interview with Dr. Hermis Aboona
By: Mariam Georgis, Allena Slavyo, Lema Yousif, Sandy Shlemon
Translated from Assyrian to English by Sandy Shlemon and Allena Slavyo
Mariam: Good evening ladies and gentleman, my name is Mariam Georgis, speaking on behalf of the Assyrian Chaldean Syriac Student Union of Canada. Today I am accompanied by an Assyrian scholar from our community, Dr. Hermis Aboona. Good evening Dr. Aboona
Dr. Aboona: Good Evening
Mariam: We would like to know more about you your accomplishments, and what you would like today's youth to know. Let us start with a brief biography about yourself.
Dr. Aboona: First of all, I would like to start by welcoming you and it?s my pleasure to have met with ACSSU. It brings great happiness to me to see students in our community that have a passion to learn not only for themselves but also for their nation.
I was born in the year 1940 in the town by the name of Alqosh, a town in old Assyria.
After finishing elementary school in Alqosh, I decided to continue my education by moving to the capital Baghdad during the year of 1952. In the year 1964 I completed my university degree with an honors in law. After my university education, I started working and traveled to multiple countries. I was motivated to travel to all the cities in Bet-Nahrain in order to come across the remains of our ancestors.
In 1982, I left Iraq with my wife and my three sons to England to obtain a PhD. At the same time my wife established her career as a secondary school teacher in Iraq.
In 1982, I entered the University of Exeter in Devon Southwest England. I studied modern Assyrian history, specifically the independent Assyrian tribes of Tyari and Hakari and the relation with the Turks and Ottoman. In 1988, I was forced to leave England and immigrate to Canada. From 1988 to the present time I have been living in Canada. That?s a short story of my life.
Now, with my education I started writing books. I was motivated to start a chain of series of books entitled ?Assyrians after the fall of Nineveh?. Some writers began criticizing that the Assyrian nation disappeared after the fall of Ninveh. Rather, this is not a fact. To illustrate this I wrote a series of books under the heading ?Assyrians after the Fall of Nineveh.? These books were divided into different volumes according to the different time periods in Assyrian history after the fall of Ninveh in 612 B.C.
The first volume specifically covers the fall of Nineveh up to the coming of Jesus Christ. Volume 2 covers the coming of Jesus Christ up to the introduction of Islam. Volume 3 includes the Islamic religion and so on.
While I continued writing the series, I also wrote the 'Folded Pages from the History of the Chaldean Church'. Volume 7 covers the history of the Assyrian Church of the East and the Ancient Church of the East. Volume 6 includes the massacres by Badr Khan Beg. In this volume I describe the struggled way of living of the Assyrian nation. From 1943-1946, a confederation of Kurdish people from both Iran and Turkey attacked the Assyrian tribes, Tyari and Hakari, under the command of Badr Khan Beg. Their main goal was to kill the Assyrian men and take the Assyrian women as hostages. Thousands of Assyrians were killed during this time. Not only were the Kurds killing the Assyrian people, but they also destroyed the land. The ancient churches, which dated back to the beginning of Christianity, were demolished. The Kurds proved to be extremely heartless and inhumane when they destroyed everything, including the old and dry trees in order to prevent the Assyrians from forming shelters. Ultimately these acts led the new Assyrian generation to start form scratch.
Dr. William Ainsworth was sent by the Archbishop of Canterbury, in order to establish an official relation between the Assyrians and the Church of England. In June of 1840, Dr. William Ainsworth arrived to Tyari and Hakari. He remembers specifically in the city of Lizan, he describes Lizan as beautiful as paradise and is in comparable to any city in Europe.
The massacres of the Assyrian nation during Badr Khan Beg and the destruction of the beautiful Assyrian land motivated me to write my books. Not only did Badr Khan Beg kill Assyrians and ruin the land, but also thousands of Assyrians immigrated to Nineveh as refugees. During the 4th ,5th , and 6th centuries there was not a single Assyrian woman who was unable to read and write. The Assyrian Nation was extremely educated. In 1295 A.D., the Assyrian nation started experiencing a decline. During the massacres of Badr Khan Beg, the Assyrian community was isolated and deprived from education. Ultimately leaving only 4% of Assyrians with the ability to read and write.
?The Nation that was the Founder of Human Civilization? Hermis Aboona
30% of the Assyrians living in the lands of Nineveh - Alqosh, Telkep, Karemlesh, and so on - were the original refugees that emigrated from Tyari and Hakari during the time of Badr Khan Beg.
During my research on Tyari and Hakari, I came across official documents stating the massacres of the Assyrian people. The Assyrian women whom were held hostages by the Kurds, were given as gifts to honoured and respected men in the cities. This was one of the reasons why the Assyrian community has immigrated into 42+ countries.
Volume 5 included the lifestyles of Tyari and Hakkari, including Urmi from the East, the Syriacs from Tur-Abdin, and the Nineveh plains from the South.
In the Metropolitan of Nineveh, the people occupying this land before Christianity were the Assyrians. With the emergence of Christianity; division came about questioning Jesus Christ and Mother Mary (Nestorians). This division was a disadvantage to the Assyrian nation because some Assyrians followed the idea that Jesus Christ was of ?two bodies? two souls?. The other half of the Assyrians that can be identified as Jacobites believed that Jesus Christ was of ?two souls, one body?, and that Mother Mary was the mother of Jesus and not God.
During the 16th century in the area of Nineveh, a new group derived from the Assyrians , the Chaldeans. In one of my books I clarify that Assyrians, Chaldeans and Syriac?s are one nation under three names. Although the community was divided by name, all three worked as one during the formation of Nineveh, which is mentioned in the Bible as ?Nineveh the Great City?.
It is our responsibility as Assyrians to write out cultural history as it was. If our heritage is to be written by philosophers from the Western societies, they may describe the Assyrian people as killers and barbarians. There has been no mention to the amount of knowledge the Assyrians have provided the world today. The Assyrians were an advanced nation in every possible aspect of human civilization. From the invention of the wheel to the alphabet. Due to the massacres of our nation, our knowledge and creations have been erased.
I strongly suggest that if we want our nation to survive, we must motivate the people in our community to pursue higher education because education is the best tool an individual can have. A nation with education will never die. University students must encourage high schools students to continue their education; PhD students must encourage Bachelor?s students to also continue their education. Our nation is in the hands of today?s generations.
Mariam: on behalf of ACSSU I would like to thank you Mr. Hermis Aboona for your time and hospitality and hopefully your thoughts and words will reach out to our nation today.
Dr. Aboona: It was my pleasure to have met with ACSSU. You are heading in the right direction, keep up the good work.
Is someone able to provide anykind of informations about his books? Are there probably any online books by him? In what langauge did he write the books (I would guess arabic...). I just saw that there is one availiable at amazone, which deals about the relationship of Assyrians, Kurds and Ottoman Turks in the Ottoman Empire.
Thanks in regards
By: Mariam Georgis, Allena Slavyo, Lema Yousif, Sandy Shlemon
Translated from Assyrian to English by Sandy Shlemon and Allena Slavyo
Mariam: Good evening ladies and gentleman, my name is Mariam Georgis, speaking on behalf of the Assyrian Chaldean Syriac Student Union of Canada. Today I am accompanied by an Assyrian scholar from our community, Dr. Hermis Aboona. Good evening Dr. Aboona
Dr. Aboona: Good Evening
Mariam: We would like to know more about you your accomplishments, and what you would like today's youth to know. Let us start with a brief biography about yourself.
Dr. Aboona: First of all, I would like to start by welcoming you and it?s my pleasure to have met with ACSSU. It brings great happiness to me to see students in our community that have a passion to learn not only for themselves but also for their nation.
I was born in the year 1940 in the town by the name of Alqosh, a town in old Assyria.
After finishing elementary school in Alqosh, I decided to continue my education by moving to the capital Baghdad during the year of 1952. In the year 1964 I completed my university degree with an honors in law. After my university education, I started working and traveled to multiple countries. I was motivated to travel to all the cities in Bet-Nahrain in order to come across the remains of our ancestors.
In 1982, I left Iraq with my wife and my three sons to England to obtain a PhD. At the same time my wife established her career as a secondary school teacher in Iraq.
In 1982, I entered the University of Exeter in Devon Southwest England. I studied modern Assyrian history, specifically the independent Assyrian tribes of Tyari and Hakari and the relation with the Turks and Ottoman. In 1988, I was forced to leave England and immigrate to Canada. From 1988 to the present time I have been living in Canada. That?s a short story of my life.
Now, with my education I started writing books. I was motivated to start a chain of series of books entitled ?Assyrians after the fall of Nineveh?. Some writers began criticizing that the Assyrian nation disappeared after the fall of Ninveh. Rather, this is not a fact. To illustrate this I wrote a series of books under the heading ?Assyrians after the Fall of Nineveh.? These books were divided into different volumes according to the different time periods in Assyrian history after the fall of Ninveh in 612 B.C.
The first volume specifically covers the fall of Nineveh up to the coming of Jesus Christ. Volume 2 covers the coming of Jesus Christ up to the introduction of Islam. Volume 3 includes the Islamic religion and so on.
While I continued writing the series, I also wrote the 'Folded Pages from the History of the Chaldean Church'. Volume 7 covers the history of the Assyrian Church of the East and the Ancient Church of the East. Volume 6 includes the massacres by Badr Khan Beg. In this volume I describe the struggled way of living of the Assyrian nation. From 1943-1946, a confederation of Kurdish people from both Iran and Turkey attacked the Assyrian tribes, Tyari and Hakari, under the command of Badr Khan Beg. Their main goal was to kill the Assyrian men and take the Assyrian women as hostages. Thousands of Assyrians were killed during this time. Not only were the Kurds killing the Assyrian people, but they also destroyed the land. The ancient churches, which dated back to the beginning of Christianity, were demolished. The Kurds proved to be extremely heartless and inhumane when they destroyed everything, including the old and dry trees in order to prevent the Assyrians from forming shelters. Ultimately these acts led the new Assyrian generation to start form scratch.
Dr. William Ainsworth was sent by the Archbishop of Canterbury, in order to establish an official relation between the Assyrians and the Church of England. In June of 1840, Dr. William Ainsworth arrived to Tyari and Hakari. He remembers specifically in the city of Lizan, he describes Lizan as beautiful as paradise and is in comparable to any city in Europe.
The massacres of the Assyrian nation during Badr Khan Beg and the destruction of the beautiful Assyrian land motivated me to write my books. Not only did Badr Khan Beg kill Assyrians and ruin the land, but also thousands of Assyrians immigrated to Nineveh as refugees. During the 4th ,5th , and 6th centuries there was not a single Assyrian woman who was unable to read and write. The Assyrian Nation was extremely educated. In 1295 A.D., the Assyrian nation started experiencing a decline. During the massacres of Badr Khan Beg, the Assyrian community was isolated and deprived from education. Ultimately leaving only 4% of Assyrians with the ability to read and write.
?The Nation that was the Founder of Human Civilization? Hermis Aboona
30% of the Assyrians living in the lands of Nineveh - Alqosh, Telkep, Karemlesh, and so on - were the original refugees that emigrated from Tyari and Hakari during the time of Badr Khan Beg.
During my research on Tyari and Hakari, I came across official documents stating the massacres of the Assyrian people. The Assyrian women whom were held hostages by the Kurds, were given as gifts to honoured and respected men in the cities. This was one of the reasons why the Assyrian community has immigrated into 42+ countries.
Volume 5 included the lifestyles of Tyari and Hakkari, including Urmi from the East, the Syriacs from Tur-Abdin, and the Nineveh plains from the South.
In the Metropolitan of Nineveh, the people occupying this land before Christianity were the Assyrians. With the emergence of Christianity; division came about questioning Jesus Christ and Mother Mary (Nestorians). This division was a disadvantage to the Assyrian nation because some Assyrians followed the idea that Jesus Christ was of ?two bodies? two souls?. The other half of the Assyrians that can be identified as Jacobites believed that Jesus Christ was of ?two souls, one body?, and that Mother Mary was the mother of Jesus and not God.
During the 16th century in the area of Nineveh, a new group derived from the Assyrians , the Chaldeans. In one of my books I clarify that Assyrians, Chaldeans and Syriac?s are one nation under three names. Although the community was divided by name, all three worked as one during the formation of Nineveh, which is mentioned in the Bible as ?Nineveh the Great City?.
It is our responsibility as Assyrians to write out cultural history as it was. If our heritage is to be written by philosophers from the Western societies, they may describe the Assyrian people as killers and barbarians. There has been no mention to the amount of knowledge the Assyrians have provided the world today. The Assyrians were an advanced nation in every possible aspect of human civilization. From the invention of the wheel to the alphabet. Due to the massacres of our nation, our knowledge and creations have been erased.
I strongly suggest that if we want our nation to survive, we must motivate the people in our community to pursue higher education because education is the best tool an individual can have. A nation with education will never die. University students must encourage high schools students to continue their education; PhD students must encourage Bachelor?s students to also continue their education. Our nation is in the hands of today?s generations.
Mariam: on behalf of ACSSU I would like to thank you Mr. Hermis Aboona for your time and hospitality and hopefully your thoughts and words will reach out to our nation today.
Dr. Aboona: It was my pleasure to have met with ACSSU. You are heading in the right direction, keep up the good work.
Is someone able to provide anykind of informations about his books? Are there probably any online books by him? In what langauge did he write the books (I would guess arabic...). I just saw that there is one availiable at amazone, which deals about the relationship of Assyrians, Kurds and Ottoman Turks in the Ottoman Empire.
Thanks in regards