[dpq]

I find it somewhat disappointing how cautiously the author avoids the subject on how Assyrians got "...scattered over the past century from homelands where their language once flourished". It wasn't just an unfortunate occasion when "a Kurdish chieftain murdered a Church of the East patriarch there in 1918". It was a genocide.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sayfo

[Mikeb85]

Shhh it's politically incorrect to question exactly how all the Christians in the Middle East disappeared... Copts, Chaldeans, Assyrians, etc... were all displaced and/or slaughtered by invading Islamic armies.

[liorben-david]

I think you're reading too much into the omission of historical narrative in this particular article about linguistics. The author, Ariel Sabar, wrote an entire book about his father's forced exile from his native Kurdistan by the Iraqi government.

[bergenty]

No it’s not, this is pretty well known and discussed. Don’t try and make a straw man because you want to paint “liberals” and Muslims in a bad light.

You could have just replied with your second sentence… but you have an agenda.

[Mikeb85]

> No it’s not, this is pretty well known and discussed

It definitely isn't. Tons of people think Arabs are actually native to Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Palestine, etc... or that Turks are native to Turkey/Anatolia. Most Americans and Western Europeans have no clue about the history of Christianity in the Middle East and Turkey, Arab conquests, etc... Or the fact that Christians were still a majority in a Middle Eastern country within the last 100 years.

[Beltalowda]

Very few cultures are really "natives" of the area they live in. The Turkish came out of Asia and took over from the Greeks in Anatolia, but it's not as if the Greeks were "native" either, and were predated by the Assyrians, and the Hittites before that, It's actually quite hard to really define "native" beyond "the people who were living there when we got there".

History is full of migration, conquest, and everything in-between. I always find it a bit odd when people go on about "the Islamic conquest" when your own "native" culture's history is probably not that dissimilar in broad lines.

[jacobr1]

It also gets more complicated when considering that many "conquests" actually end up being cultural rather than genetic. So it might still be the same "people". And plenty of migration and mixtures as well further complicate matters.

[azth]

From wikipedia, while not being a reliable source in general, I already know that Arabs came from the North from other sources:

> Arabs are first mentioned in Biblical and Assyrian texts of the ninth to fifth centuries BC where they appear as inhabiting part of Syria. Proto-Arabs are presumed to have originated from what is now modern-day northern Arabia, Jordan and southern Syria. Over time, Arabs spread further out sometimes replacing previously spoken Semitic languages.

[denkmoon]

"Most" people don't know _anything_ about history or the historical record of how groups of people found themselves where they are today.

It's not that it's politically incorrect. "Most" people just don't care, except of course when they can use it to get internet points.

The fact that Arabs occupy their current geographic distribution through conquest and migration is not some hidden knowledge or politically incorrect fact. Anyone who has access to wiki can know about it. I've never met anyone who wanted to die upon that hill.

[bergenty]

Well yes… western education only teaches the history of places that westerners have been or their interactions with other cultures, with some exceptions. No one in the US is taught about China, India or Africa either.

Of course people came from all over the place, by your logic the Japanese are Chinese, the Koreans are Chinese, Indians are central Asian, Greeks and Romans are Arabs, Native Americans are Polynesian and Latin Americans are Spanish.

Or from a higher level just for rhetorics sake, everyone is African.

[golemiprague]

I don't think delving into christians' history in the ME was necessary in the original articles, however, it is not untrue that most people think the middle east "natives" are Arab Muslims and yes, it is tied to a "liberal" agenda depicting anybody who is not Arab Muslim in the ME as a "colonialist".

[catawbasam]

Nope. My kid got taught about the evil Crusaders attacking the innocent Muslims.

[bergenty]

Which isn’t incorrect for the crusades.

But like I said above, western education only teaches about places westerners have been or touched. There is zero history taught about China, India, Southeast Asia, Africa or literally any other place besides Europe or the United States unless it relates to an interaction with westerners.

[dpq]

I'm not even speaking about those ancient times. Rather, I mean the events in 1915-1922, when Turks of various political affiliations massacred Greeks, Armenians and Assyrians.

[astrange]

Luckily the Chaldeans are now starring in the world's highest-earning mobile game.

[azth]

The Pact of Umar would like to have a word with you. The Copts exist today and their rights preserved because of the Muslims protecting them. "Slaughtering" people indiscriminately like you're implying is against Islam.

[inglor_cz]

For anyone interested, this is the Pact of Umar:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pact_of_Umar#Content

Very clearly establishing non-Muslims as second class people, with all kinds of onerous limitations on their everyday life.

Calling this pact "protection" is technically correct, but then, the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia in WWII was a Protectorate as well.

I would call this document "subjugation of unbelievers who serve as your tax base, so it doesn't make much sense to kill them outright".

[azth]

So ignorant to call them "tax base", when in actuality, Zakat that Muslims pay is much much more than the Jizya that Dhimmis pay.

The Copts exist today because of the Muslims, this is a fact, even if you try to twist the meaning of what I wrote. They are to be treated well, and with dignity, and their rights preserved.

Secondly, I don't see what makes them "second class citizens", not to mention that even wikipedia acknowledges discrepancies in the points they mention.

As a matter of fact, several Jewish and Christian historians and figures clearly expressed that they would rather live under a proper Islamic rule as it offers them better quality of life compared to secular modernity: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bc6yXYR01Vg&t=6s

[inawarminister]

You should compare it to the fate of Protestants in post-Thirty Years War Bohemia and Hungary, indeed.

[inglor_cz]

Yup, religiously driven politics sucks and I am all for worldwide secularization.

[azth]

Depends on which religion. We see what worldwide secualarization is doing to the rest of the world today.