Iraq and the Assyrian Unimagining: Illuminating Scaled Suffering and a Hierarchy of Genocide from Simele to Anfal

• Main Author: Donabed, Sargon
• Other Authors: Harrak, Amir
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2010
• Subjects: Iraq; Assyrians; Genocide; Syriac; Minorities; Ethnic Cleansing; Nationalism; Nation-Building; Kurds; Aramaic; Anfal; Simele; 0333; 0631
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/1807/32925

The 1933 genocidal attacks on Assyrians in the Simele region defined the birth of the nascent Iraqi nation and identity. Iraq has ever been in the spotlight of ethnic and cultural strife, especially concerning Sunni-Shia animosity, and more recently in dealing with the Kurdish people and Iraqi Kurdistan. In most cases, however, the Assyrians are completely neglected from scholarship concerning Iraq and its peoples. This work reinserts the Assyrian people into the fabric of Iraq and discusses the violent and non-violent suppression of Assyrian identity and culture through genocide, cultural genocide, and ethnic cleansing. Three fundamental factors emerge from this reinsertion with respect to Iraq and genocide. First, this approach introduces an often-neglected element in Iraqi studies: the inclusion of minorities, or micro-minorities, within the existing discourse on Iraqi studies. Second, it contributes to genocide studies by examining the impact of the non-physical, or cultural, aspect of genocide. Further, it discusses the importance of the Assyrian case in Iraq for understanding Iraqi history, and serves as a case in point of scaling suffering and for understanding how and why a hierarchy of genocide exists.