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ISHTAR: DOCUMENTING the CRISIS in the ASSYRIAN IRANIAN COMMUNITY by Eden Naby*

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ISHTAR: DOCUMENTING the CRISIS in the ASSYRIAN IRANIAN COMMUNITY by Eden Naby* ISHTAR: DOCUMENTING THE CRISIS IN THE ASSYRIAN IRANIAN COMMUNITY By Eden Naby* The dwindling of the Middle East’s non-Muslim population is nowhere more clearly observable than among Assyrians, the last substantive Aramaic speaking population of the world. With the establishment of Iran’s Islamic Revolution, the Assyrian population dropped within a decade from 100,000 to 20,000. This article examines the establishment and the demise of the periodical Ishtar, which illustrates the Assyrians’ attempt to accommodate themselves to the new Iran in the hope that a workable solution to living within an Islamist legal, political, and social framework was possible. Should Islamist Iran become a model for Iraq, what will be the fate of Iraq’s Assyrians? The publication of the weekly Ishtar1 due to the obscurity of the minority press, (1981-1983) marks a critical attempt by the its limited circulation outside the circles of Assyrian community in Iran to find a means the ethnic group, and the inaccessibility of of living within the cultural and political the language of this press. In the case of the confines of the then newly established Armenians, the other ethnic Christian Islamic Republic (February 1979). community of Iran, knowledge is more Introduced during the tumultuous years of widespread than that of the indigenous radical change in the socio-cultural Assyrians. institutions of an Islamicizing Iran and The Assyrians, the last Aramaic during the onslaught of the Iraq-Iran War speakers in the world, are a transnational (1980-1989), the position of this Assyrian group with their largest Middle East publication mirrors the fate of other population located in Iraq. Evidence periodicals and cultural personages in Iran. pointing to the use of Aramaic in northwest Therefore, how Ishtar came to be Iran goes back to the pre-Achaemenid established, published, distributed, and then period.4 It is the second Semitic language terminated after 45 issues is instructive on of Iran after Arabic. Those who speak how the Islamic Revolution affected Iranian Assyrian live along the border with Iraq in culture in general, and minority cultures in northwest Iran. The Mandaeans of Iran and particular. Iraq originally spoke Aramaic as well, English language analysis of religious however, they have adapted to Arabic. Prior freedom in Iran during the 25 years of to its destruction in World War I, the main Iranian theocracy has generally included Assyrian cultural base lay in northwest Iran little information about the Assyrians, one and around the towns of Urmiyah/Riza’iyeh of the quickly disappearing Christian ethnic and Salamas/Shapur.5 Like the publishers groups in the country.2 Rarely, however, is of Varliq (1979-1997),6 the voice of Azeri the minority language press analyzed for Turkish intellectuals, some Assyrians saw content. It is rather the main Iranian press— in the heady early months of the 1979 whether conservative or liberal—that Iranian Revolution the hope for a more provides the basis for most data.3 This is egalitarian cultural and political framework 92 Middle East Review of International Affairs, Vol. 10, No. 4 (December 2006) Ishtar: Documenting the Crisis in the Assyrian Iranian Community for the country—one that would allow them to emigration. Families with female a cultural presence. Soon, however, with children in particular found themselves Saddam Hussein’s unilateral attack on under constant strain. Restrictions on dress Iran’s oil-rich Khuzistan province, Iranian and association, in place for Muslims, authority consolidated around an extremist extended further into the social fabric of the Shi’a core, and it was no longer safe to non-Muslim population. express dissent. Ishtar’s failure stemmed not from The Ishtar project was started by men internal Assyrian factors, but rather from (and some young women) from among two realities of media control in Iran at least those Assyrian families who had stayed in throughout the past century: the system’s Iran despite the terrible assault on their wide policy of licensing and censoring of community during the First World War. media, and the heavy-handed means of However, their efforts largely failed. By dealing with politically suspect groups in 1989, the very families that had the Iran of the 1980s. During the first spearheaded Ishtar had left Iran for Western decade of the Iranian Revolution, countries. The Iranian Revolution of 1979 particularly during the years when the ended up having as profound an effect on fundamentalists were eliminating all the Assyrian presence in Iran as did the opposition (first from the liberal democrats, killings of World War I. Once more Iran then from the left, and finally from its own lost a major portion of its Assyrian dissidents), the control of media became population—this time to rapid emigration. especially severe. During the period of Thus, while Iran’s general population terror following the revolution, not even the increased by about 150 percent between the voice of Ayatollah Khomeini could rein in 1956 and 1986 censuses, the Assyrian zealous extremism. population shrank from about 100,000 to The position of sanctioned religious 20,000, or by 80 percent. Had the Assyrian minorities (aqliyatha-ye rasmi) protected in population grown uninterrupted from 1914 the constitution came under attack. Ishtar to 1956 and at the rate of Iran’s general recorded many attempts throughout 1981- population, it should have reached some 1982 to protect the rights of the community 180,000 by the time of the first official by pointing to the constitution of the census (1956), and 450,000 by 1986.7 Yet Islamic Republic. Lead articles, as if at the start of the twenty-first century, it is anticipating the crackdown on minority no more than 15,000. rights and trying to ingratiate themselves to The Assyrian population of Tehran prevent the attack, intoned, “Today underwent such humiliating changes in law throughout Iran, different people, Kurds, and government behavior so as to test the Azerbaijanis, Arabs, Lur, Baluch, and determination of some of the most ardent smaller others live equally next to each members of this community to the breaking other. And cooperatively, in their Islamic point. During the 1980s, many more joined homeland, they stand against world their extended families and co-ethnics in hegemony led by America.”8 In fact, during Europe, Australia, the United States, and this period, the Kurds were in rebellion, Canada. The already weakened institutions Arabs in Khuzistan were agitating for a of church and secular organizations were greater share of the oil revenue to remain in still further weakened as a result of the loss their province, and the landless Turkoman of educated and dedicated men and women had become emboldened to take the Middle East Review of International Affairs, Vol. 10, No. 4 (December 2006) 93 Eden Naby properties of major landlords. On the Assyrian abandoned efforts to publish Tehran political front, the struggle of the works of poetry and textbooks due to the Mojahidin-e Khalq against the Iranian unpredictable and tedious bureaucratic Revolutionary Party (IRP) resulted in the process involved. Such harassment of bombing of the IRP headquarters, in which Assyrian institutions meant that literary some 100 party members were killed. works (poems and short stories) had to be Ishtar’s pages do not reflect the political translated from Assyrian neo-Aramaic into struggles within Iran. Persian and then taken to the censors. At The first crisis recorded in Ishtar was times the censors would only request that that of directive #62123 of Aban 20, 1360 part of the book be translated, but once that (October 13, 1981) from the Tehran part had been translated would decide they provincial office of education, which “sent wanted another part or even the entire book alarm throughout the Assyrian translated. The number of publications community.”9 The strict enforcement of decreased, and eventually very little was such directives from the Ministry of published. Publication was resumed in 1991 Education and Training—and especially following some leniencies in publication from the Ministry of Culture and Religious conditions after Khomeini’s death in 1989. Guidance—led to eventual disintegration of However, by then, most Assyrian Assyrian schools. Assyrian schools were publications appeared in Persian. Though forced to accept Muslim principals to Aramaic was still the dominant spoken conform to the law forbidding non-Muslims language in the Assyrian community, to serve as head administrators of any Persian had become the more widely read organization. Clearly this decision affected language. Persian was also used to avoid other minorities as well, including the Jews, problems with censors. Zoroastrians, and Armenians. Moreover, After the collapse of the strong Assyrian Assyrian schoolgirls were obligated to wear periodical press following the destruction of the hijab (veil) in accordance with Muslim the Assyrians in northwest Iran in 1918, Shari’a law. The schools were also forced only one Assyrian periodical had been to introduce Koranic instruction into the published in the country. The periodical curriculum, as they accepted Muslim was bilingual, published in both Persian and students. The hardest blow, however, was Assyrian neo-Aramaic. In part, this the ban on the teaching of Assyrian neo- reflected diminished literacy among the Aramaic in the public schools run by the Assyrian community in their mother community; such instruction thus became
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